Time for an update!

So I finally have internet at home again! Yeah! And noticed how horrible my blogging has been. I can't believe the last entry was March. :(

So it's time for an update on life at the Jones residence. There will be multiple postings all of which I might not get done today but will have time tomorrow as well!

Well our life is full of wonderful surprises and some not so good ones as well, but that's why the Lord gives us trials.

Sky's work is going great and he loves it! He is making huge progress there and has been told multiple times that he will go far! It's so nice to have him working full-time even though Avery and I don't get to see him as much but we know it is for the best right now. He is still busy playing indoor soccer a couple days a week. Originally he wasn't going to play again this session but one of his buddies is moving to Chicago so we felt he could play 1 last time before the summertime. He is way excited about golfing! He got all of his clubs just last month and has been invited to do some tournaments with his boss but he hasn't had the time just yet so on Memorial Day he is going to get to play 9 holes at Robin Hood and just have some man time. He has been super busy putting our sprinkling system in! This was a HUGE project for us (mainly him, since Avery and I could only do so little). He is way excited to have a green lawn and have nice flowers for me this year! I couldn't ask for a better handy husband.

Avery is 18 months old now...we can't believe it! I have been curious as to how much my little girl weighs and it is about 21 pounds. I guess being short and petite is a good thing. :) She is starting to talk tons! Her vocabulary is growing everyday! Our nursery in our ward is huge, 6 groups just for Avery's age. We are friends with the 1st counsler in the Primary Presidency and she told us we could already put Avery in nursery even though her birthday mark isn't until the 28th. So she has been in nursery since the beginning of the month and she absolutely loves it. Learning to sit still for lesson and singing time will be her challenge but that is something she will leran to do. She truly is our joy and blessing!

I have been busy as mom, wife, and full-time employee. Work has slowed down so much because of the ecomony. People always are saying the people will still take care of their pets....WRONG! Yes there are the people who feel and think that the pets are their children and would do anything they could for them, but then there are the people who can only afford to do some much. It breaks my heart when someone wants to do anything they can but money REALLY does only go so far. Hours for every employee have been cut back and some wages too, but I am pretty lucky. I was made officially the head technician at my clinic! I really have been since Dr. Maloney purchased the clinic a year ago but it was officially signed and announced today! I am really excited and so are the people I work with. Work sure keeps me busy but it's nice to have a husband who does cook when I end up getting off late. I also have been working on losing weight. This has been a struggle for me all my life, but I have so many loving people who are supporting me that it has really helped. I have lost about 10 pounds in 3 weeks! I am way excited! I am back down to pre-pregnancy weight and am working on losing a lot more. My only concern is I don't know how much my body will actually let me lose but the progress I have made is awesome!

There will be updates from Easter, Yardwork, the Sprinkling sytem and a post about our truck so look forward to pictures and lots of info!

Avery's new adventure

So back in Febuary we needed to start looking for a new "baby sitter" for Avery. And boy was this hard for me. Sky's sister Salena has done a great job with watching Avery, so kudos to her. Well finding someone with experience and someone we felt we could trust was a huge thing for me. So many people were will to help us find someone which I am sooooooo greatful for! We had it narrowed down to 3 options, and 2 of the options I knew fairly well. But cost was an issue. There are some things we are working on so I need to continue working for a little while longer before the stay at home mom life can begin. But option number 3 was someone I didn't know but someone Krista Piper did. I looked into it and prayed a lot about it and found this to be it! Cassie Green lives in our subdivision and is in the Charter Point Ward. She visit teaches Krista and she is so nice and so is her family!

Avery had her first day with Cassie yesterday...I will admit I was nervous but then again I bawled the first time I dropped Avery off at Salenas. And this time I didn't cry. Avery was still kinda sleepy when I was dropping her off and didn't want me to leave her (she did this at Salena's too). But I handed her to Cassie, went back to the car to grab her carseat so Sky could pick her up and came back in and she was soooooo content! I thought about her all day long and was almost tempted to call but decided to not be the crazy mom who is a worry freak! Sky picked her up since he gets off before me and said she had a great time! She loves the toy room that they have which by the way is totally awesome! And she loves their cat! Avery is such an animal lover that it didn't surprise me that this would happen. Since her favorite animal is "Pooh Bear".

