Our Little Chef

This year Alyssa asked if we would enroll her in some cooking classes. So after a little searching I found The Young Chefs Academy located in Draper, UT. For those of you who know where we live this can be a journey especially since they offer the class at 6 at night and we have to drive on I15 in 5 o'clock traffic to get there it takes almost an hour and a half to get there. But she loves it! She has so much fun and the teachers their are wonderful! This particular night they made Belgian waffles with chocolate syrup and homemade whip cream it was YUMMY! They even have classes for adults. I totally recommend it! Enjoy~

New Blog

I have finally after months of prodding from Ron made a blog for just the pictures I take. I love photography and it will be great having it all in one place and this can again become stricktly our family blog! I hope you will check it out!

www.emilyejones.blogspot.com


Enjoy!!

Baby Mason

This sweet little guys is baby #3 for one of my favorite cousins. I had asked her early on in her pregnancy if I could bring my camera stuff over and play when he arrived. It was a lot of fun to see her and their families new addition. I think he looks just like his big brother but with brown
hair. Congrats Steph and Barry! ENJOY!!

Do you think someone is a little mad?

What the HECK!

Okay I have never proclaimed to be mother of the year OR for that matter a good house keeper but I try, really I do! So maybe I am up in the night by asking my kids to clean their rooms after school but hey I do it...am I breaking any child labor laws? I think not.

SO today a friend called me today and asked me if she could borrow some pirate stuff we had from a Halloween costume a few years back for a pirate party at her little boys pre-school. I felt all proud of myself in that moment when she asked because I knew what I was after was in 1 of 2 places. Option A) the dress up box in Avery's room or Option B) the Halloween stuff in the garage. I figured I would go check the dress up box first since the Halloween stuff was on a high shelf in the garage.

So picture this...Cicily 1952....JUST KIDDING... I think I am a tad punchy tonight and if you didn't get that GOLDEN GIRLS...HELLO~

Okay so really picture this I go haul my buns upstairs in my what Ron refers to as my "House Wife Uniform" AKA P.J.'s and open Avery's closet where the dress up stuff should be. Let me rewind to earlier in the week and the whole child labor law thing. I do require my kids to do chores....I know the nerve huh? So I of course had been in Avery's room every day that week and I would classify it as "picked up" but not really "clean" but she is 6 right so am I really expecting miracles? Of course not. But I do require them to give it their best shot.

FLASH FORWARD back to today at 10:00 a.m. I open up her closet and.......I almost SWORE because there was so much stuff crammed into that side of the closet. I think I just stood there contemplating if I should run for my life or attempt to dig through this mess. I decided to dig...no wonder the girl never has any socks to wear in the morning or shoes to put on her feet...I am surprised she didn't have a family of mice living in her closet with all the half eaten granola bars. IT WAS DISGUSTING!!! So I find what I need to find and get the heck out of there.

Later that day my sweet little 6 year comes home and I address this issue at which time she replies to me "I wondered how long it was going to take you to figure out I stuck all that stuff in there." BIG SMILE. Please let me add to this once a month I help my kids clean their room, really clean it. We had just done this the week before Christmas it sparkled like the lights on my tree. And now it looks like a dump after a tornado and an 9.2 magnitude earthquake. I was not pleased.

So we head up to the disaster area right after I give everyone a tetanus shot and get started. Did you know that I found one of those cups with the pop top lids in her toy box with orange juice in it....orange juice. Did you know that if you leave orange juice in one of those cups for I am not sure the amount of time but we will say a monthish since that is the last time I helped her into her haz-mat suite to clean her room. Any way it will explode when you open the lid. It hit my ceiling and me in the eye and the wall and than landed back on the carpet. I then had to scrub all of the previously described surfaces. That made me even happier about the whole thing.

There was stuff crammed EVERYWHERE! If there was a corner or a nook that you couldn't see with out really getting down and checking it out something was shoved in there. I think I need to instal video cameras in her room so I can see what she is doing when she is actually supposed to be cleaning. I am seriously contemplating this...how much would it cost I wonder? Anyway!

Needless to say we got it all done it looks like a page out of a magazine yet again. At least for 5 minutes. Since I love breaking child labor laws as punishment besides the whole cleaning bit I am making her do all the laundry we found, under her bed, in the toy box, in the dress up box, on the floor of her closet, in her doll house, behind her dresser. As you may remember from a previous post I just recently bought front loaders the hold a massive amount of clothing. We are on our 3rd and last load. She has had to put it in the washer and the dryer and put it ALL away WHERE IT GOES!

So I am sitting here tonight shaking my head as my hair is probably turning grey chuckeling about the whole thing. What do you do? Right! Right?

All I have to say is WHAT THE HECK!

Black and White!

I was looking through some of my old folders and found a bunch of fun pics I took this summer...I was feeling a little Ansel Adamsish when I posted these and turned them all black and white. Enjoy!

Magic

Today my little Avery came to me and said "Mom you know how dad bought you a new washer and dryer?"I say yes and am thinking how come only dad could have bought them. What is up with that? She keeps going and says "Well I am thinking I should write a letter to the people you bought it from telling them how wonderful it is." At this point I am just smiling because really how many 6 year old kids do you know have these kind of discussions with their parents? I asked her why and she responds with " It is just so amazingly quite before when I used to go to the bathroom I felt like a train was coming through there now it is so quite I hardly even know when you are doing laundry and it sings you a song when it is done. What could be better than that?" I just giggle to myself as she is walking away I hear her mumbling " seriously amazing!" What a kid!!!

Hide, Hide

Since my kids have been out of school they have created a game that they all love and only requires a large quilt or blanket. I think I have spent more time playing this game than I actually wanted too. Avery and Aidan are the inventors. Aidan is the ring leader and the one who fondly named the game "Hide, Hide"

Here are the rules.

Get the biggest blanket you can find.

Everyone pile under it and "Hide" (from what I don't know)

Giggle like crazy

It is a hit! If you have nothing to do tonight or for your next family game night give it a try.

ENJOY!