Words

I like words. I like learning the meaning of different, new, interesting words. I like to read. When I tell Brad that, he tells me to read all of the assigned theological books for his classes for him. So I've learned to qualify that statement...I like to read, but I hate boring books. Theological books and textbooks for classes are like sleeping tablets for my brain. Because I like words and books, it makes sense that I think puns are fun! I love them -- they make me laugh. So I thought you'd like to read some, too.

1. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, but when they lit a fire in the craft, it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.

2. Two boll weevils grew up in South Carolina. One went to Hollywood and became a famous actor. The other stayed behind in the cotton fields and never amounted to much. The second one, naturally, became known as the lesser of two weevils.

3. Leif Ericson, a famous Viking explorer, returned home from a voyage and found his name missing from the town register. His wife insisted on complaining to the local civic official who apologized profusely, saying, "I must have taken Leif off my census."

4. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and, with his odd diet, he suffered from very bad breath. This made him a super-calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

5. The Cleveland Symphony was performing Beethoven's Ninth. In the piece, there's a long passage - about 20 minutes - during which the bass violinists have nothing to do. Rather than sit around that whole time, some bassists decided to sneak offstage and go to the tavern next door for a quick one. After slamming several beers in quick succession, one of them looked at his watch.

"Hey -- we need to get back!"

"No need to panic," said a fellow bassist. "I thought we'd need extra time, so I tied the last few pages of the conductor's score together with string. It'll take him a few minutes to get it untangled."

A few moments later, they staggered back to the concert hall and took their places in the orchestra. About this time, a member of the audience noticed the conductor was a bit edgy and said so to her companion. "Well, of course," answered her friend. "Don't you see? It's the bottom of the Ninth, the score is tied, and the bassists are loaded."

6. Did you hear about the Buddhist monk who refused Novocain during a root canal? He wanted to transcend dental medication.

7. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. "But why?" they asked, as they moved off. "Because," he said, "I can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer."

8. A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named Amal. The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him Juan. Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Amal. He responds, "They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Amal."

9. The friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought this was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to "persuade" them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that: Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist friars.

10. There was a person who put ten different puns up on a blog, in the hope that at least one of the puns would make its readers laugh. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did.

Well, they all made me laugh!

He Speaks!

Isaac is our strong, silent child no longer. Just this week, he found his voice! And I mean, he REALLY found his voice. He's louder right now than December ever was, if you can believe that! Here he is, doing his shouting-cooing.

Animal Babies

On Saturday, I took the kids to the Wild Animal Park. I had never taken them to the park all by myself before, and it was really fun! We usually go with my friend Naomi and her kids, so the whole time December was confused and was asking, "Where's Noah? Where did Noah go? We need to go find him!" because he wasn't there like he usually is!

We went there because there have been alot of animal babies born there recently. Here December is walking down the path to the tiger babies.

Here's the elephants!

If you look between the mother elephant's trunk and legs, you'll see a little gray blob, which is the newborn baby elephant. He had been born the day before, and at birth he weighed 252 lbs!

"The Coniferous Forrest" was a place at the Wild Animal Park that we hadn't explored before...

I decided that I don't take enough pictures of the interesting plants around here, so I took this picture!

The baby cheetah -- so cute! At first, he was cuddled into the stuffed animals around him that he looked just like another stuffed animal, and I couldn't see him. I told December that they must have taken the baby cheetah out of the exhibit, and we were both sad about that -- until I realized he was actually laying there all along, just camouflaged!

Baby alligator. Actually, this alligator is five years old and has been hand-raised. They were letting children ages five and up go in and pet the alligator. Yikes! Even if December had been old enough, I don't think I would have let her go see him and pet him. Alligators are the animals she's most afraid of, and if this little one had moved even a muscle, December would've been scared for life!

A picture taken while December was at the seminary during a barbeque lunch last week.

December wasn't finished napping when I woke her up, so she fell back asleep on the carpet.

Isaac's Best Friend

Isaac has a new friend -- his toy giraffe. He absolutely loves it! It can always bring a smile from him.

The Babies Have Come!

Here's the "Before" picture of Della, me, Rachel, and Sara back in November, with our babies growing in us!



The "After" picture: Della had baby Clara, I had baby Isaac, Rachel had baby Benjamin, and Sara had baby Abigail.

Isaac has begun to suck his thumb, but not consistently yet. He's still learning how to find it on a regular basis. But here was the first time he sucked his thumb to put himself to sleep! It was great!

