Announcing Baby #3!

I was going to wait to announce here until we had the ultrasound but now that the news went out in Christmas letters I might as well put it all the way out there. I found out we were expecting on Halloween and promptly started filling nauseous constantly. Luckily I haven't thrown up a ton just feels like I want to. The best way of controlling is by eating every 2 hours and a new diet seems to have me feeling much better at 4 months along. Miriam sometimes seems to get it, even telling me not to squish the tiny baby in her tummy (I'm always telling her to be careful) and sometimes not at all. I'm a little apprehensive about how to take care of 3 small children though thank goodness this one and Aaron will be 23 months apart. Are new arrival is due to arrive the end of June.

I'm talkin about...

Miriam! She is getting clearer than ever and says the funniest things these days. She still loves to wear pretty dresses to church. When we ask what day it is or mention that Sunday is the next day she'll say 'I wear pretty dress?' She still would wear her blue 'princess' dress every week if I would let her. It was quite a battle to get her to wear all her pretty Christmas dresses instead. It is most disconcerting the things that come out of her mouth that I know came from me. Such as are you listening?, I'm not talking about..., and yep that's right. There are numerous things she repeats to Aaron that I say to him often. She can be a stronger enforcer of him not having his pacifier except at night. Miriam also recently started exclaiming how much she loves such and such thing- it could be simple like marble works (toy) or proclaim her love for mommy. It is fun to watch how much enjoyment she gets out of life as she will say, "this is fun". She is pretty independent and I'm taking new boundary stands of staying out of closed doors. This is because there isn't much she can't get into and it seems they mostly delight in taking everything out of a particular place. When we went to the Dr for a prenatal check up we got to hear the tiny baby's heartbeat, but now Miriam thinks that her heart is in her stomach. The next time we went we asked if she could listen to her heart beat and they let her listen on the stethoscope. She was nervous about the midwife otherwise she had a funny look on her face and who knows what she actually heard. Occasionally she tells me that she has a baby in her tummy and not to squish it (which I say a lot).
The extended Jones family goes sledding (really tubing) at Soldier Hollow every winter this year we got together on Jan 15. First, we have a family meal, then spend a few hours sledding with the whole hill to ourselves. So I (Eric) took Miriam up there, and she did really well until we got to the top of the hill; then she got a little scared but she went down without needing too much encouragement. We went pretty fast and she got scared on the way down. She went back up the hill without a problem though. We got to the top, and she said "I want to walk down". I explained to her that we couldn't walk down-- that is against the rules. But Rusty & Nicole were ready to go down with their kids, so we did a big train going down. Some parts of the train went faster than other parts, so we started just flowing around each other-- I saw Miriam was starting to slide into the ropes connecting some tubes (which were at the same level as her neck). So I let go of my rope to her and she slid away from the ropes but away from the group. She was scared before that (because of the speed and the snow flying in the face), and it didn't get better with being separated. We took a break to see Mommy and give Aaron a try (he didn't like any part though). We went up one more time. She got really scared at the top this time. So I sat with her and we talked about being scared and being brave. Being brave isn't about not being scared, it is about doing something even though you are scared. I encouraged her telling her that she was brave and Daddy would be there to keep her safe-- I'd be right next to her. So she decided she was ready. She still got scared on that run but when we got to the bottom she said she was brave! and safe because Daddy was there.

Eating is Fun to do

When I looked at what kind of pictures I had for Aaron in July they were all about eating. He is 11 months old in all the pictures and had been on solids since end of Jan making it apx 5 mon.

Here he is with the first meal he officially ate what we were eating- sweet bean burritos minus the tortilla. He loved it! Aaron has liked pretty much all foods of some days something might not appeal to hims but he never outright refused on every occasion any food. Though these days he's a little more picky. Overseeing dinner and trying things out one Sun evening that my mom was here. He didn't quite know what to make of the broccoli. Standing on the dishwasher to see what is going on is one of the favorite places for both of the kids even today. I love his little tie, its adorable!

This kid loves, loves fruit in particular strawberries and watermelon, also recently discovered blueberries in the list also. He will eat so much watermelon that he gets acid poop. Cleaning him up is always so much fun!
Eating his oatmeal with a spoon himself. I think he is more dexterous with a spoon sooner than Miriam was. He has always loved utensils and drags them everywhere.

Grover Family Reunion

My goal is to catch up on blogging before I get back to that month so here is 2010 family reunion that my mom was in charge of. She decided to try something a little different and rented a cabin in Island Park (not too far from us and really close to Yellowstone) named Grandpa's Cabin. Unfortunately for a variety of reasons it only turned out to be us and my Uncle Clark's family- everyone else sure missed out it was really fun! We picked up Ryan at the airport on our way up, a little early to help mom get ready. She was in the midst of major renovations in her laundry room, kitchen and bathroom at the time so things were extra chaotic. Fri July 16 Dad went with us up early afternoon to set up and start things moving toward dinner. One of the first things after unloading was start the homemade root beer- a requirement for family reunions! Miriam didn't quite know what to make of the dry ice 'fog'. We also go the dutch ovens ready to cook potatoes. Then waited for mom and Uncle Clark to come which was really close to each other.

Uncle Clark's family had taken the whole week for a family vacation so they were coming from Yellowstone. On their way up McKady got her birthday present of a little dog whom she named Percy. Miriam absolutely loved that dog. On the left you see her just sitting by Percy watching everyone else do some ball games and they sat there for at least an hour! Miriam didn't ever want to leave Percy and got a real kick of taking him on a walk as seen below. We got so we could bribe Miriam to do things to go see Percy.

There wasn't a lot of structure, just visiting and eating good food. Had pancakes and fruit Sat morning, smorgasbord of sandwich type stuff for lunch, and fish/ cobblers/corn on the cob/etc for dinner. Sat afternoon we did go down and rent some paddle boats to play on the river. It was cold so Miriam wasn't super excited and Aaron just slept in my arms in the back of our raft all bundled in his life jacket. Eric busted his flip flops hauling us back upstream twice after we floated for a ways. That night we played games. The cabin was amazing, nice bed, big kitchen, 2 bathrooms, toys for the kids to play with, etc. Miriam loved sliding down the staircase, I got it on video but unfortunately its too dark to make out much.

Sun we got ready to go and had a very nice testimony meeting on the porch and took pictures. Here's the crew. Thanks for coming Uncle Clark! Eric went home with Uncle Clark and I stayed a little longer.

I have the best helpers! Miriam helped unload and pack the truck back up. Aaron helped bring in my suitcase and both are always ready to help cook! Afterward we just unwound and celebrated Ryan's birthday early with a root beer cake. Dad got to take the kids on some bike rides and just enjoyed each others company.

Grandma has lots of fun toys that the kids enjoy a lot. We took Ryan back to the airport stopping to visit our cousin Jayna in her new house along the way. We sure love seeing Ryan now that he is so far away!