Missionaries, Blue and Gold, Go Texan!

This week was a pretty eventful week.

Elder McGhan from Mesa, AZ was transferred to a new area, he has been with us since August. It is always hard to say good-bye to the missionaries that we work so closely with. We are thankful that Elder Peterson from Providence, UT gets to be with us for a while longer. Here are the boys with them on Elder McGhan's last night in the area. The boys really enjoy having the missionaries in our home. We probably will be seeing a bit more of them now that Jonpa's new calling is the Ward Mission Leader. We are thankful to be able to serve with these bright young men.

We had Blue and Gold banquet this week for Cub Scouts, here Jongr is leading the pledge of allegiance. It was a fun night, we made some cupcakes that had cupcake picks in them with words that started with "J" in them. (we didn't get any pictures of them unfortunately) Some of my favorite words that Jongr came up with were, judge, jungle, jaguar, and joy. Each boy was supposed to decorate a cake with a theme using the last initial of their last name.

Jonli all smiles with dad at the Blue and Gold Banquet.

The kids getting ready to celebrate Go Texan day at school. Jongr loves to comb his hair like this each day before school, he does it all on his own.

A fun picture of Jonli playing in the backyard this weekend that Jonpa took. She loves to be outside and doesn't seem to mind the grass at all.

Jonsu's Birthday

It is hard to believe that I have reached that midway point between 30 and 40, I really don't feel that old ( i know some of you are reading this and thinking that I am a spring chicken, but I am the oldest in my family so to them I am OLD). I feel blessed to have a wonderful husband and four beautiful children who made me feel special on my big day. Thank you to all of my friends and family for the birthday wishes and surprises. I love you all!

The traditional morning birthday picture, complete with handmade birthday sign and first present of the day.

Here's a cute picture of Jontu taken the morning of my birthday.

Jonev posing with the cake and flowers they got me.

Jongr and Jontu wanted me to guess what each gift was before I opened it. It was lots of fun, I knew what most of them were before I opened them. :)

Here's me with the cake just before I blew out the candles. I requested only three, 35 seems like a fire hazard. LOL!

We had a busy week; Jongr and Jontu started piano lessons this week with Sis. Beth Green from our ward. Wednesday Jongr had cubscouts, Thursday was my RS meeting for the month, and Friday was an adult ward party, then Saturday was the Interfaith Quilting Bee that our stake hosts each year for NAM and SOS. It was a great week!

Sugar Cookies

This week we baked Sugar Cookies in honor of Valentines Day! I remembered one of the reasons that I don't bake sugar cookies very often. I eat too many, I think that it has something to do with the soft vanilla cookie and the frosting together ( hold the sprinkles for me).

Even Jonli likes them.

Jonev showing how he likes the frosting better on his tongue than putting it on his cookie.

Jonpa showing us all how it is done. He is serious about his decorating skills.

Jontu and Jongr are all about how much extra sugar they can put on their cookies.

They enjoyed their final product, I don't think that they could have put anything else on it. Thanks to Grandma Jones for the sweethearts, Jontu was so excited to have them to put on his cookie. It was a great way to spend some extra time together on Sunday and fun to make a little something different for our Sunday cookie tradition.

This is the package that we received from Grandma Jones, thank you for all of the Valentine treats we love you!

Potty Training

Jonev decided last Monday that he wanted to wear underwear, it wasn't what I planned for our week, but we are happy to be working on this milestone with him. He is doing great and we have had successful trips to the library (shown here at story time), the store, church, and even a birthday party.

Here is a picture of me wearing one of my projects for this week. I made this cute little apron for one of the YW in our ward who babysits for us regularly. I also made her birthday cake, but forgot to take a picture of it. I think that I am going to have to make this style of apron for myself soon, I loved the way it fit! I used this fabulous tutorial.

We had some extremely cold weather(for us) this week and so we played a lot inside. Here Jonev and Jontu decided to take all of the cushions off of the couch to play some train game.

Jonli took advantage of the cushions being off to be able to climb onto the couch. She was so proud of herself. It still amazes me how much she is learning and growing each and every day.

Jonpa worked the last half of his day on Thursday here at home and it was so cold in our kitchen that this is what he wore to stay warm.

Here are a few pictures of abnormal things found at our house on Saturday, the day after the ice storm came in. On Friday morning when I opened the door to check out the backyard I could hear the ice crackling in the trees as they swayed in the wind. I was thankful that we didn't have to go anywhere, school was cancelled and Jonpa was able to work from home.