Storytime with Grandma Jones

And so the bedtime process has begun when all of a sudden...Grandma comes! We had a surprise visit from Grandma Jones tonight! Cheyenne and Larissa were with her too and their arrival put new life into the boy's sails. That's not always a good thing just before bedtime however.

Fortunately Grandma new just what to do. While Cheyenne and Larissa took turns holding Quinten, Grandma read a few bedtime stories to the boys. Each boy picked a book and they gathered around to hear each story. Only Aleky seemed to escape the quieting effects of story time.


Once the boys had calmed back down we finished getting them ready for bed. Grandma and the girls were only here for a short visit but all of us were very excited about their unannounced arrival. Hopefully we'll get another surprise visit in the near future. Thank you for stopping by.

FHE Around the Campfire

Tonight we had a quiet evening around the campfire. At least that was the idea when the logs were placed in the fire pit. But the boys don't really do "quiet" if they don't have to. So our FHE was all we could do to keep the boys focused for a few short minutes. I'm sure that the marshmallows/s'mores for treats after FHE helped to keep the boys attention.

Each boy was able to show Grandma Jones that they could say their own testimony. Then we recited "The Family: A Proclamation To The World" or at least the first half that we have memorized so far. We had a very short discussion about baptism (because David gets to give a talk in primary next week about baptism). And that was the length of their attention span. As soon as we said the closing prayer the boys were off to play.

David had a blast throwing the frisbee and playing soccer with Aunt Cheyenne. Aleky thought it was great to hack everyone to pieces with the foam swords. Michael and Donovan played with random toys, roasted lots of marshmallows and tried to jump into the soccer game. Finally they resorted to throwing frisbees over the fence so they would "have" to go get them from the neighbors yard.

In the end, the boys managed to stay up an extra hour playing and eating marshmallows. They loved it. Now that the kids are in bed it is finally time to relax!

Michael's Birthday Party

This was Michael's 3 year old birthday party.  We had our good neighbors the Simmons and the Johnsons over to celebrate.  Also in attendance was Uncle Kyle, Grandma Jones, and Aunts Trista & Larisa.

Michael ask for a special birthday cake and wanted Lady Bugs!  So Michelle created the Lady Bug cake.  It turned out very well.

He was very pleased with his cake and was excited for all of the attention. (This is still one of Michelle's favorite birthday cake creations.)

Michael got some fun presents and little help from his brothers to open them.

(finally posted 8/3/14)

FHE with the Family

What a shock and surprise when I got a call from Darius, not that the call itself was a surprise but the fact that he was in town! Since he move to Oregon, I didn't expect to see him until...well I don't know when I expected to see him next. But he was in town for some business and had brought his family with him. He thought it would be great to get the family together on Monday night for games and just a chance to see each other. And so the planning began.

I don't think the planning went much beyond that simple idea of getting together sometime on Monday evening. So Monday evening after eatting dinner we loaded the kids in the car, grabbed a few simple games and headed over to Grandma Jones' house. Darius and Kristen were already there and were just fixing dinner for their family. Autumn had also arrived however Eric had other obligations. Before we left for the night we had Tatiana & Leo, Trista, and Cheyenne there as well (of course Larissa was there as was Grandma & Grandpa Jones).

Michelle, Darius and I got in a single game of Rack-O and the kids played Candyland. Mostly this visit was chatting with each other and just catching up on the last few weeks. We would have loved to stay longer but we had already passed the boys bedtime and they were starting to show signs of fatigue. It was certainly great to see everyone and hopefully we'll get together before the next sibling makes a surprise visit.