Keeping Up With The Joneses

I love the Jones family! I have never met them, and they are now deceased, but they founded The Jones Center for Families in Springdale, AR. This place is an amazing facility that is dedicated to bringing the NW Arkansas community affordable recreation and wellness.

Here are a few stats from their website:
The Jones Center serves 1.5 million users a year.
On average, 10,000 people skate in our ice arena each month.
Around 6,000 users splash in our pools every month.
About 1,100 children celebrate their birthdays at the Jones Center every year.
Over 1,800 Health & Wellness classes are held every year.
Over 100,000 guests utilize our computer center and 45,000 participate in our educational enrichment opportunity classes every year.

Inside the Jones Center is a full size ice arena, lap pool, children's pool with water slides, meeting rooms, auditorium, computer center, and open gym. They hold many activities for kids during school breaks and on weekends.For example, they had a full schedule of things planned for spring break for Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day. Yesterday, I was there twice! I took Owen from 10 - 1, and he played laser tag, then he participated in The Amazing Race scavenger hunt with a team of other kids. It was very well-organized, taught geography, and there were several college students who acted as their leaders and guides through the process. It was so fun! Then, last night I returned with both Hudson and Owen to watch Dale K, who was a hypnotist who did a comedy show. It was so funny! He had adults on stage mooing like cows and thinking a belt was a snake.

The best part about the Jones Center -- it's all free. Yes, free. All the time. The only charge is $2.00 for ice skate rental, and a $2.00 fee if you want to use their infant childcare facility while you are there. It would only cost me $2.00 to have Arden in care there for up to four hours (not that I'd leave her that long) while I did activities with the older kids. When Owen and I were there, we didn't spend a cent. Also, they passed out free snacks at a snack table at noon. I'm talking full, 16 oz bottles of real fruit juice and full size granola bars and cookies.

Did I mention that you can reserve an area for birthday parties and use their pool for the party? Oh yea . . . that's free too!

I can't wait to take the boys swimming in the indoor pool and enjoy the water slides. Now, this is my kind of entertainment!

A Sentimental Project

Today I tried using vinyl lettering for the first time. I saw this idea on someone else's blog, and then I found out that my new neighbor sells vinyl lettering as a home business. I was able to see some lettering she had put on her own walls up close, and that was all it took to fall in love with this new craze and try it on my own.

We have the perfect doorway into our greatroom that is almost 12 feet long with ten foot ceilings. It was just crying for some lettering to go above it! After deliberating with Stuart for some time about which Bible verse to use, we finally came up with one that we both liked.

It is Numbers 6:24-26. This was the Old Testament blessing that my father prayed over me and my siblings with his feeble hand on our heads on Christmas Day 2006 as he was dying of cancer. It was one of the last conversations he was able to have before he died on January 11, 2007.

The passage reads:
"May the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord show you his face and give you his peace."

The lettering rubs on the walls and can be removed without any damage to the paint. I was pleased that it wasn't very hard to apply, and the most challenging part was making sure the lettering was straight, and this wouldn't be as difficult with a shorter project.

It makes me happy to see these words on the wall and remember my father's dying words to me. Until now, it probably would have been too difficult to see them on the wall and be reminded of the fresh pain of his death. But after two years now, I can remember the closeness of those final moments with my father and rejoice in His heavenly existence that is without pain.

The wall was just long enough to hold this entire passage, and it looks like it was meant for this space. I'm so thankful that my dad left me with these words.

I love you, Dad.

Home Tour

I've gotten many emails from friends and family who want to see pictures of our new house in Bentonville. Until recently, it wasn't decorated enough to take pictures, but we are nearing the end of our projects. The final window treatments were hung this week. Yea! So, here are some pictures of our new home. Sit back and enjoy!

Not a Girly Mom

I am not a girly mom. I've posted before about how I'm unsure about how to coordinate all these girl outfits, how to use bows, and how to correctly pair leggings with outfits. After living with boys for seven years, I am still learning the girl code.

My little princess just happens to hate bows, so that has become a non-issue! I have tried for eight months to put them in her hair, and she promptly rips them out within ten seconds. The only way I've been able to keep her hair out of her face is to use a very lightweight ponytail elastic and use the "Pebbles" fountain style on top of her head. With her red hair, she definitely gets called Pebbles just about everywhere we go!

