Teeter Totter

Mama Jay and Papa Oz (Micah's parents) got the girls a teeter totter airplane for Christmas. It's AWESOME! After literally 5 hours of labor later we finally got this thing up and going. They play outside a ton more now. Since we don't have a nearby community park it's nice to have some outdoor toys. We may need to plant some more trees to get some shade going though. Maybe someday... I've got lots that I would like to do around our yard and house.

Working together is so much fun... most of the time!

The girls couldn't wait to get it done. They got their cameras and started taking pictures. They thought we'd get it done quickly but instead we took forever, in their eyes.

We had one screw that took us an hour to figure out. I'd try to explain it to you but it would probably take me an hour to explain!

Trying to put these pieces together.

The FINISHED PRODUCT! The girls love it and we LOVE it too! This picture is taken the next day because it was too dark by the time we got it done. The girls still teeter tottered the night we got it done for a bit though. (How could we say no?)

Oh and Micah and I have tried out this teeter totter... it's pretty awesome!

A Trampoline Christmas

After Christmas it rained for a couple of days so we weren't able to put up the trampoline we got for Chirstmas. Here are a couple pictures of what it looks like.

We got the accessory pack for it which came with a ladder, a shoe holder, and some stakes to stake it down. Here's a picture of Alyssa helping Nattie get into the netting. When I was growing up there weren't so many safety items. It makes me feel better about them jumping on the trampoline, especially after seeing them run into the netting every once in a while, but it's kind of funny to me since I never used a trampoline with one.

A cool view of the teeter totter and the trampoline. Thank you Mama Jay and Papa Oz! The teeter totter is a HUGE hit! They spent all day today in and out of the trampoline, on the teeter totter, and then on the swings. So fun! It's like we have our own little park in the backyard.

I'm not in the family picture since I was taking the picture. Here's a picture of me getting ready to bounce the girls across the trampoline. Well, maybe not that, but they sure bounce high for little girls. We have to tell them to be careful all the time.

The family on the trampoline.

I LOVE IT!!! Brings back childhood memories!

Happy Birthday Jesus

Our Christmas Day went wonderfully! Here are a few pictures to sum up the day. My picture is the first one, I didn't mean to do that. In fact, I tried to change it and I can't figure out how to. This morning we got up to two little girls climbing in our bed saying that there were presents under the Christmas tree. The littlest little Jones girl wasn't awake yet so we laid in bed for a little while. Then we went downstairs and opened presents. It was such a great day. Alyssa read the Christmas Bible story, which she can almost quote word for word now. Then we made some rolls and went over to our friend's house for Linner (lunch and dinner--like brunch). Enjoy the pictures!

Micah's Grandma made this for me. I LOVE it! I'm thinking of putting a shelf above the window in my kitchen to put it.

My mom got the girls the game Operation. They were so excited. Alyssa's played it at school once so sh was super excited to get it for Christmas.

Micah's grandfather went to dance with Jesus January 1st 2010 so his grandma made this shadow box for him to have something to remember his grandfather. It was so cool!

My mom got this game for Nattie. It's a lot easier for Nattie. I've never heard of it before but we opened it up and tried it out and it was really fun! Thanks Mom!
Nattie and Micah

So the weirdest thing happened. Grandma Sue bought the girls markers/paper. When Syssa opened up her markers and went to use the black... it was empty. The marker had absolutely no ink in it whatsoever! It was so weird! It wasn't just out of ink but the black marker was white on the inside and had never been filled with ink.

These are some tracks we got the girls for Christmas. The weird thing that happened with this gift was that it was supposed to come with 2 tunnels and it only came with 1. I'll be calling two companies on Monday and hopefully we can figure this out. This was one thing that the girls liked the most. They played with it for a very long time! This is also the Christmas party that they fought over.

Grandma Nita made these for the girls. They are so cute. If you click on the picture it will get bigger so you can see it better, to get back all you have to do is hit the back button.

