Birthday Man

It's Scott's birthday! Happy Birthday!

If you didn't get the invite due to our negligence, please be advised, that you are all invited to Scott's Orange Party. We will have truckloads of nachos, orange sherbet floats, and if I don't mess it up, a carrot cake. There is a craft for the big and little kids, and you better wear orange.

Meanwhile, can I just take a paragraph or so of cheesiness to express how lovely it is that Scott was born. Number 4 of 5 in the Jones family, this fellow can bake the most amazing bread, design stellar invitations and any number of fabulous gifts for his wife, write really good music, take care of all sorts of insurance dilemmas without complaint, do real science experiments, play some hard hitting racquetball, and be just endlessly thoughtful—to name a few of his talents. I'm a lucky gal to have such a cool husband, and our little baby is really lucky to have such a sweet dad.

What are your favorite things about Scott? Any good stories to share? Please share, and then come back tomorrow and look at the pictures from his Orange Party!

Am I the Design Star?

So I decided to go out on a limb and not listen to Nancy about this activity flyer, she thought that I should put a hiker in the middle, though I thought this looked great as was. I want your input to see if you like this and think I'm a design star or if Nancy was right and it looks bad. Your vote will not change whether this is used or not :)

V-Day

Valentine's Day really felt like a holiday. We did only fun things. In the morning, we had pink waffles and then we played racquetball. So nice to feel good enough to play racquetball again.

Well, the inside was pink.

Scott wanted to make me something nice for dinner, and I wanted to make him something nice for dessert. So, we went grocery shopping together. Salmon, garlic potatoes, broccoli, and pesto bruschetta with key lime pie for dessert. Yummy.


We watched a movie while the pie cooled, and then we had some fun with our now traditional Valentine's Day painting session. Look what pretty things we made!

Scott is so wonderful. I love being married to such a swell guy. Hope your V-Day was happy, too!

This is Only a Test

I'm under attack at my own home. I came home to eat lunch before my afternoon and night classes only to discover that this was the day that the management was testing all of the fire alarms in our complex. They walked right in our house (supposedly after ringing the bell) and began setting off the alarms. I, of course, had considered taking a short nap so I could be fresh for class till 9pm, and was startled by their sudden entrance. Ah, privacy.

They left within 15 minutes, but warned me that the kitchen alarms in every "unit" are connected to each other within the building. So, for the last hour, my nap, homework, and conversation with my friend have been interrupted by loud alarms.

My head is ringing. I'm off to school. And maybe I'll have the house ready for Friday when they come to do something with the wires stored in a locked closet in the corner of our living room behind our sofa (oops, there goes another alarm, the 7th I think of 11 in our building) and our shelves where we store our pretty dishes. Do they realize that we live here? I'd pay an extra $10 a month to heat whatever sort of room they needed just to make sure that these wires are NOT in my front room taking up 5+ square feet of oh-so-precious space.

Sigh.

For a few minutes, it seemed like a Seinfeld episode. Now it's just annoying.

**Note: Scott did receive an email warning him that they would be "testing the alarms." There was no real indication that they had to come INTO the house to do this, however, and the email said nothing about them intruding on Friday to do something to those cords in the closet.

The Right Stuff

Ultrasound number two confirmed our early supposition: we are really having a girl. What's even cooler is that she appears to be developing just fine with all sorts of good things happening in her brain, heart, spine, bones, tummy, and appendages. Isn't that nice?

A few more pictures of our cantaloupe sized baby for your viewing pleasure.

20 weeks

This is what 5 months pregnant looks like on me. I'm still pretty much foolin' everyone, though I did have someone at church ask about "boy or girl?" on Sunday. Mostly, I'm feelin' good and enjoying the luxurious amount of fabric in maternity pants.

Love Birds

This is so sweet and Valentines-esque, though I think it's fine for all the time, too. My mom painted this for Scott and me for a Christmas gift. Thanks Mom!

What are you going to do for your love bird?

Love is in the Air

I think it's fun to get ready for Valentine's Day. Fun to celebrate loving with pretty pinks, reds, hearts, and frilly stuff. Here's a bit of the creativity Scott and I concocted for some Valentines we worked on the other night.

"more happy love, more happy happy love" John Keats

Babysitting a Turkey

We are the proud parents of this turkey. This is the first one we ever prepared and cooked all by ourselves. We were very silly about it though, for we put it in the oven at 11pm on Saturday night and then Scott, the dutiful father that he is, got up to baste it and check its progress every few hours all night long. Really, he did the work (I helped with the seasoning and leg tying mostly) and can take pride in this beautiful sixteen pound wonder that will feed us for many meals to come—turkey sandwiches, turkey and mashed potatoes, turkey soup, and a whole bag of frozen turkey for future turkey recipes.

Other highlights from the weekend:

Scott and the scouts survived their snow camp. Everyone had a good time, and no one lost any appendages to the cold. They had a survivor man challenge in the morning to build shelters with limited materials. They did a swell job, I hear.


I made the traditional heart-shaped sugar cookies with a friend from the ward. We decorated them and watched a touching and sad movie about the same time that Scott was likely helping scouters clean up from chili-dogs and s'mores.



We got our plane tickets for Christmas in California. (Early, I know, but we had freebies that were going to expire in March.) The man who helped us at the ticket counter asked the birth date of the 6 month old we'd mentioned would be accompanying us. We smiled and said, "About June 29, 2009."

Drumroll, please

According to the ultrasound and the oh-so-cautious ultra-sound operator,


We're so excited! And, because our little gal was not very cooperative (she was scrunched into a ball), we get to have another ultrasound in a few weeks, too.

Here are a few pictures that we did get, though. Also, I've included a video of her opening her mouth. (After which I think she smiles, but that is debatable, I guess)

Her head with her nose pointed up.

Her right leg and foot. How cute!



This is the mouth opening video. Short and sweet.

One day left!

One day left to cast your vote, well, your guess, about Baby Jones!

And thank you for your kind words and helpful insights about the website. Soon, we will have all the kinks worked out of it!

It snowed here last night. Not a lot, but just some funky dusty snow. I wish it would stop doing that. Soon enough it will be SPRING though, so I'll endure. It's just a bummer to leave class at 9pm and see whiteness on the roads.

Scott has his big snow-campout tomorrow night. While you are warm in bed on Friday thinking about how cute our baby (insert boy or girl) will be you can think of how miserable Scott and the scouts are. I'm so proud of him though, cause he talks like this will be fun, and he's trying really hard to make sure that the boys will be warm enough the whole time. I think I'll make heart shaped sugar cookies and read all three of the books I need to have read by next week while he is roughing it. Wish us both luck.

New Website!

Scott is the best. He has been working tirelessly (even, apparently, while I sleep) on our new website. It's live! So, please go check out nancyjonesdesign.com and see how lovely a website can be. And, we need your input to make it perfect. So if you see anything that doesn't quite work or for some reason could be improved, let me know!

Thank you Scott! You're wonderful!

Happy Groundhog Day!

February is so great. It has lots of holidays (including Scott's birthday), it's short, and it starts to feel like there might be hope for spring on some days. Groundhog day is one of my favorites. It's just a nice way to start the month. It's a must to watch Bill Murray get the day right.

Hope your Groundhog Day was lovely. Cause I had class till 9, I plan on watching the movie in installments over the next week. It's on Netflicks, so I can watch it anytime!

Just 4 more days to cast your vote for BOY or GIRL. We find out on Friday!