Isaac and December have both had their pictures taken -- Isaac's 3-month picture and December's 3-year picture. I can't WAIT to get them back! They both did really well at them, although Isaac was tired and wanted to go to sleep, and December was nervous about the new person/bright lights. But they both did some good smiles, and I'm really happy with how it all went! We just have to wait a while to get the pictures back...that's the hard part, waiting.

I'm excited about today, because we're going to the mall with Naomi and her two kids, Noah and Isaac, and we're going to get Naomi's ears pierced! It'll be so fun! And my watch battery needs to be looked at, so I'll do that while we're there, too. Not as fun, but necessary! Brad is doing well at school, although this semester is the most difficult of the entire three years of seminary -- so the seasoned students say. It's true. Brad's got six papers due this semester, and they're not the tiny little 5-pagers, either! It seems like the professors like to give papers that need to be anywhere between 15 and 20 pages in length. Yikes! I'm very impressed that Brad is able to write these things! He is very smart.

Want to know what a Trillion Dollars looks like?

You won't believe your eyes! Go to the link below and find out. I think we hear the word "Trillion" and think, "oh, that's just a little more than a Billion." Of course, all these numbers really mean nothing to us, but when you see it rendered in 3D...

http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html

Let me know what you think,
Brad

The Completed Monopoly Bathroom

Last weekend, I was really excited to get out of the apartment after being locked up in it all week, and so I went to the park with December and Isaac -- that made them quite happy -- and then we went shopping! And that made me very happy! We went and picked up the Monopoly board game, and then we went to Michaels to get some supplies -- a clock kit and a frame. And then I had everything I needed to make the Monopoly clock!

Making the clock was really alot of fun!

With the shadow-box frame, I used some of the pieces from the board game and put them in it...

This was great fun, too. I've decided that I like theme rooms, and I think it'd be great, whenever I have a house, to do a different theme in every room. Ha! That'd either be really neat...or really tacky. Not sure which. But theme rooms are so fun to get stuff for! Like the Monopoly bathroom, or December's room, which is a butterfly & flower theme.

A sleeping boy. This is the position I most commonly find Isaac when he's sleeping -- it's his favorite way to sleep!

Isaac, getting in some tummy time. We usually like to lay in front of him while he's doing tummy time, like December's doing here, to give him something to look at and some incentive to hold his head higher. I love this outfit that my Uncle John and Aunt Dawn gave to Isaac -- that bear on the bum is super cute!

Brad was changing Isaac's diaper, and December was inspired to be like Isaac and have no pants on, too. Here December and Daddy are playing with the little ponies. In this picture, the ponies are in church. There's a piano at the front of the church, the ponies are the congregation, and the little bear at the front is the preacher. I was making dinner in the kitchen and their conversation was floating over to me. It was pretty funny, listening to how they were pretending church -- they sang some songs that we actually sing in our church, and then Daddy made the bear give a little sermon. Pretty cute!

Hanging Out at Home

This week, we've been trapped in our apartment. They've been redoing our deck -- cleaning it, putting on a tar, waterproof coat, recementing it, painting it, etc. Every day, Monday through Friday, they put on a new layer. AND since there is only one door in and out of our apartment (which enters onto the deck), we're trapped inside. So, besides staring out the window and watching paint dry, we've been trying to make our own fun at home!

December, above, and Isaac playing on our bed. Here Isaac is wearing his Canada shirt and looking mighty cute in it!

December giving Isaac a kiss

December reading Isaac a book about fairies (he loved hearing about all of those pink fairies, I'm sure). She's got the book memorized and is saying it to him. This book is from the public library, and it made me laugh when we went there because out of the entire floor that they have dedicated to children's books, December picked out the two most pink, girly books they had. She chose this one, about fairies, and another one, about babies dressed up in pink angel costumes.

Isaac being a true Californian with his flower shirt. He's finding his thumb more and more often, and he likes it -- although he's still not completely sure what to do with it and it still gags him every now and then.


December thoroughly enjoyed a piece of her leftover chocolate birthday cake...

Again, one of the rare times December wanted to hold Isaac. She still takes his rejection very personally and completely melts down if he starts to cry while she's holding him.

A happy boy

It's the Jones' children bath time! Lately I've been giving them both baths at the same time, and it seems to work really well!

Brad is the only one at church right now...December has been throwing up yesterday and today, and I'm not sure what she's got. While I feel awful for December when she throws up, I really appreciated the long nap she took yesterday! It was absolutely wonderful. Her naps are pretty irregular these days, if she takes one at all, so to have her take a nice, looong nap was awesome!