Enjoying the Outdoors

Wow, that looks like she is really high up.... Below is a cool spiderweb they found.

As a family, we love spending time outdoors. Thankfully there is so much more to Las Vegas than just the Strip and we have the benefit of very pleasant weather about 8 months out of the year. On Nov 1st, we went to Redrock and did a short little hike with the kids. On Tuesday, Mr. J had Veteran's day off so he took the two little ones "up in the desert somewhere" and hiked around a bit looking for tarantulas and rattlesnake dens while Miss M and I went to MOPS than out to lunch. It was a great day for all involved, well maybe except Mr. T.. he puked in the car on the way to the hike... but as you can see from the pictures, he still had a fun time.

Family Pictures!

My friend, Danielle from church took some family photos of us last week and they turned out great! These are just a few so enjoy!

Two great new blogs

I wanted to introduce you all to two great new blogs. Both blogs are money saving blogs, which is very practical in today's economy. The first was started by my friend, Jane, that I met through MOPS in Spokane. She started a new blog in September called "all together beautiful". She has some great frugal tips on there, I loved the post called a Holly, Jolly and Frugal Christmas. I encouraged you to check it out.
Another blog I just found out about today is by my great friend Amber, who I know from church here in Las Vegas. She has 2 adorable little girls and is super thrifty. She is always sharing her great money saving ideas at MOPS, so I am so glad she started this blog. It is called "to save a penny." Since reading it, I have already saved 3100 pennys! She has a post on her blog about how to get 2 Victoria Secret bras and one panty for just over 17 dollars! And it really works! To purchase that would have cost me almost 50 dollars but instead it cost me 18 (plus 7.90 for tax ans shipping). This is a fabulous deal and she has all the directions on her blog.
Since I am on the topic of money saving blogs, my friend Samantha, who I went to nursing school with also has one called "the charmed frugal life". However, due to having bad morning sickness and raising 2 toddlers, she has taken a break from writing on it. But there is still many great ideas on it!

Costume fun

We dressed up the girls tonight and set out to meet some of our new neighbors and do some trick or treating. The guys stayed home to pass out candy. Tonight we had Mr. T, the lion that said "roarrrr," Miss O the banana eating monkey and Miss M, the makeup wearing Cinderella (this was a first). Miss O lasted about 20 minutes and Miss M almost an hour. Our 200+ pieces of candy also lasted about an hour.

Mr. T the lion, it was very cute, the face hole didn't have enough room for all his cheek chub.

The trick or treaters in our back yard (also the view of the back of the house I promised you)

Mmm bananas....

Cinderella standing in our back yard, you can see the awesome playground that is just feets away from our house in the pic below.

The reason we participate in trick or treating is not because we love Halloween or anything, but because we think its a good opportunity to be neighborly. However, we decided this year that trick or treating is a bit too scary for the girls. They get really scared of all the obnoxious decorations and freaky costumes. And for some reason, many adults think it is really fun to dress as witches or dead people to hand out candy. The girls would not even walk near those houses (which is fine by me). So, I think we will stick with church fall festivals or something in the future.

Mr. J and I are going to watch Expelled now, the new documentary by Ben Stein... should be interesting!

Pumpkin Painting

Although pumpkin carving is a fun tradition to do in October, we learned last year that it's not really the best use of pumpkins when you live in a hot desert. After about a day, the pumpkins start to shrivel up from the hot sun and look awful (see above). So this year, we decided we would paint our pumpkins. And being the mom of preschoolers, I had 2 very willing artists. So I got a couple paint brushes and some washable paint and we went for it.

Miss M making her rainbow pumpkin I painted faces on them and the girls got to pick what colors and shapes I used. Notice the green ears with pink star earrings.

Little bro watching.. we decided to let him have a turn painting and made a footprint pumpkin for him. I thought putting paint on his feet was less dangerous than putting paint on the hands.
Miss O and her pink/blue/yellow pumpkin with a jack o lantern face...


The artists after they were all done. I was trying to get a pic of the paint on their clothes but they actually look pretty clean. I think I need to purchase some smocks.

Stay tuned for costume pics...

The ultrasound says...

It's a girl!

We had our ultrasound this morning and got the big news. We are so blessed to be adding another sweet Jones girl to our family. She is weighing in at 10 ounces right now. It was so neat to watch her little heart beat and see her waving her hands all around. We haven't decided on any names yet but we do have some ideas. Please be praying for our baby as she is growing. I will try to post some pics of the ultrasound soon.

The Please Machine

Mr. T has earned himself a new nickname, it is "The Please Machine." A week ago as we were enjoying breadsticks at Olive Garden, he finally signed 'please' for the first time. We have taught all our kids a few basic words in sign language, such as 'please', 'thank you', 'more' and 'all done' and all have them have caught on at different times. Miss M learned the signs quite early and I think Miss O was around a year old. Well Mr. T is 14 months now and we were starting to wonder when he was going to catch on. So, the whole family was very excited to see his new skill. We find that using sign language with them cuts down a lot on whining. Anyways, on Friday and Saturday, although Mr. T knew the sign for "please" he didn't really like the idea of having to sign it before he got anything, he just wanted us to give him food when he whined. So Mr. J, the very patient man that he is, sat with him and showed him the sign over and over until he finally would do it. So breakfast and dinner on Saturday, Mr. J worked with him for close to an hour, on Sunday morning it was about a half hour and at lunch about 15 minutes. By dinner time, Mr. T finally realized what a huge benefit it was for him to say 'please' and he was signing it all the time. And, if he couldn't reach his chest (like if his bib was in the way) to do the please motion, he would rub his leg, or the table. It has been very exciting to see his progress. Our baby boy is growing up!

Speaking of growing up, Miss M and Miss O are doing their fair share of that as well. Miss O is still working on potty training. The brand new elmo undies are really helping. Our goal is to be completely done by her birthday in December and I think it will happen. Miss M is enjoying her AWANA class and is doing a great job memorizing her verses. We have also began teaching her to read using a book called "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" and she is loving it. I have never taught anyone to read before and wasn't sure how effective I would be, but it's such a joy to see her try hard and succeed. For a while she had a hard time writing the letter "s" (hers had a few too many curves), and she is a bit of a perfectionist, so it was hard for me to even get her to try, because she didn't want to mess up. I didn't really know what to do, so I asked my very wise sister, a kindergarten teacher, and she gave me some tips and today she did it! She was so proud that she had finally learned how to draw s's, that she drew a whole page of them to show Mr. J.

I have to say I absolutely love being a mommy. It is the greatest job in the world!