I'm back

Not that I really went anywhere. Seems like life just got really busy all of the sudden, but busy with what I don't know. Here's a laundry list of events to report:

1. We went up to Idaho for Thanksgiving. It was fun seeing everyone, though it wasn't the most relaxing trip since Kaden was sick and with Kimball's mom just coming out of the hospital her immune system is really low. We ended up staying at Danny's in-laws house. So Kaden and I spent most of our time in quarantine. We still had a good time and Kimball got to see his mom a few times which was most of the reason we were there.

2. Jo started crawling. She has gotten really adventurous the last couple days. I guess I'm not used to keeping such a close watch, but I look away for a minute and then have to go on a treasure hunt for my baby! Kaden is none too pleased. Now when she goes after his toys he can't just put things out of her reach. We're still adjusting, but having a lot of fun too.

3. I saw Twilight. I don't know what you all thought, but I liked it. Yes, I laughed in several places that I don't think were meant to be funny, but for me it made it that much better (mostly). I'm especially grateful that Monica couldn't see it when it first came out, because now I have an excuse to see it again. Thanks Mo!

4. Monica came home. In case you didn't know, my sister has been in Australia for the last few months working and just came home tonight. We've all been counting down the days for her homecoming and I for one am relieved to have her home. Now Kaden has one of his favorite people back in his life.

5. Christmas presents. We're on a particularly tight budget this year which means a lot more homemade gifts. That's probably the real reason I haven't been blogging. Most of my nights I've been working on this or that for someone. I don't mean to sound begrudging. I enjoy having projects and these have been especially fun, they just throw my schedule off kilter. Luckily, I'm done with some of the more urgent gifts to have ready so things should relax a little.

As you can see, not too much excitement. We're doing good though and having a lot of fun with each other. I'll keep you updated.

Twilight Blue

I think I'm getting a little obsessed with the twilight series. The other day I bought a blue shirt with some birthday money and I thought "hey, I bet this looks like Bella's shirt that Edwards so crazy about." I promise that's not why I bought it!

Later when I took the tags off I noticed the color was called twilight blue. How crazy! At least now I know what I'll be wearing when I go see the movie. Yikes, this is sounding sad.

Happy Halloween!

We had a great Halloween this year. Kaden wanted to be Woody from Toy Story, so we all went as cowboys and Jo as our horse. Most of the fun took place at my Aunt Ranee's Halloween party a few days before. Tonz of fun having everyone dressed up. I think my favorites were my Uncle Carl and Aunt Isabel who went as Edward and Bella from Twilight.



Thanks also to Betty Crocker for inspiring the fun cupcakes. I can always count on Betty to help me feel creative.



Trick-or-treating was an interesting experience. Kimball was in Idaho visiting his mom so my dad stayed home with Jocilyn and I went solo with Kaden. The first few houses were a lot of fun. Kaden loved ringing all the doorbells and of course the candy, but as more kids came out most of the doors were already open. This made Kaden pretty upset. After one too many more than patient neighbors and a time out we called it quits, but managed to end the night happily by ringing grandma and grandpa'a doorbell and eating some candy.

Overall a fun night. Hopefully Kaden's old enough now that next year we wont have to start from scratch to teach him about halloween and how much fun it is. I guess we'll start working on Thanksgiving now.

Birthday Cake

I know I already blogged about Kaden turning 3, but due to some persistent admirers (Monica) I thought I'd show you this one little thing.


He was so funny. Kaden anxiously waited until it was time to blow out his candles--which he did, and then dove face first into the cake! We were so surprised we just laughed so he kept going and going until a good portion of the frosting was gone.

Farm Animals

Today Grandma treated us to a dayout at the farm at Thanksgiving Point. We had so much fun! Kaden got to feed the goats (sidenote-goat slobber is pretty gross, but at least they didn't bite) and rode a pony three times.
We had a great time, Kaden couldn't get enough, and despite a close call we didn't even have a bathroom accident (potty training...ugg). Thanks Grandma, we had a great time.

