The Jones Archive
We are SO enjoying our new science studies on birds. We've been learning the technicalities of flight. We conducted a little experiment with some gliders. We tested them to see if short, fat wings or long, thin wings would fly the farthest.
Long, thin hands down. 
It was a very busy day and I ended up letting the boys wrap the gifts, hide them and write out clues to make a scavenger hunt to find them. We did a scavenger hunt for Peter's birthday last year and thought we'd make a tradition. But this year, since I was short on time, I let the kids handle it and thought I'd just see what they came up with. Below, Peter is reading the first clue, which was written by Samuel.
Here's a few of the hiding places: Under the fireplace...
In the crawl space...
In some luggage...
...and out behind the air-conditioning unit.
He enjoyed the hunt. :-)
Next came pecan pie and the birthday song.
Kory actually made the pie all by herself with some oversight by me. She did just great!
Enjoying his annual slice.
We all enjoyed it quite a lot as well.
Here are a few of the gifts received: 2 new shirts...
...new socks...
...Mayorga coffee...
...(can you guess?)...
...books, of course!! There's nothing he's so happy to see.
Peter was grateful for the humble celebration. I was wishing that I'd had more time to put into making it special. The books I ordered for him came at the last minute and I was at least grateful for that. He's pleased as punch if he gets new books and the rest doesn't make an overly large impression anyway!
And trying on Grammy's glasses. I'm not sure what her hand over her mouth was all about, but she was generally entertaining us with her antics.
We measured it and thought it had about a 6-inch wingspan.
I tried to take a decent close-up picture because it had such neat markings. I, personally, liked the pink and we all thought that the "eyes" were interesting and neat. A good find, don't you think?
Sam likes to pretend his snake is wrapped around his neck.
They all love to coil them up like a real snake would do.
Ben's coil. We COULD NOT get his head to stay turned over the proper way to see the eyes!
Calvin's coil.
Wrapped around his arm.
And Will with a neck-wrap.
She just turned 9 months and naturally, has developed some new skills overnight.
Amelia wanted to join in when she saw me taking pictures.
I guess she thought she should act just like Cecily.
My girls. :) :)
Also, notice above, Cecily's crazy hair. It has a mind of it's own.
He was happy to see an English-imported Sam Smith's. That was from all of us.
Looking at Benny's "card."
Benjamin used his money to buy him a pack of gum, which he carefully wrapped himself. :-)
And from William he got...
...some fishing bait. 
William made this lovely paper mosaic along with several other paper crafts and cards.
Samuel made a shoebox ocean scene. He came up with the idea and did it in his spare time.
I thought it came out pretty cute and dad appreciated the thoughtfulness very much.
I loved the little animals that he drew, colored and carefully cut out. This little duck appropriately was floating on top.
A turtle walking along the bottom.
And an origami goldfish that he recently learned how to make.
A special time to honor dad and present him with the creative, loving gifts that each had made.
After church we hosted a meal for some of the folks from church. The Carpenter Family and the Stedmans came, as well as two of the single guys. We also were especially blessed to have the Simms family who are visiting from Arizona. They were here for a good many weeks last summer and it is great to have them back.
Morgan Simms showed Sam and Will how to play Pictionary.
They were pretty intensely focused on it.
As usual, lots of good discussion of the scriptures and catching up on each other's lives.
