Lets Re-cap

1. Thanksgiving was AWESOME!  I love good food.  We also had a family bowling competition over Thanksgiving and had a chance to catch up with friends from out of town over the break so we're feeling lucky.

2.  We found out that we indeed expecting a baby GIRL!  Serious excitement for this spring!  Look how gigantic my firstborn is, seems like yesterday I was expecting him.

3.  Jordan and I took a vacation by ourselves (without children) to Florida for a week.  I pretty much read on the beach all day everyday.  Bliss!  Eventually I'll get around to posting recent reads :)

4.  Its Christmas time!  This year has been especially fun since Gavin is very interested in all things Christmas.  Ike is still entirely indifferent, but Gavin has enough enthusiasm for the both of them.

a few things.....

 

 -- Currently Gavin is really into "helping," right now. It is the most adorable thing and while the "help" of a two year old is usually the equivalent of entropy I am fascinated by his willing nature. No task seems to boring/dirty/trivial. He insists on helping with every chore of my day to day life. As you can imagine this has made each of my daily chores take much longer, allowing him to help. But even when I am in a hurry I try to remember than I am sure the day will come when I complain constantly about how he doesn't want to help -- so I should enjoy it while I can. This week he has the most fun "helping" to shovel the walks.

 -- I know its been a week, but I'm still a bit in a post-election slump.  I feel no shame in admitting to blogland that I am utterly disappointed in the reelection of Obama.  I should state that I am not one of those individuals that believes Obama to be inherently evil.  In fact I am sure he has the best intentions to be a good president, I hardly think anyone would exert that much energy to secure a job and then put in that many hours on the job intending to perform poorly.  Mr. Obama and I just fundamentally disagree about a few things and I don't think his track record over the last four years is encouraging for our current economy.  It is dumbfounding to me that the rest of the country thought he did a good enough job to warrant a second term.  I mean how bad does it have to get?   Read this article today.  You should too.  Its thought provoking (and depressing).

--Obviously we are new to our neighborhood for the holidays this year, but I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that our neighborhood does an annual food drive in lieu of exchanging neighbor gifts around the holidays.  Now I have been the recipient of many generous neighbor gifts in the past and have made my own attempts at them, but in the end sometimes I feel like they end up being more convenient than thoughtful.  However, I love this idea of as a neighborhood pulling together to help those in need and eliminating that pressure & anxiety of worrying over whether your own neighbor gifts are appropriate.  Good work new neighborhood.

hello sunshine

Recently we've been enjoying the amazingly summer-like weather. Everything is blooming on the farm and I can't get enough of the blossoms.  

 Gavin is obsessed with "helping" to mow the lawn. You have to walk at a turtle's pace, but he will stick with it for the entire lawn because he loves it so much.  

 I've been enjoying some new sewing projects -- this is a quilt I made for my cousin Jen in D.C.

 

 Can you tell which one my children will willing pose for the camera and which one will not? Yep Ike's a bit camera shy these days- but Gavin is pretty obliging. 

 

 With all of the nice weather I've spent a lot of time watching the boys jump on the trampoline while I read. I read The Choice by Nicholas Sparks, which I mostly disliked. Biggest reasons were that I felt like it was manipulative in the sense that he pulls the "your true love is in a coma and you have to decide whether or not to unplug her," card. I mean of course thats going to cause a reaction in your reader, but the surrounding story just had no finesse, basically the writing was poor. Jandee rating is 3 stars for this one (although lets be honest Travis Parker sounds like a catch). 

 Oh yes & Star says, "hi"

 

blagging about my amazing artistic husband version 2.0

Exciting news in our family has been that my husband's most recent painting, got into the Spring Salon at the Springville Art Museum (which is actually quite difficult to get in to) and of course I am completely proud of him.

I mean he's a rockstar painter right? And he recently turned 30 a couple weeks ago and even though we've been married almost eight years, he still makes my stomach do flip flops. And he still speaks to me after I embarras him all over the world wide web.

Yep he's a keeper. And I'm sure I'll not hear one word about the above photo from him, right? right?

Anyways back to the painting (which we are selling prints of, in case you are wondering). I love it because its huge in real life. Its beautiful, but mostly because it means something to us. Over the past few months we have started a family tradition where almost weekly we take the boys (mostly on Sat. morning) to the Bean Museum. If you have not been to the Bean Museum you are sorely missing out. Promise. It has been an awesome outing for the boys because its warm & not crowded and full of huge animals and it even has a toy room for crying out loud. Perfect, n'est-ce pas? Anyways our boys have become attached to several animals in particular at the Museum and whenever we arrive they go visit their "favorites" first and say Hi. Its the cutest thing. This Zebra is definitely on the fave list, so on one of our recent visits I snapped a photo of him and than Jordan came home and made him look one million times better than my photo for our boys. Needless to say they LOVE the painting and I love that Jordan did something he knew they would love.

