Traitor

Before finishing my class I knew I wanted to find a great book after I was done and read with no guilty conscience, or only a little for ignoring dishes and laundry if it were REALLY good. Otherwise I can put a book down and clean before picking it back up again. While I was at my parents' house this weekend Jess handed me this book that she had just finished.


Oh boy, oh BOY was it good. Couldn't put it down. I started it yesterday morning and finished it last night. (No worries, children did get cleaned, fed and taken care of during this process. And I at least kept the play areas clean. Kitchen of course is already off limits to them. See Here and Here for the reasons why kitchen is off limits.)

So now it's off to organize something. (You were thinking I would say clean the house didn't you.) Oddest thing about me, if I organize something the house just kind of magically cleans itself. :)

Miranda's Graduation

Mandy graduated last weekend! It was fun to go spend time with her and see her graduate. Congrats, Miranda!


Now, for the rest of the story. Nathan and I went to bed the night before leaving late. Before we had a chance to fall asleep I hear this very pitiful, "Mommy" come from the other room. Nathan got up to tuck her back in bed. Then Nathan quickly called me into the room. Meredith and the stomach flu. Nathan had Meredith in his arms so he took her to clean her up while I started changing the bedding. He came back in (he doesn't have his contacts in) and I told him he had to give her a bath because it was ALL in her hair. We get up and do this at least 2 more times. I took Emily to her last day of school and finished packing and cleaned the house and loaded the car. After picking her up we got in the car to go. Meredith was doing well. Nathan was in the passenger seat studying (for the lovely testing he is currently doing which takes 2 days. The dreaded core exam.) and Meredith starts acting sick. I brought along a bib to take to Grandma's house (which I LOVE because of it's big pocket to catch everything.) and Nathan put it on her. Meredith threw up in the car and the bib thankfully caught almost everything. Just a little bit got on the car seat. After getting to my Mom's house we went to Graduation. Waited an hour for it to start, waited another hour for them to get to the point, and Mandy was the very first to graduate. Now, you're asking why in the world "Jones" would start first. They say it's because they just wanted to do it differently. I said it was because they finally wanted to start with the most important person first. Then I began to say it was an answer to a prayer that would be said by me at graduation. We quickly left after Mandy walked because we were quite frankly scared. Meredith threw up 2 more times when she went to bed (maybe 3). Then she was on the mend. We went to sleep the next night and had barely fallen asleep when we started the whole process with Emily. After she was up the first time I just made a little bed in the bathroom. It made the whole thing so much more simple and clean. She was up for a minimum of 5 times. I could still say I LOVE being a Mommy right after the experience and in the middle of a LOT of sleep deprivation. So the next day after church I find out Dallin went home early. Then Matthew kept my parents up that night (of course my Mom is a light sleeper so I'm sure we woke her up a LOT during the previous two nights. Sorry, Mom.) My Dad, and Sister quickly joined the list. Anyhow.

We finally left Monday afternoon. We went through the canyon, got halfway through before Nathan smelled something burning. I saw smoke and we pulled over. It was our brakes. It was so hot that Nathan ended up breaking 3 posts trying to see if he could do something. After putting the wheel back on we decided to try and find a police man or keep driving until we had a signal. At one point we had a signal but nowhere to pull over so as I finally hear the emergency line pickup I lost the call. Then I had a signal, we pulled over and lost it. I look up, and there is a police car at the side of the road who had just pulled someone over. We pull up across the street from them and decide we can make it to Globe. We get to Globe and we decide we can make it (very, very slowly to Tucson.) Then we had an undisturbed nights rest. :) Nathan took the car into the shop the next morning and studied for the core exam while he was there. Couple hundred dollars later we now have a working vehicle. Of course, sadly, we had to miss our playgroup (hope you guys had fun). It was supposed to be our letter "D" day with dinosaurs and whatever else anyone could think of. Can wait for next weeks Letter "I" though. (We're doing ice cream of course.) And the weather outside is HOT!

Preschool Update

I can't believe how much Emily has learned at school. One of the things they do at school is have the children find their name when they get there and then take it and trace it. These are laminated and they use dry erase markers so they can reuse them. I liked the idea and decided to try it since I needed to give Emily something to do so I can study. I showed it to her and she said, "That's my name, Emily." She's really quite good at that. Since I didn't have, or couldn't find, my laminate I put it in a page protector. Then I decided to try putting other things in page protectors as well. I have a maze, tracing numbers, and other stuff in there. Then I decided to put it in a binder and move her name to the front of the binder. She can trace her name on the front of the binder and erase and move on to the other pages. It's kept her entertained for quite some time. (If only I could entertain Meredith so easily.)

