24 Years at Mineral Park

I am so far behind on blogging.  Life is good in the Jones household.  We just stay extremely busy.  Spring Break has finally arrived (Hooray for washing walls) and I thought I'd use this time to catch up on some way over-due blogging!   


First up, Michael's parent's 24th anniversary at their church.  I have been extremely blessed with super in-laws.  Michael's dad is a pastor and has been at their church for 24 years, which is a rare thing in this day and time.  We were able to go down and participate in the celebration on a Saturday back in late October-early November (I told you I was was behind on blogging!)

 Their cake was beautiful....

I loved how each Sunday School participated.  They each sang a song, or gave a testimony.  

It was a fun day.  I wish we lived closer to Michael's family but am glad we were able to spend this special day with them. 

Family Smilebox

I'm busy preparing for the new school year.  I hate laying in bed at night exhausted but can't sleep because my mind won't slow down.  It's just that time of year.


I created a new smilebox for my school website. At least I can mark something off the list.  :)

Picture slideshow customized with Smilebox

Fourth of July

We had a great Fourth.  We spent the afternoon with family at the park. 

These cousins look an awful lot alike. 

Then we drove over to Kingston and enjoyed fireworks with friends.

We are very blessed to live in our nation.  It's nice to take a day to reflect upon these blessings.

Catching Up

    It's months like these that I think to myself  "This teaching gig is really great!" Now around Feb/March I sing a different song.  :) 

    I haven't been blogging much because I've been enjoying summer.  It's hard to believe sickening that tomorrow starts July.  Slow. Down. Time.


   The great bathroom remodel of 2011 is still in progress.  My poor husband is working nights right now (12 hour shifts) so there hasn't been a ton of noticeable progress.  Remember the last stripped picture?  

It looks pretty....well, um....stripped.  I found out that it can get more stripped. 

I heard something about it would be easier to fill the sheet rock like this...go figure.  


June is a big birthday month for our family.  My brother, Renee, and my husband all share the same birthday (the 18th).  Michael's niece and nephew are also June kiddos, and my dear sist Jen.  I only managed to get one birthday photo....

I've filled some time working on some school projects.  It's kind of like a hobby for me.  I'm a dork, I know.  I created a new chart for behavior tracking next year.  Each kid will have a clothes pin and start off on "Ready to Learn" each day.  I like it because they can also move their pins up for good behavior.

I'm going to do a safari/explorers theme in my class next year.  So I  made a giraffe neck thingy to record the kids fluency.  This is just part of it.  It will go from floor to ceiling.  While laying it out for a picture I realized I need to figure out some way to better incorporate the head.  The white paper says 0-40 words per minute and etc.  The kids will move up the neck during the year.  I know that probably doesn't make sense but that's the best that I can explain it.  I did this last year however I just used multi-colored rectangles instead of the giraffe neck.

My last creation is a second grade banner.  I'll probably still trim the ribbon some so that it's easier to read.

    Our table doesn't make the best backdrop.  We have plans for a new dining room table to join our lil family in the near future.

That's it for June.  
     July promises to be a busy month with the fourth, vacation, campmeeting, VBS, and setting up my class room.  I'm sure I'll have lots to blog about.

Mothers Day

          On Mother's Day morning, Michael and I drove down to Mineral Park Baptist Church to be with his family.

Afterwards we had lunch at their house.

I'm thankful to have a great Mother-in-law and Sister-in-law. Who are both great examples of godly mothers.

Mothers Day Eve

     Saturday Evening my family came over for a Mother's Day Dinner.  Josh and Misty were still having Kidney stone woes, and Kiah had to work but everyone else was able to come. 

     I love how I caught Punky looking so natural in the following two pictures. 

     Even Jess was able to come.  It was the first time she'd been to my house.

    I had to snap a picture of my fresh flowers that my neighbor brought over.  We have the best neighbor ever!   I was tickled to have these.

The last of my Christmas extravaganzas posts!

    We left the snow covered McDonald and headed to my mom's around lunch time on Saturday.  As usual the house was packed with family. 

     My extremely cool papaw ruppe has a box of used shot gun shells.  He puts a paper into each shell to tell what he killed with it, the date and the time.  Looking at this kept the boys busy for a while.  

 

 My sisters

 Our little family

 

    Most of the cousins.