Jocilyn

My sweet Jocilyn.  Where do I begin?

Jocilyn is growing up faster than I imagined she would.  She just started the 1st grade and even with the added freedom having two children in full day school gives me, I miss her being home.  She is a great sister. Most of the time she and Kaden have nothing but fun with each other and she is amazing with her little sister and brother.  She has helped me out countless times when the baby needed someone to play with or Savannah needed help brushing her teeth.

Jocilyn is a great shopping companion.  At the grocery store she loves to help me pick the fruit and vegetables.  She gives me ideas on what to make for dinner, and is overall a lot of fun to shop with.

Not to mention her amazing sense of style!  Jocilyn loves to mix and match her clothes in different ways and usually has at least 3 clothing changes a day.  She's not at all shy about giving her opinion either.  Luckily nothing too embarrassing has resulted from her confidence,  but I ask her regularly if she likes my outfit or how my hair looks in the back.  She almost always gets it right so its kind of fun having another girl's perspective even if the source is 6 years old.

Socially Jo has a lot of fun.  Her best friend lives across the street and the two of them could happily spend every day together if school didn't get in the way.  At school Jo has many friends and is loving building those relationships.  Everyday she has stories to tell me about what they did at recess or the funny thing someone did.

Lately Jo has been taking Gymnastics and dance lessons.  They are so much fun for her and she's so tiny and limber its hard to not imagine she could be really good at it with some practice.  Practice is the tricky part. She is naturally pretty good at a lot of things she's had to learn so far: gymnastics, dance, reading, you name it.  So at the onset she is excited and happy to learn anything new.  Its when the harder stuff comes along and she has to put in real effort and focus that is a struggle.  Still, she is slowly learning how to work hard and why its worth it.  Kimball and I are very proud of her.

She is creative, confident and incredibly sweet.  When I see her she just makes me smile.  Not long after Jocilyn turned 5 I started to realize she was becoming less and less of a little girl and more of a beautiful young girl.  It sounds like an insignificant difference, but trust me, it is there and it matters.  Its been equally painful and wonderful to watch this transition, but I guess that's a part of parenting Kimball and I are just learning about with her and Kaden.

Kaden

I'm struggling to decide just how to get caught up on my blog after so much has happened and well, things just keep happening.  I'm going to try and write a post about each of the kids to basically sum up how things are going for that particular rugrat.  Wish me luck!

Because of the somewhat transient status our family had for the last few years Kimball and I have had a little extra concern for Kaden and the affects so much moving and uncertainty would have on the little guy.  I always worried a little more for him simply because he was older.  The boy hasn't started 3rd grade yet and has been enrolled in 6 different elementary schools, one of them twice!  He learned early how hard it is to say goodbye to people.  I'm happy to say he also learned how fun it is to make friends though!  He definitely got nervous every time he had to start at a new school, but he always come home telling me about the fun kids he had met.  I'm so thankful Kimball and I seem to have put things in place now before he gets any older.  He is finally having the chance to have a best friend for more than just a few months and to not always be the one who leaves.  Just before second grade was over his best friend moved away.  Kaden was heartbroken.  He cried himself to sleep for a few nights and talked about him for weeks.  Even now, months later, Kaden talks about what a good buddy he was and how much he misses him.  He told me one night that it was harder to watch a friend move away than to be the one to leave.  That broke my heart a little too. Kaden is such a good and sweet kid.  He feels so much emotion and doesn't always know what to do with it, somewhat explaining his need to tackle his own team mate at baseball practice.  Oh yes, he did.

Kaden with his best buddy Aidan at his 8th birthday party

Kimball tells me Kaden reminds him a lot of himself when he was that age.  Very sensitive to what is going on around him and just wanting the world to make sense, but not knowing what to do when it doesn't.  This actually makes me happy.  I would love for Kaden to grow up to be like his dad one day, though hopefully with a few less fist fights and visits to the principal's office if you don't mind.

Kaden is such an awesome kid!  He turned eight at his last birthday.  Wow!  How did that happen?  We celebrated with a Halloween themed birthday party, with costumes, candy, and capture the pumpkin (it was a big hit).  Just a couple weeks later Kaden was baptised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  I am so proud of him!  I know he is only starting to understand what it means to have faith and believe in Jesus Christ, but he really wants it and is full of questions to help him better understand.  It was a little extra special in that we had a lot of family in town for the baptism.  Grandma and Grandpa Patterson, Aunt Mo, and Aunt Ranee were all in town for the special day.  He probably doesn't appreciate how wonderful it was to have them there, but I sure loved it.  It was a great reminder that just because we don't live in Utah any more our family is willing to go the extra mile, or in this case 300 miles to support us in these big moments.

Kaden played his first season of baseball this year.  He absolutely loved it!  He improved a lot during the season and was able to get a hit in just about every game.  He's going to try flag football in a couple months, but I'd be surprised if baseball doesn't come back on his radar next spring.  Not to mention he was the cutest Dodger I've ever seen!

As you can see Kaden has stayed pretty busy.  To top it off he joined Cub Scouts just after turning 8 last year.  I knew Kaden would go nuts for Cub Scouts.  He loves all the social interaction and fun activities they do.  Every Wednesday he begs me to be late picking him up so he can have more time to play basketball or dodgeball with the other boys as they're waiting to be picked up.  The cherry on top of cubscouting is of course the pinewood derby and boy did Kaden love that.  If any of you Joneses are reading this do yourself a favor and call Warren if you ever need a derby car.  After about a 30 minute phone conversation Kaden and Kimball were able to build a slick little car.  Kaden's car easily came in first in every race it ran.  I wish you could have seen how awesome it was for Kaden.  After every race his excitement just kept getting bigger and bigger.  I thought his eyes were going to pop out!  He was a good sport though.  He was asking the other kids all about their cars and did his best not to rub it in.  It was a pretty fun night, but boy did we set the bar high for his first pinewood derby!  We'll see how next years goes.