I've been tagged

Thanks Kristen for not giving me anything too tough. This is supposed to be the fourth picture of the fourth file in my photo storage, but I'm working from my mom's laptop so I don't any photos here (neither does my mom, I checked). I'm improvising by taking the fourth photo off of my camera.

This is a picture of Kimball, me, Kaden and cousin Bryson at this years Patterson campout. In case you can't tell Kimball and I aren't exactly big on camping.
I tag Monica, Valerie, Stacy, and Ashlee

Happy Birthday Kaden!

That's my little Kaden about a half a second into the world, still makes lots of noise, but we love it.


He's pretty great. We laugh every day at the funny things he does. Lately he's been singing us his bedtime songs complete with a tickle session for both me and Kimball.




Watching our every move he keeps us on our toes. Its a little frightening being a role-model 24/7, but we try our best and hopefully do well and keep our fingers crossed that he doesn't notice when we slip.

I love him, I love him, I love him! I can't believe he's three already. Happy birthday Kaden.

5 Years!

Yesterday Kimball and I celebrated our fifth aniversary. What an adventure! Most days I don't think about how I've changed since meeting Kimball, how our goals and dreams change, or how much more I love him. I guess that's why we celebrate things like this though.

I hope I've matured a little since our first year of marriage. I remember a couple months in I started picking fights with Kimball, for absolutely nothing, I mean nothing! Finally Kimball asked me what was up and I fessed-up that I had heard that a couple that never fights can't have a strong relationship because they're not communicating. I can't help but roll my eyes and giggle at myself for that, but at least I was trying to strengthen our marriage! I guess that's what the honeymoon phase is for. Having to create a fight for the sake of having a fight.

Our goals have definately changed, I always wanted to be a mom and can't imagine doing something different now, so I guess that's the same. As for Kimball, the would-be-lawyer has deffinately had a change of heart, but you all know that story.

I definately love Kimball. I'll try not to gush too much, but my favorite part of looking back is knowing he loves me day in and day out, through the good and bad, and he still gives me goosebumps when we kiss.

Thanks for putting up with all this gush. I just love Kimball and wanted to write it down.

Paradise

Despite our recent job frustrations Kimball and I are a couple of the luckiest people on earth for many reasons: a supportive family, great kids and the most present in my mind is the trip to Cancun my parents let us tag along on a couple weeks ago.

We had such a great time. We'd wake up and head out to the ocean right outside the hotel. After awhile we'd go eat by the water. Then to change things up we'd go get in the pool. That's how we spent most of our days while we were there. It was Heaven. Kimball and I are already daydreaming about the next beach vacation we hope to take. This time without the kids...its about time we had a real honeymoon.

We managed to tear ourselves away from the coast for a day to go see Chitza Nitza. It was incredible. They are these ruins built by the Mayans in about 200ad. The buildings are amazing, but I was blown away by the technology they had at the time and being able to see it all. I wont even try to explain it because I'd never do it justice and this would be a ridiculously long post. But what an experience! Its also one of the new seven wonders of the world; kind of a fun bonus to have checked one off the list.

I can't thank my parents enough for letting us come. It was my favorite vacation ever!

Change of Plans

Okay, I know I just said Kimball had taken a job at Wells Fargo, but things kind of fell through. He accepted a verbal offer, but a couple things came up and it didn't work out. We were pretty upset over the whole thing, but at some point you've just got to keep moving, so Kimball's back in the job hunt. It might be a little easier had he not turned down two offers when he accepted the job at Wells Fargo. I guess we'll have to learn our lessons and remember all this for next time.

Its not all bad news though, Kimball does still have some good contacts that are really pulling through for us. We're thinking he might take a job that's a little less than his expectations for now so that he can keep looking while bringing home a paycheck, besides he's starting to get cabin-fever hanging out with me all day :)

It shouldn't be long before I have some real news to report on the whole thing. Of course I'll make sure we have it all on paper first.

