Keeping Up With The Joneses — April 2026
4 weeks ago
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Christmas 2013
The weekend before Christmas we spent celebrating with Matt's extended family. We always have a lot of fun with them...they are a crazy bunch!
We started with Christmas breakfast at the Farmer's Market Restaurant with Oma, Opa, Aunt Lynn and the cousins and then came back to our house to hang out.
Then Papa and Grandma Nita came for a late lunch. The weather was beautiful...70s in the middle of December, so we spent a lot of time outside. The boys played football and ran around. It was so nice!!
Christmas Eve, we went to the Children's Service at our church. Brayden VERY reluctantly went on stage during the children's singing (don't worry...he didn't sing at all).
Afterwards, our friends came over for dinner. Then we sprinkled reindeer food, put out our milk and cookies and the kids went to bed.
Christmas morning, the kids got up and found that Santa had come!
Lilly got a kitchen with all the food, dishes, etc and Brayden got a sleeping bag and new legos!
We had a quick breakfast and then the kids jumped into unwrapping gifts!
After everything was straightened up, we got dressed and headed to Grammy and Paw's house for a few days.
The Saturday after Christmas we spent at Nana and BB's house. Brayden and BB played a lot of foose ball (sp?)
We started with Christmas breakfast at the Farmer's Market Restaurant with Oma, Opa, Aunt Lynn and the cousins and then came back to our house to hang out.
Then Papa and Grandma Nita came for a late lunch. The weather was beautiful...70s in the middle of December, so we spent a lot of time outside. The boys played football and ran around. It was so nice!!
Christmas Eve, we went to the Children's Service at our church. Brayden VERY reluctantly went on stage during the children's singing (don't worry...he didn't sing at all).
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| Very fuzzy but he was willingly up on stage |
Afterwards, our friends came over for dinner. Then we sprinkled reindeer food, put out our milk and cookies and the kids went to bed.
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| Putting out reindeer food |
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| and milk and cookies! |
Christmas morning, the kids got up and found that Santa had come!
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| Santa Came!!! |
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| Inspecting her new kitchen |
We had a quick breakfast and then the kids jumped into unwrapping gifts!
After everything was straightened up, we got dressed and headed to Grammy and Paw's house for a few days.
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| Santa's helpers at Grammy and Paw's house |
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| Family photo |
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| My wonderful parents |
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| Kids anxiously awaiting present time! |
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| Silly Lilly! |
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| Lilly got a new princess castle! |
Friday, July 18, 2014
SNOW!!!
This winter we had an unusually large number of snow events. Not that any single event accounted to a large amounts of snow, but every Tuesday in February it snowed/sleeted. Schools were canceled for something like 10 days due to snow/ice on the roads.
The worst of the snow happened while Matt was out of town for work. They were traveling back from GA the day of the big event (which happened to be the largest snow event of the winter). GA and SC were also getting major snow and ice so I was freaking out a bit about them traveling through the storm as well! I left work around 1pm to go get the kids because the news was saying that it was going to be bad (for NC!). By the time I got about 1/2 way home, the snow started falling and within another mile, the road was covered and it got scary. I saw SO many cars sliding off the road, wrecking, or just stopping in the middle of the road and not continuing. After a very stressful 2hrs, fulls of tears, prayers, and white knuckles, I got to daycare.
By this point, the ground had about 3" on it and the roads were nothing but a sheet of ice. I debated about which way would be best to go home form daycare. Option 1 was through the neighborhood but had a fairly large hill. Option 2 was back out of main roads with much more traffic and crazy people. I opted for Option 1, thinking that if we had to, we could walk home (about 2 miles from daycare) through the neighborhood or walk to a friends house (we know a LOT of people in the neighborhood) in the neighborhood if something were to happen and we couldn't make it home.
I told the kids to not make a sound so that mommy could concentrate on driving. They listened (for once!) and didn't make a sound until I said that they could. We made it most of the way home before the car just couldn't get all the way up the big hill. We kept sliding backwards and finally stopped at the bottom of a side street intersection. I said a prayer that we could get past the intersection and tried going forward one more time. Thankfully, we were able to get past the intersection and off the side of the road. I gave up at this point and told the kids we were going to have to walk the rest of the way home. Thankfully, the kids had hats, gloves, winter coats, and good shoes on this particular day! Brayden was a rock star and helped me carry stuff home so that I could carry Lilly along with the rest of our stuff. We ended up walking the last 0.3mi home. Just as we were leaving the car, a man walked by (he was also walking home since he had to abandon his car) and he offered to help me get the kids home. I felt bad for him because he had already been walking a good ways so I told him we would be fine, but it was a very kind offer!
Matt finally made it home safely around 9 or 9:30 that evening. That was a very stressful day all around!
