Girl hair...makes me absolutely crazy!

Yes, I know. I'm a girl. I have hair. It doesn't mean I have to like it.

For so many years of my life I only had my girl hair to worry about.

But now I have a girl of my own and I have to worry about her hair!

Most of the time I don't because 1) it's a fight; a knock-down drag-out fight to get her hair brushed and in some semblance of order, and 2) thirty seconds after doing her hair it looks as if she just woke up.

Another reason I struggle with Maura's hair is I am seriously retarded when it comes to doing small things with my hands.

I'm an interpreter for goodness sakes, you would think I would be good with my hands! Nope, not me! When it comes to fine motor skills I am severely handicapped.

This summer my niece, Rae turned me on to this website.

The mom on this blog seriously has too much time on her hands. There is NO WAY I could ever do some of these awesome hairstyles. I just couldn't. It would never work. But, they are sooo cute!

So, in a desperate attempt to keep my daughter from looking homeless I attempted a few edited versions of princess hair styles. (Not such a great picture of the hair, but the smirk is totally worth the picture.)


It only took 10 minutes and I bribed her with a banana.


The best part was she slept in it for two days and I just kept recycling it. AWESOME!


The second one didn't work out as well. It was cute, but I'm not really good at the straight parts and symmetrical lines that make these hairstyles look amazing.

She also has really fine hair to work with and sits still about as long as a gnat with ADD.

BUT, at least she doesn't look homeless!

"Mom, those trees are just standing there looking at us!"

Me: Maura do you want me to help you put on your shirt?
Maura: No, Mom! I totally big now. Oh my dosh!


*sigh* I'm raising a Valley Girl.

A Jones is a Jones is a Jones!

My Aunt Ellen sent this picture to me and asked me who it looked like. Dallin's response was, "It looks like Garrett and Maura!"

It is my little brother Trenton and little sister Katie (the one who just had a baby).

But man, it sure does look like Maura! (sans the cute piggie tails)

Guess little Mookster got all the Jones genes!

Noodle Fights. 'Nuff Said.

Maura


The Mookster


Missy Moo


Monkey Loo

Moolicious


Monkeylicious


Stinker pants

Sister's weekend, take two!

This is the second time we've left our homes, husbands, children and other responsibilities to hang out together for a weekend. I love it!

This year my youngest sister has a brand new baby (3 weeks old) so we decided to all descend on her house to hug on the baby and help her around the house.

We did a lot of this:



And then, we did this:


And this:

and this:

And this! (Not a step!)


Katie has lived in her new house for about 3 years and hadn't had the inspiration yet to decorate, so we decided to do it for her!!

We came prepared to clean, paint, and decorate her house. We dug through closets and found many treasures she hadn't even opened since she got married. We looked through everything, chose paint colors and at the end of 2 days her house looked completely different! Some of the time we actually consulted her about it.

It started out as a blank slate



Then it got really messy




Then we got tired


After we put it all back together again it looked terrific! It was like one of those makeover shows! So much fun! (I didn't get many good shots of the finished project! Dang! I guess I was too tired....Katie, you'll have to send me some of the finished product!





One of my favorite little projects was building this end table from Kevin's medical books he had stacked around the house.


Katie happened to have a glass round sitting in the closet. So easy and super cute!


After being gone for a day Kevin came home to a different house.

But I think my very favorite thing we did all weekend was just hang out together.
Love you, sisters!

Labor Day Get Away: Tucson, Az

Why Tucson? Well, almost three years ago I was VERY pregnant with Maura and Adam had to go work for Sorenson in the Tucson center for a few days. I decided the boys and I needed to join him (share in the free hotel) and see some Tucson sights. We researched a few fun places to go and spent two days swimming in the pool, going to the zoo, and several other museums while Adam worked. It was really fun and we have great memories of being there.

So, we decided since everyone else in the Phoenix metro area was headed to the mountains, we would go south! I googled a hotel and found the same fun places as we had gone to before and Sunday afternoon we headed out.

On the way we stopped to hug on little Adell for a few minutes and let Dallin and Maura chase Oliver while Adam caught a quick nap. Then on to Tucson.

As we got closer to the hotel we realized we unknowingly had planned to stay in the exact same hotel as we had three years earlier! Dallin even remembered the room we had stayed in. It brought back a lot of memories.

Monday morning we headed to Reid Park Zoo, the fun zoo we had been to several years earlier.
Dallin and Garrett October, 2007

Dallin and Maura September 2010

Posing before we went into the zoo. Nice Adam, really nice.


Maura loved seeing the peacocks everywhere.

Feeding the Giraffe was a fun treat.

Garrett really loved doing it too!


Mookster and Daddy got up close and personal with a python.

How many little lizards do you see? hee hee

Dallin on a termite mound.


Ohhh, that 's where Maura came from. Now I understand!


Dallin too!

Such cute little toads (as Grandpa Jonesy would say).


Not too bad ourselves.

Just outside the zoo is a little train you can ride on around the park. We didn't ride it this time, but Dallin and Garrett enjoyed it when we came last.


Next, on to the Childrens Museum. I love that it has so many hands-on things for kids to do.



When you first go in, you see a giant T-rex display that moves! Garrett was apprehensive.

Maura was terrified!

She liked the puppet area much better!


When it was her turn to play with the puppet, she picked it up and said "Mom, it's broken. It doesn't work anymore!" I had to teach her how to put her hand in and move the mouth. We have puppets at home so I thought she knew what they were.


The rope maze was a lot of fun too!

Dallin enjoyed it too.

I love that there were so many areas for big kids and little kids too.


It was a good day. I missed Garrett a lot and was a little sad he wasn't with us. It would have been an adventure having all of us there together.


Tucson is a great place with tons of fun things to do. So, next time you need a mini-cation you should try it!

P.S. I forgot to add: Everywhere we went we would ask Dallin "Do you remember this?" and he would respond that he did or didn't. Pretty soon he would just say "Oh, yeah, I remember this!" and we would talk about when we came with Garrett the last time. Half way through the day Maura began to chime in "I remember this!", "Yes, I was here long time ago." and on and on! Really funny.