back in action

We're back from our glorious week at the beach house. It's rented for the next 5 weeks so we won't be back until probably mid-August. Assuming it's open then. It was rented the 2 weeks before we were there which is great, that's 7 weeks rented this year. That's better than last year which we'd hoped. But it's VERY hard doing it and knowing that you have no control over who is in there and what they're doing! You just see what it's like after it's been cleaned (thank goodness). Which is usually fine.

We were joined by Courtney and Cameron Tuesday night until Friday and Nancy, Chase, Mom and Dad Wednesday until Saturday. Travis was going to come down Thursday evening, but he got sick and didn't make it. We had a lot of fun hanging out. Chase LOVED the water! And Phil and I and Courtney and Cam had a really fun time hanging on the back deck in our new Target clearance rockers Tuesday night, haha. We looked up and it was 12:30! Nancy, Courtney, Sydney and I trecked out to Wally one day during nap time and Cam took babysitting duty because Mom fell asleep also. And Nancy and Sydney and I escaped to the outlets Friday afternoon during Chase and Mollie's nap. We're training Sydney to be a good shopper. She did well. Mom supplemented the experience with ice cream money and babysitting:) OH, and one day Sydney and Cam played Wii for hours. It was cute.

Anyway, we ate all the food we wanted to eat at our favorite places and by our favorite people. I am going to have to eat nothing but salad until we leave for the lake on Thursday and I have no self control again:) We had a hot dog and brat cook out with Mary Jo and Bobby and Phil's friend Andrew and his daughter the first night. THey were all in town finishing up their own vacations. We ate at Calico Jacks and had the best bbq chicken nachos that I keep dreaming about. Had Basil's pizza, our favorite mexican, Steven's Oyster Roast, Mom brought a chicken pie with her that we munched on for lunches and such, Uncle Cam made Low Country boil, Phil and Dad made yummy kabobs with shrimp/pineapple and steak/onions/peppers/mushrooms. Then we hit Five Guys on the way out of town.

Our good friends LeAnne, Eliza, and Lydia stayed with us Monday night and we went to Broadway at the beach on Tuesday morning while Phil got some real work done and front porch painting done. Then we also got to hang out with them for some beach playing which was great! They moved on to her grandmother's place in CG after our Broadway adventures on Tuesday. We took all the girls to the Friends 2 Be Made store which is actually part of the Build a Bear Workshop, but you make dolls instead of bears. Super cute! I'm not sure if we got a picture with Sydney, Mollie, and Eliza with their dolls, but they were cute. I did get a few with our little digital of them making them so I'll have to post those.

That same little digital camera that took a trip in Phil's shorts pocket through the washing machine and didn't make it. RIP little camera. Now I only have the big honkin' one to take around with me. But luckily the SD card make it with the few pics we took with is like Build a Bear and his golf outing (none of which made any sense)

I actually followed up Phil's camera blunder yesterday when we were killing time while the sheets were drying. We went for a really freakin' hot walk at a nature preserve which is really neat, but would be better in cooler weather! Anyway, we had our nice camera with us and I was taking a picture on one of the docks and dropped the lens cap in the water, haha. It has always bothered me that it doesn't have anything to hold it onto the camera or anything. I knew I would lose it! Oh well. It did float, but there was no way we could get it. I convinced Phil that it really wasn't worth flagging down the many fishermen to get away from their spots to rescue a lens cap! I found one on ebay with a wrist string on the lens cap for $3.99 and free shipping. Not quite the $250 mistake golf boy made!

wish you were here

not again!

Mollie fell asleep in the car this morning at 11:30. Unlike her. She kept holding her right ear. She would randomly touch both of them the last few days. I asked her if it hurt a few times. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Never a big deal.
So this afternoon I decided to call and get her an appt. to get them checked since we're going to the beach tomorrow for a week.
We were there May 20 with a double EI and then June 11 with bad right and just fluid in the left. Today she said the left looked worse than the right and the right was not gone. Super. We're still on the omnicef!
So now we have another Rx to get filled and take with us on vacation. And hopefully I'll remember to give it to her at the beach!
Grrr...
I'm waiting until tonight to fill it when I can get out to Target. Alone:)
(they have the best liquid Rx bottles I think)

Oh and we have to get them rechecked in 2-3 weeks and may have a trip to the ENT after that. Which I am not afraid of. She can just go to mine, HAHA!

