My first job in Charlottesville!

A quick thank you to the Croft family for asking me to take their family pictures. As you can see, they are an adorable family. I had a great time.

Happy Halloween!

...a little late

Sugar and Spice and Pooh Bombs

Well, Lizzy’s first photo shoot was kind of a disaster. After 13 days of very little sleep John and I were both pretty grumpy, setting the whole experience off to a bad start. Then Kalin, the photographer, wanted Lizzy to be completely naked for the pictures. I was worried Lizzy might pee if we took her diaper off, but Kalin assured me that everything was washable if she did. Not long after the diaper was removed came the first of the surprises. Lizzy pooped…but it was no ordinary pooh. It was explosive, shooting out with such force that everything within 3 square feet was covered with green, soupy poop. We cleaned it all up and tried to continue. But, Lizzy was so fussy that every picture turned out looking like an advertisement requesting donations to help suffering children. Then came the second of the surprise pooh bombs, this time all over John. Still, it wasn’t enough to relieve poor little Lizzy. The more upset she became the more upset I became. Finally, Kalin suggested we take a break so I could feed Lizzy. It was a good idea, but I was such a basket case by then that as I sat down to nurse I didn’t think to put her diaper back on. Big mistake! Within 30 seconds Lizzy blasted me with pooh bomb number three! This time I was completely covered, but I was more concerned about the white…now green…upholstered couch we were sitting on. John laughed and I cried. What an evening! Despite the mess I’m grateful for the experience because looking back we can both laugh and we ended up with some great pictures of our little girl.

Thumb Sucker

Little Elizabeth is already a thumb sucker...or is her daddy the sucker? When Lizzy is upset John calms her right down by holding her facing outward with her arms and legs straddling his arm and his thumb stuck in her mouth. She stays content for quite a while that way and he still has an extra hand for homework. You'd think with all the stress of medical school he'd be ready to pass her off to someone else, but John loves holding his baby. He even loves it when she sucks so long and hard that he gets blisters. He's an amazing dad, and you can tell that Lizzy thinks so too.

Toast in the Shower

First of all, thanks everyone for all your kind comments. John, Lizzy, and I feel so loved! Things up to this point have gone smoothly, mostly thanks to my wonderful mom. She spent the last week and a half doing all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, errands, etc. around here while I spent about 20 hours out of every 24 trying to figure out how to feed our new, ravenous, little bundle of hunger. When my mom left yesterday morning I quickly realized that two hands just don't cut it. Welcome to the real world! While John was at church I desperately tried to get Miss Elizabeth Dawn to eat a big lunch and go down for a nap so I could get ready and catch the next ward's sacrament meeting. Instead she wanted to snack every 45 minutes with 10 minute naps in between. Sabotage! Well, thanks to a little miracle and a quick breakfast of toast in the shower, I made it! I imagine we'll be seeing a few more of those mornings in the near future, but I'm excited to be making it...one slice of toast at a time.

To my mom

I’ve often heard that you don’t really understand how much your parents love you until you become a parent yourself. I believe it. Not only because I feel that deep love for Elizabeth, but because in becoming a mother I, once again, find myself in the helpless position of being completely dependent on my mom. When I don’t know what I’m doing (which seems to be always) she picks up the pieces. When I was younger she did everything for me, but I didn’t always notice. Mom, now I notice. Thank you for your completely selfless love, for the way you quietly go about taking care of everyone around you without need for praise or recognition. You are a truly amazing woman. I love you.

Lizzy!

Elizabeth Jones is here! Emily started having contractions on Wednesday night around 10:45pm. She woke me up at 2am and we came into the hospital at 4am. Emily did an incredible job and only had to push about a half hour before beautiful Lizzy popped on out. She is adorable. She has lots of crazy light brown, swirly hair. And she has what they call a "stork's bite" - a splotchy check mark shaped spot right on the middle of her forehead. It looks like a nike swoosh almost:) They say it should fade but will show up in the first couple of years when she cries or gets worked up. She weighed 7lbs13oz, 20 3/4 inches long, and was born at 4:05 pm. Here are a few pictures. Enjoy!

Only 5 Weeks To Go!!!!

