July...

Happy birthday America!

What a great 4th of July we had. We went to papa Mark's golf club and got to ride TWITTER the horse again. Twitter's friend, Velvet, was there too. Stay tuned for those pictures...

Oh, how we love being girls.

Here we are last week at the salon.

Ahhh....heavenly!

They don't even get water in your eyes at the spa.

It's the best!

I'm not sure our dogs love being girls so much.

Whenever we try to make Reese beautiful, she does all she can to escape our room.

My dad tells us to leave the dogs alone.

But, who wouldn't want to wear a beautiful golden dress?

In other Jonswold house news....we've got 4 new "neighbors."

My mom tries really hard to grow plants at our house.

She's not so great at it.

We've got 1 dead plant, but guess what we found in it....

Eggs!

That turned into....

baby BIRDS!!

There are 4 of them. We call them the quads.
They really aren't that cute yet.They are kinda crabby looking and they tweet at us all day.

Their mom sits with them and gives them food RIGHT FROM HER MOUTH. Gross!

Soon, they will be big enough to fly away. (and mom can finally take down that awful dead plant!) Our mom can't grow plants...but she's good at growing BIRDS!

You  know what else we've been good at doing lately? Kind things.

Mom's been working on a "Random Acts of Kindness" project at church, but here are some of the things we have done as a family.

- Saved up part of our allowance and donated food to Faith's Lodge

- Returned other customer's carts at Target, Walmart, Cub, etc.

- Picked up trash in our neighborhood, at parks...and pretty much anywhere. (Maryn is VERY concerned about the Earth. This one is her favorite)

- Praise a parent for their child/a child for his/her awesome parenting/kindness

- Drove past a close parking spot to give it to someone else

- Offered a couple of free babysitting hours to neighbors and friends (which is SUPER fun for Maryn, Brynn and Leah!)

- Wrote a letter to a local news station to tell them about someone in our community who deserves recognition. Guess what?!? She will be on Twin Cities LIVE on July 27th! Be sure to watch!

Giving Back - Fundraising

Our mom is going to be doing the Warrior Dash for St. Jude in September. Go mommy!!!
St. Jude is a place where kids who are sick can go to get better.
Please help us help other kids by donating!
We're going to be doing chores to earn money to give too.
We want to help other kids get well. It's no fun to be sick.

Help us meet our goal!

Ali Jonswold's Fundraising Page

Thank you!
MBL

Do They All Have Different Personalities?

Do they all have different personalities?
A question we get ALL the time.

Here is a true story that will help answer the all so common question.
_________________________________________________

Maryn, Brynn and Leah are 4 and are lots of help around the house. When they make their beds or clean their playroom...they each get coins (quarters) as a reward.

Each girl has a bag of coins she has saved up over the weeks, and a couple of Sundays ago...they wanted to bring their "savings" to church.

So.....proud as can be, each girl walked into church that Sunday with her "purse" and said good morning to the Sunday School teacher.

Maryn went first.
She smiled at her Sunday School teacher and said as proud as a peacock, "I want to give lots of coins to Jesus to help kids who don't have any money or a house or food." She handed over most of her coins and walked into the room smiling ear to ear.

Brynn was next.
Brynn carefully counted her money thinking about all of the things she would like to do with it. She handed over a little less than half of her money thinking that would be about the right amount to give to the kids who don't have as much as we do and still keep some for the ice cream truck and Skittles at Target. She also felt very proud of herself....giving and saving....mission accomplished.

As a parent, I am standing outside of the room thinking "what I good job we've done." They are givers. They think about saving. Look at those kids of mine. Seriously, could we BE better parents???

Then Leah marches in....she heads right up to her Sunday School teacher and without hesitation says, "Sorry, I can't give any money to Jesus. I'm saving for a horse."

Slam - Right back down to reality!
2 out of 3 ain't bad.....

The Golden Age

Mom says 4 is the "golden age"...I'm not sure what she means by that...maybe she means it is that age you win a GOLDEN MEDAL at your preschool track meet???

3 Champions!

GO TEAM JONSWOLD!

Or maybe she means you look as good as gold cause you get to dress up like a real princess for dance pictures. (We EVEN got to wear make-up!)

Or maybe it's cause you get to wear a golden crown at Wild Wings?!

Dad says we are the only kids he knows who request wings with the bones IN!

We love our "real wingies!"

(Maybe next time we'll be up for the blazin' challenge?? You want to join us?)

Whatever the reason, life is GOOD right now!

We are having so much fun together in the sunshine.

Sorry we don't update much...we've just been having a ball!

Our next update we'll tell you about some of our random acts of kindness.

Don't worry! We've been working on it!

XO-

Maryn, Brynn and Leah

Easter 2012

Little Artists

We had an art fair at preschool yesterday!

Mommy and Mimi came.

See some of our beautiful art!

Rainbows by Leah:

Sunflower by Maryn:

 Action Painting by the whole preschool class:

Flamingo by Maryn:

Tucan by Brynn:

"Here's me doing the action painting, mom!" - Brynn

"and me!" -Maryn

A penguin Brynn drew 100% by herself! She's an artist!

We love preschool!



Swimming Lessons

We're getting ready for summer!

We started swimming lessons last week.

Do we like them, you ask?

We'll answer for ourselves.

Brynn: Love 'em!

Maryn: Yeah, they're alright!

Leah: My parents force me to do this. (and smile while they take a picture!) It's pretty awful!

 

We are learning how to do front floats, back floats, and rockets & rainbows.

Hopefully by the end of our lessons, we'll learn some great swimming skills so that we can "deep sea swim" in Sugar Lake this summer!

The weather has been SO nice, we spend as much time as possible outside!

We love going to the park! Weeeeeee!!!!!!!!!

Welcome Spring!!!

RAOK UPDATE:

#3: Our lives are busy...stressful. So lately I've been focusing on random acts of kindness on the road. 90% of people say that they have experienced some form of "road rage" in the past 6 months. Whoa! That's a lot of us. So, in our little van, we're working on brightening days behind the wheel.

Letting people in (even when they wait until the last possible second to merge), "waving thanks" when they let us in, and generally trying not to be stressballs in the car. Seriously, a wave from a stranger as a "thanks" makes my day. It reminds me that there are kind, unselfish, grateful people everywhere! A good daily reminder!

#4: I drink Diet Coke. I drink a lot of Diet Coke. I also happen to collect a bunch of Coke Rewards. For a long time, I couldnt wait to collect enough to get another year of my favorite magazine subscription or a gift card to a store we frequent.

This month, though, I donated my saved Coke rewards to someone who is saving them for an amazing cause. She mentioned the cause in passing, and my heart felt pulled. A tiny but unexpected gift! :)