The Jones Girls

Today I took the girls to get Christmas Holiday portraits done.   Our appointment was at 3:00pm at JCPenney’s Photography studio.    It took me over 2 hours to get the girls ready…hair up in pin curls and dressed in their beautiful Christmas dresses with tights and new dressy shoes.

I made this appointment almost 2 weeks ago and the photographers have called me twice this week to verify we wanted the Christmas Holiday background and to confirm our appointment.    I reserved an hour appointment for photography.

We arrive and the photographer said she wasn’t ready for us.   She did not have the background put together yet and could I please turn their TV on and play a Disney movie for the girls while she sets up the studio.    So I did that.  She asked if I could come help her put the background together.  She had no idea how it was supposed to be put together.   So I helped as best as I could.   In the meantime, my girls have been intently watching the Disney movie for over 20 minutes.

We finished doing the background and then I had to get the girls unglued from the TV.  That was difficult.  Of course they didn’t want to go get pictures now because I interrupted them watching their Disney movie. 

Needless to say, the girls didn’t cooperate with the photo shoot.  It went horrible.   Not one good shot!!   Everyone was crying and protesting.  I was frustrated.  The photographer didn’t know what to do, so she pulled out a baby rattle to try to appease them.  Ummm, a baby rattle?   Give me  a break!!   She didn’t know how to position the girls and asked me to give her some ideas.   I was not impressed and very annoyed.

I cut the photo shoot short and told her this was going really bad.  We didn’t get one good shot.    I packed up the girls and headed out.  The photographer took me to the register and offered me a free photo sheet and appologized saying that she wasn’t ready for us.   I told her I was frustrated because it took me over 2 hours to get the girls ready and now I would have to reschedule and do it all over again.    I asked to speak to her manager.  Then the bomb drop…she said she was the manager!!    My mouth hung open in disbelief.    Not good at all.

When I got home, I called the manager at JCPenney’s and she had the district manager of photography call me.  I spoke to Nicole Medina and she apologized for the whole experience.  She said the photographer was very good and had 3 years experience being a photographer for JCPenney’s and that she became manager of photography for our JCPenney’s just a couple of weeks ago.    She offered me a few free photo sheets.

I had to reschedule our photo shoot for this Saturday.  We will also do a family portrait also.   Hopefully it will go much better than today…

I have to say the city of La Habra had the cutest bugs for Halloween!!  Savannah was the queen bee, Amanda was a butterfly, Miranda was a bumble bee and Maryssa was a lady bug.  I made all of their costumes.  They had cute too too’s.   They looked so cute!!

We took them trick or treating in the neighborhood at about 6:00pm.    I went with them for about 20 minutes than I ran home to give out candy.  They were with daddy and got back at about 7:30.   They came back with boat loads of candy!!

I would say we had about 120 trick or treaters visit our house.    There were some awesome costumes.  Some teenagers came to the door and one of the girls was a pick and was holding a shot.  She said she was “Swine Flu”.  I cracked up and had to take a picture of her.  Too funny!!

Today I planned a really fun costume parade for the senior citizens at the La Habra Community Center.    

I baked over 70 peanut butter chocolate chip muffins yesterday.  I tell you, this is the easiest recipe and tastes like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup in a muffin..totally delicious.  I put each muffin in a bag and put a personalized sticker that said Happy Halloween, Hugs from the Jones Bugs.   

It was a difficult morning for me .  I had to get all of the girls in their bug costumes and at the Community Center by 9:30am.  I was 10 minutes late.    There were other moms and kids from the La Habra Moms Club  joining us . 

We were introduced and the kids got a standing ovation from the senior citizens…there were so many smiles, laughter and true cheer beaming from not only our children, but from the senior citizens themselves.     It was so fun!!  I think my girls stole the hearts of everyone…their costumes were truly darling.

Tonight was Savannah’s school fundraiser at McDonald’s.    The truly neat thing about this was the teachers and principal were helping out in the kitchen cooking the food!!  Savannah’s teacher, Miss Tarbell, was cooking the French fries.    McDonald’s gave 15% of all proceeds of all sales to our school from 4pm-8pm.  Very generous of them!!

Thank goodness Cliff went with me.  There must have been over a hundred people in that restaurant and 50 of them were in the play area.    It was packed!

We were suprised and happy to see Vanessa and her mom with her girls there.   Her girls, Tiffany and Stacey also go to Savannah’s School, El Portal. So we all sat together.

 I ordered Happy Meals for the kiddos and got some food for Cliff and me too.    The girls were no way interested in food…they wanted to PLAY!!  And play they did!!   

We lasted about an hour there and then headed back home,,,with LOTS of uneaten food that was the girls lunch the next day.

Today we went to the Halloween Pumpkin Patch and Carnival at the Puente Hills Mall.    I negotiated a great discount rate with the owner for our La Habra Moms Club…$5 per kid for 5 rides and a free pumpkin.   Normally the prices are $3 per ride per kid and $2 for a pumpkin.  I basically saved $20 for each kid…a good deal for certain.  So all of the La Habra Moms were thrilled to go to this event.

All of my girls had way too much fun.  They went on a ferris wheel for toddlers, a couple of bouncy houses, the swings ride where 2 girls got to sit together for each swing, and feed and pet all sorts of animals at the petting zoo-baby pigs, a baby calf, goats, sheep, chickens, etc.    Then the girls picked out their pumpkins and we took lots of fun pictures with the cute Halloween backdrops around the pumpkin patch.  The weather was a perfect 78 degrees and we all had so much fun.  We will decorate the pumpkins next week at the park with all of our friends.

I planned a fun activity for the moms and kids with my La Habra Moms Club at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.  We had a huge turnout, about 30 kids and 15 moms.

This time it was mom’s turn to have fun – making caramel apples!! The kiddos got to do their all time favorite dip their marshmallows in chocolate.  Rocky Mountain as always, was very gracious to us and offered us a steal of a deal buy 2 caramel apples, get 1 free!!

Today we enrolled all 4 girls in Ballet classes at Adagio Dance.   Savannah used to have ballet classes here, but when Amanda’s surgeries came up in the past year and a half, and with the current economic crises, we put ballet on hold.

I got a letter from Adagio recently that waived registration fees for all girls and Miss Jennifer, the instructor, gave us an incredible deal to allow all 4 girls to take ballet lessons.   

The reason why I enrolled them in the class is to benefit each of them in the following way:

Miranda: to teach her to follow directions and sharpen her listening skills

Amanda:  to help her with her balancing issues and strengthen her overall core of her body

Maryssa:  to help her with her pigeon-toed-ness and to help her follow directions and sharpen her receptive language

Savannah: to help her with her mild muscle tone and coordination issues

The girls are having a blast and look forward to getting dressed up each week for class.   It is a lot of work for me, but a thousand times worth the effort!!

This is the true joy of having girls…seeing them float and prance like little princesses in their pink tutus and ballet slippers. There is nothing more precious…