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.

Nearly A Year

Ouch.  It breaks my heart a little to see how much time has gone by since my last post.  So many things have happened, I hate to think about all the cute moments I've completely forgotten and wont ever be documented.

I guess dwelling on all that is only so useful so lets move on to the good stuff.  Where do I start?

Probably the first thing you should know is we moved from Maryland and are back in the West.  Was this the plan?  Absolutely not!  I seriously doubt Kimball and I would have moved our family and everything we owned to live in Maryland for less than a year.  But as is the tendency when you're working for the military, surprises come up.  Some of them are things that are in your control and some of them are not.  In the end I'm glad we were there even though it meant a lot of moving stress and worry on Kimball and I, yet another school for Kaden, and having to say goodbye to so many good friends we made while there.  I think the experiences we had living in Maryland were bucket-list worthy!  I love that we were able to have those adventures as a family.  In those few months we made so many memories that Kaden at least will remember and the girls will look at through pictures and hopefully think its neat they were there.

One of our last big adventures in Maryland was a trip we took to Gettysburg with my parents.  Jocilyn was sick that morning so Kimball stayed home with her since he'd already been there during one of his military trainings.

Gettysburg was a great experience.  It was one of those things I couldn't see us not doing while we were back east.  We spent most of the time inside at the museum, which was really interesting.  Mostly I was trying to keep the kids from  being too loud and to explain why the different uniforms, guns, and everything else were interesting, but I think everyone enjoyed the experience.  After the museum we drove ourselves on a car tour to some of the different sites where the battle took place.  The whole area was beautiful.  It is sobering to think about how many people lost their lives there and what it must have looked like so long ago. I'm glad they've been able to turn it into such a peaceful and beautiful place for us to remember now.

Our official last adventure was back to D.C. where we went to the National Gallery of Art.  I know there are a couple of different ones in the National Mall, we went to the one without the modern stuff.  We wanted to see DaVinci, Van Gough, Monet and all those guys.

This was a terrifying and amazing experience!  Terrifying because we had the kids and to my surprise these paintings didn't have protection.  A couple had a little velvet rope in front, but most had nothing.  Try explaining to a five and six year old why they shouldn't smear their hands all over that thousand year old painting.  To be honest I don't know how these treasures have lasted as long as they have with so many people (and kids) being around them.  The kids were really funny.  When we walked through the statue gallery I heard Jo's squeaky little voice say "Kaden look, this guy's naked!"  Kaden then burst into laughter and from then on their favorite game in the room is to run around laughing at all the nakedness.  Needless to say we really killed the reflective mood they were going for in there.

On the flip side Kimball and I were completely awestruck when we weren't wrangling our kids.  You know that old board game Masterpiece?  My knowledge of art doesn't expand much further then what I remember from that game, but it was pretty surreal to walk through all these rooms recognizing my favorites from that game: aka. Little Dancer by Edgar Degas.  Sad I know.  There was about a month after the museum when I still remembered all my favorites and how they compared to each other that I considered myself informed on the whole deal, but that's gone now.  Why didn't I blog about this sooner then I would still feel smart when it came to art!

As it stands now I can only tell you how cool it was to see these famous artists side by side.  I knew I'd love Monet, because how can you not, but Rembrandt really stuck with me.  The DaVinci was pretty far off the most beautiful in my uninformed opinion, but I still think it's awesome that I got to see one.  The biggest surprise to me was how much I loved Van Gogh.  I never really got what made his stuff much better than some of the other great works of art until I saw it for myself.  After walking through room after room of famous and gorgeous artwork it was refreshing to walk into Van Gogh's room.  He really did things in a completely different way.  You've probably heard before that he used a lot more paint then was typical. Guess what!  He really did!  I sound ridiculous saying it like that, but seeing it in person was very cool for me.  This was a room I thought especially could have used to protection, though I'm glad it didn't.  I'm a grown adult and seriously had to talk myself out of touching his work.  It was so cool.

I should probably wrap up my career as an art critic now, but if you're going to D.C. anytime soon I highly recommend going to the National Gallery of Art--maybe without kids though.

That mostly wraps up Maryland for us, minus a few more blue crab nights, afternoons on the beach and Amish market visits.  I really miss their blueberry fritters by the way.

So many more things have happened this year.  It was seriously one of the most eventful ever.  I promise to write again soon and fill you in on the rest of our news (spoiler: new baby!)  Hopefully even add some pictures, but lets take baby steps as we get back into the swing of things.

A Little Jocilyn

I'm taking a short break from blogging for a bit, but I couldn't let myself forget this cute little Jocilyn moment:

For Thanksgiving my mom had all the family over for dinner.  My Aunt was chatting with Jocilyn and asked her what comes after Thanksgiving (expecting Christmas of course).   Jocilyn confidently replied "Black Friday!"

I'm not sure if I should be happy or sad over the response, but it definitely made me laugh.  I guess all the secret planning between me and my cousins wasn't as secret as I thought.

She knew we were pretty excited over it all, but had a hard time understanding why someone would spend a whole night at the grocery store.

New York, New York

One of our biggest adventures here in Maryland was a trip we took with the kids to New York City.  A couple of years ago Kaden heard about the "Big City" on Curious George and he has been obsessed with seeing it in person ever since.

For day one we drove to Pennsylvania and took the kids to Sesame Place.  Think of a small Disneyland with water rides and Elmo.  The kids of course had a great time and Jocilyn got to dance with Elmo which was pretty cute.

But enough of that, lets move on to New York!