Here are the Bean Museum Junkies in the flesh. Obviously looking at animals is way more interesting than looking at me right?

2012 is here.

The holidays are in effect over....although technically today still feels like a holiday since Jordan is off work and the banks are closed. The past season was awesome, here are a few snippets of the more significant matters:

My niece arrived! Kind of made Christmas a little anti-climatic when she came a few days beforehand -- pretty much Christmas came early :)

Of course she is off the charts gorgeous, but what do you expect with such model-esque parents.

Max & Nancy took us and the boys on the Polar Express. Pretty sure this was the highlight of Ike's life to date. He was smiling ear to ear the whole time:

We took lots of lovely pony rides (some even with Grandpa/Santa)

Awkward Family Photos!

This year we started a new Jones family tradition -- creating our own awkward family photos for a friendly family competition. You can vote (please do!) on who is the most awkward here.

Here is ours, enjoy.

now you see me, now you don't

Isn't photoshop amazing. Briefly ran outside after Sunday family dinner and took the big family "Christmas Card" photo a couple weeks ago. Just pasted myself in afterward. What would I do without photoshop? (you can click to enlarge these)

turkey week recap

Thanksgiving Week had tower moments of awesome and a few minor bumps in the road:

• Took the boys to the Zoo on Wednesday. The sun was shining the animals were happy and the boya adored riding the train & carousel.



• The downer was that as we got ready to go the Zoo we discovered that our double stroller had been stolen from right off of our porch. Seriously. Who steals a stroller? In a weird way I hope it was some sicko druggie stealing it with hopes to sell it because the thought of an actual mother (of multiple children no less) stealing a double stroller to push her kids around in seems even worse. It probably isn't, but it feels that way.
• Accomplished my goal of tasting as many different foods as was physically possible at Thanksgiving WITHOUT becoming ill. I wanted that second helping of mashed potatoes, but hallelujah I used some restraint and didn't pay for it the rest of the day.
• Enjoyed Black Friday hanging out with the boys while Jordan froze his appendages off cheering on the Utes (who lost, to add insult to frozen fingers).
• We bought a pet Beta fish for the boys and with the help of Aunt Bre have dubbed him "Gaston." We figure it was cheaper/easier than a puppy right?
• Got lots of reading done over the holiday, Book Reviews to come. Hopefully.
• Had several Photo Shoots and the weather cooperated quite nicely, which is amazing for Utah this time of year.
• Took lots of naps on the couch near the fire cuddled up with my little boys -- why are they growing up so fast?
• Got really excited for Christmas by listening to the Michael Buble Album & the Zooey Deshanel Album I recently added to my iTunes.

Autumn. Pictures. Death. And of course Deep Philosophical Quandaries

1. I probably should separate all of these things into separate posts and schedule them to post on different days. But that feels like too much work, so this is what you get.
2. Do you love my macabre title? Oooh I'm so Halloweeeny
3. Speaking of Halloween -- I've resolved to dress up this year. Lame or not lame? I can't decide, but either way I'm going for it.

Now for the real stuff:

I am in love with Fall this year. The colors. The weather. The fact that we had a bumper crop of grapes this year and so we just finished putting up 47 quarts of home made grape juice (my teeth may never be white again). I actually like the winter (even the snow, gasp, I know), but I'd be okay if Autumn could stay around a little longer this year.


This year we did family pictures! Pretty much every year we've done a tripod special (see some past years here and here), but this year I did a photo swap with my friend (and awesome photographer), Mandi. I'm sure I will be posting more, but I loved this one she took of me & Ike -- both cheesing it completely of course.

Thanks again Mandi! Now if I can get my act together perhaps I'll get a decent Christmas card out this year.

There has been a death at Mickelsen farm. Actually two. I guess this is part of farm life. But two deaths in one weekend seems a little intense. First we had to put down our beloved Cocker Spaniel, Benny. He was old, and sick (cancer), and having trouble eating his food, and it was the most humane thing to do. But it doesn't make it easier, when he's been a family pet for about fourteen years. Took this photo of him with Mom on his last day (don't worry, Kevin is both the literal & figurative "ham" and insisted on crashing every photo).

We miss you Benny.



Next, was the demise of Mr. Billy. This one is more farm-like I guess. Lots of people ask me why we keep goats on the farm, since we actually don't milk them (Billy is a boy, so technically that would be impossible). Most are surprised when I tell them its for weed control. Goats will eat weeds from the fields that the horses & the cows leave behind. Also they eat all of our left over canning remains. Pretty much goats will eat about anything, they are like the carp of the hircine world (confession: I initially typed bovine, but did a quick double check and found out that in truth bovine refers just to cows and goats are in effect in the hircine family -- now you think I'm really weird right? well you could be correct).