Reading time!

I thought it was time to throw out some book recommendations again:)

Here are 2 we really like right now:

Pinkalicious and Purplicious by Victoria Kann and Elizabeth Kann. They are writers and illustrators.

The girls think these books are just so cute. Pinkalicious is a really silly story and Purplicious is a follow up to it. I just saw that there is also Goldilicious:

We're going to have to get this one!

So basically this little girl named Pinkalicious loves everything pink. She eats too many pink cupcakes and acts kind of bratty and ends up turning pink:) She has to eat a bunch of green stuff to turn back to normal. Her brother Peter ends up eating them also and turns pink at the end as well. In Purplicious, Pinkalicious meets a bunch of mean girls who only like black. She has to deal with the fact that she likes something that everyone else things is "passe". Finally she makes a friend who likes pink and they discover how pink is powerful--it can turn blue into purple! Purplicious!

I actually read the book Pinkalicious to my intervention kids at school one day to talk about the parts of the story and retelling. The next day I brought pink cupcakes. They were tickled pink!

Added bonus: Music recommendation

What are we listening to in the car right now?

Barenaked Ladies, Snacktime

It came out about a year ago. I love it. If you're sick of toddler tunes and like BNL (I've always loved them) you'll like it. Especially 789. You can listen to it here:

http://www.bnlmusic.com/snacktime/

I have to say, I am aware that like 2 weeks after the cd came out the lead singer got arrested for cocaine possession or something like that. Bad, bad, boy. Not good example for the children you just wrote this for. But really, maybe that's why it's so funny....;) KIDDING!

And my kids aren't old enough yet to be influenced by that bad decision. They have no idea. So have at it!

pics and swimming

Sorry, the picture link below doesn't work! Go here:
http://www.melissacackovic.com/
click enter
proofs
Jonesfam09
Hopefully that will work.
But I'll be getting the cd from Melissa this week and will upload them to shutterfly for quicker viewing/ordering.

Sydney is a little fish! She has really improved on swimming and I just really can't believe how well she's doing! In everything. She has matured 10x over the last few weeks. She still has the tired meltdowns occassionally in the afternoons, but overall she's been doing great. She started Safety Town through the town of Cary this week and loved it today. She goes every day this week for half a day. She loves the carpool drop off and pick up and she loved snack. Now, they had goldfish for snack. We have goldfish all the time at home. You'd think she'd be tired of it. They must have better fishies than I provide. Anyway, it was a nice point in our summer break for her to have something to do. Then next week we go to the beach for the week!

Anyway, yesterday we went over to Laura and Chloe's to celebrate Chloe's birthday and went to their pool. It is a great pool! 0 entry at one point and a water slide into 3.5 feet. Sydney started out going down it with her floatie, then her swim vest and then with nothing and would then swim to the side of the pool. She did awesome!
We had a great time with them and Zach made some great burgers for dinner. Laura made some yummy salsa. I made pasta salad from a box:) It was a really a nice visit. And I just want to eat that baby Keira up. Those cheeks, ahhhh. Those of you who remember Mollie's cheeks as a baby, man, they are just like them. I love chubby baby cheeks!

picture proofs are done!

Melissa, my photographer friend, got our family session proofs all done last night.
If you're on Facebook you can see the link on my page to some previews.
If you want to see all 295 of them block off some serious time and go to melissacackovic.com
and click on proofs and then find Jones family.
They're great! But it does take a while to scroll through them all.

K orientation

I am so excited! I just got back from Kindergarten orientation at Sydney's school. I'm so happy for her. She's going to have a great time. And at this time there is only one Track 2 K teacher so I already know who her teacher will be! And I think I'll like her from the snipit I saw/heard from her. Tomorrow we go for a little preview thing where you just get to say hi to the teacher and look around the classroom while their current students are at specials. Then she'll go July 7th for her staggered entry day! Ah, the excitement!
I so want to go buy school supplies, haha! But they're not out at Target yet and she doesn't need to bring them until her first day with the entire class on July 13th so I need to just wait.

In other news, Mollie and I are still dealing with ear problems! I have to take prednisone and another antibiotic for this darn ear and Mollie was back in the dr. today with another bad infection in her right ear and fluid in her left. So neither of us can hear:) Talk to Sydney if you need something.

soul mates?

