Leanne's Pix

Have you ever seen Savannah happier than this?

Here's Keely on Peter.

Savannah on Tempo.

I mentioned that Savannah went horseback riding a few weeks ago, but I didn't go, so I had no pictures. Luckily, Leanne (Keely's mum, who took them), took plenty and just gave them to me. So, here are some pictures from that Saturday two weeks ago, as well as a few different ones from the Halloween party.

Savannah's teacher, and some scary monsters!!

(I can't figure out how to not make that a link now!)

Halloween Down Under

This week has been one stressful evening after another … all culminating in Kelli’s monstrous shabang of a Halloween Party for Savannah and her classmates from school and a few friends from church of Savannah and Collin’s. I was in ‘yes, dear’ mode most of the week while the kids got more and more excited with each passing day.

Besides the party, the kids have been up to their usuals. Hunter once again is involved with a plethora of laughs, usually involving food in one way shape or form. But, more often than not he is getting into mischief as much as humanly possible. Kelli talks about it during the day while I’m at work, but it’s really a sight you have to behold personally to believe (watch out Grandmas Whetstone and Jones next week J). So, this weekend, indeed, I saw the boy in action. You could turn your back and literally 30 seconds later he was into something he shouldn’t – dirt out of the potted plants, walking THROUGH the screen door, breaking a glass, eating watercolor paints (would have made a good Dracula with the red paint dripping from his lips), going near the toilet, pulls frosting and sugar cookies from the counter, found my wallet and pulled everything out (took all morning to find my driver’s license and credit card), pulls all the games off of the computer room shelves and throws the cards and parts everywhere – yes, and that’s only a taste. So, we’ve managed to survive getting ready for the party with mischief man on the loose. Oh, and Savannah wants us to write … Hunter is cute. Such a good sister. He also had his first swimming lesson/class this week. He liked it for the first two minutes and then I (Kelli) had to dunk him. He cried the rest of the time, which wouldn’t be so bad except he is twice the size of all the girls (no boys), in his class, and they seemed to do just fine. He’ll get used to it, though.

Collin on the other hand is a – Savannah says ‘weirdo’ (she’s dictating as I’m writing … getting used to being told what to do by her J) The kid loves to talk ‘potty talk’, if you know what I mean. Don’t get any ideas, aunts and uncles – it’s not something we are encouraging. But, anything that involves the aft end of one’s body makes him laugh in hilarious fashion. He’s also kind of gross. The other day he got caught sniffing one of the kid’s sandals as they took them off – and then I turn my back and once again the kids are laughing and this time he’s licking the bottom of Savannah’s sandals!! Don’t worry this only gets worse … there was a fly buzzing around the kitchen this evening and gave him the fly swatter so he could whack it … well, I probably don’t need to finish the rest based on the licking the sandals thing … I turn around and Savannah was laughing at him because he licked the fly swatter. We proceeded to find the fly, whack it and then show Collin just why we DON’T lick the fly swatter. We’re also trying to get him off our bedroom floor, to which he always puts up a fight. Last night he went to the next extreme and instead of asking for water or needing a bed time story like most kids, he says, “But I like you, Dad!” Now who can resist that? (We did, though.)

Savannah on the other hand was our cute little Snow White and had a great time with all of her little friends this week. She’s reading like a champ and loving school. She’s also still actively involved in tennis, netball and swimming (whatever to keep her energy moving in the right direction!) She and Collin like riding their bikes in the backyard, throwing water balloons at each other, and playing soccer and tennis. One of the funniest things happened when she was cruising along the backyard and her chain came off so she lost control of her brakes … the next thing I see she’s flying over her bike as she hits a pillar straight on. Today she did the same thing again, but this time the chain was on and she just misjudged the corner and fell over. Sometimes we wonder about her!?!?! She gets along really good with her brothers … most the time J

