50 Days of Summer: Day 10

Today's photo is dedicated to Connor Reed Jones.

He was laid to rest today.
Our family wore red all day in his honor.
Looking at FB and numerous blogs of fellow CF parents and CFers has been so heart-warming over the past month or so. What an amazing community of people! CF has its only little community, and man are they
OH SO SUPPORTIVE OF THEIR OWN.
Makes this CF Momma feel so good inside that my little guy has a whole slew of people supporting him, fighting for him, raising funds for him, praying for him, etc. People who have never even met him. You better believe we are doing the same in return...

50 Days of Summer: Day 9

Ice cream sandwiches after an evening of swimming. Ahhh...this is the life!!
Can you guess which munchkin ate their ice cream the fastest??
I'll give you one guess...

50 Days of Summer: Day 8

This summer photo is in honor of the Birthday Boy.
How old is this birthday boy? A gentleman never tells, but a SISTER does!!! Joey is 32 today.
Happy Birthday Uncle Joey!!
(I know I used this photo in the slide show, but it's the only current photo I have since he doesn't like taking pictures.)

50 Days of Summer: Day 7

I took this photo of my little beauties just before Sydney's birthday party started.

Seven!

Sydney is SEVEN already?! Well...not quite yet, but in one week it will be official. How can we be at SEVEN years old already? How is it that my first born child is going into 2nd grade? Is there anyway for me to slow this ride down? I definitely feel like we are on fast forward these days...

We planned Sydney's birthday party a week early this year because many people are either out of town or already have plans on her actual birthday (July 3rd). The "perks" of having your birthday so close to a holiday I guess. So this year we decided to move the party up a week in hopes that more of her friends could celebrate with her. We had a great turn out as almost half of her first grade class was in attendance. The kids had an absolute blast as did most of the adults in attendance. Take a look at the photo slide show of the party below.

One July birthday down...one more to go...Bryce's 2nd birthday is up next. Whew.

50 Days of Summer: Day 6

Coming up with silly jumps at the pool and naming them has become a summer tradition. Here are a few from this summer so far...

Andy is "Reading the Paper"

Sydney is a "Sack of Potatoes"

Bryan the "Super Hero"

Andy has nice form on the "Standard Flip"

Can you guess?? It's "The Terminator"

Connor Reed Jones

Sweet 7 year old Connor is now resting and breathing peacefully in Heaven now. I'm so saddened by this news, but so happy that he can finally be free of pain and suffering. I'm relieved for his parents because I can only imagine how hard it is to watch your child suffer with pain the way Connor did. Connor's obituary is below:


Conner Reed Jones born to Bradley and Sarah Jones on April 14, 2003 at OHSU hospital in Portland, Oregon died peacefully in his parents arms at his home Thursday June 24, 2010.

Conner suffered from Prune Belly Syndrome and was also diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis at one year old. Conner fought to survive with multiple surgeries and more than 20 hospitalizations. He never complained of having CF, in fact he loved being in the hospital with his doctors, nurses, teachers and child life specialists. He was always well loved at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, where he was cared for since he was an infant, and treasured them as family.

Conner, though only 7, displayed wisdom, faith and maturity well beyond his years. His love of family, friends, God, fishing, school, and Lego building is what kept him feeling alive. He was smiling and enjoying life every single day he was with us. He cared deeply about others he knew and even for those he never met. He was Gods faithful servant and brought many people to believe in Gods Kingdom, and many more to renew their relationship with Him.

Conner cherished his family. He loved babies. He was sensitive, yet strong. And will forever be loved and remembered as a hero to his mom and dad.

