Mountains & Monkey Joe's

A few weekends ago, my mom took two of my sisters and me to the mountains for a last weekend away, before Stephanie's wedding (more on that soon). We stayed in Saluda and visited Pearson's Falls, had a great dinner at a cafe in Saluda, shopped and just enjoyed some peaceful time alone together before all the chaos of the wedding started. I did take Nolan with me, but I got a mini-vacation from the rest of the kids. Dan the super-hero Dad kept the kids and they had a blast with Daddy.







After such a peaceful weekend away, I decided it was time for a trip to Monkey Joe's to get myself back to reality! I slid down the big slide with Nathan - I haven't been able to really play with the big kids in a long time because of two pregnancies! And Ava played in the kiddie area for the first time. We met the Brooks kids there, and Rebecca and I actually had some time to talk!

New House Report

My parents met us at the new house a couple weeks ago to see the progress and Mom had a great idea. She thought it would be fun to write scripture verses on the 2X4s before they were covered with insulation and dry wall. Then my new house would literally be built on the Word. So over the past two weeks I have been thinking about the purposes of the different rooms of our new house and finding scripture that goes with it. I've gone to the house twice to write on the 2X4s and came home dripping from the heat both times! I have truly enjoyed the opportunity to think and pray over the new house this way. Great idea Mom!

Showers and Sleep

We have been enjoying some "showers" in the back yard. The kids love to run in the sprinkler & Ava even joined them one night last week.


Ava cooling off...

What Dan looked like...

I also had the privelege of showering my sister Jennie on Sunday. My sister Stephanie & I hosted a baby shower for her at Encore - a local restaurant.

New House Report

It is crazy how fast and slow time passes when you are building a house. The cool thing about our house is that they started building it almost the day Nolan was born. We've been taking lots of pictures of it as it goes up.

Nolan Spencer Jones

Nolan is here! He was 9 pounds 11 ounces, and 21.5 inches long. He was born on June 14th, 2011. He is now almost 6 weeks old & weighs 12 pounds! We can't imagine life without him!

Discovery Place Kids

So my friend Rebecca and I packed up all our kids and headed to Discovery Place Kids for the morning last Wednesday. We had planned to do this the Friday before, but things didn't work out then & I for one was tired of the kids asking "When are we going to Discovery Place with Garrett & Olivia???"
The kids had a great time playing in every station. The submarine is always a hit with Nathan, and Caroline loves the vets office. Rebecca graciously watched all four of the big kids so that I could take Ava to the little kids area. Then, who should walk in but Daddy! Dan stopped by to surprise us during his lunch hour. He played with all the kids, took & posed for some pictures, and then was back off to work. What a great daddy!
But the big question of the morning was "Can we play in the water yet?" We told the kids that was the last thing we would do. Finally they couldn't wait any longer. They had a great time!

Bugs!

So, I'm trying to stay faithful with Caroline's home schooling. These past couple of weeks have been much easier because of the bugs! We are working on insects this week & butterflies next week. The curriculum I'm using (My Father's World) recommends getting an ant farm for the insect unit, and a butterfly habitat for the butterfly unit. We now have both. The ants arrived about a week ago & they have really been busy! No surprise there! ;) The caterpillars arrived last Saturday, and they have already grown as well.

I was actually kind of worried about the ants for a few reasons. I naturally was worried about having ants in my home, they live in the kitchen, no less. And they can sting. So the rule is you don't touch the ant farm! I was also worried about getting them from their packaging into the farm. But that turned out to be very easy. You put them in the fridge for ten minutes & they "go to sleep." Then you just dump them in the farm. The instructions said they might take up to 24 hours to get really going, but ours started moving their sand within about half an hour. However, the next morning when I came down to the kitchen, more than half of them were huddled in a big group not doing anything. It didn't occur to me that ants might sleep, or work in shifts, but I guess God is the only being really on the clock 24/7! In spite of their napping or shifts or whatever it is, they really have made lots of progress with their tunnels. The kids are really learning what it means to "Look at the ant you sluggard..." and I am helping them translate that into picking up their toys!




















Tunneling...























Napping...