Jackson's happy party!

It was with much anticipation that Sabrina and her family arrived at our house today just before 4:00 this afternoon. You have to realize that this little family has not been in Michigan for 18 months ... that's a really long time to be away from "home" ~ don't you think? And how nice that their visit coincided with Jackson's fifth birthday!

I have a bunch of pictures to show you and not even a single second to do any pretty editing of them ... so they are what they are, without any photo enhancements whatsoever. Isn't this darling of Jackson and Karis?

I added 13 new posters to our basement playroom ... I'll try to show you them as we're playing down there ... you can see just a few in the above photo ... some of these pictures I did "take" from family blogs because I just didn't have adequate poster-worthy pictures of some of our grandbabies!

Jackson and Karis flew all over the house, looking in each and every room, examining every little trinket and toy to their heart's delight ... we have a lot of toys here at the Jones Junction.

Our friends, Tom and Judy, came over to help us celebrate Jackson's birthday. After our inside dinner, we moved on outside to the back deck for presents and dessert.

The above picture illustrates perfectly why we have SO FEW PICTURES OF OLIVIA! But I did catch her a little later in the evening ...

Karis sat patiently while Jackson opened up all of his presents ... until he got to the puzzle that "Aunt" Judy brought for him ... and then Karis said, "Thanks for the puzzle! That's mine!" But she was so sweet as she said it, without a single hint of resentment that Jackson had been opening all of his presents with none for her ... I think she just thought it was high time one actually was for her and was very matter-of-fact about it!

Here's birthday boy blowing out his #5!

See! I did catch Olivia without her hands over her face! She was very busily taking pictures with her mom's camera.

Jackson received some really nice City LEGOS ~ delivery trucks with cargo space and fork lifts, a cement truck, and a whole city set that is really cool.

It was great to SEE him open his gifts this year! What joy for us ... and him too! We sat around the table eating and visiting and had a very enjoyable evening.

Grandpa Jones took those pictures of Sabrina and Karis ... beautiful!

Everyone played ball for awhile out back. Jackson can really slug a baseball! He doesn't even need someone to pitch to him ... he just throws the ball up and hits it. He is very athletic and enjoys a lot of physical activity.

Grandpa Jones got in on the fun too, kicking the soccer balls around with Karis. But with the sun going down, the mosquitoes got a bit too much for us out there, so we came back inside and just played and visited and wound down the night watching the Red Wings lose the Cup ...

Livie and I started working on a 1000 piece puzzle of Lighthouses of the Great Lakes ... we separated all of the frame pieces tonight. It was something we could do together that was a little bit more grown up than always being with the little kids.

Well, I'm way beyond tired and am rendered completely witless. We had a great first day of 10. I'll try to post pictures each day that we are together because a picture can say more than 1000 words!