Mom's Quilt


This was my first attempt at pinwheels. It was hard for me because all the quilting I've done so far has been very forgiving. My measurements never had to be exact and any screw up could easily be worked into the pattern. But pinwheels requires very precise measurements, precise cutting, pressing and then measuring again. Any mistake on these was quite apparent. This meant that I had to force myself to go very slowly, which was hard since I'm not a very patient person. However, I was very pleased in the end on how it all fit together. I tried hard to pick colors that I thought fit Mom's personality and thought I was being very intuitive until I realized I had really just picked all my favorite colors. This became clear when I held up the quilt and realized it matched all the colors in my house. We have dark brown walls & couches, light yellow walls, sage green carpet and even a warm orange room (that wall color was a gift from the previous owner of our house...and although I don't think it is a great color to paint walls, I do think it went nicely with the other colors.)

So...who knows, I may attempt the pinwheels again someday. I'm glad I was able to get it off to Mom before she got home from the hospital. We love you,Mom! Hopefully your recovery is quick and complete.

Still living in the land of boys

“I’m good at playing soccer ball Mama!” Ethan shouts out as he kicks the ball around the house. The soccer game quickly turns into a show of pretend skateboard tricks done on a strip of cardboard. “Wanna get on my board, Austin?” Austin and Ethan then take turns skating through the hallway. That is, until they decide that being lions and roaring at each other is even more fun than a pretend board with no wheels. All of these activities are crammed into the space of about five minutes…just imagine all the things you can do in a whole day!
I am living in the land of boys. Here all comments are proclaimed, yelled, screamed, shouted, growled, hollered or whooped. No matter what is said…the volume is on extra-loud. We are obsessed with cars, dogs, planes & dinosaurs (Ethan’s favorite three are Pterodactyl, Tyrannosaurs Rex, and Polka-dot head…whatever that last one is.) Here all jokes begin with the word “poo” and with Austin, poo has been the medium of choice for wall-art. Here our favorite game is tackle mom…where the kids line up at the end of the bathroom and take a running start to tackle me in the bedroom.
Secretly this is my favorite game as well, but you can’t blame me. I have always lived in the land of boys. Growing up in the middle of 5 brothers doesn’t leave a lot of room for girly things. Playing with dolls or pretending to be a princess was met with a chorus of taunts and laughter. So instead I rode my bike, made mud pies and had perpetually knotty hair (usually tacky with tree sap.) I was always more comfortable in the messy world of dragons and wicked sorcerers than any tidy dream of romance with a prince charming.
So now, I find myself, once more surround by boys. My boys will happily eat food with their mouth to the plate while holding a perfectly useful fork in their hands. (I caught Robert doing this a few times and understood where they picked up that trait.) They have managed to cut everything from bedspreads and bill to ties and toys. They play in the sawdust and laugh when they pass gas. They are dirty and always manage to find the most disgusting way of doing things. And you know I love it.

Since Laina stubbornly supports pink and yellow and has declared herself to be the “big boss of everyone,” I’m betting she’s going to turn out just fine.

January has been a long month here in the Jones' home. For the last three weeks all three of the kids have been sick. Two of those weeks, Robert was traveling. It all started off the night before Robert was to leave on his first trip.
I had started the day with three healthy kids. By noon, Alaina was acting really sleepy. Ethan came home from preschool with a hoarse voice. By bedtime Ethan had a cough and the twins had fevers. At nine o'clock Robert heard a funny noise from the boys' room and found Ethan struggling to breathe. Croup had hit with a vengeance. Unlike most croup attacks that I've seen, Ethan wasn't even able to cry or talk or stand up. Robert rushed him to the ER where it took a gas steroid with a nebulizer along with two more steroid shots before he was breathing better (still croupy, but manageable) Rob brought him home and started packing for his trip.
So far, all three kids have had croup, fevers, chills, coughs, head colds along with excessive whininess (of course). Last week Ethan got an ear infection. Yesterday I took the twins in and they both had sinus infections and Austin has an ear infection. I can't remember a night we haven't had to stay up with one of the kids or sleep with them.
But today...today Ethan is officially no longer sick in any way. The twins, while still sick, are getting better. I finally see an end to the mucus and lack of sleep. There is HOPE!
One of these days I may even get out of the house. Shoot...I might even get out of my sweats. Maybe even do my hair. The possibilities are endless. Whahooo for healthy kids! (almost :) "When was the last time you said whahoo?"

picture by aussiegall via flickr

Jen and I were pretty much inseparable as kids. We'd spend our days riding our bikes, climbing trees and exploring the creek that ran behind our houses. One of our favorite summer pastimes was chasing down and catching blue-bellied lizards. Up and down the creek we'd run. Jen, with her blond hair bouncing back behind her, invariably lead the scouting party as we went scrambling, barefoot over the rocks. Once we sighted our little lizard friends we'd stop and with hearts pounding, slowly circle around and get ready to pounce. The poor lizards would always freeze first and hope the little crazy-haired girls who were interrupting their sunbathing would move on to more feminine activities. As soon as those they realized that we were seasoned lizard-catchers, they would dart forward and the chase would be on.
Giggling, as only little girls can, and nimbly maneuvering over loose boulders all while catching speedy reptiles is an art form that seems to disappear along with childhood.

