Contemplating

I've been through several dogs the last year.  We have Whitey, our lab mix that has stuck around  and I'm glad because he and Jace are best friends.  Last December, we got a beagle because Lance really wanted one. She stuck around for awhile, but she and Whitey just didn't get along with each other and we decided it was best to give her away to another family looking for a dog.  And now we know she's in a good home with someone that loves her. In April, we got the cutest puppy ever!  She disappeared one night and we're thinking that she must have been killed by the neighbor's dog.  I don't think we'll ever know what happened to her.  Then, we got our sweet Lola in June and then just a few days ago, I had to see her killed by the neighbor's dog.  

I'm a big dog lover.  There's kind of a void I have that I feel like I need to fill with Lola gone.  At the same time, I've been through so many dogs already, I'm too scared about getting another one.  The dog that we're pretty sure killed her was taken away, so I don't feel like I need to be concerned about it happening again.  At the same time, we have new neighbors with 3 big dogs that they just let roam and it makes me a little nervous having them around our yard.  I never want to relive the experience of seeing my little dog killed and hearing her cry.  It was a helpless feeling because there's nothing I could have done to help her.  By the time I reached her, I knew there was no hope and it was the most crushing feeling in the world.  

I had dogs growing up and nothing ever happened to them.  They lived wonderful lives until they got old and had to be put to sleep.  But I knew they lived happy lives.  I never envisioned losing a dog the way I did.  My mother-in-law had dogs that got really sick and had to be put to sleep and even to this day, she hates the thought of something happening to the dog she now owns.   I understand what she's feeling now.  The thought of getting another dog and something else happening is just frightening.  

Lance has been showing me dogs online that he would love to get.  A part of me just wants to jump and get one, but then the memory of what happened to Lola comes back to mind and I shut the idea away.  I've told Lance that before we can get another dog, he has to fix our fence and make sure there are absolutely no gaps a dog could fit through of any size.  I really wanted a small lap dog, but after losing 2, I've decided that I'm just not meant to have one.  The thought of getting a little bigger one kind of eases my mind and makes me think it might work.  I don't know what I'm going to do at this point.  I'm sure I'll open up to the idea of another dog soon, but I don't think I'm ready.  Maybe in the spring when we can fix up our yard and fill the gaps in the fence, I'll feel a little better about it.  I'm pretty content with Whitey, but even he misses Lola and it's obvious.  He's had another dog around the house to play with for a year and you can tell he's  grieving with her gone.  I don't know....I guess time will tell.  Maybe I'll just get a cat or a goldfish.   

In Memorium

Today, we had a tragedy happen.  Our sweet little dog, Lola, was attacked and killed by our neighbor's dog.  I let her out to go to the bathroom and instantly, she found a spot to get out of our yard.  She's such a small dog that it's not hard for her to squeeze through any space in our fence.  I ran to the front yard because that's where she usually goes when she gets out and she wouldn't come.  So, I ran back to the backyard and heard her crying and a saw a big black lab running away.  I put on my shoes and ran out there and saw the dog with her in his mouth just shaking her.  I didn't get any closer out of fear that the dog would come after me next.  I knew she had to be dead.  I sent Lance out and he went and couldn't find her.  Anyways..we called the animal control and since they were closed, a police officer had to come out.  They went over and found the black lab in its  yard with Lola laying next to it dead.  They came  back and gave us her collar and asked if we wanted to bury her and I told them no just because of all the snow and everything.  It's been kind of a sad day in our home.  Jace loved Lola and so did we.  She was the lap dog I've always wanted.  I'm going to miss her little den of stuff under our kitchen table that I always had to clean up.  I'm going to miss her snuggling into bed between Lance and I at night. I'm going to miss her biting all the limbs off of Jace's toys.  I'm going to miss her tackling with Whitey.     I'm going to miss her rolling on her back every time I went to her.  I'm going to miss her climbing up to Jace's crib every time I opened his door to get him in the morning.  I'm going to miss her standing on her hind legs for a treat.  I'm going to miss her chasing Whitey around the back yard trying to keep up. I'm going to miss her accidentally dunking her head in the water every time I tried to give her a bath. I'm going to miss her barking at Whitey every time he ate her food.  I'm just plain going to miss her.   We love you Lola.  Rest in peace!  

