Dear Family & Friends,
It’s really hard to believe that another year has come and
gone! This has thankfully been a year of
calmness of sorts for us, given that last year involved graduation, a
cross-country move, and a new job. I say
“calmness of sorts”, because we did have the birth of our third child, and that
has definitely kept us busy! But it’s
been nice to stay in the same city for a whole calendar year! Here’s what we've been up to this year.
Keith: I've been
working in the HR department at General Mills’ Hannibal Missouri manufacturing
plant for the last 18 months, during which time I've had a fantastic number of
opportunities to see things both interesting and crazy happen at work. I’ve been keeping busy outside of work with
the rest of the family and in my calling as a counselor in the Branch
Presidency at church. Amongst it all, I
managed to retrofit an old aquarium into a hybrid aquarium/terrarium, and we’ve
been enjoying watching some new little critters run around inside it (frogs,
newts, snails, and a gecko!).
Lisa: Lisa does a
fantastic job of keeping up with the kids, despite their best attempts to
outrun her. Adjusting from two to three children was easier in many aspects
than she anticipated which has been a blessing. She is Primary President in our
local branch, which means that she also has to keep up with everyone else’s
kids on Sundays while being single-mom to ours.
Lisa has been finding time for stray other projects, from sewing dresses
to making crafts for the Activities Days girls, to helping out with our
children’s day-to-day play activities.
Alex: Alex turned 4
this year and started up pre-school at one of the local Lutheran churches that
runs a pretty solid pre-school system. He’s
enjoyed playing with all the friends he’s made at the school. It’s been exciting to hear about the things
he learns at school, and interesting to occasionally correct the doctrine that
he comes home with. J He also started in Junior Primary this year
as a Sunbeam—it’s been so cute to hear him sing on the stand during Primary
programs, give his first talk in Primary, etc.
He’s really started coming out of his shell this year, learning songs
and starting to pick up the basics of reading (he still works mostly off of
memory for the books that he “reads”).
He loves to be read to, write/draw and really enjoys playing with his
younger sisters (most of the time).
Savanna: Savanna
turned 2 this year, and become quite the chatterbox as she’s gotten older and
older. It’s almost shocking to me, given
that neither her mom nor I are really big talkers. Savanna also loves to be read to, and really
enjoys playing with her brother and her best friend Ellie. It’s fun to work with Savanna because she’s a
constant reminder of how different she and Alex are—they really do come to us
with their very own personalities from before they were born! Savanna is very strong-willed and is going to
give me a lot of gray hairs when she’s a teenager. We love her beautiful eyes and her
mischievous grin, though!
Abby: Abigail Alice
Jones was born on May 26th of this year, and we’ve truly enjoyed
welcoming her into our home! She’s the
first of our children to actually have my brown hair, which has made me very
happy to see that my genes do exert themselves occasionally. Abby is a very happy baby and very
easy-going. She has recently figured out
crawling (basically) and has started jabbering a little more of late, which is
absolutely adorable.
All in all, it’s been a wonderful year for us! We’re grateful to have everyone healthy and
happy, to have a safe home and a good job to provide for us, and to be able to
serve the Lord. I’m very grateful for
Christmastime, as it provides an opportunity to remind ourselves of the gift of
Jesus Christ’s atonement, and the wonderful example He was of how to serve
others. I’m grateful for this yearly
reminder to try and think a little more about how I can help those around me
and not think so much about my own worries and concerns. We hope all of you are doing well and wish
you the best as 2013 wraps up and 2014 begins!
Merry Christmas!
The Jones Family (Keith, Lisa, Alex, Savanna, and Abby)
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