Once we caught our unlucky lizards, we'd rub their bellies and will them into a trance with our bewitching magical Indian powers. (That's right...Indian powers. I was pretty convinced that we were real Native American girls who somehow got stuck in the suburbs in the 1980's.) We'd always take our lizard-brother home with us, hone up on our hypnosis skills and then let him back to mother earth to roam free.

All these memories came rushing back to me as I watched Ethan zig-zag across the room with the speed of a cheetah to catch a startled,little gecko-brother. Ethan was so happy with his catch that he wanted to first show it off to twins, a reluctant audience to say the least. But I was happy to hold our small friend and instinctively tried to rub his belly. Either geckos are different than blue-bellied lizards or I have lost all my magical powers, because green gecko wouldn't be tamed. The most I could do was to try and teach Ethan how to properly hold the lizard (a skill that he hasn't totally caught on to, as seen in this picture.) Austin would have nothing to do with our find but Alaina got brave enough to try and hold him for about 2 seconds.

Ethan is leaning more towards being a pirate than beingan Indian boy. Arrrgh Matey!

Here are some of our new family pictures. Our last formal picture was about 3 years ago when the babies were still babies, so we thought it was about time for a new one. We were very pleased that everyone was looking at the camera and smiling! I think that is a first for us.

This next picture was really cute but I knew as soon as the photographer put black behind the kids that we have three floating heads. She assured me this wouldn't happen but Ethan, with his fair skin, looked especially detached from his body.

Baby blue eyes.

It looks like I've been collecting the monster's cute little sayings for a little too long and now I have one incredibly long post. Feel free to skim. :)

While trying to push her curly hair out of her eyes, Alaina got frustrated and said, "Mama! My hair is so wiggly" (curly)

Ethan was dancing in front of Rob when he suddenly stopped and said, "Look, I'm skating" as he proceed pt pretend to ride and do tricks on a skateboard. A couple minutes later he stopped again and said, "Daddy, look at me, now I'm surfing!" Robert was pretty impressed with his sporty kid. Not to be out down Austin jumped up and shouted, "look Dada! I'm 'Super Why' (his favorite cartoon character) And with amazing speed and energy he jumped in front of Robert and put his hand one inch in front of Rob's nose and started signing the "ABC's" as fast as he could. He only know about 6 of the letters, so he was creative on the other 20. Whoooha, look at my little super nerd go!

Austin was busy playing when I called him to dinner. His excuse for not coming was the following comment, "My belly is full! If I eat my belly will get bigger and bigger and bigger (he used his hands to motion his belly's growing size and the bigger his belly got, the higher pitch and louder his voice got) and go through the window and BREAK the HOUSE! It was very dramatic.

Alaina always plays with a different eclectic group of toy. This particular time she had a chicken, a tiger and a princess at the table. Robert leaned over and like any good tactful father, tells her that tigers eat chickens. Shocked she said, "No, the cocka-doodle flies away. Then the tiger gets on the cocka-doodle and the they fly off." She then rambles on, "the tiger eats BOYS! The tiger eats little boys but then the angel says, "Shut your mouth!" and the tiger is nice." So random.

Austin came into the kitchen and asked me for a bagel. Before I could respond he raised both hands up high and started to shake them like a baptist preacher, shouted, in a strange Louis Armstrong gravelly voice, " I want a CRAZY bagel!!!" "Oh yeah?" I replied...."what kind of crazy bagel do you want?" Rolling his eyes at such an ridiculous question, he replied "One with cream cheese." I thought to myself, "Yeah man..that is CRRAAAZZZYY!"

Austin was coming out of the bath and trying to bring some of his bath letters with him. He knows that I don't allow that, so all in one breath he said. "Mama, I want to bring my "k." "K" like the "A." I wanna bring my "K" out...Say "YES!" I love my "k"....it's bootiful."

Everyone hates being picked last, but yesterday I hit a new low. Ethan was being a teacher and the rest of us were sitting on the carpet waiting for him to call us up for our turn to play a game. To help make up his mind, he sang "eeny, miney, moe. Touch a gramophone. My mom says you are not it." (don't ask me how he learned his version of that little tune.) first Austin got picked. He picked out his favorite colored candy heart. After a second, strange, "eeny meeny moe," Alaina got picked. She stood up and picked out her favorite colored candy heart. Then Ethan turned to me and started the whole "eeny, miney, moe" thing and I reminded him that I was the only one left. "No," he replied, "there is doggy." So, between imaginary doggy and me, doggy got picked. To make matters worse, when "doggy" got up to the table, he ate all of the candy, got punished by being thrown across the room and the game was over. Shoot. I didn't even get to eat a candy.