Merry Late Christmas

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas this year.  I  know our family did.  I've decided that I really don't care about getting presents as much as I enjoy getting presents for others and seeing their faces when they open them.  Our ward did a sub for Santa for another ward and I got some pajamas for a 7-year old boy.  I know that that family didn't wasn't as fortunate as we were, but I would have loved to see his face to open up some Spiderman pajamas.  Our Christmas really was wonderful.  I didn't take pictures with my camera (dang!) but we did take a lot of video.  On either Monday or Tuesday night (I can't remember), we got home and found a bag of presents on our porch.  There were toys in there for Jace and then gift cards for Lance and I.  Wow...not something we expected but something we were SO GRATEFUL for.  It's just such a nice feeling to be thought of by someone out there (we still don't know who).  

The weather was pretty crazy this Christmas.  On Christmas Eve, we got up and headed out to Salt Lake.  We dropped Jace  off at my brother's house where Lance's sister, Tara, watched Jace and their kids.  4 kids under the age of 4...not an easy task!  My family and Lance and I went to Desert Star to see "Miracle on 42nd Street" because my cousin was in it.  It was a really good play and we enjoyed the break from the kids.  After the play, Lance and I went and took over watching the kids while everyone else went to lunch.  Later that night, we watched "Elf" and read "A Christmas Story" to the kids.  It was a very nice night.

On Christmas day, we got up early again to really crazy weather.  It was very windy and wet out in Tooele.  The wind actually kept me up all night Christmas Eve. We opened presents at our own house first.  Jace's eyes just lit up when we took him in to see the tree with its lights  on and presents under the tree.  He didn't care about opening  the presents, but he enjoyed playing with them.  I think he was  most excited about the baby snacks in his stocking.  Lance got me a standing mixer and I was so surprised!  I've asked for one and never in my life expected it!  It's not a kitchenaid, but I don't care.  I don't need the fancy gadgets that kitchenaids have.

We went to Lance's parents after that and did presents there.  Lance's parents spoiled us.  They got us a garbage disposal and are paying for installation as well.  So excited about it!!!  After the presents there, Lance's mom made her annual Christmas breakfast and some of the extended family came over.  There weren't as many that came due to the bad weather.  Breakfast was very yummy though.  As we ate, Lance read the Living Christ, a tradition we enjoy.  It really reminds us to remember Christ at this time of year.  

After breakfast and everything, we headed back to my brother's house to open presents with my family.  One thing about doing it with my family is that I don't think you've ever seen so presents as they have there.  There were garbage bags just full of gifts.  We really are blessed.  My parents gave me a lot of decorations for my house.  That's what I wanted more than anything.  Our house has a lot of ledges and I'm not a decorator, so I needed something to put on them and I actually got some stuff.  I made my nieces tutus and my 2-year-old niece was actually scared of hers.  She wouldn't touch it or go near  it.  Kind of sad and funny at the same time.  Hopefully she'll grow into it.   We didn't do a traditional Christmas dinner.  My mom brought over a lot of snacks and made her very yummy bran muffins and hot chocolate.  It was just great being together as a family.

We've been out in Salt Lake everyday the past week.  It's nice spending today at home to find a place for everything and clean up after the Christmas chaos.  I enjoyed Salt Lake with our families, but am glad it's all over so I can just be at home with my own little family now.  

Not a Smart Shopper

Okay, so I'm trying to save money the best I can and I'm not very good at it! I'm not good at finding the best deals. I use websites and stuff, but I'm still not very good at finding the best deals. Is anyone out there a smart shopper? Any ideas on saving money? I've taken a coupon class and I still just can't figure out how to do it. We had an unexpected happening last night (don't ask) and now is really the time for us to be smart with our money. So...please help! If you're any good at it, please give me your ideas and where to find coupons, etc. I think my main problem is that I don't know what a "good deal" is.

Okay, so to get off that subject, let me just brag about my sweet little boy. Now that Jace can walk, it seems like he's the most energetic kid around! He's still not very good at walking. In fact, he only takes a few steps and then will sit down on purpose. Altogether, he seems like a changed kid. He will actually calm down at times. At my mom's, he refuses to take naps in his playpen. In fact, we just make him a bed on the couch and he falls asleep there at naptime. I don't understand the change. At nighttime, he will lay on the bed with me and just cuddle. He never used to be like that. Whenever he used to be on the bed, he would be up and moving. There are actually a couple nights this week where he fell asleep on our bed. Strange. I don't want that to become a habit, so I haven't let him do it anymore. Jace also has a new favorite hobby. He loves to go to the drawers in the kitchen and empty them and then put everything back in different drawers. I've actually just started giving him our measuring cups and spoons to play with. I've tried teaching him how to say our dog's names, Lola and Whitey. It's really funny when he says Lola because his tongue goes in and out of his mouth and he blubbers. I really enjoy our cute little boy. I really enjoy my days off work because I get to play with him all day and I can tell he enjoys being home with me. He's really a momma's boy. He's becoming attached. I kind of don't like that, but at the same time, it's a nice feeling having a little boy that wants to stay with you. It does make me worry when he gets older and has to go to nursery and stuff like that.

