Cecily's 6th Birthday

 Birthday celebrations are one of those things that rely almost entirely on me.  Other family members pitch in a lot to make it happen, but especially the cooking depends upon the head cook, as we usually try to make something special, that we wouldn't ordinarily have.  This year we settled on coffee cake for breakfast, but this particular week was an especially bad one and Cecily's birthday came at the climactic end of it.  When we woke up that morning, I tried several times to get going on that cake, but came to realize that I just couldn't do it, for once.  Lots of times, I just need to push through and do it even though I don't feel like I can, but this wasn't one of those times.  I took some time to think it over and I knew that even though I would feel disappointed, Cecily would not feel disappointed if we went and got doughnuts and yogurt and ate at the park.  So we did.  Does she look disappointed?  I'm thankful for such options on such days.  I had to remember the goal of a birthday celebration in the first place and get over my own ideals about how I wanted it to look.  It's the spirit of fun, enjoyment and celebration of the individual who is being recognized and thankfulness to God that matter.  That can be conveyed in so many different ways.  I'm thankful this year that the Lord helped me not be selfish and feel upset about the inability to make a coffeecake and have a homemade birthday breakfast for my girl, but rather to focus on a celebratory attitude for her sake and enjoy a good thing with her instead.  A slumped over, discouraged mama doesn't exactly speak, "This is about you and about thanking God for you and the good work he's doing in your life."

Thank you Lord for helping me not to do that this time and for forgiving me for the many times in the past where I couldn't resist the temptation.

 This was a beautiful morning to be outside, and a big treat and she was delighted. 

 We let the kids run off a little energy at the playground before we went home.  (Truth be told, we didn't go directly home, we ran to Target to get a gift, because none of my plan-ahead plans had worked out, including a gift.)

 Happy Birthday girl.

 Also thankfully, we had planned an easy dinner of turkey burgers and frozen fries.  Amelia and I did manage to get a birthday cake made in the afternoon, which you will see shortly.

 Time for gifts.  Lousy picture quality is due to being in the basement at night, with inadequate light.

 Nail polish!

 The bag had some snacks in it that the boys picked out for her.  She is holding some bunny cookies that they found.

 Her own wallet, from Grammy and Papa.

 Millie helped her check out all of the compartments and tell her what they were for.  ("This one's for your debit card....")

 We bought Cecily Spirograph (last minute) and she also got a Make A Plate from my parents.  Both of those gave her some new artistic things to work on.

 Amelia wrapped her stick horse up in a blanket and gave it to Cecily.  I let her because it was generous of her and I knew Cecily would love it.

 The Oreo Cake.

Something worthwhile to celebrate: God's gift of life to this girl.  She's really so easy to please and such a treasure to me.  Thank you Lord!

JoAnn's Halloween Utility Apron

My sister started a little crafting blog not too long ago to share projects that she is working on, mainly with crochet.  Tonight I saw that she posted some new pictures of a utility apron that she made to wear to work at the craft store she works at.  Everything she makes, she pretty well designs herself and I'm always so impressed.  I thought I'd put a link here so that you could check it out, if you want to see her handiwork.  Her birthday is October 30th, so she's always been a little attached to Halloween, which is part of the explanation for the effort she put into this themed apron.
Click the link below to see her post:
JoAnn's Halloween Utility Apron For Work

Baby Jones #9

I got a sweet surprise yesterday when the ultrasound technician gave me this picture of our new baby boy, kicking around inside of me.  I thought some of you might like to "see" him too.  I am in my 28th week, by the way.  That leaves less than 12 weeks until my due date.

Summer Evening Walk

You will know who took these pictures if you pay attention to who is not in them.  I picked out my favorites.  

There were many deer and fawns lying in the long grass in the meadow to the left in the picture above.  Some of them roused while we walked by.

A rare picture of myself.  I thought of you, JoAnn, when I posted this. 

One of the last summer outings of the year.

"Hi Grammie!"

It's time for cozy jammies again.  Elijah and I took this picture just to say a big hello to Grammie and to show her his new cozy jammies.  Love you, Grammie!

Samuel's 15th Birthday

Sam's 15th birthday was at the end of July.  Here's a few photos to catch you up.

Sam just wanted roast and potatoes for his dinner.  Oh, and homemade bread.  Homemade bread only makes it's appearance around here every so often, so it was a treat.

Peter picked up a couple of books for Sam.  If you haven't heard of this one, October Sky, you might have heard of the movie.  Sam really liked the film because it was about a West Virginia boy, Homer Hickam, from a small coal mining town who became a famous author as well as a NASA engineer and helped put West Virginia on the map.  

The second book, below, is hunting and fishing tales by famous outdoorsman, Zane Grey.

Sam's gift from us was a recurve bow, for hunting, that he has been wanting.

He was very pleased with it.

He's been practicing with it and he's hoping to at least shoot at a deer or turkey this fall.

Sure was fun to celebrate our oldest.  He's such a contributer and a blessing to our home.