So, we went to the neighborhood pool tonight for dinner/play. Our friends Kim and Joshua joined us. Well, as I was just preparing to get the girls out of the pool Sydney starts playing with a little girl named Ava. I have seen this family at the pool before, mostly last year. She and Sydney instantly started playing and jumping off the side holding hands. Well, the first actual words spoken between them was Ava:
"this is my bathing suit I wore last year but it still fits me. Do you like it?
I looked at Kim and was said, "oh crap, a new best friend". HAHAHA
So I had to let them play longer of course.
Then I find out that Ava will be starting Kindergarten at our base school that is going back to traditional so we're only not going there b/c we wanted year round. Otherwise Sydney and Ava would be starting K together. So obviously this girl lives in our neighborhood and we need to make friends with her family!

recipe for fun

If you have a sprinkler system...

*put kids in bathing suits

*sit in lawn chair in driveway

*use remote control to turn on a zone

*have them check out the spray

*switch the zone and when they run to that zone and freak out and get wet switch the zone again

*you then have kids running and squealing around the yard looking for water

*this requires little to no work

*parents get to sit and veg with favorite beverage, possibly with neighbors, and just laugh:)

one more day

One more day of work for me! Monday! I thought my last day was Wed., but they're letting me use the state furlough time when the kids are there since my position doesn't require me a sub. I get 2 hours. So I'm adding 30 min. to my time on Monday and that will be it! I'll go back into my retirement period. I probably will look for something else part time when Mollie goes to Kindergarten. Krystina, our babysitter, was here MWF this week. The girls are spending Monday with their friends Matthew and Lindsay which they'll love.
Today is Matthew's NC State 5th birthday party. They're super excited.
Tomorrow we have pictures with the WHOLE Jones family at Duke Gardens with Melissa Cackovic who did our other pics in January. I'm really looking forward to it. Even Stubbs the bassett will be there.

Oh and a note of thankfulness: Chase had to have a Cystic Fibrosis "sweat test" done this week at UNC. They're just trying to figure out if there is some reason why he doesn't gain much wait and has been sick. We think he's just small b/c Nancy is small and Travis was/is small. They might do blood work at a later date for some immune deficiency issues, but right now he's in the clear! Thank God! It was normal.

my face hurts from smiling

Today was a great day by 8am.

I have come to have a special place in my heart for people who struggle with infertility. I was always afraid there would be a reason I couldn't have children. It really worried me. I had no reason to think that, but a lot of people have no reason to think that either. And they try and try and try and the one thing they want more than anything just doesn't happen for them. It's one of those things that you just never know until you try. And I have come to learn through lots of experiences of dear friends that this is a horrible journey to embark on.

Somehow, come to find out, God blessed Phil and I with the ability to breathe on each other and get pregnant. Now, most people know that I love babies. But we pretty much decided 2 was it. I probably could have been persuaded to have another one, but then my children would have been fatherless because Phil would have dropped dead of a heart attack. Hence the special appointment he set up for himself when Mollie was about 10 months old. Or we would probably have 5 kids by now. And will never take that for granted. Really, it's one of God's greatest gifts.

I have several friends who have been through invitro fertilization (IVF), Phil's cousin and his wife adopted from China, and in the last 6 months or so I learned that a friend from high school/college was using a gestational surrogate (both parents DNA, just a carrier).
I have at least 3 friends with twins:) And it's just wonderful to me, WONDERFUL, that these friends all have their babies finally. After many emotional, physical, economical, can we say SHOTS, struggles. I have learned so much about so many things.

Anyway, my friend Dawn's twins turned one today! Happy Birthday Cecilia and Owen! I am so happy for your family! And when I woke up this morning I found out through Facebook (great tool;) that my old friend using a surrogate's baby boy was born this morning after a 4 year struggle to have a family! What a great day!
So that's why I keep smiling. Bring on the babies.

Some of you know my friend Lauren that I have known since 2nd grade. She and her husband Josh are expecting a baby in November and I'm so excited! I meant to say that before. Sydney was in her wedding the April before Courtney and Cameron's wedding.

Which brings me to...
Happy 2nd Anniversary to Courtney and Cameron! They'll add to the baby train one of these days. When Stubbs the big bassett just isn't enough...