We got the girls cameras this year for Christmas. Alyssa has been begging for one forever. So I decided to get her a camera. I got her one at Best Buy that was on sale, you know one of those little kiddie ones. Then, I started to read the reviews on them and Micah and I decided that we would give that one to Natalie and buy another one for Alyssa. I looked it up online and found an adult camera (12 megapixels) half off. It was only 49 dollars. We thought since they were such a good price we'd get one for Mara too. They LOVE them! They absolutely love taking pictures (and video)! The screen is pretty big and the girls are getting the hang of it rather quickly.

This is the front of the camera.

The cameras came with these free cases.

This is my love and me! We had such a great day! HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS!!!

Family Time

I was trying to post this last night but the internet was acting funny and wouldn't allow me to upload my pictures. Some of the fun things we've been doing on break have been schoolwork (and yes my girls think that doing schoolwork is a TON of fun!), movies, coloring, crafts, stations, and much more. I love having my girls at home with me. They make me laugh, smile, and just feel like a kid. Here are some pictures of the other night. We were watching a movie but Nattie, Samara, and Alyssa were more interested in reading than watching the movie... my kids are so into books, and I love it!

This is one of my favorites!

Alyssa trying to watch a movie and read at the same time. She's not reading at this point only because I told her she needed to look at me and smile. She's not too fond of being interrupted when she's reading but if it's to get a picture taken she's not too hesitant.

I love it when Micah helps the girls. This book is a book of numbers, colors, letters, etc and Nattie is showing her daddy that she knows them all.

This is Samara reading. She is doing really well sounding out words and knowing her sight words. I'm so proud of her. She's reading books all the time now. If you can see this page that she is reading is quite long for a Kindergartener and she read the whole book which had a lot of pages just like this.

Christmas Dresses Thanks Grandma Sue!

Grandma Sue always sends Christmas dresses to our girls every year, and they are always super cute.  I remember when I was little and my mom would always make me a Christmas and Easter dress.  This was one of my favorite things.  She even made my wedding dress... I would say that my mom is an amazing seamstress.  Because she has so many grandkids, I'm one out of 9 of her children, she buys them their Christmas dresses.  Here are some pictures of the girls unwrapping their dresses and pictures of the dresses themselves.  This year their dresses were as cute as ever! 



Alyssa getting ready to open her dress.

There it is!

Alyssa's Dress

Mara getting ready to open her dress.

Such Anticipation!

 

Mara with her brand new dress!



Nattie getting ready!



Opening it up!

Nattie's new dress.

The three girls after church today.

LOVE

So I've been thinking a lot lately about LOVE.  In the Bible one of the greatest commandments, second only to love the Lord thy God, is love your neighbor as thyself.  In this we see the heart of God.  I've been thinking a lot about love lately because I'm trying to figure out if my heart is in harmony with God's heart or if I'm completely out of tune.  We are in the process of adopting two adorable girls from Haiti, which has been a ride!  The love that we have for these two girls is such a different feeling than we've ever had before.  It's not more or less than our biological girls but just a lot different. 

When my husband and I got married I knew it wasn't going to be easy but I didn't think I was going to be able to just FALL out of love with him.  I figured that would just be a feeling I felt FOREVER.  Boy was I wrong.  In the times that I didn't feel like I loved my husband I thought that that's just the way it goes.  It took me a couple years and a couple of Godly people to tell me that's not the way it goes.

The thing it comes down to is that when you don't feel love for someone, even if you have in the past, you still have to CHOOSE to love that person.  God doesn't just want us to love the loveable, or the ones that will give love back, He wants us to love EVERYBODY.  In Matthew 5:43-48 it talks about the idea of loving your enemy!  WHAT!?!  And not only loving them but blessing them, doing good to them, and PRAYING for them!  Wow.  What a different way to look at people right?  So even when people are flat out annoying, or flat out rude, or flat out mean to me... I'm supposed to love them anyway?!?  The answer to that question according to these verses is obvious.  The answer is yes!  This will set us apart from others and people will wonder why we are so loving to people who aren't necessarily accepting of us.  My prayer today is Lord help me to love ALL people. 

