Quinten Helping to Prepare Dinner

Quinten has decided to take his place among the Jones boy chefs.  Each boy has a day of the week in which they are designated as special.  That means they start reading scriptures first, say the morning family prayer, bear their testimony, ride in the front seat, and help with preparing the meals in the kitchen.  Quinten has watched his brothers help and decided that he wanted a turn.  Today was his special day so he took his turn.  I captured the moment when he was making strawberry jell-o.

My boys are growing up so fast.  I have a feeling this wonderful period of life will be over all too quickly.

David Reading to Gidean

The are moments when I am so proud of David.  This is one of them.  Gidean was not happy about his floor time, mostly because that meant someone wasn't holding him.  We noticed that the crying had stopped so Michelle and I poked our heads into the living room only to discover this:

David had picked up his baby brother and was reading out loud to him from the Friend magazine.  It was a sweet moment and fortunately the camera happened to be handy. 

David really has a sweet streak to him.  He has a way of caring for his brothers and those younger than himself.  His heart is big and we're grateful he's part of our family.

Home Computer Network

The boys have been running wild with cardboard and their imaginations.  David has decided that anything in the real world should be converted into cardboard, at least anything electronic.  So he started creating his own computer.  The other boys decided that was a great idea.  So each boy created their own personal computer.  Then they hooked them up to their own family network and started computing, networking and skyping with each other.

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David Discovers LDS.org Online Stories

David is showing off his techincal prowis more and more each day.  Just last week he was working on our online job chart and he discovered a glitch in the system that allowed him to get multiple credit for each task!  I reported the glitch to the online company and they were impressed that he found it. 

In the past couple of day David has made another discovery.  On the church website there are stories that he can listen to online.  When he first discovered this option he would turn on a story while he worked on his penmanship.  But his brothers have caught wind of this discovery and now they are starting to congregate in front of the computer to hear the stories.  How can I complain about the boys wanting to listen to the stories from The Friend? 

I'm just impressed with David's insight and understanding and he begins exploring this new world of technological opportunity.

Family Oragami

Michelle thought it would be fun to try doing some oragami so she checked out a book from the library.  Once she started working on her first project the boys decided that it looked like fun and wanted to join in.  So each boy had a little help and coaching and each boy was able to display the work of their own creation!  Here are the boys with their "water bombs" oragami artwork.

Neti Pot Magic Trick

A couple of our boys are starting to get stuffy noses and we suspect a disease is trying to invade.  Ironically, we have been much healthier this year compared to the past few years.  Not so long ago Michelle discovered the Neti Pot to combat sinus issues and she wanted to try it out on Aleky who is one of our sufferers.  Due to the nature of the treatment Michelle thought a more comical approach might do the trick in getting Aleky to be a happy and willing participant.

Michelle told the boys she was going to do a magic trick.  The trick was that she would pour some water into one nostril and the water would come out of the other nostril.  The boys were game and David was the first volunteer.  If things went well Aleky was supposed to volunteer to try it too.  Michael did volunteer but his experience didn't go so well.  I think that might have killed some of the enthusiasm we were trying to build.  Donovan wouldn't try it at all.  But it was great watching the two boys give it whirl (pour?).

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Valentine's Day Dinner

I'm pretty sure our family is not conventional in the way we do things.  It is a frequent occasion to have traditional breakfast items for dinner.  Tonight we decided to have pancakes and eggs.  Since today is Valentine's Day we had special pink heart shaped pancakes to celebrate the special day.  I even tried my hand at make the special shapes.  While not nearly as perfect as these heart shaped pancakes, my pancakes were at least respectable and Michelle says I can do them again any day.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Jelly Bean Frenzy

This morning we discovered a bag of jelly beans on our front porch!  It was in a generic white plastic bag and there was no note or other identifying marks on this special gift.  We didn't waste any time devouring most of the bag.  It was a simple issue of testing all of the different flavors of jelly beans, and each boy needed to try each flavor.  After that the task was testing various combinations of flavors.  There were a lot of combinations to be tested!

The boys were very dedicated to the task.  Later, there were several complaints about tummies not feeling well.  I guess that is one of the occupational hazards of a jelly bean taste tester.

Ice Crystal Mountain

Michelle decided to have a little treat tonight. She asked me to pull out the ice cream so it could have time to soften.  When I removed the lid to the ice cream I saw an ice crystal mountain.  On the one hand it was really cool to see and I snapped this picture of it.  On the other hand, maybe we need to increase our consumption speed on ice cream or buy the smaller containers.

My Boys at our First Friday Ward Potluck

We had our ward's First Friday Potluck dinner tonight and it was one of the best attended potluck dinners we've had so far.  It looks like the word is starting to get out.  Our boys still don't stick around for the food; they are more interested in playing at the church and having fun with the other kids. 

Tonight the chalk board and the stage steps were strategically left out and our boys discovered them.  Quinten decided that they were a perfect launching pad to get him a lift.

Donovan and Michael took some time to perfect their artistic expressions.

We had a great time visiting with ward friends and our boys didn't get too wild in the building.