So thanks to those of you who helped out with finding us some options we really appreciate it, but especially to Krista who introduced us to Cassie and her family. This is going to be a great fit!

More Sickness

Skyler and I got the bug!!!! I started feeling sick last Wednesday while I was at work getting hot and colds chills, then when I got home the pucking began! Ugh! Then Sky on his birthday poor guy what a crappy birthday present got the flu too! He was lucky and didn't throw up but now that our flu is out of our systems and Avery is completely healthy Sky and I have the worst sore throats ever! They are bad enough to not allow us to get a good nights sleep. We wake up with painful swallowing. We are up for any ideas anyone has! So hopefully this coming Sunday we will finally be able to go to church since it's been about 2 weeks of being at home with someone sick. :(

Bring on the sickness and car troubles

Well I thought we were clear from Avery or Skyler and I getting sick....boy was I wrong. Almost everyone in Sky's immediate family about 3 weeks ago came down with this nasty cough, lost voice, etc. Well Avery never showed any symptoms seeing as she had tons of exposure to it! So I was super excited that she never caught it.
Well......so Friday is my normal day off and spending time with Avery and cleaning house is my normal Friday routine. I had to run to Nampa to get something from Sky while he was at work and Avery didn't nap that morning and was kinda cranky. So we get home and she feel asleep in the truck (the explorer wasn't working) so I layed her down for maybe an hour after we got back. Of course with nice weather Avery wanted to go outside so we went outside for maybe 5-10 minutes and she normally walks everywhere with Pooh Bear but just wanted to be held. Well we are inside for quite a while and she is just crabby!!! So I am holding her and she is burning up!!! She had a fever of about 102. So I do all the things I could think of to help my poor baby out. Well she wanted Sky when he got home so she spent time with him and went to bed. She would only sleep for about 1-2 hours and then wake up again. This happened all night long. I felt so bad for her since I remember when I had mastitis what my body felt like and I am pretty she felt the same. Well after about 5 o'clock she ended up sleeping til about 9. We were supposed to go have a family dinner at my parents house since my grandma is going back to Germany on the 17th. Well we cancelled that and stayed home trying to get her feeling better. I called my mom and Adelyn for advice and come to find out Adelyn's kids have something almost exactly the same. We haven't even seen them for a while. Well Adelyn said that this virus is going around and rumors to last about 3 days! Ugh!!! So we will hope for the best on this one. So Avery and I are skipping church tomorrow and trying to get her over this awful virus!

Note about the Explorer. Avery and I were on our way home with plans to go to Shelley's baby shower. Well I was driving and could smell something like burning rubber and then all of a sudden I ran something over and my power steering went out. Luckily Sky was behind us and so I pulled over so he could take a look. Some part was missing! We had 2 people stop to see if we needed something. And one family is in our ward and I actually am now visit teaching Amy Hymas! So Sky did a few things, couldn't find the part that fell off so we headed for home with the Hymas family following behind. Well if I stopped the car it would just die so I broke a lot of laws and drove through stop signs, etc. Well turning onto Five Mile was the hardest since I actually had to turn. But we made it home. So Sky got the part today and now the car works except the check engine light is on so we will have to get that checked. But the Lord blessed us and it cost us so much less than having someone else fix the problem for us. It's so nice to have such a handy husband! Thanks Sky I love you!

