MEET THE FAMILY

Welcome to our blog!  We’re the Jones Family – there’s me, [Sara-Jayne], Gavin, Jensen, Lyoto and Hero, and Casanova and Excalibur the Siberian Huskies.  We live in Hampshire, England.  Below is a little bit more about us all.

That’s me.  I write the blog, take the photographs, write the theme tune…. You get the idea.  I’m a daughter, sister, wife and mom of boys.

Gavin and I were married at a crazily beautiful and fun-filled celebration in Walt Disney World, Florida, in 2008, and ten years later, we have three beautiful boys aged 8, 6 and 4.  Our two Siberian Huskies, Casanova and Excalibur have sadly left us and crossed the rainbow bridge and we miss them terribly.

I was born in Worcestershire, England, and lived in the Midlands until I read law in Wales. Following graduation, I returned to study and post-graduated from the Legal Practice Course with commendation, then continued to take a position as an Insolvency Practitioner with KPMG.

In 2006 I retrained as a teacher at Southampton University and became a local junior school teacher, which I loved.  I then gave up teaching in 2014 shortly before our third baby was born, to dedicate my time to parenting – and learned photography to capture our family growing up together.

Now the boys are growing up, I manage to get a little “me” time – and my passions are my photography, birthday parties, anything related to Disney, eating Chocolate Orange when I can get a slice, decorating cupcakes and making pretty crafts.  I’m a girl’s girl until it comes to sport – I was a tighthead prop for the university rugby team throughout law school and for some time afterwards – and this year we’re introducing our boys to the local team in the hope that at least one of them takes it up, because I miss it so much.

If I had to choose three words to describe myself, they would be impulsive, creative and daydreamer.   My husband would probably say I’m a spontaneous, messy perfectionist.  He’s probably right, just like he was with the cream carpet and the plush sofa.

Gavin is the brains/chef/chief dish washer of the family.  He was born and raised in Hampshire and has been working at IBM since graduation.  Due to this, he suffers from being faced with endless questions concerning anything remotely technical or computer-based in my life (and often my parents’ too) yet still refuses to help me, remaining adamant that it’s a good learning experience for me.  One Christmas he bought me a book on HTML. The joy!

His main hobbies are trying to defeat me at board games, traditional and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, following the UFC, cooking and playing computer games (which rarely happens, although now we have a Switch he has more of a chance).  His evening activities mainly comprise of wrestling with the boys and doing the dishes, which keeps him very occupied especially when the two activities combine.  

Gavin’s appearance varies drastically throughout the year depending on length of beard and hair, which annoys his parents greatly.  Gav thinks we don’t know that he likes to eat the boys’ Maoam sweeties after we all go to bed whilst he watches Game of Thrones….but we do, and we told the Dentist about it too.

Jensen Indiana Jones is the first born baby of the Jones family.  Arriving in 2010 weighing in at 9lbs 8ozs, at 60cm in length he was the tallest baby his midwife had ever delivered to date.

Jens loves nature and the great outdoors and is keen to protect any creature he comes across in his garden, particularly the toads and sloworms.  He loves Star Wars, Super Mario Brothers, FNAF, and anything related to Disney and especially Maui, Peter Pan and Pinocchio. At the moment there’s a huge Michael Jackson dancing obsession going on.  You can find him trying to sneakily watch YouTube, filling my Amazon basket with “suggestions”, hanging off the banister whilst I tell him not to, and trying to create his own stunt videos.

His favourite food is anything that swims in the sea, and he has a great dislike of potatoes except McDonald’s chips.

Lyoto Elvis Romeo Jones is the middle child of the family.  Born on St. Valentine’s Day in 2012, he has a heart of gold and a very cheeky smile.  

Whereas Jens is all about protecting the environment, Lyoto wants to see how it’s put together and will happily dismantle anything – so much so that he earned the nickname “The Destroyer” in his first year of life.  This was replaced by “The Yotaraptor” thanks to his hunting behaviour when he thinks there might be a surprise in my cupboard hidden.

Yotie’s loves are me and Dan TDM.  His favourite toys are the cuddly toys from FNAF, his new Chromebook which we were kindly given by AO.com, Playmobil and LEGO.  His main inspirations in life are apparently Raptors.

Our little cannonball has a speech difficulty and stammer, yet excels in his conversation skills with a whoppingly huge vocabulary.  He’s also reigning maths champion of his class [epically unstoppable as advised by his teacher] and has a favourite friend whom the world revolves around who looks almost like his twin, which is just lovely to see.

If I had one wish for Lyoto it would be to take away his speech difficulties – and his fussiness over food.  There are only so many ways you can cook chicken.  

Hero Hefin Casey Jones is our Summer baby born in 2014. Having the same birthday as Tom Cruise,  he’s our first baby to be born with hair, and our first baby to sleep soundly from the get-go.  I keep waiting for him to rebel in some way.  If all babies were as easy as Hero we’d have had five more by now – or I’d just have far fewer wrinkles and grey hairs.  He’s pretty much a perfect child.  Haha.  

Now he’s four!  He’s still my baby but clearly thinks of himself as the boss amongst his brothers.  He has a teacher voice when he tells them off.  Hero’s nickname is Beans although we don’t know why, and his most favourite thing in the whole world is to play Play-Doh, which we do every.single.day, and to entertain me with his singing before bedtime, which is just gorgeous, even when he sings the Splish Splash Bum Rash Song [don’t ask].  He loves Spiderman, is OBSESSED with Captain America and has the balance of a trapeze artist thanks to being on a 10-foot trampoline daily with his big brothers since he was about 6 months old. 

Hero starts school in September following our happily successful application for Summer-born deceleration and I’m so relieved for him.