The Jones Family Junction: February 2024

February 22 with KT

Thursday: I picked Kaity up from Jesse this afternoon at 4:00. We played three games of Rack-O after eating our usual hot dog meal, and then Kaity showed me some stuff on her phone. She now is able to text Alex and Allen (her friends from Altitude); so she and Alex were FaceTiming each other while I was working on our new puzzle (no picture of it yet).

We drove over to Altitude and arrived at 6:45. Ayden was already there; and soon after, Alex and Allen arrived ... and then Blueberry (Jase)! Kaity was immediately worried about Blueberry being too rough on her again; but everything worked out very nicely tonight between them--ending with them exchanging text addresses and vowing to "talk" to each other all week!

I took a "few" photos with my phone while the kids were playing. They now know they can no longer play cops and robbers; so they tried to invent some new games.

These kids are so much fun to watch. They seem to enjoy each other so much. Friendships are pretty important things to have, and Kaity has her share of them for sure.

Ayden is getting ready (below) to fall off the platform backwards ... Kaity does this all the time too.

These kids all jump SO HIGH. One time tonight, Kaity was jumping below this high platform and in ONE jump just eased herself right on top of it, sitting down on her knees. I'd never seen her do that on this high platform before.

You are cracking me up, Kaity!

These four. What a group they are.

Alex, making a "face" at me ...

ALL of the boys making faces at me ... look at how sweet Kaity looks!

It was 8:00 before we knew it, and time to go! Kaity's school begins their mid-winter break tomorrow--so no school until next Wednesday. I dropped her back off at her mom's tonight. We are still a little bit confused about this weekend. Kaity is supposed to spend the night tomorrow with Emma and then we are uncertain yet about Saturday. We don't often see Ayden on Saturdays because he usually has family stuff going on. I am praying Emma and Kaity have a great time together this weekend.

February 22 My niece and boys

Thursday noon: My niece, Shelley, and my TWO great-nephews (I have many more!) came to town to see Ruthanne and Terry; so yesterday, I was invited to join them for lunch out in Rockford. These pictures were taken by the dam after we ate lunch.

We ate lunch today at a place I didn't even know was there in Rockford. It's called Marinade's Pizza Bistro. The food was fabulous! It's on the opposite side of Main Street -- we usually don't turn that direction, so we were unaware of its existence!

It was nice to get to talk to Matthew and Nolan a bit. They've grown up so much I would hardly recognize them! Matthew has been creating electric music and hopes to create more of it--for video games and other purposes. He is a senior in high school this year. Nolan is a freshman. Both boys play the clarinet, although this is not their favorite instrument. It was just nice to sit and chat with Shelley and her boys for a little while this afternoon.

February 21 with Cal

Wednesday: I decided to try my battery-operated cars (once again) with wee Cal today to see how it would go. About a year ago, when all of the kiddos were here, I had them out and ... well ... it didn't work out very well. I only have TWO cars (and there were FOUR kids that day)--plus, the track they run on is difficult for me to put together ... PLUS, the cars themselves are LOUD ... PLUS, Cal kept taking one or the other car and putting it on a table top and watching it zoom off into a spectacular crash !!!!!

Today, Cal is a year older and much wiser (!!). I pre-assembled the track before he came this morning and then I made sure I had fresh batteries in the cars. Cal was pretty thrilled when he saw the whole thing set up, and he did enjoy playing with them. I'm just not sure there is as much play value in this particular toy as I had thought when I purchased it.

The first frustration we encountered was this: the little cars are so FAST they keep jumping off the track and going every whichaway (usually deep under my new and much heavier couch).

I was surprised (although I should not have been) how adept Cal is at fidgeting with these little cars. He was not one bit afraid or timid of their noise or speed. He was quite aggressive with them!

After about 15 minutes of watching them go lickity split around the track, Cal was pretty much done and just wanted to leave their motors running endlessly. He would go back into the play room and I would sneak out and turn them OFF.

He's a super cute little boy, isn't he? He knows how to have a good time!

We spent a huge amount of time in the play room with the Matchbox cars, too. Cal never runs out of play time with these. I'm so glad I have so many of them for him to play with.

Later in the afternoon, we drove back to Cal's house to get the kids off their bus. He was pretty excited to play paper airplanes with me--so that's what we did for nearly an hour and a half!

I was happily surprised at Cal's duration of play with these paper airplanes. He got no end of delight watching them fly through the air. I didn't get any pictures of the kids today; but Aidan was designing his own airplanes (he's very good at it) and zoomed them around with us for awhile. Erin did too!

I love these kids! What a privilege to be their grandma!

February 19 Surprise Visit

Monday: So ... today is President's Day and almost all banks and schools are closed for the day. As it turned out, Miss Jen was unable to come over to Dylan and Kelly's today (due to Cal being sick and her husband recovering from a serious illness); so I received an SOS and was able to respond, at least a little bit, to relieve Dylan for four hours so that he could get some work done at home.

I picked Brendan, Aidan, and Erin up from their house at 1:00 in the afternoon and brought them here to play for awhile. Brendan is quite computer competent, so he was exploring a video game site for quite awhile. Erin and Aidan worked on some art projects ...