It's been months since I last took a picture of the belly, but John keeps assuring everyone that I really am getting "huge!" Well, here it is...proof that John wasn't just trying to make me feel good about myself. Since we don't have a full length mirror I honestly wasn't sure how big I was. I just knew I'd given up on seeing anything below my bellybutton weeks ago. So today, at 35 weeks, I finally put my camera on a tripod and started taking pictures. I don't know how much bigger I'll get, but if everything goes as planned little Elizabeth will be here in just 5 short weeks! She's already about 5 1/2 lbs. Really, how much bigger can she get in 5 weeks? No one answer that...I don't think I want to know. Anyway, John and I are SO excited! In fact, I (the girl who never thought anything was worth ironing in her life) spent yesterday morning picking out my favorite baby outfits, ironing them all, and placing them neatly on hangers in Lizzy's closet. You don't have to tell me...I know I have way too much time on my hands. I'm ready for her to be here, but I'm sure this little one is worth the wait!

Finally Settling In

Thanks to a lot of help from my parents and Rachel Milar, John and I are pretty much moved into our new apartment, and we love it! We miss Utah A LOT and all our family out there, but Charlottesville is growing on us. John thinks he's really going to like med school (especially once he doesn't have to worry about selling security systems in the evenings). He's already up late studying every night he isn't selling, and he saw the results yesterday when he got 100% on his first quiz! I'm not much of a fan of the staying up late part and I can't say I like the formaldehyde smell John brings home from the cadaver lab, but I'm really proud of him for doing what he's always wanted to do. It seems silly, but I wonder if this is what a mom feels like when she sends her first child off to school for the first time...anxiously excited and praying that things will go well. John has the crazy schedule, but I've been keeping busy too. This week I made our apartment feel like home, met some new friends in the ward (which we LOVE), found a new doctor, and started to apply for jobs with photographers in the area. Work is slow around here, so most photographers go at it alone. But I've already had 2 interviews (although, I'm only really interested in one of them). The position I want is a full time Photoshop technician. Sounds fun, huh!?!? We'll see if it works out. Everyday I ask myself what in the world I’m getting into. Six weeks before my due date isn't exactly the ideal time to start a new career, but little Lizzy has promised to be an exceptionally good baby to help us make ends meet. Now we’ll just pray that we can find as understanding of an employer. Well, that’s about all that’s new with us. Thanks to all of you for your prayers and support!

Baby Bash and Movin' On

It's been a long time since I've posted anything, but lots of fun stuff is going on in the Jones household. Mary and Jen threw a rockin' baby shower for me...the best I've ever been to. We had great food and played some really fun games, and I loved having my mom there to join in on the fun. In one game (pictured below) everyone had to rip off the length of toilette paper that they guessed would wrap around my belly once. Apparently I look even bigger than I really am because Chandi's piece wrapped around me twice. Thanks Chandi. =)

Unfortunately our summer at the beach has come to an end. John started medical school at the University of Virginia on Monday. He wondered how well he'd fit in, especially after his first encounter with other students in his entering class. The others instantly bonded as they discussed the best bars in town and decided to go get drinks together after class. Of course John didn't have much to say on that topic. And when the other guys found out that he was married they were shocked and asked in amazement, "Is being married really as bad as they say it is?" So.... we're definitely not in Provo anymore! But we're excited to be out of our comfort zone and grow a little.

The Becks

At 28 weeks I'm getting more and more excited every day about this little baby. I wanted to write a quick post thanking Jack, son of Dan and Mary Beck for being the cutest little boy ever and helping me get ready and excited about being a mom. They even let me take some family pictures of them last Sunday at the beach. What a cute family!

Congratulations to Spencer and Tyler!

Yes dad, you did see John's brother on the news! Spencer and Tyler helped make history last week when they were officially married under the new laws allowing gay marriage in the state of California. We have a new addition to the Jones family! Well, I guess Tyler was part of the family even before I was, as he and Spence have been a couple for over 6 years, but now it's official. So, Tyler, welcome to the family. We love you both and we think you're great!

25 Weeks and Still Growing!

A lot of you have been asking to see pictures of the belly. Well, here you have it! What an amazing time in a woman's life when her friends and family actually ask her to wear tight clothing and pose at the most unflattering angle so they can all see just how fat she really is. But, being pregnant definitely has it's advantages. At 25 weeks the little girl inside me is about 1 1/2 lbs and just over a foot long. No one has to know that sour gummy worms and large quantities of pink lemonade can account for much of the rest of this impressive abdomen!