Goats are pretty affectionate animals, they are dumber than dogs, but are probably the most exuberantly friendly animal we've ever raised (perhaps because along with seeking to be pet they are also a bit interested in nibbling your clothing). However Mr. Billy along with being friendly is extremely playful. That was all well and good until he hit the "teenage" years of his life when he became overly aggressive. All the sudden he was intent on lowering his head and running at you full throttle to head butt you as a welcome. It only took him pummeling each of my little boys once for us to decide he should be put on a leash. Billy didn't take to the leash and became more of a problem animal than his weed eating skills negated. So we did what any sensible farm family would do I suppose. We ate him. Actually, by **WE,** I mean that we gave him to my Uncle Vili, (who happens to really like goat -- yes there are indeed people that love goat meat) and he ate him. Waste not want not I guess. So we sort of miss Billy, but not really -- I guess we miss the old Billy (pre-pummeling days Billy). Although, next year we are going to get pygmy goats to replace him so I'm pretty stoked about that.

.....Now is the time for deep philosophical quandaries, if I'm following my title, to the letter (which apparently I am), but Gavin has awoken so it appears my computer time is up, so perhaps I'll save it for another day. Or more likely I'll forget about whatever weighty issue was on my mind and all of you will be left to ponder on what I was about to pontificate about. Although its likely no one is even reading this right now too :)

the moon belongs to everyone, the best things in life are free

this is my current favorite reading place: on the back hammock. Paradise.

what have you done for me lately.....

Anyone else still know all the lyrics to that Janet Jackson song? Nope, just me? I haven't been doing much for this blog lately, but here is a mammoth post to make up for it. The latest stuff going on around here:

Gavin & I went on a lovely fall hike with Katherine & Caleb. Can you believe my nephew's cute little grin?



I couldn't believe the oranges and reds on our walk, came home with all sorts of photos of just trees. The colors have been so vibrant this year up the canyon, can't wait to see how they'll change in the valley. Isn't Autumn the best?

Speaking of Orange -- Jordan took his annual boys trip to see BYU play the Texas Longhorns. Pretty sure that football, high school buddies, and lots of good BBQ is nirvana for the hubs. (Do you love how they all wear their matching "lucky" shirts to the game?)




Speaking of the hubs.....he recently finished an amazing painting (which will gets its very own dedicated post in due time), but if you want a sneak peek, you can see it on the website he is building for himself --just because he's skilled like that you know. Check it out: www.jordanjonesart.com. This is just the bare bones version he put online, but I'm pretty impressed seeing as how it took about two hours to pull together. Oh yes and I can't even tell you how much I love this painting -- its my favorite thing he's ever done.

Speaking of paintings, I haven't really done anything since the move so I started a little painting planning it to be part of a Christmas thing -- only I made the mistake of sketching out my grid with a quilting red pencil instead of a regular red pencil and the pencil bled through after the painting was done (it actually came through about 48 hours later, which was odd), so now I'm going to rework the whole thing, but here is how it looks for right now (sorry for the crappy photo, sometimes I can't be bothered to go get perfect lighting).


Speaking of perfect lighting -- was lucky enough to have it for some recent family photo shoots. Am slow getting most stuff up on the blog, but I posted this one of my sister/cousin Gina's family on the photo blog. Aren't they the cutest?

Speaking of families, Mom and I hosted a shower for my sister-in-law, Hena. So excited about the upcoming arrival of my new niece!

Hena is doing an owl motif in the baby's room so this is the quilt I made:


Speaking of quilting, I have started my annual Christmas Quilt (and its only October, I'm sure you are so proud), so there have been a lot of this around the house:




I promise to post finished photos when I'm all the way done.

And ironically, I realized I never posted last year's Christmas Quilt. Perhaps this was because I actually finished quilting it in March I think? This neat thing about this quilt is that I was able to use my friend Stacey's machine to quilt it. Stacey has one of those amazing machines that most quilters dream about. You know the one that costs as much as a new car and takes up a whole room, which is fitting because Stacey is seriously talented at machine quilting so if you need to have some done for you --she's the girl to call. If you are interested in having her do something for you, just email me and I'll give you her info. I'm nowhere near as adept as she is at it, but it was fun to try out her machine and do a more intricate pattern. And I like how it turned out:


And finally to wrap up this mammoth post (I delivered right?) Here is a picture for all you Kevin lovers --you know who you are--My brother Nik is convinced we can train Kevin to be a riding animal for Gavin: