Christmas with the Jones'

Here's some pictures from our Christmas holiday.

The snowmen that Tracey built.

A view from my mom's window (for you Jill).

Krysten checking out the view. She loves to watch the horses and cattle out this window.

Daddy and Papa with the girls out at the corrals.

Kylee helping feed the horses.

How my children spend their Christmas. Watch out Uncle Mike!!!

Happy New Year

Christmas vacation is great! I love having two weeks off. We've survived Christmas and our living room looks like Toys 'R Us exploded. We had a great Christmas and we got to spend time with all the grandparents.

For Jill-- I tried to upload those pictures you've been waiting for...but after 10 minutes of waiting for it to load I x'd out of it. I have dial-up. I detest dial-up. Pictures will have to wait another week until I go back to work.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2009 is a great year for all. My new year's resolution is to start exercising. HAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA. It's a great thought.

Greetings from Quemado

We are in Quemado at the moment. We came to spend a few days with my parents at the ranch for Christmas. We will be returning to Silver on Christmas Eve. Yesterday Aaron and I left all the girls w/ Grama and Papa and went to Abq to finish our shopping and to enjoy a day away. We managed to enjoy a quiet lunch at Landry's and get most everything we needed.

This morning we woke up and there was about 2 inches of snow on the ground. The bad thing is that the wind has been blowing about a gazillion miles an hour. It's pretty miserable out there. I've been inside where it's warm blogging and facebooking. Tracey spent quit a while outside (surprise, surprise) and even built some snowmen. Kylee and Krysten spent a little bit of time outside, but not much. I would love to share all these pictures w/ you but my parent's 'puter doesn't recognize any external media...so now uploading of pictures. I'll do that when I get home.

Have a Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Pot of Gold.....not really.

When we got to Lordsburg this morning there was a gorgeous full rainbow over the town. (Not the usual pot of gold you would expect, especially if you are familiar with Lordsburg). Then a faint second full rainbow appeared. As we drove through town Tracey attempted to take pictures w/ my phone. When we got to the babysitter's I fished out my camera so she could take pictures with it while I was inside. I reviewed the pictures when I got to work and I found this video.

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum

Our big plans for the weekend were to get the tree, put it up and also put up Christmas lights. Well, we ended up buying a tree at the store (real, not fake) and scrapping the Christmas lights. The weather was so lousy it wasn't worth putting them up. Super windy all weekend. So I will just be happy admiring other people's lights.

We did manage however to get the tree decorated on Sunday. The little ones were fairly helpful and didn't break any ornaments or pull down the tree so I would consider it a success.

A follower!

Wow! I have a follower. I am so excited. Whomever you are, thank you., thank you!! It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy knowing that someone out there is actually reading what I write. To anyone else that reads my blog, I would love it if you became an official follower. Thank you so much! Have a great weekend everyone.

Seeing double

I know, I know.  I am reposting an old post but I thought ya'll would enjoy it. 


Aaron's dad brought over some old pictures the other day and as I was going through them I came across a picture of him and had to do a double take. OMG!! Krysten looks just like him! Same curly mohawk and everything! I just knew I had to share the picture with everyone. You guess which one is which.

Snow Day!!!

Living in Silver City and working in Lordsburg can sometimes be a big bummer, especially in the winter. Whenever it snows, Silver always gets a 2 hour delay or cancelled. Not so with Lordsburg. It rarely ever snows in Lordsburg and certainly not enough to warrant a 2 hour delay. So, when all our friends get to play in the snow, we always have to trek down to Lordsburg to go to school. Once upon a time, we got a snow day only because the road was closed. Oh happy, glorious day!!!

So yesterday morning when we woke up to our first snow storm of the season we were excited to see the snow (only about 3 inches), but still were planning on going to school. The girls got ready fast and had time to play before we left. About 10 minutes after we left we heard those magical, glorious words on the radio "Highway 90 to Lordsburg is closed!!!!" Cheers were heard throughout the Yukon!!! Oh yipppeee, snow day for us. We flipped a u-ey and headed for home.

A bunch of the kids in the neighborhood decended upon our house and they played outside in the snow for hours. Until slowly, each one got too cold to continue and would come inside where I had the fire going and hot chocolate waiting. Tracey of course, was the last one to come in, sometime in the afternoon. Kylee had a great time, but Krysten wouldn't let me put her down! This was her first real experience with snow (last year she was too little).

