Tag archive for "venturing out"

Eliot

Eliot’s First Week of Kinder, The First Walk, Boot Camp Update and Other Random Notes

5 Comments 30 August 2009

I just wanted to give a quick little update on all of the happenings of last week since, as we have become accustomed, everything has changed about our days and once again we have a “new normal.”

Eliot Begins Kindergarten…The biggest change this week involves the little princess, Eliot McKenna, who started Kindergarten on Monday, which, with this being our first experience with having a child in public school, apparently changes just about everything in the rest of a family’s life! Here are the highlights:

– Eliot LOVES just about everything to do with going to big girl school…except getting out of bed at “night”! She is not used to getting out of bed before the sun comes up and on the first day of school as we were preparing her breakfast and getting her ready to go, she asked, “why are we doing morning stuff at night?!” Hilarious!
– Talk about loving the whole experience: as she crossed the street with the help of a crossing guard for the first time, she exclaimed, “That was totally awesome!”
– She loves PE, but is really looking forward to going to the library, which didn’t happen last week for some reason. Hopefully this week she’ll get to go!
– She is also not a fan of the 30 count rule at the swingset…each kid on the swings has to count to 30, then let the next kid go after that. Obviously, that is not a popular rule!
– She is all about riding her Razor (scooter) to and from school every day like all of the other big kids…too cute!
– On Tuesday, before she discovered the Razor phenomenon, she wore her new tennis shoes which, according to her, make her run really, really fast. I’m not kidding when I tell you that little girl sprinted the entire way to and from school that day to show how fast she was!!

The First Walk…We finally took our first walk today with the whole gang, something we’ve been looking forward to for quite awhile now. Casey, Eliot, and I used to take pretty regular walks around the neighborhood, but have had to put those on hold since Casey went on bedrest nearly a year ago. For whatever reason, we decided today was finally the day to get the babies out on the road for a little stroll. I don’t know if it was the heat or the newness of being in a stroller or if that little demon that shows up in our house from time to time to torment us, but the babies did not enjoy the experience one bit! You’ll notice in the picture above that four out of five are very eagerly expressing their displeasure with this whole walk idea! There was at least one baby crying…no, check that…screaming is a better word for it…the entire time we were out there and usually it was two or three that were…uh, yeah, SCREAMING!! Regardless of that, I’m glad we got them out there and knocked another first off of the list…maybe we’ll wait for cooler weather before we try that one again!

Boot Camp Update…I am very happy to report that we have logged significant victories in the battle for house control! The babies are just no match for the classical music, the soft, cuddly sleep sacks, the warm, frothy goodness of a bottle of formula, many talented baby-helpers, and two very determined parents!! For much of the month of August, we have managed to get them all down no later than 9:30, with at least two of the babies (one of them is always Britton, Baby Bright Eyes) getting up in the middle of the night for a little snack bottle. But for the last three days it’s been closer to 8:30 with only Britton getting up. It may be too early to stake this claim, but, what the heck, VICTORY IS SWEET!!!

And finally, a couple of random notes. Britton is the first to be able to sit up without any help…see the picture! She’s awesome…doesn’t even do the baby-forward-lean to do it! We now feed them all cereal two times a day, mixed with green beans for dinner…hmmm, yummy! Jack and Ryan are not fans of the cereal, but Lila loves it and the two B’s, Brooklyn and Britton are pretty ok with it all. Actually, Ryan the Lion pretty much screams her entire way through her bowl of cereal!! Ryan seems to have all of the necessary skills for doing a real crawl, but hasn’t figured out how to coordinate it all just yet. She’s soooooo close!! Last note: I begin school again tomorrow so say your prayers that I’ll somehow remember how to juggle this madness once again!!!

God Bless,
Ethan

The Fab Five

Baby Dedication…Pics and More!