Welcome to Employment!!

Wow, its been a long time since I updated my blog. Sorry to leave you all with nothing but a post about baby cereal. How boring! I've got lots of fun stories to share with you though and I'll try to get those up soon.

The first of my new updates is for Kimball. Most of you know Kimball finished law school in May. Well, since then he has been diligently looking for a job with as little to do with law as he could find. On Friday he accepted an offer with Wells Fargo in Salt Lake as a Trust Officer. It sounds really great. From what I understand Kimball has a list of clients that already have a lot of money invested with the bank and he arranges trust funds for them while trying to get them to invest more money in Wells Fargo.

The job requires a lot of schmoozing and rubbing shoulders with successful people, so Kimball is pretty psyched about the whole thing. My mom is also thrilled that the job is in Salt Lake. Kimball and I just can't seem to get out of Utah no matter what our plans may be.

His official start day is Sept. 15th so we'll see then how it goes. So please, keep your fingers crossed for us and say a little prayer that things will work out. Love you all and keep a lookout for some new posts coming up.

Happy Birthday to ...Me!

Well, I've been 24 for a couple of weeks now and thought I'd make it official by, of course, putting it on my blog. So far its been great! Kimball and I went to the movies and out to dinner. I also bought myself some scrapbook stuff a while back for Kimball to give to me. Thanks sweetie!!

We also had a luau at my parents house to celebrate mine, my Aunt Ranee's, and my baby cousin Taya's 1st birthday. It was so much fun! My parents and Shelley can put together a great party. Somehow I managed to get stung by a bee, but after caking on some mud (which I don't think really worked) I felt better in a couple of days. Despite the crazy bee, it was a great day.

Baby cereal

This last week Jo started eating rice cereal. I can't believe she's 4 months old now. I feel bad, but I kind of put off starting her on cereal for a few days because it takes that much more effort than just a bottle. Now that its part of routine its not so bad though. She's learning fast, it only takes about 15 tries to get a spoonful in, rather than the 20 we started out with. :)

She sure is a sweetie though. Her personality is starting to come out more and she is so tender and sweet. She loves to be held and cuddled. The closer the better for Jocilyn, which is very different than how I remember Kaden. I love my little family, I get caught by surprise at how much we are growing and changing all the time.

LeBaron Reunion

Last weekend we went to the LeBaron Reunion here in Utah. It was a ton of fun seeing everyone. A bunch of Kimball's family showed up so it was like a mini Jones reunion too. This reunion was for the descendants of Kimball's grandparents on his mom's side. Can you believe that includes 503 people?! The descendants on my grandparents side is like 27 people. That's a big difference!

After 5 years of being a Jones I'm finally starting to get a few of Kimball's cousins sorted out, which made it that much more fun. We mostly played a bunch of games together. Some were Mafia (late into the night), and also a crazy game called Fresh (that I did not get at all). And what would a reunion be without a few crazy skits. Luckily, I was assigned to keeping my kids busy. I promise I didn't whine or beg, they just didn't want Jocilyn screaming or Kaden running around out of control (for once I was grateful Kaden can be a little wild sometimes). Kimball and Alvin were not so lucky, although they did a great job. But it does explain some of the stranger photos. And yes, Alvin is holding a plunger--hopefully new and unused.

Nerves

I don't know if any of you are keeping up with the Olympics, but I cannot go to sleep each night without my daily dose. The gymnastics competition is driving my crazy! The men's all-around is going on right now and I can't take the anxiety. I don't know what I'll do when the women go.