3 more weeks until Christmas vacation

Happy December to everyone! My goodness, I can't believe it's already December. Only 3 more weeks until Christmas vacation. Yes, this is my first day back from Thanksgiving vacation and I am already counting down until the next vacation.

Okay, an update on Tracey.... she gets to keep her tonsils for now. The doc said if she starts having trouble with them then he can take them out. Which is pretty much what I figured he would say.

But now her arm is really bothering her. For those of you who don't know, she has a hemangioma on her left forearm. It's an abnormal growth of your blood vessels. It's there when you're born and usually no body knows its even there. Last year her arm swelled up and was in a lot of pain. After an MRI and a visit to a specialist in Abq at UNMH she was finally diagnosed with the hemangioma. We go back for checkups on it every 6 months. If it starts to affect motor function them she will have to have surgery on it, but so far it's been okay.

But after she was recovering from her tonsils her arm started causing her lots of pain. We have our 6 month checkup this Friday so we'll see what they say.

Thanksgiving was great. We had family over at our house and had a great feast. On Wednesday Gina and her family spent the night on the way to Quemado so we took lots of pictures of the girls together. My little ones are finally getting to know her girls since they haven't been around. They moved to West Virginia right before Kylee was born. It's great to see them all together clowning around.

Strep Throat and Tonsilitis

That's been the story of my life this week. I think I might have mentioned before that Tracey was sick. Or maybe that was on facebook....

She missed school Friday and Monday due to a low grade fever, nothing major but it still made her feel yucky. At 5 am Tuesday Tracey woke up with a major sore throat so I took a peek in there with the flashlight and sure 'nuf...there were those tell-tale little white spots. So I took her to Urgent Care to get her going on antibiotics. (We saw the PA whom I DO NOT like, but I figured any monkey doctor could diagnose strep and give us some meds and send us on our way). Which is exactly what she did.

All was well....or so I thought. On Wednesday she wasn't any better and her tonsils were swelling rapidly. Finally she wrote me a note (since talking wasn't a pleasant experience) telling me she couldn't breathe and her tonsil felt like it was going to explode. Her tonsil had swelled so much it was touching the little thing that hangs down in the back of her throat. No wonder she couldn't breathe!! So off we go to Urgent Care--again. The PA (a different one thank goodness) was afraid that her tonsil was abscessed so they sent us the the ER.

At the ER they had to poke her 4 different times to get her IV in becuz she was so dehydrated. She was not a happy camper about that. Then we were sent for a neck CT to see if it was indeed an abscess. The results were negative thank God, becuz that would have meant a flight to Las Cruces.

So 6 hours later she was eventually released with instructions to follow up in Las Cruces with an ENT (ear, nose, throat) doctor. (the one in silver is "unavailable" meaning she's under investigaton and not allowed hospital privileges until it's over...wooooonderful). So we have an appointment next Tuesday to determine whether or not she gets to keep her tonsils.

After an emotional roller coaster ride that went from medi-vacing her out to being released that night I was completely exhausted when we got home. And guess who woke up in the middle of the night sounding sickly?...you guessed it...Kylee. I don't think I will return to work until December.

My poor neglected blog

I've had absolutely nothing to blog this week. The kids are behaving themselves (now I just jinxed myself) and haven't given me any cute tidbits to share.

My husband is a very happy man. He was disgusted with the fact that DirecTV offers all kinds of cool stuff to new customers but not to loyal customers. So he wrote them a letter and we ended up getting a new DVR receiver for free and Showtime for free. The guy came and installed it at 7 pm Tuesday night. (After having been scheduled to be there between 8-noon). Aaron has already recorded everything in sight. He even recorded some Rachael Ray stuff for me...which was very thoughtful. And now Kylee has Dora on demand. Now I might be able to keep up with ER. The only episode I saw this season was when Dr. Pratt died..."sniff", "sniff".

Tracey is home sick today so Aaron stayed home with her and kept the little ones. He's even gonna keep them tonight while I go to a party. Kudos to him.

I am now on Facebook. That thing is like crack...it is so addicting. I joined and within 15 minutes I had 4 friends. I look forward everyday to see how many new friends I have. I am going to have to quit my job becuz I simply don't have the time to blog and facebook! OMG! I might even have to get internet on my phone to support my habit! I've got a serious addiction going on. Pretty soon you are gonna see me on that show called "Intervention" on A&E.

Have a great weekend everyone! See you on facebook!

