Embers Glowing to Win, Place, and Show!

That's right it's been a year since the "Clicker to Win" post. I know you all have every post memorized so I won't even get into what that means... :) Yes, we made another trip out to Arlington Park Racetrack. And again a mistaken bet led to a majority of our winnings... but more on that later. For now we'll start with last weeks visit with Uncle Jim and a night of being fancy and hanging out at the Four Seasons. And big shocker, our little ham was a huge hit with everyone he met, including the staff of the hotel...

Back up in Uncle Jim's hotel room Levi and Jenny tested out his bed...

Snuggly!


Uncle Jim, the Ham, and Lovely Wife-Lady

So.... the horse races. Our second annual celebration of our friend Lindsey's birthday at Arlington Park Racetrack. Going into this year's betting, everyone wanted to follow my strategy (because of how well we did last year), however the one race I was for sure on... ended up being a disaster. My prize horse Chicalelee was a big sleeper with a great chance to win... he took fourth. Long story short, that means no money for any of the bets we made. But that's not the crazy part, in a rush to get my bet in before the "books" closed I bet on the wrong horse to win, place and show (aka take 1st, 1st/2nd, or 1st/2nd/3rd). And guess what, that's the horse that won! Embers Glowing! Simply unbelieveable. I felt terrible for "losing" everyone's money, but I iced the cake with my winning... hilarious! And oh yeah, we dressed up for a touch of sass, but mostly fun!

Now as a quick side note, we had a wonderful weekend with the Perricone's and got to celebrate "little" John Michael's first birthday, but our camera died at the racetrack, so no pictures. We'll try to get some from the Perricones and post any good ones later this year.



So, MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL! PACKERS-BEARS! NFC NORTH RIVALRY! CLASSIC!... disappointing. But let's go through the Jones Boys excitement anyways...



"Yay, Daddy did you see that awesome pass to Jennings across the back of the end zone, I called that! chalk up another 7.7 points for our fantasy team!"



"This second quarter is boring..."

"Where's the Packers offense..."

"Seriously, another penalty! Based on my knowledge that's the most penalties by a Packers team in a game in over 50 years!"

After a tough loss, Levi washed away the memories of the game with a quality light read... "If You Give a Moose a Muffin."

~ Thanks Auntie ClownFace and Uncle DoodieMouth ~

Good night my friends and family. Starting next week I'm going to try to update the blog with Levi's vocabulary-to-date (thanks Glissmeyers for the idea). But there was one incident I wanted to mention before I forgot. First off, big shocker, Levi can say no... secondly, we were in Target picking out some quality nesting items, when we stopped this awesome BigFoot toy (http://www.fisher-price.com/fp.aspx?st=7086&e=bigfootlanding) in a plastic display case with a convenient "Try Me" button. The thing was awesome, it pounded on the case, rolled around, yelled, growled, and was quite impressive. After about 30 seconds of blank staring at it, Levi let out his clearest "NO!" to date and proceeded to cry. We quickly moved on, picked him up to comfort him and then later had a good laugh about it. It was good stuff, classic guy parenting on my part. Well, that's all folks. Have a great rest of the week, happy birthday again to Lindsey and John Micheal, and God bless!

"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." ~ Ephesians 2:10

The Other Side...

We made it! It's post September 15th and my family still loves me! Levi has gotten SO big and part of that means dressing himself... or at least attempting to put on shoes!

"Forget the shoes, I got some TV to watch!"

(Thanks for the Jammies, Auntie Kylie and DoDo!)

"What do you mean I can't play on the PS3?"

Jammie Butt!

Surprisingly, we found a free afternoon to storage and furniture shop. Levi enjoyed the coloring table at the Container Store.

He also really liked this couch at C&B

Going into the final week and a half of busy season it was getting pretty evident that I wasn't going to be at home at all (other than to sleep, which wasn't even the case...twice). So, Jenny and Levi headed up to Wisconsin to hang out with family and friends... it was exhausting.

During a visit to the Broglis Jenny parked the car on a hill and this was the result :)

Jenny and Levi visited Laura one night and Levi took it on himself to re-program her TV settings.

Go Brewers!

"Are you a walking boy?"

Drew's amp needed some adjusting...

A little piano accompaniment

It's tough hanging out at the Dwyers...

Levi was dedicated at church this week. Basically, that means that as parents we come before the church to say that we're going to raise Levi to love God and serve Him. He had a little something to add...

Then he took a nap :)

And here we are, three weeks later, back to normal, enjoying life!

And just a little added side note... Levi did learn a new trick over the last few weeks.

Enjoy!

Thanks for sticking with us despite the hiatus. We're back on track, having dinner together again, and Levi actually gets to see me everyday, yay! Have a wonderful rest of the week everyone and I'll end by sharing our Bible passage for Levi's life...

"Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in him and he will do this:

He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,
the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him"

~Psalms 37:4-7a