Conner is survived by his parents, Brad and Sarah Jones of Longview, as well as his two younger brothers, Hunter and Bradyn Jones. He is also survived by paternal grandparents Rick and Cheri Jones of Ilwaco, WA and maternal grandparents Doug and Rose Ponzoha of Olympia, WA and Tom and Kandace Niemi of Puyallup, WA. He is also survived by his great grandparents Jim Erikson of Pocatello, ID, William Jones of Burley, ID, GG Betty Ponzoha of Lacey, WA and GG Shirley Nelson of Centralia. He also has many uncles and aunts and cousins and even leaves behind his beloved dog, Grover. Welcoming him in heaven are his great grandfathers Bernard Ponzoha and Kenneth Nelson, as well as his great grandmothers GG Shirley Erikson and Emma Jones.

In honor of Conner’s generous spirit and legacy we request in lieu of flowers that donations be sent to one of the organizations that meant the most to him and our family. The Doernbecher Children’s Hospital Foundation, the Washington Make a Wish Foundation, the Oregon Chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Breathe 4 Tomorrow Foundation of WA, Gloria’s Angels Foundation of WA or to Columbia Bank, with memo to Conner Jones fund to help Conners’ family with unforeseen expenses.
Celebration of life will be held at Longview Community Church, Longview Wa. Wednesday June 30 at 1 pm

Seriously...what a little ROCK STAR!!!

A note to Brad and Sarah, Connors parents..

Thank you for sharing Connor with the us. Thank you for being so brutally honest. I'm inspired by your strength and by Connors bravery. Connor is free of pain and celebrating with Jesus...I find great comfort in that as I'm sure you do too.

50 Days of Summer: Day 5

Instead of a picture...you get video. Two of them to be exact. Bryce is talking so much more these days.

We are soaking up every second!

Prayers for Connor

As many of you know I have followed a blog about a little boy named Connor since December. Connor has CF and his little body is too tired to go on any longer (click here to read his mom's blog). Sadly they don't expect him to make it through the night. I'm so torn up about this. I have so many thoughts going through my head and when I sat down to write I had so much to share, but now I can't even get my thoughts to come together to make sense. I can only imagine what Connor's parents (Sarah and Brad) are going through. Watching their child suffocate must be excruciating. While this is happening they still must be strong to their 2 younger sons. Think of Connor and how scared he must be. He is only 7 years old.

I don't really know what else to write other than my heart aches for this family. Connors favorite color is red so this red balloon is for him.

So tonight my thoughts and prayers are focused on Connor, his parents, and his younger brothers. I ask that you pray for them as well...

50 Days of Summer: Day 4

What a cool photo!

This is our friend Noah. Noah joins us at the pool on Friday's along with his little brother Elijah (and baby SISTER who is still baking in mommy's oven). Noah is a bug lover and is shown here with the resident Praying Mantis. The green guy makes an appearance each time we are at the pool. It will be a miracle if our little bug friend makes it through the summer without getting squished!

50 Days of Summer: Day 3

I LOVE this picture because it captures Sydney being the fun giggly girl that she is.
Gotta love pool days!

50 Days of Summer: Day 2

Bryce loves pool days. You can't keep him out of the water once we get to the pool. He knows the drill too...floaties, a ring and he's off.
When we get to the pool he points to the pool and says, "Waa-werr".
Love it!

50 Days of Summer!

In honor of the first day of summer I have decided to post a fun summery picture for the next 50 days. I think this could pose a challenge for me as it's hard to stay on top of things when having 3 kids to take care, a husband to hang with, a job to go to and fabulous friends to keep up with. I thought this would be fun since we seem to take a whole lot of pictures of our little family. On top of all that...I LIVE for summer!!

50 Days of Summer: Photo # 1

Jordyn after a long day in the pool.
"Mom! Take my picture!"

You Know You're Old When...

Well...you know you're old when Bryan's volleyball players start getting married. On Saturday Merritt, a past player of Bryan's, got married. Being at her wedding kindof made us feel old, but we had a fabulous time. Merritt attended our wedding (almost 9 years ago) along with 2 other players named Lindsey and Jenna when they were all Seniors in high school. The wedding was lovely and Merritt looked amazing. I would say one of the best parts of the evening was the fact that we got out sans kids and we got to dress up! Yah for wearing cute dresses!

