Jones' Clips: Gavin and Carrie Jones' Blog: August 2015

Sunday, August 30, 2015

Story time, church, and silly selfies

Marmi reading to the boys

Sunday morning: this is our meeting house/auditorium and its fancy pews. Isaac is just visible through the back door, far right. (Paul Stewart on the far left got caught yawning! He works REALLY hard keeping our airplanes and helicopters running, so he has the right to yawn.)

Seth wanted to see himself in my phone, so these next three pictures resulted. As you can see, he's delighted. :) I am delighted to see him gaining back his lost weight! He's just started to look more and more "rounded," especially in his face, the past week or so. I don't really have photos to prove it yet.

Quints on a mission to go places!

Our kids are really excited anytime they get to go somewhere in a car, especially if it's Marmi and Papa's car! I love how Gracie wanted to wear a polar fleece jacket whereas Marcie chose a tank top dress. I'm guessing it wasn't too cold that day or all the kids would have been in jackets! It's quite cool some mornings during our "winter" - one day it got down to just above freezing close to dawn! In houses without central heating or insulation, that is COLD. I feel like I can't pile enough blankets on top of the kids at 4:30 a.m. They have wearable blankets too, thankfully.

Cloudy nights are much warmer, but alas there have been so few clouds during this drought it's really more like the cold of desert nights.

What do you do when you have quints, one adult and one twin stroller? Put three of the kids to work pushing, in this case Gracie, Will and David (who was about to lose his britches at any moment, poor skinny kid). They were really excited to help push, thankfully!

David begs to go in the helicopter with his daddy, but that hasn't happened yet - at least not on a real flight. He loves to pretend, though! Gavin is on an 8-day trip, a record for us; it's getting a bit wearing being the only parent, honestly. David said he's sad because "My daddy went bye-bye in the helicopter!" I made a mistake when I told him that we couldn't just "go see Daddy and his helicopter" because Daddy is far away at the ocean, David decided we should go to the ocean too. Ocean plus helicopter plus Daddy equals bliss to a three-year-old!

On the mountaintop (and please pray for rain!)

This country is suffering for lack of rain. I really dislike El Niño. The creeks and streams are drying up. The people in the Southern Highlands are starving, according to a friend from there. Driving past sweet potato and cabbage gardens is heartbreaking. The leaves are so brown and shriveled. :(

These pictures are older, when it was greener and Marmi and Gracie were feeling a little silly:

Marcie and Will loved exploring in the grass.

The joy of DIRT

Gavin is building our kids a great sandbox/slide/swing/lookout playhouse. The slide is semi-operational, and the sandbox is fully usable and a big hit, not only with the toddlers but also with their big bro and his friends!

Marcie "cooking" - she loves to help in the kitchen, too!

Happy Will. Marcie's hair (background) is caked with sunscreen because she keeps taking off her hat.

Isaac being buried alive (or dead? His face is scary!) as Will and Seth look on. They thought it was funny.

From top to bottom: Seth, Will, David, Gracie, Marcie.

A bonus "dirt" picture. I don't know how Marcie managed to get this dirty. Maybe from the dust off our car??
The kids (minus Will? I haven't seen him try.) can all ride a bike with training wheels now!
[This is a picture of the tricycle, obviously. Thanks, Carey family, for the bikes and trikes!]

Sunday, August 23, 2015

Isaac's 11-and-a-half-year-old portraits :)

We can't leave out our big boy, World's Best Big Brother! Unfortunately, he was in school when we got the group photos of the quints.

[Ukarumpa friends, you can access all the portraits of all six kids at ftp://ftp.sil.org.pg/Transfer/Frey/Jones%20-%20Aug%202015/ ]