CHRISTMAS TREE

We usually set up our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. It's what we've always done... family tradition. This year, however, we went to the store for Black Friday shopping and we were exhausted all that day. We slept a good part of it and then we were trying to recouperate the rest of the time. So, we decided that we would wait to set up the tree. The next couple of days were still quite busy so we finally put up our tree on Tuesday night after Daddy got home from work. The girls were, of course, super excited. And so were Mommy and Daddy. I got to take a bunch of pictures with my new camera which is always super fun. I'm thinking about taking a photography class. If I do I'll keep you updated on how that's going. So here are some pictures of the fun night decorating the Christmas tree.
The girls decorated the tree almost all by themselves. Nattie needed a little help and sometimes the branches wouldn't go in right so we'd have to step in but for the most part the girls did the whole thing! They had a blast doing it.

I think I'm helping Nattie in this picture. I'm not quite sure. Usually setting up the tree is super stressful but this year, with the girls being able to do most of it themselves, I wasn't super stressed at all.

Daddy helping Nattie put on another branch.

Alyssa making sure each branch is spread out properly. She kept saying this doesn't look like a great Christmas tree. I didn't blame her for saying that since we've had this tree since we were married 8 years ago! It's slimming down a little more every year. We bought another tree last year but I decoate that one to be fancy, well fancy in this house at least.

Mara putting on an ornament. They call them or-da-mets. It's so cute!

The girls in front of their nicely decorated Christmas tree. Nattie kept ordering the two oldest around. Then she took Micah's phone and kept telling them to stand in front of the Christmas tree so she could take their picture. It was too funny.

Micah putting the star on the top of the tree. I really like how you can see the colors of the paint on my walls.

The finished product. We didn't realize how many ornaments we have. All of the ornaments on this tree are either homemade or were given to us by someone special. Micah even has a couple he made when he was a kid on here. This was a ton of fun. I love Christmas!

BLACK FRIDAY!

Some of us decided that we would be a part of the madness on Black Friday. There were a few finds that I researched and we thought it would be worth it to go to Best Buy at 2AM. We were about to set off when we were informed that it was raining outside. We had to bundle up. The crazy part about that is in the daytime it was in the 80s. It got down to 29 degrees before we got into the store. We just about froze our tushes off but we made it.



The brave ones that ventured out in the cold so early in the morning. Sarah Beth, Eric, Micah, and me. Notice the heavy amount of clothes. We really should've had a few more layers.

Below are some of the deals that we got.

We have been thinking of getting a nice camera for a little while now and haven't known exactly what to get. Thanks to the blogger of http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com for the suggestion of getting a Canon Rebel XS and Best Buys Black Friday deal, we decided to get this camera. The camera was hard to get. After waiting in line for 3 hours in the cold, Micah had to follow the employees of Best Buy around for a long while before we were told that they couldn't find them and then finally they found them on a top shelf in a box used for shipping with about 6 other cameras, only two of them were this camera. I have a wonderful husband! We also got the new ipod nano. We were looking into something so that I could have music while I was running and this was on sale so we went for it.


Another steal was an HP laptop. This one wasn't for us but for one of our friends. And then Eric got a new phone, the Samsung Fascinate. It was FREE! That was probably the biggest deal to be had.

There were a few other deals that we got on jackets, and a coat, and a pair of jeans, and some movies. I will only do Black Friday again if there's something I really want like this year. It was interesting, fun, COLD, and spontanious.

Thanksgiving Play

While we were inside making lunch/dinner (since there's brunch i'm going to say linner) Brent took the girls outside to play with them to get out some of their energy.


Syssa swinging

Brent was chasing the girls around so this is a picture of Samara running away from him.

Nattie was attached to Brent just about the whole day.