Sarah's Baptism

Yesterday George had the opportunity to baptize our oldest daughter, Sarah. I am so proud of the beautiful, talented and kind young lady she is growing up to be.

I can't believe that Sarah is eight years old. Not that she does not seem mature (she seems very mature) but that the time has flown by so fast. I know that virtually all parents say this, but she has grown up so fast!! (sniff sniff)

Above is a picture of her on her baptism day. Compare that to the pictures below- the first one was taken when she was four years old.

This one was taken when she was six years old.

This is Sarah when she was three years old on the day little baby Kate was blessed. Sarah has been such a wonderful big sister to Kate and now to Juliette. They both look up to her and watch everything she does.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Sarah, taken when she was two years old. She has such a glowing spirit, I always liked the way the light falls on her in this shot because it reminds me of the light she shines on others by the power of her testimony and her pure love. I am honored to have the opportunity to be her mom and to watch her amazing transformation from a cute little baby into a young lady who can set such a great example for others.

The Big Read

I saw this list on Staci's blog. I have only read 23 out of the 100 books. Maybe someday I will have time to read a few more.

The Big Read is a National Endowment for the Arts program designed to encourage community reading initiatives and of this list of 100 books, they estimate the average adult has read only six.

Here’s what you are supposed to do:
*Look at the list and bold those we have read.
*Italicize those we intend to read.
*Underline the books we LOVE .Share this list in your blog, too, if you like.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Gideon and Becky

Gideon and Becky got married last Saturday- don't they look great together?
I think this is a look into the future......................................ha ha ha
Here are all the Jones sisters and sisters-in law. From left to right, Andrea, Amy E, Becky, Rebekah, Amy and Staci. Now Nathan will have to marry someone named Andrea to keep the trend alive.
Here are all the Jones brothers and brothers-in-law. From the left, George (isn't he dreamy....), Nathan, Gideon, Jason, Jethro and Matt.
Kate, Sarah and Nya were hanging out and being Silly with uncle Nathan. I just love this shot. Nathan, we miss having you around!
Later at the reception, Sarah caught Becky's bouquet- needless to say, she was quite pleased.

Bonus

Well, Gideon got married and I got some great pics of the kids out of it. I have been putting off getting a family picture taken for quite a while now, but now it is taken care of! George's sister Andrea is a whiz with her camera- Thanks, Andrea!
Sarah, Kate and Juliette did not mind posing for pictures while we were all waiting for Gideon and Becky to come outside.

Wow, here we are. Everyone is even looking at the camera!