Weekend antics

I'm back. Our server was having issues but they've got it working now. I was going thru withdrawals not being able to check my blogs. Here are some pictures from the weekend.

















Kylee blowing out her candles.

all the kids were riding the motorcycle and 4-wheeler

self portrait. what happens when a 3 year old gets the camera.

"look mom!, I painted my toenails by myself."

helping daddy in the yard

Birthday Girl

Happy Birthday Kylee!!!

It's her 3rd birthday today.

(pay no attention to the wild hair, she hates to get her hair done and i only fight that battle on Sundays)

"we are going to boat?"

Ahhh... election day. At long last the phone calls will stop and I will no longer have to throw away an entire forest of political flyers.

So on the way home yesterday I told kylee that we were going to vote when we got back to Silver City.

Then she kept asking me "are we going to see fishies?" What?!?...fishies. Where on earth does she think we'll see fishies? Hello! We live in the desert.

Then it finally dawned on me after about 30 minutes that she was saying "boat" instead of "vote!" I get it now.

"No honey, no fishies, but we might see an army tank!" (Yes a tank, our new voting precinct was at the national guard armory.)


Okay, I must confess...I have an addiction. To these blasted blogs. I only follow one, but then I click around and randomly read a bunch of others. Come on people, I've got to get some work done at some point!

To my one devoted follower.... I apologize for not blogging yesterday.

Pebbles & Bam Bam

We survived the Halloween weekend! The girls each managed to win a cake at the cake walk at the carnival so lucky us, we have cakes galore at our house! Not to mention all that candy. I will confess, I hid Kylee's candy in hopes that she forgot about it. It worked...mostly. Anyway, here's the best pics from the carnival. Enjoy!

Happy Halloween and all that...

I know you have just been dying to know what antics Krysten has been up to.

Last Sunday while we were grilling burgers for lunch I hear my UFC watching husband yell from the front porch "she's got the cat in a rear-naked choke!". So of course I ran for the camera.

Okay...about the Wilma costume... well...remind me again about being a cheapskate. I'm thinking that it might have been okay to buy my costume.

This costume saga has become a major headache. After I sewed it together last night it looked more like maternity Wilma. The dress was HUGE!!! I could still fix it if I had the time or the patience. Neither of which I have right now. So my Pebbles will go to the halloween carnival mother-less. Well, maybe Wilma-less anyway.

Not only was it about 6 sizes too big (blasted pattern sizing), but it had chocolate ice cream spots all over it. The little girls had chocolate ice cream cones last night and Krysten ended up standing on the table. Since I am not lucky enough to have my own sewing room, I improvise...the kitchen table. Yes, the same table my melted ice cream cone-bearing child was standing on. There was ice cream all over everything!!! There's always next year, right?

There is a halloween carnival here at school so Tracey wore her costume to school. I just took some pictures of her in the hallway. She refused to smile since there were other people around. I guess your mom taking your picture at school is embarassing enough, but to smile while she's doing it...that's just too much to bear.

i think she's a samurai princess.

Happy Halloween to all of you!!!

A little mud is good for the soul

Once again I have forgotten my camera. Hey, give me a break... do you leave your house every morning at 6:30 after having slept on the floor in the living room next to your 18 month old cuz she won't sleep in her crib by herself and you don't fit in the crib so you pick the next best place? Ha...didn't think so!

Anyhoo... I found this picture on my computer and I thought I would share it with you. It was taken this summer at the Ranch (my parents house). It was raining and the girls started out by dashing out into the rain. Then of course their feet got muddy....pretty soon they were both rolling around in the mud puddles! I think all kids need to play in the rain in the mud at some point. It's the stuff great childhood memories are made of. We won't mention the three days it took me to get their clothes clean!!

Halloween costume update.... hmmm....no update. We'll see how things go tonight. Why oh why do I get bright ideas to SEW the costumes instead of BUY costumes? Why, why, why????? Maybe it's cuz I'm cheap and don't want to spend $25-40 each on Halloween costumes! Yes, maybe that's it.

At last I have returned. My children have each taken turns at being sick so I've missed a bunch of work this week. I will spare you of the details. Unfortunately my Internet at home is screwed up and I haven't taken the time to sit down and fix it, so I had to wait until I got to work to blog. I did however manage to get most of my laundry done that I neglected to do over the weekend. But alas, I have returned to work.

