The Blog of Bert Jones

Lately I have been watching a little TV, laying in bed, before sleeping for the day.

This morning, after Amy left to take Courtney to school, I hear Riley come thumpin through the house and he opens my bed­room door, with that look on his face of “where’s my mom!”.

I told him before he could even say any­thing, “Mommy went to take Bear to school, she’lll be right back”.

I fig­ured he would then shut the door and go to grandma’s room, like usual, but what I was watching on the TV must have caught his eye (Smal­l­ville) and he climbed up into my bed and shim­mied to the tiny space in front of me on the edge of the bed (TV is on my side).

I scooted back a little to make more room for him and he snug­gled in. I put my arm around him, (I think I felt him inter­nally sigh), and we watched the show until Amy came home and in the room.

She asked him (sounding all sur­prised), “My Riley is awake, what are you doin? Are you watching TV with daddy? What are you watching?” and he paused and I whis­pered “smal­l­ville” and he blurts out, “yeah! Smallville”.

And he stayed there until Amy men­tioned Tod­dler Tuesday, and he was off like the flash.

The snuggle time was great while it lasted. Its not often he snug­gles in with me, like he used to when he was a baby*. So I take it when I can.

I love all my snugglers.

*Foot­note: When he was a baby, Amy would sneak him into the crook of my arm, while I was asleep and he would take his naps with me during the day.

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.)

She’s got her Gemini mixin with a funky cross­finger and her two 1200s just ready.…to let us.…have it!

The title of this entry is from the cur­rent song I am lis­tening on my iPod. RuPaul’s Miss Lady DJ. From her first album. A great song to get down and funky with.

Well, I have so much to update everyone on. I don’t even know where to begin.

I have been elected on the Board of Direc­tors for the Coöper­a­tive. So I will serve for three years as secretary.

Scout and Sneakers were taken into the Vet today.

Scout has nothing wrong with him that the vet could find. We were wor­ried, because he used to weigh 25 lbs. and now he ways 9 lbs. The doc thinks he may have a thy­roid dis­ease, so his metab­o­lism is run­ning high. If we fix the thy­roid issue, he could have kidney failure, so we will leave the thy­roid and just keep an eye on him. He also has arthritis, so we have to make sure he doesn’t have to jump to far for any­thing. (Trans­la­tion: Lots of car­rying and babying the poor kitty!)

Sneakers we brought in because he had this lump growing on the back of his spine. And it got big. They believe it is cancer, but to tell if it is benign or malig­nant would cost $1000. To treat it would cost even more. So we are leaving it. They think it is benign, because if you touch it, it doesn’t bother him. If it was malig­nant, it would be painful. So we need to watch him and if it becomes painful for him, then we know it will be time to put him to sleep.

Riley is just a walkin every­where! Some­times he runs. It is so cute to watch him walk all over the place. Nothing feels better than to have your child walk to you with their arms out­stretched. And he loves to make sounds! Any kinds, as long as they are all different!

We want to plan a trip to Disney World next year and the Disney Cruise. We need to save like $14,000 dol­lars to do the trip we really want to do.

We would also like to buy land and move our home onto it, with a base­ment. I still want a Dome home, but that may have to wait…

Hmm.… I really can’t think of any­thing else. I thought I had more than that… oh well.

Good Morning all you people that are asleep as I write this.

I was out of town last weekend. Went up north to my Sister-in-law’s house for the final Family Christmas on my wife’s side.

Oy Vay. That is all I am gonna say. We had our fun moments, but, oy vay!

The kids did put on a pagent. That was cute. I use dmy pro­jector to cast a back­ground for them to use. Next year I will take more time and actu­ally create var­ious scenes and stuff!

Nice to be back. I have so much stuff to do though!

1. Scrap­book night on Friday
2. Pinewood Derby on Saturday
3. An online pre­sen­ta­tion on Thursday
4. finish up PRC stuff this week

Just a lot to do!

Riley is talking nicely, more sounds than actual words, but he is get­ting there.

He knows some sign lan­guage that Amy is teaching him. He can ask for a bottle, food, more and toys. They aren’t the actual signs, but he under­stands when we sign them and he has his own ver­sion (with a sound to go with) to tell us what he wants.

He is so smart too! I can’t get over how smart he is for his age!

We have a meeting with the Dean of the Ele­men­tary and a few school teachers in regards to Dominic.