That night we finished the drive to Staten Island and stayed at the Navy Lodge.  The next morning we rode the Ferry into Manhattan and began the real adventure.  Our first visit was to Ground Zero.  It was really beautiful!  They built these giant fountains where the twin towers used to stand, with the names of everyone who died on 9/11 engraved around the base.  The buildings they are putting up to replace the ones that fell are GINORMOUS  and very pretty.  I'm sure once they're finished the skyline is going to be amazing.

From  there we rode the subway to the Empire State Building.  With three young kids we really needed a stroller, but riding the elevator down to the subway was by far the worst part of the whole day.  Eww! Eww! Eww!

The Empire State Building was great.  There were almost no lines, although the observation deck was pretty crowded.  Kimball and I could have stayed up there for a while, but of course the kids were done in about two minutes.  One day they will think its cool that they got to be there and see all of that, but not today.  At least they better think its cool, I rode a subway elevator so they could be there for goodness sakes!

After that we had some genuine New York Pizza for lunch.  It was so funny to see the kids trying to wrangle these giant slices of pizza.  I love those kids!

By now Savannah was seriously tired of her stroller and pretty much tired in general so we figured we should start to wrap things up starting with a walk to Times Square (no more subways for me unless it was absolutely necessary).  Times Square was very loud and crazy and absolutely what I hoped New York would be, but we didn't stay long.

After one uncomfortable incident with the "Statue of Liberty" we walked our little clan to Grand Central Station.

We went here for one reason only:  Junior's Cheesecake.  Kimball and I are not exactly in the know when it comes to New York, but during a job interview a million years ago Kimball stumbled across this little slice of heaven.  We bought the largest Cheesecake we could find and high tailed it back to the subway.  Yes, getting back to the car in time to put Junior's Cheesecake on ice for the trip home was absolutely worth the health code violations of the subway elevator.  Though I am grateful none of us have come down with hepatitis since returning home.

To sum up it was the adventure of all adventures for our little family.  While I don't doubt Kimball and I would have seen and done more on just a couples trip, aka Broadway, I am so glad we took the kids with us.  For now Jocilyn's favorite experience was dancing with Elmo the day before, but Kaden was finally able to see the "Big City" and he has the blisters to prove it!

Jamestown

One of our adventures was Jamestown, Virginia.  We had such a great time and as always it was one of our absolute favorites.  We opted to stay overnight rather than take the 3 hour drive twice in one day.  The hotel was an absolute hole in the wall  because we were trying to save a few bucks.  The beds were hopefully clean though and in the end that's all we needed.  That afternoon we went to the Yorktown Victory Center.  We should have gone to Historic Yorktown, but I read a lot of reviews saying this nearby museum was a lot more interesting for children so we headed there first intending to swing by the real place later if there was time.

In case anyone plans on taking a visit, skip the Victory Center.  It was more of a "Day in the Life" of the 18th century American than anything about the Battle at Yorktown.  There were a few games for children which our kids loved, but I don't think any of us were too impressed.  Afterwards it was too late to go to Historic Yorktown, but that's alright this trip was mostly for Jamestown so we weren't too bothered.

The next morning we headed out to Jamestown and were not disappointed.  First of all it was absolutely BEAUTIFUL!  If I were trying to colonize a new country I would want to stop in Jamestown too, minus the swamp of course.

They had two museums explaining the history of Jamestown and also the archeological finds there.  Then we crossed a giant bridge taking us through the swamp land (no wonder so many early settlers died of disease) and into Jamestown.  Nearly all of the above ground structures have disappeared, but you can still see the foundations and they are excavating many of the cellars.  The only current above ground structure that dates back to the 1600's is the church tower.  I found this amazing!  The church itself dates back to the early 1800's and inside it is filled with plaques dedicated to some of the prominent figures that helped the colony succeed.

They also have a very pretty statue of Pocahontas that I made my kids pose with.  I did my fourth grade Great-Brain report on Pocahontas so we go way back, though I was surprised by a few of the details my fourth grade research overlooked:  Yes, John Smith claimed Pocahontas saved his life many times, but he got sick and was sent home to England to get better.  In his absence the relationship deteriorated with the Native Americans until a British settler kidnapped Pocahontas, who was already married to a brave from her tribe.  While being captive she converted to Christianity and married John Rolfe.  Apparently the kidnapping worked because after her marriage relationships got better.

I also have to give a quick shout out to John Smith and John Rolfe as well.  By all accounts Smith was even more amazing than Disney makes him out to be.  From mercenary, sailor, mutiny leader, captive, trades expert, prominent aristocrat, and explorer he covers just about everything.  Apparently historians used to believe his stories were too good to be true and discredited a lot of his adventurous accounts, but as time has gone by everything points to his stories being real.

As for John Rolfe, not only did he marry Pocahontas, but he was the one who started the tobacco industry in Jamestown, which basically saved the settlement.

 I know you must love it when I go into my history lessons!

Jamestown was especially cool because some of Kimball's ancestors were among the first settlers to the area.  They also helped settle a nearby island dubbed Hogs Island because they used it as a place to let the hogs live until they were needed for dinner.

Don't laugh!  Hogs island was also one of the main reasons Jamestown was settled.  The island obscures Jamestown from the Ocean.  Preventing any unwanted attention the British might get from the Spanish.  But it was mostly a place they kept the pigs.

On our way out we saw a glass blowing demonstration they do which was really neat.  That would be such a neat talent to have, but I don't think I have the patience to spend three years apprenticing the art, nor do I have a big enough oven.

We loved Jamestown.  The kids loved running around and Kimball and I loved the history.  It was a  win-win!