2 Comments 19 August 2009

Wow, the baby dedication was AWESOME!! We had a great time finally getting our whole clan out in public and introducing them to the Riverbend family! The babies were out of the house for about four hours and did absolutely wonderfully! No fussiness, no blowouts or blow-ups, no spit-ups on their beautiful outfits, and no drama…excellent! All five of them even took a little nap between the two services! My lady was looking AMAZING as the pictures can attest and Eliot, aside from hiding behind me the entire time we were on stage during the second service, was a perfect little angel! It was a great day with lots and lots of family, loads of friends, and tons of well wishers and good vibes from our church family!!
I also have to mention that the entire weekend was made so amazing by several of our baby helpers who pitched in extra time to allow us to take Eliot to Fiesta Texas and also to take much of the burden of entertaining family off of our shoulders. We had several folks who helped out with the babies while we were out of town, one fine lady named Farrah, aka Rah-Rah!, who rallied up several of her friends to cover the whole day on Saturday, and two tireless helpers, Renee and Pam, who cooked a Saturday night dinner and a late Sunday brunch for our entire family!! Additionally, Riverbend went out of their way to put together a slide show for the services and sing a special song – “Let Them Be Little” – as the slideshow played. I’m trying to find some good video to upload so I’ll let you know if I’m able to do that. Thank you to everyone who helped make it such a special day!!
You can also follow this link to see some pictures from Grandpa’s camera:
God Bless,
Ethan
Ok, I decided after I posted this that I needed to add a few more details about the trip to San Antonio. So we walked every square inch of the Riverwalk, literally, and did our fair share of sweating. We actually did a pretty horrible job of doing the Riverwalk thing…we walked from one end to the other and decided it was time to eat after we were way too far from the good restaurants to walk back. Then we decided to go grab the car and drive around and find a restaurant. After driving around awhile and not finding any restaurants we parked again and walked a whole lot more before realizing we were exactly where we had started – on the Riverwalk, a long way from good restaurants…long walk, decent food, bad margaritas (we sent them back – who has ever heard of doing that on the Riverwalk?!), but still a great night!
Six Flags Fiesta Texas was totally awesome! That place is really, really cool! We did all of the rides that Eliot was allowed to do, saw a couple of shows, played some games (she won the Supergirl cape she’s wearing in her tough-girl pose above), then hit the water park to cool off. Excuse me, did I say Eliot? I meant, Little Miss Fearless! There was not an ounce of fear in her body as we hit the roller coasters – flips, turns, twists, and loops – she loved it all! I swear, if you’ve never experienced Six Flags in that way, do yourself a favor – go out and grab the first five-year-old that you can find, hit the park with no agenda, and put the little one in charge of the day’s activities…you’ll have the time of your life!! At least, that is, until the little one has a meltdown because she is over-tired, over-stimulated, and a little over-heated, which for Eliot hit around 6 pm. After about a ten minute nap, she was ready to go again so we left the park, hit the restaurant for some refueling, then stopped by the ice cream shop before heading back to the hotel for the night. Good, good, good times!!!

Good Times

Baby Dedication This Sunday…(after our mini-vacation to Six Flags)!!!

2 Comments 13 August 2009

Alright, the original three are headed south again for another mini-vacation. Casey, Little Miss Sunshine, and I are headed to San Antonio in about one hour to begin our trip!! We are headed to the Riverwalk tonight for some good mexican food, a couple margaritas, and a good amount of sweating in the August heat. Tomorrow, Six Flags Fiesta Texas is the destination for some roller-coaster riding, water parking, and more sweating in that danged ol’ August heat!!! We come back Saturday to a house full of babies, volunteers, and grandmas and grandpas (and hopefully escape that crazy Texas heat)!! Thank you to Tricia and the Harrison family along with all of the incredible “helpers” (that’s what Eliot calls the baby volunteers) who are making this trip possible!!!!

And then the big event, the moment we’ve been waiting for since it was scheduled in early June – the babies’ dedication to the church happens this Sunday! I cannot begin to express how excited we are about this day!! Not only will it be our first real venture out into public with the entire family, it will be the Fab Five’s first appearance at Riverbend Church which has been such a strong supporter of our family during this incredible time. We will all be up onstage for both services, 9:45 and 11:15, along with our superstar volunteer, Tricia Harrison, to introduce the family. The service will also include a couple of cool little extras prepared by the Riverbend staff…very exciting!!!!!

I feel a little bit out of place (in other words, a little girly) commenting on this next aspect of the day, but I have to mention what the babies will be wearing for the big show. A high school friend of Granda Bill’s, Beth Lewallen, made dresses for the girls and a suit for Jack out of Casey’s wedding dress…seriously, that is really cool!! The dresses are absolutely adoreable, Jack will be looking totally dapper, and I am pumped because I no longer have to lug that silly dress around every time we move!! Ok, really, what a great idea! On top of that, she included a monogrammed handkerchief for all of the babies – and one for Eliot, too – to be worn in their own weddings…like 40 years from now! And then on top of that she also made a pillow out of the gown’s bodice to be used to by the ring bearers in each of their weddings…which will all happen at least a year or two after I am dead and gone!! Huge, GINORMOUS thank yous to Beth for doing this for us!!!!!

So come on out for a wonderful, happy time in celebration of these five little miracles as we dedicate them to the care of the church and as we dedicate ourselves to raising them up in a Christian home! We loved the experience of doing this for Eliot when she was a baby and really value the symbolism and importance that this event will hold in our lives as a family!!

God Bless,
Ethan
http://www.joneslife.net/

Good Times

The Original 3 Head South

Comments Off on The Original 3 Head South 12 July 2009

Here are a few pics from our mini-vacation July 2nd and 3rd. We had a blast playing in the sand and the surf (though I think Eliot preferred the hotel pool) then cooled off later taking in Ice Age 3 – Dawn of the Dinosaurs in 3d. It was great to get a small taste of what our life used to be like before diving head first back into reality on the 4th!!

God Bless,
Ethan


© 2013 JonesLife. Powered by Wordpress.

Daily Edition Theme by WooThemes - Premium Wordpress Themes