Dishes Anyone

These are our every day dishes and we have used them
everyday for the past almost eleven years. When we went
to register it never crossed my mind that Lance would have
opinions about things like dishes, but he did. It was okay
though because we both like these dishes the best. I however,
did not think our daily stoneware should cost more than our
china pattern. Still I went along with Lance and they have
held up quite nicely. We don't treat them like anything special
they are just our every day dishes.



This is our china pattern. They have always resided
in our china cabinet and are only pulled out on special
occasions. These dishes are always washed by hand.
They are very special even though they cost sightly
less than our every day dishes.

Suddenly though things have changed at home. The cup is from an extremely expensive set of dishes that I have been drooling over for about two years now. Some how I just can't justify spending close to $300 per place setting for a set of stoneware dishes, but aren't they beautiful! Instead I was content to own one mug that I use whenever Lance and I have cookies and milk after the kids are all asleep. Then a couple of weeks ago I found this set of dishes at TJ Max. A pretty good knock-off I must say! I got an entire set for eight plus 4 serving piece for just about $200. That would have bought almost two serving places of my other two sets of dishes. I was thrilled until I realized that the dinner plates were too large for my dishwasher. I was determined that I was not going to wash a set of daily dishes by hand--especially not really cheap ones even though I love them. I decided to return them, but I just couldn't do it. Still, I refuse to wash them everyday. The solution, yesterday I pulled all our china out of the china cabinet and put my TJ Max dishes in there place. I have decided they will be our casual company dishes and I will wash them by hand. So while our nice dishes are hidden away in the kitchen cabinets, my knock-off TJ Max dishes sit with honor looking quite eloquent in the china cabinet. This all seems a little crazy to me, but then I look at our little china hutch and the dishes just seem to fit in our yellow dining room, so who cares, right?

Career Paths

I'm thinking that maybe living in the shadow of Intel is starting to have an effect on us. We onced joked about our Intel friends having a computer for every member of the family and now we're almost there--Lance just needs a laptop. Brycen loves computers so much and he is so good at working them that I think he might one day be an Intel engineer. BUT AFTER YESTERDAY, I think maybe we need to start saving for Medical School.

My sister made the mistake of showing the boys

her war wounds from snowboarding. Brycen

grabbed tissues and band-aids and he and Zac set

out to work. Afterwards Ali said "I'm so happy you

guys made my legs feel better." To which Brycen

replied "We're so glad we could help."

Little Doctor Jones.

California Sunshine

Brycen pauses a moment for a photo op.


Zac enjoying a good work-out.


Lance figures he might as well exercise too.





This was the first time in years that Zac actually
rode on the train. When I asked him what he thought,
he said, in a very excited voice, "It was alot more fun
than I thought it would be"--YEAH!



On days like this I feel very blessed to live in California! It was an absolutely beautiful day today. Scottie went to his daycare--where he prefers to spend his Saturdays and the rest of us went to the park and the zoo. Unfortunately all the animals decided it was a beautiful afternoon to sleep, but we still had lots of fun.

Webzinz Rock the Jones House!

For those of you who are not already caught up in the Webkinz craze, Webkinz are cute little stuffed animal that come with a code that gives the owner access to the Webkinz world online. Online you can buy everything for your pets from rooms, to swimming pools, clothes to working stoves. You earn money buy playing games, answering triva questions, mining for gems, or you can even get a job. You also have to care for your pet by feeding them and playing with them, you can even bathe them. Zac and Brycen got their first Webkinz pet for Christmas, now they each have four. Thank you Grandma Carolyn for the Valentine's money that Zac used to buy his pet reindeer and Brycen used to buy his pet Hippo. The boys love to play with their online pets while poor old Sebastian lies around waiting for anyone to throw a tennis ball for him. The site really is addictive though, at least that is the excuse I am using to justify the fact that my sister and I just bought our own webkinz animals. Lance thinks we have all gone crazy, but if you watch you can catch him playing Webkinzs pool, air hockey, or battleship.


Brycen took this picture of his new Hippo.


Our collection of furry friends.
back row: Snowpriness (Brycen's cat), Sushi, (Zac's Cyldale), Blitzen (Zac's Reindeer)
middle row: Snow (Brycen's elephant), Snow Angel (Brycen's yellow lab), Sparky (Zac's Dalmatian), Shay Honor (my raccoon named after my favorite girl names that Lance hates), Smoden (Zac's Beagle),
Front row: Ice (Brycen's Hippo) I don't know why Brycen's pets have such cold names.

This is how we spend much of our freetime. The boys are playing pool in the gameroom they bought for their pets.


Zac takes a break from his online pets to give some love to Ali's dog Leica on Valentine's Day.
Just to let everyone know that is an old sheet protecting our bed from Leica who thinks she is a person!

Wow What a Week!

This has been one of those weeks where I feel there has hardly been time to breath. My mornings were full with a meeting at Scott's school, putting on a cooking creation lesson in Brycen's class, watching Zac's class play, baking Amish friendship bread--and giving away the extra starters, and attending an enrichment class on english Toffee making. Our eveings were full with Scouts, basketball pratice, my institute class, young womens, and Lance's finance class. It was a fun week, but boy am I glad it is FRIDAY!

Zac and a fellow team mate engaged in a very serious

conversation!

Zac had his first Backetball practice this week. This is

the first time he has done a special olympics sport and

he seems to really enjoy it. It is refreshing to watch him

in an enviroment where he can really excel and feel good

about hinself. With Scouts, Basketball, and Karate he is

staying very busy.

This is the catapillar pizza the Brycen and Zac made.

It was our trial run before making three catapillar pizzas

at Brycen preschool on Monday.

Byrcen and his classmates finishing up their pizzas.

Brycen is still very smitten with Ashley--I'm good with

that though--she would be my first choice for him too.

All three third grade classes at Zac's school put on

a pirate play today. The classes have pirates as their

overall them for the year. Their class room currency is

pirate booty--which they can earn for doing good work.

Today's play was all about using good grammer. It was

absolutely adorable. I was very immpressed by how well

they had all memorized their speaking parts and the songs.