The next day, Brayden had a blast playing in the snow. Lilly was not nearly the fan of the cold that Brayden was though. My crazy boy wanted to play football in the snow as well :)
The worst of the snow happened while Matt was out of town for work. They were traveling back from GA the day of the big event (which happened to be the largest snow event of the winter). GA and SC were also getting major snow and ice so I was freaking out a bit about them traveling through the storm as well! I left work around 1pm to go get the kids because the news was saying that it was going to be bad (for NC!). By the time I got about 1/2 way home, the snow started falling and within another mile, the road was covered and it got scary. I saw SO many cars sliding off the road, wrecking, or just stopping in the middle of the road and not continuing. After a very stressful 2hrs, fulls of tears, prayers, and white knuckles, I got to daycare.
By this point, the ground had about 3" on it and the roads were nothing but a sheet of ice. I debated about which way would be best to go home form daycare. Option 1 was through the neighborhood but had a fairly large hill. Option 2 was back out of main roads with much more traffic and crazy people. I opted for Option 1, thinking that if we had to, we could walk home (about 2 miles from daycare) through the neighborhood or walk to a friends house (we know a LOT of people in the neighborhood) in the neighborhood if something were to happen and we couldn't make it home.
I told the kids to not make a sound so that mommy could concentrate on driving. They listened (for once!) and didn't make a sound until I said that they could. We made it most of the way home before the car just couldn't get all the way up the big hill. We kept sliding backwards and finally stopped at the bottom of a side street intersection. I said a prayer that we could get past the intersection and tried going forward one more time. Thankfully, we were able to get past the intersection and off the side of the road. I gave up at this point and told the kids we were going to have to walk the rest of the way home. Thankfully, the kids had hats, gloves, winter coats, and good shoes on this particular day! Brayden was a rock star and helped me carry stuff home so that I could carry Lilly along with the rest of our stuff. We ended up walking the last 0.3mi home. Just as we were leaving the car, a man walked by (he was also walking home since he had to abandon his car) and he offered to help me get the kids home. I felt bad for him because he had already been walking a good ways so I told him we would be fine, but it was a very kind offer!
Matt finally made it home safely around 9 or 9:30 that evening. That was a very stressful day all around!
The next day, Brayden had a blast playing in the snow. Lilly was not nearly the fan of the cold that Brayden was though. My crazy boy wanted to play football in the snow as well :)
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Christmas 2013 Festivities
Yeah...I am WAY behind with the blog. This post has been written for several months now but I was looking for a particular photo and have given up. I must be dreaming that it ever existed...
As always, we had a very busy Christmas season this year.
We started by letting the kids help with the decorating the tree which is always fun for everyone! Brayden understands how to put the ornaments on the tree (i.e. not all in one spot), but of course, Lilly has no idea. Brayden was really good about helping Lilly get her ornaments on the tree without making her mad.
The following weekend was Matt's office party. We always go to his office party because we don't ever have a chance otherwise to dress up and go out. In the past, the parties have been at fancy places in downtown or fancy country clubs but this year it was at the office. I have to say, the ladies who did the decorating did an AMAZING job! We had a great time and look forward to next year's party!
One of Brayden's friends, Zach, his little sister Meredith, and mom came over and decorated gingerbread houses with us. Meredith is a few months younger than Lilly so I made small gingerbread houses out of graham crackers for the girls. The boys made full size houses out of the kids. Everyone had a great time and ate way too much candy!! Unfortunately, I was too busy helping the kids to take many pictures during the decorating, but the finished products turned out quite good!
Then we had our traditional small group cookie decorating party for the kids on the 15th and then that night we all go sitters for the kids and the adults got together for a fun night.
The weekend before Christmas, one of the other moms from daycare and I threw a party for 8 or 9 of the boys in their class. This group of boys has been together for 4 years now and have gotten to be pretty good friends. The theme of the party was "The Polar Express". We planned on letting the boys watch the Polar Express movie, do a craft, have hot chocolate, do a "Who am I?" game, and do a gift exchange. Of course, it was 70+ degrees on December 22, so all the boys wanted to do was play outside!! We were able to get them inside long enough for an ornament craft, hot chocolate, and the gift exchange. For the gift exchange, we did a Frosty the Snowman Pass the Gift Left/Right story. Amazingly, our 5ish year old boys, get very confused with this and we ended up cutting the story very short! Otherwise, the boys were running around outside having a blast!
The same friend that took our family photos back in September came over one night and took pictures of the kids in the Christmas PJs in front of the tree. Despite very uncooperative kids, I think the pictures came out really well!
As always, we had a very busy Christmas season this year.
We started by letting the kids help with the decorating the tree which is always fun for everyone! Brayden understands how to put the ornaments on the tree (i.e. not all in one spot), but of course, Lilly has no idea. Brayden was really good about helping Lilly get her ornaments on the tree without making her mad.
