The Blog of Bert Jones

Dominic, Riley, Mikayla, Courtney (Easter 2010)

Today’s photo involves an entire photo shoot!

Every Easter and Christmas (and some­times Back to School) I get our family together for a photo shoot. It helps keep me in practice.

So this photo is a sneak peak of what is in the works (lots of color cor­recting to do, to make it just right!)

(p.s. I apol­o­gize, but please don’t ask for a dig­ital copy, none will be made avail­able, but I will post once the set is com­plete and uploaded onto smugmug, then you can pur­chase your own prints.)

In case I missed anyone, Here is our Christmas Card for this year:

And our “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” one:

And one of me:

And of course, my funny pose:

As usual, all photos were taken by me and the Christmas Card is a Bert Jones Orig­inal! Enjoy!

Well, Christmas is over. Seems like it went by so fast this year.

The kids got a lot of presents this year, I think they got every­thing they wanted.

Where to start, where to start?

This was Riley’s first Christmas, so of course I had to video­tape them coming down the hallway. Seeing all the presents and then reading Santa’s note… too bad I didn’t hit the record button. So they had to ‘do-over’ the whole thing! LOL.

Riley was his usual smiley self. We tried going round-robin style with the presents, but he was get­ting unhappy, so we had him open all his. (Grandma helped). He liked rip­ping the paper open.

Mikayla got a doodle bear, some other toys and hair stuff.

Dominic got He-Man toys that he was really excited about! Lego Star Wars (which him and I played on Christmas day and Yes­terday. We have fin­ished both episodes and only have episode 3 left!

Courtney got hair stuff and a few other goodies (I hon­estly can’t remember what thought, I know some stuffed animals).

The kids all got Guitar Hero II. I thought they were gonna pee their pants they were so excited! I also got the whole family a 300GB net­work storage drive to store all their files, since we all shared com­puters around the house.

Amy got the food dehy­drator she wanted, a makeup kit from Mikayla, A bath set from Courtney and one from Cindy. A crystal Lamp (pink) from Dominic.

I got some scrap­booking sup­plies (Oh and so did the girls!) and a pajama/sleepwear set and a replace­ment white long sleeve shirt that got ruined in the wash.

I will be get­ting the World of War­craft Expan­sion Pack in Jan­uary as well.

then the family became sick (except me). So that was tough, missed a day of work (add to that get­ting no hol­iday pay) so this weeks hours are gonna be really short!

Still really tired from having so much fun though this weekend… Can’t wait for New Years Day when I can get drunk in World of Warcraft!

Well, it has been quite awhile since I wrote last. And, I guess, a lot has hap­pened that has kept me busy.

Let’s start youngest to oldest.

Riley is get­ting pretty big. He can stand him­self up on things. He crawls VERY fast. The roomba is his friend. He will sneak over there and turn it on when­ever he can.

He is also get­ting in a lot of his teeth. He also gives this great big cheesy grin. Matter of fact, it is the same cheesy grin that Dominic and Mikayla had when they were younger. The one where they scrunch up their whole face and all you see is a big toothy grin. I love it. I could stare at that face the rest of my life and be content.

He also loves the com­puter even more now. He will play pogo with grandma or Amy, or watch me play WoW.

He still takes his naps with me in the after­noon when Amy sneaks him in bed with me. I never know he is there until he wakes me up. If Amy gets him before I wake up, then they come in around 2:30 and wake me up. There is nothing better than having your baby boy sit­ting next to you on the bed, gently pat­ting your back to wake you up and going “da da da da”

Mikayla is just like her mother. All atti­tude. But cute atti­tude. And she is still my baby girl and still a little princess.

She is still in dance. Unfor­tu­nately we don’t know for how long she will be able to stay in dance. She is cur­rently in Pre-Comp. But after that she would go into a com­pe­ti­tion line. Trouble is, it is EXPENSIVE! So far this year I think comp line has paid about $400 in dues, and that is just since Sep­tember! They still have more to go!

Dominic is doing pretty well in school. He still will have his moments where he likes to screw around and not pay atten­tion, but we are working on those. He and I have nightly talks. Some­times we talk about what­ever he wants to talk about and some­times we talk about what I want to talk about and some­times it is to talk about serious mat­ters (like behaving).

Courtney is doing great in school. Smart as ever, still in the Tal­ented and Gifted Pro­gram at school. She does have this knack for turning in home­work late. So we are working on that one.

My mom is doing pretty well. She is known around here is the beddie-time grandma. It is her job to put Riley to sleep at night. I think the record is 2 sec­onds. She lit­er­ally picked him up, he rolled over to look at her and out he went. He seems to sleep better at night if grams puts him to bed. Some­times though she has to wear him out by playing pogo with him or watch some TV. It is there spe­cial bonding time together.