They think there is some issues there and I think they need to know how to handle him. His actual teacher had no prob­lems with him, when she went off to mater­natiy leave, all of a sudden we are having issues… oy vay!

Well, got to get back to the imag­i­nary work to do here…

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

Well hello all, it has been awhile since I wrote.

I started a new job on Monday. I am working with a com­pany in St. Paul. I have three weeks of training during the day and then I will switch to 3^rd shift.

Not quiet looking for­ward to the whole 3^rd shift thing. But it is more money, and then Amy will have the car during the day.

Riley is making lots of sounds. He is fig­uring out his voice and making noises from low to high squeals. He likes to gurgle and goo. He is get­ting so big as well.

He had a doc­tors appoint­ment on Tuesday and he is in the 90 per­centile in weight, the 75 per­centile in height and 99 per­centile for his head size. So that means, he can hold his head up, but not for too long, because he is ‘top heavy’. His head is too heavy for him. Hope­fully by his next appoint­ment in 2 months, that will have cor­rected itself.

Other than that, he is doing great!

His hair is growing out so he looks so cute cause it is spiking on his head!

He had a doc­tors appoint­ment yes­terday and it seems he has an ear infec­tion. We had thought that he was teething (he wasn’t rub­bing his ears at all) so we were giving him teething gel and a teething ring and it seemed to work. To doctor told us why it seemed to work was because it was relieving the pres­sure in his ears as he would chew on it.

We also had the doctor look at his big toes. Ever since he was born the nail on those two toes grew a little dif­ferent. And his big toes were very red. Well, it turns out they are infected. So we have to clean them out and apply anti­septic on them to help them heal.

He also had two shots in his leg. So Tuesday night he had a fever. From the ear ache and the shots, he wasn’t very happy. He just wanted to snuggle. Poor guy.

He seemed to do better in the morning, although his fever was starting up again.

Not much else is going on. I will keep ya posted!

Well, it has been a month since I last worked with Best Buy.

In that time I have:

1. Scrap­booked
2. Cleaned My Desk
3. Tried to Find a Job
4. Been Re-elected to serve on the Paul Revere Board of Directors
5. Worked on coöper­a­tive issues
6. Cleaned my Desk
7. Pre­pared for pho­tographing a wed­ding in June
8. Cleaned my Desk
9. Helped Amy orga­nize stuff
10. Cleaned my Desk
11. Been to Dominic’s Spring Cel­e­bra­tion at School
12. Cleaned my Desk… Did I men­tion this already?
13. Been to Mikayla’s Kinder­garten Program
14. Taken a Shower

Okay, so I took a few more showers in between there, but lately I have felt like a bum. I don’t know what I would do if mom wasn’t living with us. She has kept us afloat.

But, I hope­fully will have an assign­ment starting June 26^th. It is second shift (yuck) but it is work, will last 3–4 months. So keep your fin­gers crossed.

Riley Update: He is get­ting that cute baby fat­ness. He looks just like Dominic and myself. He is so cute. We even do this ‘Bounce, Bounce, Bounce–Wiggle, Wiggle, Wiggle’ that he gets a kick out of.

And he just loves his daddy! When Amy plays with him, she will get a smile and maybe a chuckle. But when I play with him, he must think I am hys­ter­ical, because I get these full-belly laughs. It’s great!

Riley also loves our cuddle time in the morning. While Amy takes the other kids to school, he comes and sleeps with me in bed, and we both get a few more hours in. We usu­ally don’t wake up until about noon. At which point, Amy comes in and com­plains that we both stink and need to get out of bed! Riley and I are both ‘heaters’ and give off heat.

OH! Before I forget. A few weeks ago, Mom and I were up late watchin a movie, and she finally got him to sleep, so I stayed up a bit more and watched some TV.

I finally went to bed about 1 a.m. and just as I finally fell asleep, we wakes up. It was 1:30 a.m. I was so upset and frus­trated, Amy was telling me to just calm down, it was okay, so I finally just brought him in bed with Amy and I. She turned on her side to face us, and I was kind of on my side with him in the crook of my arm.

Riley, looked at me, then turned and looked at Amy, then turned and looked at me. He did that a few times, back and forth, back and forth, finally he snug­gled back and sighed. It was like he was saying, “I have Mommy, and Daddy, Mommy, Daddy, Mommy, Daddy–I can sleep now.”

He then woke up a second later and did it again to make sure we were still there! It was so cute, I was no longer upset and frustrated!

Well, time for me to clean my desk. Talk to you all later.