Jessy wants me to write about the party—which turned out to be a lot of work, but really fun. We gave out invitations on Monday (the party was that Friday), half-hoping that some of the kids (mainly the wild ones), wouldn’t come on the short notice. Savannah gave them to her entire class and all but 5 kids ended up coming. Plus Collin invited 5 kids from the ward, and some younger siblings of Savannah’s classmates ended up staying, so we ended up with a total of 30 kids! Luckily a few parents stayed and Savannah’s teacher came, so we had some help with the crowd control, which was needed for a few feral children. I handed out small trick-or-treat bags with their names on it and some tokens inside as they came. After everyone arrived, we took a group picture and then explained to the kids how to use their tokens—for tattooes, a bean bag toss, ghost bowling (throwing a mini-pumpkin at 2-litre bottles painted like ghosts), and pin the wart on the witch (all the kids were given gum—when it was their turn, they were blindfolded and had to stick their chewed gum on the witch’s face, hopefully near the wart on her nose). Then they decorated some pumpkin shaped sugar cookies and ate them. As we waited for parents to arrive, we played musical corners, with the kids dancing their hearts out to “Ghostbusters.” We sent the parents with their bags of candy across the street to spread out along the trail, and then took the kids over and let them trick-or-treat to the moms, dads, and grandmas. It was the first time for all of them and it was fun to watch them run from person to person—their eyes and smiles just got bigger and bigger as their treat bags filled up! It was a fun little party for the kids and it was really fun to see these kids with their first Halloween. All the kids talked about last week was what they were going to dress up as. When some saw Savannah in her princess costume, they were disappointed because they were all stuck on being something “scary.” We had witches, ghosts, skeletons, draculas, monsters, a black cat, and several other spooky costumes, in addition to a few superheroes and dancers and an astronaut. The parents all seemed to enjoy the trick-or-treating part, too. Savannah’s friend, Keely, told me today, “That was the best party I’ve ever been to in my entire life!” And that may be true, given that most parties here consist of eating party foods, like mini pies and sausage rolls, visiting, maybe playing pass the parcel, and going home. I was told that I’ve set a precedent and need to do this every year now, but since we won’t be here next year, I’ll have to pass the buck on that one!

School Starts Tomorrow!!!

Well, Jessy forgot to mention that last Saturday was a very hairy one in our family. Everybody except Kelli got their hair cut—some more than others. Savannah’s is a little shorter than I wanted to cut it, but she’d like it even shorter. She worries every day that it’s growing. Collin got a trim. Hunter got all his goldilocks cut on the top and we took the clippers to his sides to keep him cool (for heaven’s sake, the kid sweats buckets and it’s not even summer yet!). Jessy decided to cut his hair himself, which he has been doing since I was pregnant with Hunter and for some reason couldn’t hold my arms up high enough or long enough to cut his hair. I got a distress call and went in to find him looking like a boot-camp inductee. I guess he’ll be cool, too. And we’re hoping it grows out in time for the wedding.

This week was the last of this school holidays—thank goodness! Savannah was so good the first week, but this week has been grouchy most days, which tends to affect us all. The only thing that saved us was that we managed to stay busy. The kids had swimming every day this week and loved it. Savannah was assessed on Friday and –drum roll, please—passed the Octopus level and is now a Goldfish!! She is quite the little swimmer. Collin loved it, too, and we even signed Hunter up for swimming next term!

Thursday night was one of the longest ever. Jessy and I were up late talking about moving back to the States and had just gone to bed around midnight when we heard Savannah coughing (she has been sleeping on our floor during school holidays). Before we knew it she was throwing up all over Collin, who was next to her (he never woke up). After we cleaned it all up, she said she felt fine and we got settled again, just to have her do a repeat performance. We eventually got a bucket for the rest of the night and the cleanup wasn’t so bad, but then Hunter decided to wake up and join the party in our room. Around 4:00 we were all able to get a few hours of sleep in. Savannah woke up happy and bouncing around, ready for the Primary party that day. She held down breakfast, so I eventually let her go and she did fine.

Jessy had the deacons sleep over at the house on Friday. The kids were so excited—they love to have the Young Men come over to play with them. When the first people knocked on the door, Collin was so excited he ran over to me and said, “Our first customers!!” The boys were good and most got to sleep before too late. They got up early and went on a bike ride (Jessy towed Hunter and Collin in the trailer)—all the way to the zoo in North Adelaide! It was about 35 kms round-trip, and some of the boys were on bikes without gears. They came home exhausted—they literally fell down on the front lawn—and Jessy said they were all too tired to make it to the Priesthood session of General Conference that night.