Us and Merritt...the new Mrs. McGuire!

Bryan, Merritt and Lindsey

Best guy I know.

Being silly

Nothing I love more than getting dressed up for a night out with my main man.

Boys Love Fire Trucks!

Our neighborhood had a HOA get together last weekend. The Cherokee Fire Dept in our area agreed to stop by the get together. I'm so happy they came by because the kids loved it. All the kids were fascinated by the truck and the fire fighters...especially a certain little boy named Bryce. He LOVED the fire truck. The kids were allowed to walk around the cabin and push buttons and all that stuff so needless to say Bryce was in heaven. We had a hard time getting him out of the truck to give other kids a turn. I jokingly asked the fire fighters if they could leave the truck at my house to keep Bryce entertained. They did say I could bring him up to the fire house for a tour and to look around. I think I will definitely take them up on the offer because Bryce enjoyed it so much.

Just getting into the truck...checking things out.

Mr. Firefighter showing Bryce the cool stuff in the truck.

The look on his face says allot.."Really! I can push the buttons and make a loud noise?!"

Kids Say What?!

My kiddos are always saying the funniest things and I always forget to post what they say. So...starting today I'm going to make it a point to post some of their funny sayings. I do have a journal that I have written down some of the stuff they have said so maybe I'll post some of the stuff from the journal too.

At work the other day Jordyn saw cousin Maisie's shoes sitting on the floor. She says:

"Oh, Maisie has shoes like Jesus".

It figures the one thing Jordyn has picked up at church has to do with fashion...the type of shoes Jesus wore. ;)

How Did I Forget?!

So I'm going through our pictures from May and realized I never posted about an important event...

Jordyn got her ears pierced!!! We took a trip to the mall to exchange something and she randomly says she wants to get her ears pierced. I explained (as well as Sydney, many times over) that it will hurt a little and she said she was ok with that. Jordyn is allot of cute and allot of DRAMA so I wanted to make sure she knew it would hurt a little. I wanted her to have a heads up about it because she has been known to have major meltdowns.

Well...there were just a few tears that quickly dried up after she saw her pretty ears!

Getting prepped. Maybe a little nervous...she had a death grip on my hand.

Ouchi...that hurts a little.

On to the other ear. She knew what was coming this time. The face is worse than her actual reaction.


You can see her thinking that it hurts a little, but not bad enough for a full out cry. ;)

All finished! She likes them...and the fact we promised her a cookie. ;)

Remember when...

Do you remember some of the fads you were part of growing up as a kid? I was part of many: jelly shoes, jelly bracelets, Jams, charm necklaces, Cabbage Patch kids, etc. The list could go on and on. Well...my kids are officially into their first fads. Yes, I said fads...with an "s" because being part of 2 fads is better than 1!

Zhu Zhu Pets

So I know the Zhu Zhu Pets were a hard to get to this past Christmas. We were lucky that at that time our kids didn't ask for one because it was near impossible to find them. Well, my good friend Lindsay go up super early one December morning along with her husband and parents to stand in line for the hyped up Zhu Zhu Pet. They succeeded and she ended up giving the kids each one for Christmas. That's when the craze started for them. We have since added a few Zhu Zhu's to the mix as you can see...

Silly Bandz

These things remind me of how crazy I went as a child over jelly bracelets. If you don't know what they are, they are colored rubber bands in different shapes. Someone is making a killing off these things. Sydney is a little more into them than Jordyn, but I'm guessing that's because she goes to school with a building full of kids wearing Silly Bandz. Santa brought the girls Silly Bandz in their stocking not realizing what a huge deal they were (score one for Santa!). Since then Silly Bandz in our house have been picking up steam in the popularity department. Thanks to Uncle Joey for giving the girls a huge bag of them on Memorial Day. I was very proud of the girls how they sat together and divided the bracelets up evenly. There was no fighting involved! They even saved a few to give cousin Maisie.

I would love to hear what your favorite fad was back in the day...