Trip to Salem

This weekend was a fun one for me (Emily). I drove down to Salem help photograph Aaron & Beth Cooke's wedding and visit my family at the same time. It was fun. I liked some of my less traditional wedding shots (like the bathtub layouts below), and it was nice to leave the stress of getting the really good and more traditional photos to Teena. It was a beautiful reception and it brought back some great memories of our reception at the same location just over 2 years ago.

The best part of the trip was hanging out with my rad parents. My mom and I went baby clothes shopping and struck gold. We got enough 0 to 6 month clothes from craigslist.com to dress little baby jones in a new outfit almost every day for the first 6 months. It was so fun! We also got a sweet baby bathtub with all the bells and whistles. I must say, I have the greatest parents in the whole world. Thanks mom and dad!

It's a Girl!

Well, this is old news, but still good news. For anyone who hasn't heard, we are having a girl!She seems to be doing really well.
We don't know what we'll name her yet, but we've been thinking of Elizabeth. If you have any other suggestions feel free to let us know. We're open to more ideas.

April 08 Adventures

Emily and I are way too far behind to do things justice but I'll do my best to give an update on our the past few weeks. Here are some of the highlights:

1st week of April, Emily's first baby doctor visit.

Emily got checked out for the first time and it looks like mom and baby are doing great. Due date is October 7th! For now we are calling him/her Hercules. You can call him/her Herc for short. Our last baby.com update said that old Herc is the size of an apple and the length of its legs have now surpassed the length of its arms. Emily's little belly is just starting to bulge... that's what i'm talkin about!

April 14-18, Hawaii.

We celebrated graduation a few weeks early by taking a much needed vacation. We drove to LA on Sunday afternoon and made a long trip much longer by leaving my drivers license in the scanner the night before and not realizing until Beaver... We flew out Monday morning and stayed in the Sheraton hotel across the street from Waikiki beach. We spent a lot of time snorkeling and on the beach, went to the Polynesian Cultural Center, watched a man reel in a 70 pound mantaray, hiked to Manoa falls through the dense rain forest, saw numerous sea turtles and Emily even touched one (but don't tell anyone or she could go to jail:)), lived off of PBJ sandwiches, and got burned to a crisp. It was wonderful.

April 19-20, San Francisco w/ Tyler & Spencer

We flew overnight on Friday night arriving early Saturday morning and immediately headed out to see Spencer and Tyler. Spencer wasn't kidding about that LA to SF drive being one of the ugliest and most boring - however I think the SF to Provo drive may have topped it... but despite the long drives we had a great time in SF. We spent time at Fisherman's wharf, went shopping at Union Square where we were converted to H&M by Spencer, learned the art of parallel parking and how to keep the bums from breaking into your car, and had some great pizza that night. The next day we drove over the bridge and took pictures, ate lunch at In & Out courtesy of Uncle O'Melveney, went to a museum and saw the photography exhibit of Annie Leibovitz, drove through the gigantic and beautiful SF park, were given a tour of many neighborhoods and areas of SF, and returned home and had an incredible home cooked Italian meal made by Spencer and Tyler. What a weekend!

April 24-25, Emily and John become BYU graduates!

After a few arduous years of undergrad Emily and I finally graduated. Emily was designated as Valedictorian of her Psychology class and sang at convocation. Both of us got to sit on the stand. Mom tried to get us in trouble by calling us while we were down there but luckily our phones or turned off:) We had great family and friend get togethers on Thursday night at La Vigna in American Fork and at the Brick Oven on Friday afternoon.

April 25-27, We leave Provo, Utah, and all we know behind for the East coast.

I put a hitch on the 4-cylinder Camry and we packed up a U-haul trailer with lots of help from the fam and headed out for Virginia Beach where I'll be selling for the summer. With more than a little bit of divine intervention the Camry did incredibly well. I was scared to death when we finally put the packed up trailer on hitch and the Camry dropped almost to the point the muffler was touching the ground. After some adjustments in the trailer and a father's blessing from Dad, the load didn't seem nearly as bad. We made it up Parley's canyon, through a mini-blizzard in Wyoming, through 10 different states, and all the way to Roanoke Virginia. We decided to make a pit stop tonight with Emily's family to get some rest (after 3 days without a shower and after spending 2 nights in sleeping bags inside the Camry our noses and our bodies needed a rest...). So tomorrow morning we'll head out the rest of the way to Virginia Beach to work for the Summer.