Savannah had a doubly hard time sleeping Friday night. She was excited to have the boys over to play games with, but she was also very excited to be going horseback riding with Keely on Saturday. It was hard to wait until 11:00, but she made it and was all smiles as she rode the horse all around. After riding, they went to McDonald’s for lunch. I need to get the pictures on a CD from Leanne—all I’ve got are the ones she printed up for me, but it looked like she was in heaven!

Hunter has sworn off his high chair. He wouldn’t eat if we put him in it and would scream, “All done!!” whenever we put him in. So, now he’s on the regular chairs with a hard tile floor below. I guess it can’t be any worse than Collin, who tends to fall off his chair once every month or two. He’s also up to his regular mischief—today I went in to find him and Jessy painting with watercolors. His face was all streaked with blue paint and he would suck the brush every time he dipped it in the water. Then, when Jessy left, Hunter drank the dirty water, and then went over and stole the rest of a bag of Tim Tams from off the counter. He came in to find us with a melty Tim Tam in each hand and his face covered in chocolate. As he went outside a little later, he walked right through the screen door instead of opening it. Apparently on that outing, he buried one of his Tim Tams, which he just now dug up (Savannah confiscated it before he could eat it). I should get mad, but right now I’m pretty amused at the fact that he continues to do these things and doesn’t think anything of it. In fact he is usually humming while he’s committing his crimes…something that sounds a lot like Darth Vader’s theme from Star Wars.

Collin continues to be…Collin. He fell against his chair today at General Conference and got a bloody nose. This afternoon, after The Worst Nap Ever (kids in my face talking to me, kicking balls at me, screaming about who got the most water balloons, basically not sleeping at all), he asked, “Did you have a good nap, Mom?” with the most innocent and sincere face you’ve ever seen. I couldn’t help but do my best psycho laugh in his face, which he thought was hilarious. He loved his swimming so much, but he kept getting in trouble because he got bored when his teacher took “his friend” out to do her things, so he kept himself occupied by diving down in the water for as long as he could or pushing himself off the wall and floundering around to get back to it. He also taught his teacher to “play the guitar” in the water—who knew he had such talents?

We're all doing well and are getting ready for the Halloween party I promised the kids last year (they never forget that type of promise). Should be a crazy, hectic, and hopefully fun week!

Jessy's Aussie Pic

When we went up to the Whispering Wall last week, we came upon a huge herd of kangaroos (is a group of kangaroos a herd?), on the way home. We pulled over in time to catch a few with the camera. The kids loved making noises to get them to look over at us. Jessy is very proud of his artistic side with this one--he can't get over the gum tree, the kangaroo posing, etc.

Spring in the Air

So I finally can have a minute with the computer after Kelli’s been playing Doctor Geeko the past week or so with the blog. It looks really good, though, so I can’t tease her too much. Combine that with the extra help in getting the diary entries out and I just don’t see how I’m losing in this thing. I think we’re going to probably stop doing the website and just update everyone via the blog and then upload our pictures to snapfish for anyone who would like to order them. If you don’t get our snapfish picture/video updates and would like to, please send us your e-mail at jk5jones@bigpond.com.

So I guess the sad news of the week – the Cubbies did their usual bow-out in less-than-kosher fashion. But, story of my life so we move on to more exciting news …

Let’s see where we can dig up some good stories. First we’ll start with Hunter. He’s been our usual terror the last week. It’s been compounded by the fact that he’s been getting his lower eye teeth. They’ve broken through though and so we’re relaxing a little bit. Last night he woke up just before Kelli and I were going to bed and had a night terror. He wakes up and then just can’t be consoled. I usually take him downstairs and watch some English premier league soccer in the late night hours and that at least gives me something to take my mind from the screaming. Last night a gummy bear seemed to relax him a little as well. Eventually he pooped himself out after 20 minutes or so and went back to sleep. He was so tired he slept through the night (unusual for him) and so I didn’t have to sleep on the edge of the bed (usual for me J).