Late night August catfishing

                                  We recently went on a late night cat-fishing excursion and did pretty well.  Mom (Julie Jones/ typical Jones archive blogger)  wanted me (Samuel Jones/ unlikely Jones archive blogger) to put a post on the blog about the adventure.  I had a birthday recently and I am sure Mom will be blogging about that whenever she gets the time.  Dad wanted to do something special for the occasion and we decided on the annual night fishing trip.  We set a date around the fullest moon in August and I prepared our tackle to deal with it.  To catch fish that in the Monongahela river can run up to fifty pounds or larger you need to have suitable rods, reels,and line.  Bait is essential as well, because the catfish is a nocturnal predator that lies on the bottom while waiting to ambush potential prey. Chicken livers, hotdogs, soap, and night crawlers are all excellent options.  To take into account the catfishes bottom feeding nature it is necessary to use weights and fairly large hooks to get the bait to the bottom. We used something similar to the rig below.

Line should be heavy enough to cope with a good sized catfish but light enough to cast well. We were intent on catching two of the three major North American, the channel catfish and the flathead catfish. The former is a widespread resident of most of the united states from Oregon to Maine, and from Minnesota to Texas. Channel catfish average about 1-5 pounds depending on location and anything over 10 pounds is a good fish.  They can however reach weights of over fifty pounds.  The flathead catfish is also an indigenous North American species and though slightly less widespread than it's cousin the channel it can reach gigantic sizes.  Like it's name suggests it has a flattened head designed by God to easily ambush sunfish,suckers, and other prey fish from the bottom. Here is a photo of the world record flathead catfish caught in Kansas.

This particular fish weighed about 123 pounds, although flatheads as large as 139 pounds have been taken illegally. This species is partial to live fish, while the channel is a more eclectic feeder, eating whatever is available.  This meant that we needed to collect live bluegills, from a nearby pond for bait.  We began the trip with a bit of a fiasco.  Dad was fishing for bass with a lure and william was  fishing beside him.  Dad made a cast and apparently hooked william in the side of his head, just above his ear.  The treble hook went in past the barb, making it's removal tricky.  We fiddled with it for a few minutes and then decided to drive down to the river and deal with it there.  In the end dad cut the hook off of the lure and then cut the other points of the hook off.  Then I was able to wiggle it loose and free my afflicted brother. :)
                   We then proceeded to set up camp on the dock.  There are a variety of things that are not  necessarily related to catching the fish that are essential when night fishing.  I will give you five of the most important.  1. Flashlight. 2. folding chair. 3. paper towels. 4. five gallon bucket. 5. An assortment of good snacks (We bought candy bars, chips, and root beer.)   We were beginning to settle in when dad saw a rod tip moving.  I picked it up, set the hook and felt a considerable weight on the end.  It fought for about 2 or 3 minutes before we could get it close enough to see what it was.  We were more than a little surprised to see a decent sized Eastern soft-shell turtle come thrashing to the surface.  He had swallowed the hook and was meaner than a rhino with a splinter up his eye. Roughly a foot wide and with very sharp claws, he was more than happy to go back to the river.  We were sort of annoyed that our first catch hadn't been a fish but we were encouraged just the same.  About an hour later I was changing a weight on one of the rods when a muffled clatter aroused our attention.  We turned around just in time to see a rod to flying into the river.  That got us a little mad.  Here we had sat for over an hour and half and now the first fish had taken the rod with it! But there was nothing to do but fume and move on.  We were still berating our ill fortune, when I reeled in another rod to check the bait. Nothing on the home rod but it had hooked the line from the one we had lost.  Once berated now elated we hauled in on the line and found the rod first.  Then we reeled in the errant fish.  It was fat 21 inch channel catfish an a welcome addition to our empty bucket.  Much more cheerful we continued our vigil with renewed confidence.  Another uneventful 45 minutes had slackened our senses once again when I checked our flathead rod rigged with a bluegill.  As I started to reel in I felt the presence of a powerful fish that was not what I had expected. It made a very strong run towards the middle of the river but after about five minutes I was able to get it in to where we could land it.  I soon saw that it was a flathead catfish and it felt pretty good to hoist the thrashing six pounds of fish over the edge of the dock.  He looked a lot bigger than he was but it was a sweet fish to land.

He was an official 24 inches long though with a 14 inch girth.  His rough tooth pads tore up my fingers a little bit and so I would advise you never to believe the average guy when he says that catfish do not have teeth.
We finished out the night with one more channel catfish caught by William and we were tired but happy campers when we got home at 2:00 A. M.  Here are some photos of the other fish we caught.

This is the fish that pulled the rod into the water.  We called it unanimous and had dad hold it for the picture.

Wills fish was wriggly and it has some mulch on it due to a slight accident as he was holding it for the camera.  Not quite as large as the other one but a good deal better looking.

Here they are just minutes from the fillet knife.

To end the night we found a beautiful Luna moth fluttering around in the pantry.  It was a male, (evidenced by the large, feathery antennae used for finding females.) roughly five inches across and a light shade of mint green.  Very pretty and a highly satisfying way to end a successful catfishing trip.  We hit the beds at about 2:45 A. M. and slept in the next morning.  Thank the Lord for such a wonderful trip.