Today, I made another faux pas which confirms, yet again, that I am not a girly mom. I dressed Arden for church in a new Gymboree dress. I put tights on underneath, and we were off to church. Upon arriving home, Arden was crawling around on the floor, and I noticed some extra fabric coming out of the front of her dress. I looked more closely, and I couldn't believe what I saw. I pulled on the extra fabric that was bunched up in the front of her dress, and out came a pair of panties! Yes, I sent my child to church with a pair of matching panties still attached to the inside of the new dress! I didn't even know they were in there, and since I'm still adjusting to the whole "girl clothing" thing, I didn't even think to look and see if the dress came with matching bloomers.

So, I hope the nursery workers didn't laugh . . . maybe they didn't notice. I really didn't mean to send my child to church with panties around her neck!

Kindergarten Here We Come!

Hudson is now officially enrolled at Central Park Elementary School in Bentonville for the coming school year! Believe me, it's a big deal to actually get a spot in this school. Owen STILL hasn't gotten in yet. This is our neighborhood school that is top rated and always . . . full. There was online preregistration for kindergarters where over 750 parents all rushed onto the internet and registered in a matter of 2 days to take all the open spots. Then, we had to take our documentation to the local school the next week for official registration.

I waited close to an hour to see the registrar and present my proof of residency to get Hudson officially on a roster for the fall. This seems almost as competitive as getting into a prep school or something. Yes, this is public school where I live. Hudson got the "offical stamp" of approval, and he was presented with a welcome packet, plastic bag tag with the school's name, and finger puppet of an alligator (school mascot for the K-4 school). It was very exciting!

Owen is still not officially in Central Park for third grade yet. I am supposed to call the registrar in mid-April to check on the available openings, but she said it looks promising. It helps Owen that Hudson is officially registered since it moves Owen to the top of the waiting list since he will have a sibling attending the same school. Again, that was one of the reasons we decided that Hudson needed to start kindergarten this year.

Please pray that Owen can get out of the overflow school and back to our zoned school, so he and Hudson can attend the same location next fall! I haven't been thrilled with the overflow school, and it draws from a much lower socioeconomic area, so we have encountered lots of things we never dealt with at Southside!

Should We Be Worried?

The economy is really starting to concern me. I know, I'm probably a bit behind in that since everyone else in the world has been worried for over a year. Until now, I didn't feel like it was really ever going to affect me or my life, and it seemed to be in the abstract.

But, it's getting bad, people! Come on, FDIC may run out of money??? Will our savings get to a point when they are not even safe in our normal bank anymore? (I'm envisioning our money stashed into our mattresses or hidden in jars in the backyard). I've known the stock market is like the downhill ride of a roller coaster, but since we have little investments like that yet, it hasn't destroyed my life or my "portfolio." It does get a bit more concerning, however, when the banks might not be able to guarantee your savings or money market accounts.

Today the headline on the news was the unemployment rate climbs to record high of over 8%. That's beginning to sound scary. It if gets to double digits, I might panic and expect mass chaos or the ending of the world as we know it (isn't that a song??). I Googled and read that in The Great Depression of the 1930's, the unemployment rate was around 20%. Hey, we're not even half way there yet . . . but everything I can recall about that time period involved people not eating meat, having rations, not using butter or sugar to cook because they were too costly, and there seemed to be lots of dust and dirt. My history is a bit rusty. I don't want to have to start sewing my family's underwear and making apple pie out of Ritz crackers!

So, what's a person to do? I get depressed reading the newspaper and seeing how many more foreclosures there are, how homes are continuing to lose value each month, how unemployment is expected to climb.

I don't have any answer that will solve these problems, and my guess is that President Obama can't solve them all either. But, we have God. I will have to trust that He will work all things together for good. I have to trust that Stuart's job will somehow work out in one year when he could lose it again in yet another political election. The reality is that God's hand is in everything . . . all the time.

So, I'll try not to worry. And . . . I did my best to stimulate the economy by dropping some cash at the new Target yesterday.

One Word Sums It Up

Rotovirus.

Enough said. If you've lived through it when you had a young child, then you still have vivid memories that might be worse than childbirth! I don't have to give details because you remember the laundry, the stench, the filth, the pitiful, sick child.

Yes, Arden has it, but it's at least not as severe as when both boys got it as babies. My question is: wasn't the new rotovirus vaccine supposed to prevent this?? Ugh!

Arden just woke up from her nap, and I'm scared to go into her room to see what I have to clean up!