Amy is busy as ever. It is Girl Scout cookie season and being the Ser­vice Unit Cookie Coör­di­nator for the entire Cen­ten­nial Ser­vice Unit (60 troops this year). It is her job to make sure everyone gets their troops order in on time, train the “cookie moms”, and orga­nize all the paper­work. I helped her out this year by putting together a Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tion for her to use, so she could make sure that all the trainees (in three dif­ferent training ses­sions) got the same information.

I am doing so-so. Working third shift does take its toll. I am always tired. I feel like I never get any­thing accom­plished at home. I still am on the Board at our coöper­a­tive. And still the Communications/Marketing Com­mittee Chair­person and Com­mittee Rela­tions Advisor. Not easy work, I am con­stantly busy.

I have been going back and forth with the deci­sion if I want to run to be on the board again this Feb­ruary, or not. And if I want to stay involved in my com­mittee or not.

• The pro is that I get a say in what hap­pens where I live, I get to be a part of some­thing grand (in its begin­nings too!).
• The con is that it takes up so much of my time, some of my neigh­bor­hood friend­ships have dete­ri­o­rated, I get frus­trated with the in fighting and drama.

So I try to figure out if it is really worth it. I know that there is no one else who could do the jobs I do. No one is as orga­nized as a sec­re­tary as I am. No one has the skills (let alone the design pro­grams) to do the cre­ative work that I do to try and make this park more professional.

It is also hard being in the ‘public eye’, since I am such a pri­vate person.

I hate not having free time and being lazy, like I used to be. Every waking moment is filled with things to do.

But any­ways. Enough of that.

Not sure what else I should write. I want to write more, but finding the time is exhausting. I have so many things I want to do. Lose weight, eat right, write more, home projects, office projects. The list goes on and on and on.

In my iPod:

• Aquarius — 25^th Annvier­sary Edition
• Take Me Out - Franz Ferdidnand
• Vaca­tion — Connie Francis
• Eldest — Audio­book (Eragon Book 2)
• Hurt — Christina Aquilera

Well, I am on my last week of training for my new assign­ment. I can’t wait to get started, but I am a little ner­vous too. It will be dif­ferent once I am ‘out on the floor’. But I wish all my other clients had training like this. Very comprehensive.

Riley is get­ting so very big. We had to buy him a new car seat. I can’t get over how happy and smiley he is. When­ever he sees Amy, my mom or me, he just lights up and smiles at us. He loves to laugh at me. I tell Amy, it is because of my hair!

Recently we sat him in from of my laptop and he was so engrossed in it.

He would try and tap on the keys and just watch the mon­itor. A few days later, Amy put him in from of my moms PC and he would just attack those keys and watch the screen. When some­thing would pop up, he would try and make it reap­pear by hit­ting one side of the key­board and then the other. And if it worked, he would do it again. He is very smart and will be using a com­puter in no time.

Amy has him on baby food now. He loves it! She will mix the baby food with rice cereal and he just eats it up.

And of course, he loves his snuggle time. Last night mom had him asleep and not 5 min­utes later he was awake. Mom put him next to me on the couch (where he could watch me play World of War­craft) and not 5 min­utes later, he was back asleep!

Amy will put him in bed with us, in the early morning, and he will slowly edge his head close to me, and push Amy off the bed with his feet. So she ends up going to sleep in another room and Riley and I have the bed to our­selves. And he will sleep for a few more hours.

Courtney has been gone most of the summer. She switches weeks with her dad, but the last time we had her she was at Girl Scout Camp. Then the when she went back to her dads, she went to their church camp. So she has been just a camping away.

Dominic and Mikayla are both doing good. Just hanging around the house, get­ting on each others nerves. They play nice one day, fight like hell the next. Usual sib­ling stuff.

My dad has been in the hos­pital since June 14, and I finally went out to see him last night. Time just flew by and I had so much going on with the family that I didn’t have a chance to visit him. That, and I don’t like hos­pi­tals unless a baby is being born.

Dad had to have the back part of his leg removed, and if it doesn’t heal, they may need to take off his leg from above the knee. He is doing better. He orig­i­nally went in for pace­maker prob­lems and tired­ness and they found out his leg was infected (I think there was a blocked artery). He is not expected to get out for another 8–14 weeks!

Not much else has been hap­pening around the house. Been pretty quiet.

Cur­rently in my iPod:

• Pop­ular – From the Broadway Play WICKED
• Evanescense
• Beau­tiful to Me – Dolly Parton
• Not Ready to Make Nice – Dixie Chicks
• Every­thing for Free – K’s Choice
• One – Mary J. Blige & US

Okay, I figure I should list the cute/funny things my kids say, before I forget them and have a record. Plus, I am gonna need some blackmail.

Tayta:
When we lived in Hilltop, there was a ASIAN DELI that was behind our house, we would pass by there occa­sion­ally when we were able to enter our park through the back gate.