I had a great picture over the weekend of Krysten holding the cat in another choke hold, but of course I forgot the camera at home. So that picture will have to wait until another day. I will say however, that I've managed to finish the kids' halloween costumes (hence why no laundry was done over the weekend) and Kylee has decided to be Pebbles, cuz she's all about wearing a bone in her hair. Now my costume on the other hand...well, we'll see if I can get it done by Friday.

Thank you to all of you who have been reading my blog....it makes me feel so loved. Bookmark me and keep coming back....we love having visitors!!!

Jersey Day

from tracey...
...xoxoxo hi told u there was going to be a pic of me in my jersey! o thanks for the message might want to check out the ones of kylee and krysten! mom is sad cause i got a comment on the 1st day i wrote and put a pic on the blog, and she doesn't have any comments! but it was cool. O did i tell u that its friday no school tomorrow! can't wait!.............wait, school's out i don't need to wait! bye.

Crazy Hat Day

from tracey...
...it was crazy hat day at school and thats the crazy hat i wore. it was really fun. my friends and i had a great time trading hats. someone had a raccoon hat it was cool to wear! hope u have a happy halloween! O before i forget, tomorrow is jersey day its going to be so fun...we'll send a pic. bye

Yesterday Krysten spent some "quality" time with the cat. Amazingly enough the cat didn't really try to run away. From inside I could hear her squealing and laughing...she had a blast holding onto the cat. I'm not sure how much fun the cat had since right after I took this picture he ran off and hid underneath the porch. I think he'd had enough.

Here are some pictures from our trip. Most of them are from Explora, the children's museum. The snake picture is when Debra fed her snake.

Well, no Balloon Fiesta this year. When we woke up at 4 am on Sunday, the winds were pretty high and they ended up cancelling the final mass assension for this year. We did however get to see a few balloons over Debra's house on Monday morning. The girls were quite excited to get to finally see a balloon in the air! We did make it to Explora, the Children's Museum. Everyone had a great time with all the experiments and activities they got to try.

We came home thru Quemado and met Grama Maggie and Papa Rick for lunch. We also got to hang out and visit with various other family, including those visiting from Washington, so that was good to see them.

I would like to note here that I am not responsible for Grama Lucy's actions. She tried on Tracey's heely's (only one shoe thank goodness) and actually got up and tried to wheel around the kitchen. I thought for sure that we were gonna have to call the ambulance. Senior citizens were not meant to have wheels on their feet!!! Don't blame me when Grama breaks a hip!

Hello from Albuquerque! We came up for the Balloon Fiesta for the weekend. We are going to be on the chase crew for the Smokey Balloon. We got up at 3:30 this morning and met our pilot at 5 am. We loaded up and drove out to the park but the winds were too strong and we didn't get to fly. The wind was 50 to 55 miles an hour at 2500 feet, but the fireworks will still go on tonight. (We might go to the science museum or the aquarium! We r having so much fun. (from Tracey)).

Meanwhile, Debra and Tracey have been hanging out and she showed Tracey how to make a bead necklace.















Keep your fingers crossed for good weather tomorrow morning...it's the last day of the Balloon Fiesta!!!

All is well in the Jones household. No one took any major tumbles or had any accidents over the weekend. The scrapes on Krysten's nose have healed and we're ready to move on. We did however have some minor mishaps. Friday I went home early because I was sick. Since going home early involves taking all 3 children home with me, I had Tracey watch the two little ones while I slept. When I woke up both Krysten and Kylee had taken Tracey's blue highlighting sticks for her hair and colored all over their faces!!! My children had turned into blue smurfs while I slept....(hmm...note to self....DON'T SLEEP!!!)

On a note about Halloween....I had planned for Kylee and Krysten to be Pebbles and Bam Bam, however....Kylee wants to be Bam Bam because he's a boy, (he also has white hair not red) so we'll see how that works out. We might have a mixed up Pebbles and Bam Bam for Halloween. I will definitely post pictures of the girls.

Hasta la Pasta!!

I swear, Krysten is going to be the child who we will make lots of trips to the emergency room with. Her latest escapade was driving her little tricycle off our porch steps. I looked around just in time to see her flip over the tricycle and take a face plant on the sidewalk. Poor baby! She has scrapes on her sweet little nose and a swollen lip, but other than that she seems to have survived her first encounter with wheels and stairs fairly well.

Welcome!!!

I've finally done it!! I've started my own blog. My intent is to use it as a way for friends and family to keep up to speed on what we've been up to. Or rather, what my children have been up to.