Austin's best friend at the moment is his cousin Jack. He doesn't really know Jack...but for some unexplainable reason, he has chosen him to be his best friend. He calls him "ABC Jack." And ABC Jack goes everywhere with us. He eats at our table. He shares Austin's car seat. He gets put on time outs for bad behavior and treats for good behavior. Austin talks constantly about how he loves his ABC Jack. I hope the boys get along after they actually meet again.

Speaking of Austin...he is also in love with the letters "A. B. And of course, C." When he goes to bed he holds my face with his to chubby hands, gazes into my eyes and in a most serious voice says, "I ABC Love You." And the other night as he gave the prayer for dinner he said, "Bless A. Bless B and Bless C. And bless 3 and bless 8." Eventually he blessed the food too.

All three of the kids have started prefacing sentences with "I'm a big boy/girl to..." I'm a big boy to get my shirt on. I'm a big girl to color this book. etc. It's cuter when they say it....

This last month Ethan has started nodding his head vigorously with a closed-lipped smile instead of ever answering yes to any question.

Austin is adding "last year" at the end of comments instead of one minute ago or yesterday. "I already brushed my teeth last year!" "I ate dinner last year!" "I already went to bed last year!"

Austin was breathless and red-cheeked from playing out in the cold "It's hard to play outside anymore! It's hard for me." I said, "You don't want to play anymore outside..let's take off your jacket." Austin immediately replied, "No...it's ok. It's not hard anymore. I like to play outside." A little annoyed I zipped back his jacket and sighed, "ok...so you do want to play outside. Go on then." Austin laughed and shook his head, "Yah...I silly. (pause) I silly momma." A moment later he's back out in the chilly air.

Yesterday I was tired. I am usually somewhat tired everyday, but yesterday I bone-tired. And to top it off, I was really grouchy. Sure, part of it had to do with the fact that Sat. night Robert walked into the garage and found a lake of water on the floor and none in the broken water-heater. But, besides the moral support I gave him as he and our very generous neighbor spent the next 6 hours buying and installing a new water-heater, I really didn’t do much. I could also blame it on Austin who insisted on waking up a couple times that night to turn on his light and pretend it was morning time. Lying down with him and rubbing his face until he went to sleep was tiresome but not too annoying. I could also blame my rotten attitude on the fact that Sunday marked the beginning of our new 9 o’clock church hour. That in itself isn’t so terrible, except for the fact that our building is 1 hour away. No. There was really only one person I feel like blaming for my tired-grouchy morning. That is my sweet girl Alaina.

Alaina has this very nasty habit that we’ve been trying to break her of for the last 2 months. She is completely potty trained, but every night (despite how little water we let her drink in the evening) she wakes herself up and goes to the bathroom. The only problem is that after she is finished, she creeps into our room with her p.j. bottoms & underwear and waves those undies in front of my face until I wake up so I can help her get dressed. This is definitely my least preferred way to wake up in the middle of the night. We have had many serious discussions about how Alaina could just put on her own undies and go back to sleep instead of waking me up…all to no avail. But the other night, she took it one step too far.

I was in a restless sleep when my dreams were interrupted by this tiny but incessant little whine. Instead of waking up, I just incorporated the whining into my dreams and kept sleeping. Then out of nowhere, a slightly wet and cold material was being rubbed all over my face. When Alaina’s usual whining and waving her underwear in front of me wasn’t working, she stepped it up to the next level. I was instantly a little nauseated and extremely upset at the little thing. Shooting up I grabbed the underwear off my face and order the poor girl back into her room. I must have been pretty intimidating because before completely steady myself on my feet, I heard Alaina’s pitter-patter of feet shoot through the hallway. That girl can really move when she is properly motivated. The cute bum disappearing in the darkness combined with the sad whimpers floating down the hall made me seek Lainy out for forgiveness pretty quick.

I caught up to her as she swung into her room and helped her get dressed and back into bed. After she was snug in bed I laid down next to her and had yet another serious conversation about what are good ways and what are bad ways to wake mama up.

Undies rubbed on the face is definitely a bad way.

This is my first post of the new year. I thought it only fitting to start with a little rock an' roll song the kiddies put together. Watch out...this is pretty edgy stuff.

Watch out Jonas Brothers, The Jones Family is coming to take over! Rob made the band equipment...the kids picked out the music. Alaina heard the song during Christmas and decided it was her favorite song. She's been singing it ever since. We also have ABC rock video (Austin's favorite song,) but Ethan pulled out some Micheal Jackson gestures that we didn't think everyone really wanted to see.

As I was cleaning up Christmas stuff I heard the kids conspiring about something. I peeked down the hall and I caught them sitting like this. From their conversation I got that they were on a rocket ship flying to the ice-cream shop which was apparently very far away. You can't tell in this picture but Ethan has a hat on backwards and it is covering his eyes and nose. I guess that helps him fly rockets.

Just a sweet shot of these two.
The boys' new resolution was to help out more in the yard. I asked them to do some raking...and they actually did it. :)

2008....here we come!