Blue and Gold, Go Texan Day, and Other Adventures

Go Texan Day marks the beginning of the Rodeo in Houston and the school that the boys attend celebrates by having the kids perform dances they learn in PE and they all get to dress up like cowboys. It is always the last Friday in February.  

Here are the kids before school that day. 

 Jongr performing one of his dances, he really didn't want me to take his picture.  That's his "really mom" face you see there. 

 Jontu was a little bit more excited that I wanted to photograph him, he did a really great job learning all the steps for his first year.  

 One of the dances they teach the kids has a part where it asks "how low can you go?" and of course all of the kids end up laying on the floor.  It's pretty cute. 

 Jonli, Jonev, and Jontu at the end of his performance.  It is really crowded in the gym. 

 Here's Jongr at the Blue and Gold waiting for dinner to start. 

 Here's a picture of the cake that Jongr and Jonpa made.  It turned out really cute. 

 They won an award for most cub scout oriented. 

My brother Ben came to visit us before his work conference, we had a great time doing some geocaching with him and have made a goal to find at least one cache a week this year.  It shouldn't be hard since there are caches in almost every parking lot around Houston.  LOL! Thanks Ben for such a fun time and for all of the good food.  Unfortunately this is the only picture that I took of him.  We miss all of our family and wish that we could spend more time with them all.  

Pinewood Derby 2012

What a fun and exciting week it was this week.

This is how Jonev generally rolls as we pick up Jongr and Jontu from school. We frequently get comments from one of the PE teachers that she is going to ride his bike someday. He says "no" and speeds away. He likes to speed ahead of us and here is waiting patiently for us to catch up so he can drive across the parking lot with us. I love this picture of him!

We attended the grand opening of the Walmart that is just across the street from our neighborhood and Jonev, Jonli, and I enjoyed the Mariachi band. It was fabulous and the trumpets sounded amazing echoing off of the concrete and freezers. I am sure that this is not a normal musical choice for most of their stores, however we live in a largely hispanic neighborhood.

Here are the finished cars ready to race. Jongr and Jontu were proud of their cars paint choices and designs. Jontu didn't get to race officially, but he loved every minute of it anyway.

Jongr with other members of his pack, it's nice to have added to it from the school that Jongr goes too. Last year there were only 4 cars that competed. It was much more exciting this year.

The boys watching the race.

This is the best picture that I got of Jongr's car, unfortunately he lost this race, his car is on the left.

Here's Jontu's car on the track after competing in some of the sibling races. He had fun!

Jongr at home after the race with his award. It was a really great night.

Every month Jonpa likes to take a picture of the kids outside of church. Here is this months, Jonli insisted on wearing her coat.

Sunday night popcorn. We love to eat popcorn!

Fun in January

Jonli's new favorite thing to do when she finds my phone is to take a picture or video, every once in a while we actually get one that has her in it like this. I love the cute expression on her face here. The movies are pretty funny too, because all you hear her say is "I see, I see" then you hear me coming in and taking the phone away. This usually results in either giggling or crying.

She also loves to help me cook in the kitchen and do the dishes, both of which result in a larger mess than I really wanted. Usually it is both Jonev and Jonli helping me out. She also loves her new skirt from Grandma, thank you!

Jonev loves to put stickers on his face, recently each of the boys got some stickers and this is what he did with them. He usually doesn't leave them on for too long though and I will find them ALL over the place.

Like most of the country we have had a very mild winter, I don't even think that I would really call it that. We have hardly worn our coats. We usually play after school for a little while either at the school playground or the community one close to our house. Here is a picture of the boys, Jongr looks a little grumpy for some unknown reason. We often get this look from him when he has to do something that wasn't his idea. He wanted to be in the picture, just didn't want to smile. LOL!

The two happy ones alone. Jonli was already in the stroller and thus is missing from the park pictures, but she and I have just as much fun as the boys going up and down the slides and all around.

Coming next week: Pinewood Derby cars, Jongr races on Wednesday and this year Jontu also made a car. It has been lots of fun to watch them come up with designs and then paint them. We will have to see how fast they turn out.

Jonev turns 3

Jonev's birthday weekend started out with a father's and son's campout in the backyard.

Good morning tent sleepers.

Next we had a soccer game for Jongr and since Jonev's birthday fell on a Sunday we went shopping for his birthday presents and he got almost everything early. Here he is helping dad put together his new bike so that he can be big like his brothers.

Here is the actual birthday morning picture and the sign we made for him. We painted it and had so much fun. Jongr and Jontu kept thinking of things to add to it.

All the kids, Jontu wasn't too happy about getting his picture taken with everyone (he needed to wake up a bit more to be happy about it).

Enjoying the birthday blow toys from Grandma Jones, princess thing carried over from Jonli's birthday of course.

This is the cake that we finally went with for Jonev this year. I don't know which one rates higher balls or trucks. He was so happy, I was pleased with how it turned out too. He sure is a sweet little man.

Around our House and the zoo

This week we enjoyed many things and remembered to take some pictures for our photo journal. We enjoyed a trip to the zoo with some friends from our ward. Jontu, Jonev, Jonli and I were able to finally see the new African Forest at the Houston zoo, it was such a great day at the zoo. I did forget my camera though, so this is the best picture from our trip that day from my phone.

Here is Jontu standing with a stork of some variety and his map from the zoo. (we love maps)

A fun picture of Jonev, Jonli, and Jontu taken at home when they were playing around.

How I frequently see Jontu, the boys really enjoy playing the iPod and will work for the privelege.

Sometimes Jongr is so engrossed in his books, it is hard to get his attention. He is serious about his reading and enjoys whatever books we bring him home from the public library.

Jonev playing in the backyard wearing his Super E cape (thanks Aunt Shanna). It has a big letter E on the back of it and he loves the show Super Why on PBS, so this has become his cape just like the show.

Jongr recently made a bird feeder and bird house in cub scouts and enjoyed putting them up in the backyard. In the right of the picture is the birdhouse and in center the feeder. We hope that some little bird enjoys its new house.

Another thing that happened this week was the boys all got much needed haircuts. Jonev was too cute on Sunday morning and Jonpa couldn't resist snapping this photo of our cute little man. Happy March!

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.

Inspired by Shanna

I have been enjoying reading everyone's blog and seeing all of the pictures of family that we do not live close too. It really helps us to feel close to them. I realized one day recently after trying to update our blog, that I don't take many pictures anymore. I love how Shanna creates a photo journal each week and decided that I could do better.

Here is some of the things that we have been up to lately;

Jongr and Jontu both enjoying playing games on the iPod. It is one of their privileges that they enjoy earning.

Jontu with his missing tooth, the other one on the bottom is loose now too.

Jonli showing off her smile, you can see about 5 of her 8 teeth.

Jonev enjoying a marshmallow while Jongr plays with his new marshmallow shooter. See previous post.

Jonev, Jonli, and Jontu playing with their blankets on the couch, they were making forts with them.

Jonev enjoying being twisted by Jongr on the swings at the park on our way home after school. We try to stop and play at least one day a week.

Jonev and Jonli, she learned a new skill this week and we find her standing up to everything lately. It is so much fun!

We have had a great week!