The following weekend was Matt's office party. We always go to his office party because we don't ever have a chance otherwise to dress up and go out. In the past, the parties have been at fancy places in downtown or fancy country clubs but this year it was at the office. I have to say, the ladies who did the decorating did an AMAZING job! We had a great time and look forward to next year's party!
One of Brayden's friends, Zach, his little sister Meredith, and mom came over and decorated gingerbread houses with us. Meredith is a few months younger than Lilly so I made small gingerbread houses out of graham crackers for the girls. The boys made full size houses out of the kids. Everyone had a great time and ate way too much candy!! Unfortunately, I was too busy helping the kids to take many pictures during the decorating, but the finished products turned out quite good!
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| Brayden was very detail oriented |
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| Lilly was very focus on the task at hand. She did eat about as much candy as she put on the gingerbread house! |
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| Lilly's Gingerbread house |
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| Another view of Lilly's |
Then we had our traditional small group cookie decorating party for the kids on the 15th and then that night we all go sitters for the kids and the adults got together for a fun night.
The weekend before Christmas, one of the other moms from daycare and I threw a party for 8 or 9 of the boys in their class. This group of boys has been together for 4 years now and have gotten to be pretty good friends. The theme of the party was "The Polar Express". We planned on letting the boys watch the Polar Express movie, do a craft, have hot chocolate, do a "Who am I?" game, and do a gift exchange. Of course, it was 70+ degrees on December 22, so all the boys wanted to do was play outside!! We were able to get them inside long enough for an ornament craft, hot chocolate, and the gift exchange. For the gift exchange, we did a Frosty the Snowman Pass the Gift Left/Right story. Amazingly, our 5ish year old boys, get very confused with this and we ended up cutting the story very short! Otherwise, the boys were running around outside having a blast!
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| When they were still cooperating :) |
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| Note sure what Lilly was doing, but it looks like she is trying to dance! |
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| I love this one of Brayden :) |
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Thanksgiving 2013
We got together with all of Matt's extended family this year for Thanksgiving which we don't normally get to do. We had a lot of fun hanging out with Sid, Ron, Mamie, Will, Charity, Oma, Opa, Uncle John, Aunt Dana, Nana and BB.
After the rest of the family left, Uncle John and Aunt Dana told us that they were expecting!!!! We are so excited for them and can't wait to meet the newest Enzor!!
After the rest of the family left, Uncle John and Aunt Dana told us that they were expecting!!!! We are so excited for them and can't wait to meet the newest Enzor!!
House updates - Master bed/bath updates
Disclaimer - apparently, I need to go back and check the blog more often! My last 2 posts were duplicates (I was actually posting about stuff on time back in October!)
Over the course of a few months, Matt and I (mostly Matt) painted our bathroom and bedroom. When we bought this house, the bedroom was a horrible Carolina blue and we both said "this is going to be the 1st room we paint!" The bathroom was a standard contractor beige/cream color with lots of nicks and marks which looked horrible!
More than 3 years later, we finally got the room painted! Part of the problem was me figuring out what color(s) I wanted the room and part of it was finding time to actually doing the painting. At one point, we have 3 different paint options on the wall, the original blue color, plus primer on several other sections. It was just lovely!!
Anyway, I finally picked colors and we finally finished the project!! Before we painted the bathroom, I also wanted to new light fixtures in the bathroom. The contractor grade 6 light fixture was not cutting it anymore. Thankfully, Uncle John came to the rescue and got the new fixtures installed in time for us to paint the weekend that Nana and BB had the kids. One wall in the bedroom is the same color as the bathroom to tie the rooms together.
I was so happy with the final results!! Now to get the mirror framed and pictures up on the wall!
Over the course of a few months, Matt and I (mostly Matt) painted our bathroom and bedroom. When we bought this house, the bedroom was a horrible Carolina blue and we both said "this is going to be the 1st room we paint!" The bathroom was a standard contractor beige/cream color with lots of nicks and marks which looked horrible!
More than 3 years later, we finally got the room painted! Part of the problem was me figuring out what color(s) I wanted the room and part of it was finding time to actually doing the painting. At one point, we have 3 different paint options on the wall, the original blue color, plus primer on several other sections. It was just lovely!!
Anyway, I finally picked colors and we finally finished the project!! Before we painted the bathroom, I also wanted to new light fixtures in the bathroom. The contractor grade 6 light fixture was not cutting it anymore. Thankfully, Uncle John came to the rescue and got the new fixtures installed in time for us to paint the weekend that Nana and BB had the kids. One wall in the bedroom is the same color as the bathroom to tie the rooms together.
I was so happy with the final results!! Now to get the mirror framed and pictures up on the wall!
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