My little Cook

Well I have started cooking quite a bit lately. We are in a financial class and so instead of going out on the weekends or if we are out and about I am making freezer meals or making meals right away. It has been a blast. I am remember why I loved cooking in the first place. I think I a reason I haven't been doing it as after is work and then would rather spend time with Avery and Skyler but......Avery has found a new hobby as well. She loves to watch and help me cook! I made lasagna and she wanted to watch. So I sat her on the counter and she loved it! She wanted to play with everything I was using so I gave her my extra set of tablespoons and teaspoons. Then she wanted the spice so I gave her a bottle of unopened spices for her to play with.

Tonight I make chicken enchilades for dinner and Avery of course wanted to help. While I was sauteing the onions and chilis she reached for a wooden spoon which is in a antique container on the counter, moved a tiny bit closer since I told her it was hot and not to come to close and she started to mimic my stirring! She even got some of the onions and chilis on her spoon and ate them off the spoon. She apparently liked them and went back for more!

So I love this new found learning and growth from her and cant wait to see what happens in the future!

Valentines/Grandma and Grandpa Wallace

For Valentines Day this year and not wanting to spend a lot of money I think Skyler and I did a wonderful job. We ended up celebrating on the 13th not the 14th. We were leaving to go out of town to see Skyler's grandparents up in Craigmont.
To surprise Skyler I made him cupcakes which he absolutely loves and dinner. Now I can think of a million things to get him but I know that things from the heart are the most important for us right now. I was shocked when Skyler came home with pink roses and a card for me. I told him he didn't have to but he said that he had wanted too. Now for Avery she received a little brown and pink teddy bear. Avery loves stuffed animals so it was no surprise that she was so excited!

A display of love and affection.

So we drove up to Skyler's grandparents on the morning of the 14th. We try to go up a few times a year. Skyler's grandpa has not been well lately so it was so nice to see him as well. Once we got to Craigmont the boys decided to go shooting and took some pops cans and some targets to practice with. While the girls stayed behind and played card games. Of course I didn't participate I worked on home work for the financial class Skyler and I are in. We had a Valentines dinner with some of Skylers aunts and uncles and then stayed up late playing Wii. The next day was the plan to go sledding, we did this last year and had a blast! We ended up going earlier last year so there was more snow but we had some fun hills to still go sledding on. I was nervous to take Avery out in the cold but we had bought her a snow suit the was definately going to keep her warm except for her nose and cheeks. We had so much fun, Avery didn't know really what to think but overall we had a great time!

Grandma Shawna, Avery and Sky

Grandma Wallace and Avery

Grandma Wallace and I

Sky, Avery, Jessie, and Ayden with Chris pushing us down the hill.

Ayden and Cayton being pulled back up the hill by Sky

Grandma Wallace and Shawna

Avery, Sky, and Jarron

Avery bundled up tight in her snow suit!

Future

When I was around 6 years old I started taking piano lessons. We lived in Payette at the time and it took around 20-30 minutes to get to the piano teachers house since we lived in the country and she was on the other side of the town from where we lived. My older brother Jeremy and I had piano lessons one right after the other. I can't remember when Jeremy stopped playing but I played until I was in high school It came down to whether I wanted to play sports, take piano and continue with private vocal lessons. Well I enjoyed sports and singing so much more that I chose them over piano. When I look back on it I kinda regret it. I can still play fairly well but not where I would like to be. I have the keyboard that Jeremy and I started out with at our house since right now the piano that my parent's bought for me is still with them. We are thinking of bringing it to our house but we will see what happens. It is a big over 100 year old black upright that just might not fit very well in our house but we will see.
Well I have noticed a pattern with Avery lately. She loves to sing, dance, and play the keyboard. We had it out the other night and she laughed and kept pressing the keys. I played something small from memory and she sat and watched and then went after the keys. Sky and I have a feeling we are going to have a little artist in our house! I am so excited about it! I know a lady in our ward that teaches piano and vocal so when Avery gets older we can venture that way and if dancing becomes a part we can figure that out too. I told Skyler that I want to give my children the world and we are making sure of that with the financial aspect too. So never be afraid to let your children explore. I know my parents did and I am so greatful for those opportunities they gave us to do that!