The fun story from Hunter has to do with food, surprise surprise. The other night I made the kids ice cream and Hunter gets his own. He doesn’t know many words, but ice cream are some of the select few. So he gets his cone and he wanders into the TV room. We have a couch that sits off the wall a half foot or so. He tried to squeeze between the couch and wall with his ice cream cone in tow … but in the process smeared part of the chocolate on the wall. He kind of cried when he was stuck between the wall and couch, but that didn’t compare with the ‘little’ scream when he turned around and saw that part of his ice cream was dripping down the wall. He then proceeded to take the remainder of his ice cream cone and tried to ‘pick up’ the lost ice cream on the wall … so he basically started to smear more of his good ice cream on the wall before I could finally get to him and stop the madness. Never a dull moment … He also likes to throw things off the upstairs balcony. The other day he got away with the curling iron from the bathroom and Kelli realized his sneaky ways just before it took a dive over the side rail. He also proceeded to eat his McD’s hamburger with a hole in the middle from both the bun and burger --- and all of his fries! Oh, and he’s become quite the lady’s man with the local church girls …

Collin, on the other hand, has been going through a ‘Lightning McQueen’ phase. He loves to get on his little training wheels and cruise the backyard around the patio table, down the straight away and around the laundry pole at the other end of the yard. Hunter likes to go cruisin’ on the spiderman scooter with Dad as the engine. Savannah is our starting and finish line maker with a tape measure.

Collin didn’t have a night terror, but he did have an episode of his own. In the middle of the night Kelli and I here this muffled, “I can’t see!” Collin and Savannah have been camping out on the floor in our room (yes, we’re soft!). Well, this night he somehow managed to wriggle his way under the bed and only half his legs were not under the bed. I tried reaching over the side of the bed to pull him out and he responded by acting like a mussel stuck to a rock in the ocean. I couldn’t pull him out and the more I tried the more he said, “No, no!” I finally got on the floor next to him and tried talking to him as I forced him to come out – then his head got stuck and he wasn’t too happy about that. Finally he was freed and just sat there taking deep breaths before crashing on his pillow and going back to la la land.

One last thing with Collin are the funny names he has for things. When we talk about Albuquerque he pronounces it, “Apple-ker-kee:. When he talks about Australia he pronounces it, “In-stralia”.

Savannah has been a little angel the past week on her school holiday. She hasn’t had any of her usual outlets like swimming, tennis or netball, but she and Collin have been getting along very well. Hunter has been tagging along as much as possible. He’s pretty easy going and it’s a good thing. Another way to occupy her has been her little tamagachi. She loves to play with the thing and before she went to bed tonight she gave me specific instructions on how to take of it. With only 3 buttons you wouldn’t think it would be that complicated, but she went through a series of do this, then this, and then this and push this button, then this … all in about 5 seconds … and then went to bed. I promptly handed the thing over to Kelli not having a clue what to do.

As a family we went up into the Adelaide Hills this past Saturday. I’m finally somewhat used to driving the gauntlet of twisty, turny narrow roads. Not sure what the motorcyclists are thinking zipping here and there, but we somehow survive. Anyway, we went up to the Barossa Valley which is renowned for its wine production. Amazing rolling hills of vineyards. The attraction on this day though was a seemingly common dam. Not very big or deep, but because it has a circular shape, it has a unique characteristic in that you can stand at one end of the dam, whisper or talk and then you can listen on the other end as if the person is standing right next to you. It’s really kind of spooky … but cool. The kids didn’t think too much of it but there was this grandma ice cream truck feeding the masses there at the dam and they got an ice cream cone with sprinkles which they thought was great. One little pet peeve with Australia though is the fact they won’t let anyone use the reservoirs for recreational use. They have these beautiful lakes in the hills and know one can even get within 20 feet of them for fear of ‘trespassing’. Not sure really what the logic is since they have to treat the water anyway … Anyway, just a little quirky thing I thought I’d pass on. Adelaide is awesome right now with spring in the air and all the flowers in full bloom. Kelli and the kids went up to Morialta Falls and enjoyed the walk – one of our favorite places J See you next week!

Better?

Now you can comment (please do), and not feel bad about saying, "Great...all I see is white with a few pictures, no words...I'm glad you spent all day on that..." Now I need to tweak a few other things on the sidebars, but I won't go making up my own computer language and hopefully all can see it (not just the Firefox users!).

Experimenting

I'm experimenting with the blog...so tell me what you think! I loved what my sister-in-law did with hers-it looks great! I asked where she came up with it, but didn't have the patience to wait for an answer. After much re-writing of code (yes, computer science was something math teachers are supposed to be "qualified" to teach-they might as well have spoken Chinese for all I understood!), this is what we have...I'm just wondering if it's a little on the annoying side. I do love Uluru, though...