Closing a Chapter

As most of you know Kimball has been going to law school for the last three years and finally graduated in May. It was a really hard time for us, going in with such high expectations only to realize that law wasn't just something Kimball didn't enjoy, but it made him truly unhappy. Thankfully we made it through--hopefully a little wiser about who we are and the things we really need from life. I don't know if Kimball would admit to this, but law school really did teach us a few lessons. The old saying "money doesn't buy happiness" comes to mind. I know its cheesy, but that's the best I can explain it. Our plan was for Kimball to get a job out of law school doing the grunt work for a few years as almost all lawyers do then working our way up to partner. The pay would be good at the kind of firms Kimball had in mind, but for about 5-10 years we wouldn't see much of him. In the beginning we were willing to make the sacrifice. But the tough schedule law school requires gave us a glimpse at what that life would be like, and I'm glad to say we saw the error in our thinking. We also realized that the grunt work Kimball would have to do was, for Kimball, beyond tolerable for any length of time. Each summer during our internships I watched Kimball go in hopeful that a different perspective might show him something more appealing in the law. As time went on he became worn down and unhappy about everything to do with his work. It didn't take long to realize a fat paycheck would never be worth what this work did to him.

I hope I'm not depressing anyone too much. Good things happened for us in the last three years as well. We now have two beautiful healthy children and some close friendships we wouldn't have had otherwise. We are very grateful for these things.

We recently moved from Provo into my parents house while we get the job situation taken care of. I'm grateful to have married such a talented guy. We've had to look a little harder, but Kimball has come up with a few really good options doing things he should enjoy. Most of them have to do with finance and one with sales. Right now he's considering three different options: two are sure things if he wants to go that route and we're going through the interview process with the third. We hope in the next week or two to know what we'll be doing. I'm not going to go into detail about the jobs until I know which one he's chosen. They're all so different it would take too much time and this is already a ridiculously long post. Just letting you know what we're up to and that things look really good. I'll keep you up to date!

The Host

I just finished reading the host by Stephenie Meyer and thought I'd give you my two cents on the subject. It was great! I know some people were a little iffy on it, but I think they might of had the wrong expectations. First of all it is not a part of the twilight series, secondly its sci-fi, and third you have to get past the first four or five chapters to have any idea what's going on. That may not sound too promising, but I think if you have an open mind you'll love it as much as I did. Its also a good romance. I made the mistake of reading part of it aloud to Kimball until he started whining that nothing was happening, in his words "all they do is talk about their feelings." I promise its more exciting than that.

By the way, I'm getting so bored now that I don't have anything to read after the kids go to bed. Anyone know of a good book I should start reading now? Let me know if you've got any ideas.

Big Brother

Kaden is such a sweetheart. He has really started to warm up to Jocilyn. He does his best to help me take care of her, and for the things I wont let him help with he practices on his toys. Today I caught him "changing the diaper" on his stuffed lion, he used real wipes and everything. These are some pictures of Kaden taking care of a doll he found at Alvin and Amber's house. After their walk he had me put the baby to bed. I had to sing songs to it and everything, and boy did he get upset when he caught me looking at him while I sang. He turned my face to the doll and said "BABY!" I learned my lesson.

Draper Days

Saturday we went to the Draper Days parade with the whole Patterson clan. It was pretty hot, but we cooled ourselves off by eating candy. Yum! Kaden had a great time with all his cousins. Thanks everyone!

Rolling Over!

A couple days ago Jo figured out how to roll from her back onto her stomach. Boy was she mad when she realized all that work left her on her tummy!

Jones Reunion

Last week was the annual Jones Family Reunion. As always it was a blast. This year Kimball's sister Stephanie and her family hosted it in their home town of Sierra Vista, AZ. It was about a 14 hour drive each way, but we rented a minivan and carpooled with Alvin and Amber, so that made things more fun. I've decided I LOVE Minivans! It had so much room; I couldn't believe it.
The reunion was great; most of us stayed at a hotel near Steph and Darren's house, but we played at their house every night just about all night long. We had three days to play, not counting the days we drove. We had so much fun with the slip 'n slide, the pool, games, sharing stories, and of course a little mafia.
We love going to the reunion each year. Its a pretty big deal in Kimball's family with twelve siblings stretching from Oregon to New York and everywhere in between. Its hard to get together with everyone, but we all do our best. Thanks for all the work Stephanie, and hope to see everyone again next year.