Around the time that mikayla was learning to iden­tify let­ters, she would ask Amy what things said. So she asked Amy, “Momma, what does that say”, Amy told her, “Asian Deli” but Tayta couldn’t hear her, so Amy yelled louder, “ASIAN DELI” and Tayta says right back to her in offense, “I’m not an Agent Smelly”. So ever since then, that has been the Agent Smelly place.

Tayta would say, “Zippy Do Da Day” with this weird country accent, that would crack us up.

Buddha:
Just the other day, Grandma Cindy was watching them while both Amy and I were out. Grandma said a not-so-very-nice word (not a swear word, some­thing like hell or damn) and Tayta told her, “Grandma, that is not a nice word” and Buddha leaned over to Tayta and said, “Grandma is old, so she doesn’t know any better.”

Bear:
Bear had odd words for everything.

One time when her Aunt Jen­nifer was watching her, Bear kept asking for smell-sorals. Jen­nifer couldn’t figure out what it was, and kept telling Bear that she didn’t have any smell­so­rals, and Bear kept telling her that she did have smell­so­rals and told Courtney the next time she was over she could have some.

So Bear kept talking to Jen­nifer like she was insane and by this time Bear was bawling. So finally Jen­nifer called Amy and asked her, “what in the world is smellsorals?”

Amy was at work and half paying atten­tion, so she didn’t know. So Jen­nifer put Bear on the phone and she told Amy that she wanted Smell­so­rals. Jen­nifer got back on the phone and Amy told her that Bear wanted Marsh­mel­lows. Amy had to hear Bear say it to know what it was!

I am in bed right now, get­ting ready to hit the sack. Ya know how you always see the cou­ples on TV shows, and one is in bed with a laptop working. I always wanted to do that. So I am.….except Amy is at Girl Scout camp this week.

Monday and Tuesday night I let the kids sleep in bed with me. I just can’t sleep alone. But Wed and Thurs night I am sleeping alone, I have to work, so I didn’t want to wake the kids with an alarm.

Today was Mikayla’s birthday. My baby is 5. We drove up to the G.S. camp so she could share her day with mama and the other Girl Scouts. Who absolutely adore Mikayla, they all made cards.

I really miss Amy. It sucks when she is gone so long. I really hate it. Not only do I miss her, but I can’t sleep without her next to me.

But she will be back tomorrow, so that shouldn’t be too bad.

Well, I should go to bed so I can get up in the morning. I just wanted to update my blog. I haven’t been doing that lately.

Cur­rently in my iPod (which Amy has all week, so shall we say my laptop).…

• Let’s get Loud… J-Lo
• Alka Yagnik
• Dolly Parton… old hits.

Have I men­tioned I LOVE my laptop lately?

Happy Birthday Mikayla!

Mikayla’s Dance recital was today.

It was awe­some! It always amazes me the energy that just flows through the building. And not just with the dancers, but the audi­ence too.

Mikayla looked so cute it in her cos­tumes and her hair all done up. She started to do the “Benny hop” dance and then real­ized the audi­ence was there, and then kind of froze and did very min­imal dancing.

The “Barney Dance” she did much better. I think she liked that cos­tume better (it had fringe) and she loved doing the jumping at the chorus.

Then for the final, she NAILED IT!. She came out there in her dance outfit and did the hip-hop/street dancing just per­fect. She shook her butt and pumped her hands and really got into it. We found out later, that she only wanted to dance the finale and not the other ones.

We then took her out to McDon­alds and cel­e­brated such a great per­for­mance. I can’t wait until next year now!

til later!

Well, we put in our appli­ca­tions in to the Park we want to live in. We will be waiting for a week or so, until we know if we are approved.

Once that is done, hope­fully they will move the man­u­fac­tured home in… then they will finish the inside and hope­fully we can move in…

But… Amy met with the park man­ager… A REALLY nice guy and he didn’t have very many nice things to say with the two people we are dealing with for our Cal­i­fornia ram­bler… he even showed us a home that they tried to fit into a too small of a lot and just left it there. So I am a little stressed/worried. I don’t feel I will be able to rest until the home is in the park, we have been accepted and moved in…

Keep praying for us.

Work has just been unmo­ti­va­tional. I have been tired and stressed and just unmo­ti­vated. But thank good­ness for Audio­books. I listen to that and actu­ally find myself just pluggin along and pretty soon my night is over. Kinda nice.

Dominic and I have been bonding more. I recently rein­stalled the Star Trek Voy­ager: Élite Force. So we have been sit­ting together while I blow the crap out of mon­sters and stuff and he tells me which guns are more effec­tive on which mon­sters. One smart little guy.

I just installed Deus Ex and me and him were trying to figure that out. A little trickier. Cheat codes our are friends!

Mikayla is so excited about her dance recital. She got stage makeup today and has been wearing it all day. She looks so cute (albeit a little over­done — stage makeup has that effect-but still cute!)