I just came back from picking Emily up and was completely amazed by the conversation, yes folks I mean conversation, we had. Who knew we could actually hold a conversation?

Did you have fun at school?
Yah.
What did you learn?
I made new friend.
Oh yah? What's your friend's name?
His name is Prince.
Wow! I'm so glad you made a new friend. Did you eat snacks?
Yah.
Did you have milk?
No. (When I'm wrong it's a long Noooo.)
Did you have water?
Yah. ( ) spilled water.
You spilled water?
Noooo.
Who spilled water?
Emma spilled water.

They have been learning nursery rhymes in preschool right now. So randomly Emily will tell me: Humpty Dumpty egg. Fell down, broken.

Also, they did butterflies two weeks ago.
Emily: Butterfly came out of egg.
Me: Do you mean a cocoon?
Emily: Yah. Butterfly came out of cocoon.

All of this was as we were coming home. Ok, so now I just might cry when preschool gets out. :) I can't believe how much she's learned.

Children's Museum (More)

Meredith and her silly face! Ha, I caught that one. :)

One of the things Emily was excited to see were the Dinosaurs! But, when we got there it was dark and scary. Poor thing. Why would you have a dark, scary room for children?!!!

They had several sections on one wall that was a hospital. This was the section for the babies. They had another section for surgery and another for lab work. Meredith loved the baby section.

Here's Meredith taking care of her baby. :) She really is such a sweet girl, especially to little babies.

Emily taking her grocery shopping VERY seriously.

If you live here the Children's Museum is wonderful. If you don't, well you know where to find free food and lodging for a fun vacation. :)

Children's Museum

We went to the Children's Museum and the girls really enjoyed it. Here's a few pictures.

Here's Meredith wondering why all of the toys are behind glass. Poor girl.
Emily posing in the Choo Choo Train. She was giving me lots of cheesy grins for this one.
Emily LOVED the fire engine. This is for the kids to play with and there is a little movie screen on the inside of the windshield so the kids feel like they are really driving.
Outside of the Children's Museum the day we went they had Bouncing Houses (or whatever they call them.) Emily loved this too. Meredith tried the one for the smaller kids, but as soon as we opened it up for her to crawl in and tried to set her feet down, she wanted right back out.
Emily in the REAL fire engine.

Meredith and the Microwave

Meredith is so cute. It's amazing how much little kids absorb from just every day activities. She was using the microwave just like Mommy! Turn down your volume. It was really noisy when we were there.

Emily's Idea of Heaven

This is Emily's idea of heaven. She LOVED this. They had a half of a huge room dedicated to a kitchen and grocery shopping area at the Children's Museum. I couldn't even get Emily to look at me long enough for a picture.

The Horsey

Horsey is kind of a weird word to spell, but little kids like putting on that "y" or "ie" ending, so I had to spell it that way. (I now know that the webster dictionary considers horsey and horsy correct. lol. Just in case if you're looking for a bit of silly trivia. :) Anyhow, here is Nathan taking the girls to go brush their teeth after scriptures. He usually take the girls in a funny way because, surprise, surprise ;) they don't want to brush their teeth because then it means they have to go to bed. So, here's our "horsey".
Nathan is such a great Daddy! And a good sport for letting me take pictures. :)

"F"

Last week (I know it, I've neglected the blogging.) we did the letter "F" for playgroup. We had it at the Brandi Fenton Park. They have the coolest little water park. It's FREE! I couldn't believe it when I saw it. Why didn't I come sooner! We had fruit, fruit snacks, fruit loop necklaces (which I brought fruit loops and string, but someone was smart enough to bring licorice to use as the string!) and fig newtons (ok, I never buy those things, so I don't even know how to spell it.) It was "F"un. :)

Potty Training DVD

Since most of the people I know have kids around my girls' age this is for you. I got a free Potty Training DVD in the mail. No, I'm not ready to potty train Meredith yet, but someday. Might as well ask for it now in case they're not giving it out later. So here it is!