To sum it all up Kaden is just about as good as it gets when it comes to eight year old boys.  He's incredibly bright and loves to learn new things about the world and just about anything he can think of to ask about.  He is a great big brother who tries hard to reason with his younger sisters when they aren't following the rules and is very patient when he's forced to watch Barbie and My Little Ponies when his sisters get to pick the television show.  He loves to help out on fun "building" projects like hanging the tv on the wall and changing out light switches and has been known to make a box or two of Macaroni and Cheese to serve to the family at dinner time.  I love this guy with all my heart!

Wes Alexander Jones

One year ago the family and I moved to Las Vegas, Nevada.  Kimball had been working down here for a few months already, but I stayed in Utah with the kids until things looked a little more certain.  No point in uprooting yet again unless the job and everything else were really going to happen, right?

Kimball was working part time for a law firm while studying to take the Nevada Bar.  By February 2013 things looked to be fitting into place so long as Kimball passed the test so we decided it was time to bring the kids down and make Vegas our home.  We found a nice house to rent in a great ward.  Everyone seemed really happy with everything other than being a little sick with flu , cold and whatever other germs always find their way to our door in winter.  Unfortunately for me I couldn't quite shake being sick.  Not the sitting by the toilet all day sick, just feeling from sun up to sundown that you wish you could throw up.  This was eerily familiar to my first three pregnancies so I decided to take the test and wouldn't you know it I was having a baby!

This was by far the biggest baby surprise we've had.  Kimball and I weren't trying not to have a baby, but hadn't quite decided to throw our hat in the ring yet either, if you know what I mean.  We were both a little nervous about all the changes a fourth baby would bring to our family, but at the same time so excited!  How do you not love a baby?  I was especially happy to know I didn't have the eternal flu bug.

The day of the ultra sound was also the day Kimball found out if he passed the Bar.  It was a very big day full of nerves and excitement.  We went in for the ultrasound and saw our beautiful little boy for the first time.  He was wonderful!  On our drive home Kimball got word that he had passed the Bar.  Our lives had completely changed in two amazing ways within just twenty minutes!  How can two people cope with so much to be grateful for?  We decided on ice cream.

A couple of weeks later I was informed that the ultrasound had in fact found a small abnormality.  In one of the walls of the baby's heart their was a spot.  They had me go in for a more detailed ultrasound to make sure everything was okay.  I was so nervous.  After three healthy babies I had kind of taken for granted the fact that this one would be healthy as well.  After the second ultrasound the doctor concluded the babies heart was as strong and perfect as could be, and as for any other complications they were unlikely, but we wouldn't know for certain until after delivery.

I was so nervous.  For weeks I was terrified.  All I could do was pray and hope for all to be well.  After some time the excitement started to overtake the fear and I felt that at the very least with the Lord's help Kimball and I could handle it.

On September 12th I started having irregular contractions.  I had had a doctor's appointment that day and he said I might have the baby over the weekend!  It wasn't until Kimball got home that night that we realized if I had the baby that night he wouldn't have to go in for drill that weekend!  And if we timed things well the baby would be born on Friday the 13th!  Not only as cool a day as they come, but it was also Kimball's parent's 50th anniversary.  The decision was made.  Now we just needed the baby to cooperate.  That night was filled with salsa, squats, lunges and walking.  Ever so slowly my contractions became more regular until at about midnight we were ready to go to the hospital!


As has become tradition with our children, just because we were ready to be admitted to the hospital did not mean we were ready to deliver a baby.  Until after one strong epidural and many hours of waiting the doctor said we were ready.  It was a little funny to see him again so soon.  He was surprised too, but did an amazing job.  The umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby's neck twice, which may have explained why things took so long to progress, but Dr. Romero handled everything perfectly.  At 12:51 in the afternoon Wes Alexander Jones was born kicking and screaming.  What a relief to see that perfect baby boy.  He truly was absolutely perfect.

It is such a blessing to be a mother.  I loved him so long before I saw him, but to see and hold him for the first time is indescribable.

As for his name Kimball has always liked the name Wes, not Wesley so much, but Wes.  I was on the fence until we started thinking about middle names.  Wes is our first child not named after someone in our family, not that we didn't have an amazing pool of people to choose from, but at the time Kimball had been reading some books about America's founding fathers one of them being Alexander Hamilton.  Each night we would talk for hours about what an amazing man he was.  He was intelligent, honest, and compassionate.  Not perfect, but he did want to be a good man.  It was so sad to us that most of history remembers him for other things, when he was such a key piece in making America great.  Wes isn't solely named after Alexander Hamilton, their are many Alexanders through history who have done courageous and amazing things and we liked the idea of our baby carrying that with him.  Also it just sounded really good.

To wrap things up.  I love our baby Wes.  His big brother and sisters are completely crazy about him.  Its adorable to see Savannah sneak up to Wes to give him a hug and a kiss.  Jocilyn is his second mother and he loves it.  Kaden can't wait to start teaching him all sorts of things, to my horror Kaden's favorite thing is to practice walking with Wes, though he still doesn't crawl.  And Kimball just loves him completely.  Our lives have been completely turned upside down, but most days it just feels like this is the way the world should be.