Jace's new favorite thing to do...you can see all of the towels and stuff on the floor.

Here I actually caught him walking into the kitchen. He looks like a chimp when he walks with his arms up in the air.

Here he is again walking down the hallway. I have yet to take a video of it. I need to buy more tapes for our camcorder. I also have never learned how to upload them to a computer.

Oh Happy Day!

So, I don't have a lot to write about right now and I know I've been slacking a little. But, tonight Jace took his first steps! I didn't see that coming at all because he's never tried before. We were at my mother-in-law's and he disappeared into the kitchen. When I went in, I saw him take a step away from holding onto his highchair and thought "What the...?" He has never done that before. So, I took him into the living room and put him between me and my brother-in-law's girlfriend, Lauren. Then, he took like 3 steps to get to her and fell down. We tried a few more times, but then he was sick of it and said no more. But, it was sure fun while it lasted! I can't wait for tomorrow to try again. Hopefully this isn't one of those things where he does it once and then stops for 3 months before he tries again. By, the way, before he would walk, he would stand without holding onto things. He could stand and bend his knees without falling. I don't know when this all started. It was all a surprise to me! But anyways....happy day! Pretty exciting. Maybe he'll be full out walking by Christmas. Who knows!

Okay, so I was playing around and deleted all of my friends blogs. Please tell me your blog address so I can update it again! Please!!! Thanks everyone! Then I don't have to sit and search for everyone.

Thanksgiving Weekend

I can't believe that Thanksgiving is already over. For Thanksgiving, we went up to a really small town by Logan called Trenton. We were supposed to celebrate with my family this year, but I sacrificed and celebrated with Lance's family instead. It was a lot of fun though. I missed my family, of course, but it was nice being with Lance's family too. It was really important to Lance to get to go because it's very rare that he gets to see his family in Trenton and they get to go shooting up there being that it's such a small town. Also, he got to go shooting with his dad and his brother, which they haven't been able to do in years. Being that his dad works for the railroad, it's a rare occasion for him to be there for family holidays such as Thanksgiving. We were supposed to eat a deep fat fried turket, but the fryer didn't work. It was a bummer because I was pretty excited for it. The feast was quite yummy. After we ate, we all gathered up and went to shoot guns, even Jace. We stuck a pair of over-the-ear earplugs on him because it got a little loud. There had to be at least 10 people there shooting their guns all at once. I even got up and attempted to shoot a clay pigeon, but I was so concerned about the gun kicking back at me that I wasn't very good. It was still fun though. I didn't take any pictures of the feast, but I got some of everyone shooting.

Jace was pretty good on the car ride. He actually slept most of the time both ways. This is what we go through everytime we put shoes and socks on Jace. He always manages to get one shoe and one sock off.

Here's Jace with his earplugs. He hated having them on at first, but once we held his hands down long enough that he couldn't touch them, he stopped trying to take them off. He couldn't hear us at all with them on, so I think they must have done their job keeping the noise out.

Lance with his shooting buddy, his dad. I just realized I didn't get one with his dad and his brother. Darn!

Lance and Derek and the whole sprawl of people.

Here's me with the gun. I don't look like I was dressed up for shooting, but I wanted to do it anyways. You can tell I was the picture taker because I was holding the case while I shot the gun.

On Friday, we didn't wake up at the break of dawn to go shopping, but we did go shopping later at about 10:00. We hit Sears just right in the knick of time. We got a new carseat for Jace and we got the last one right as about 10 people came over to get it. We beat all the people. It was kind of a nice feeling. We went to a couple other stores too, but didn't buy much of anything else. It was still fun though, and very tiring!

After we went shopping, Lance and I went on a date to Body Worlds!

It was pretty awesome! Lance got tickets for his Birthday from my parents. It was so interesting. If you don't know what it is, basically, scientists found a way to inject plastic into cells to preserve them after an organism has died. So, this was just a huge exhibit of bodies and body parts that had been plasticized. They had actual bodies formed into different shapes and then all the body parts from people that have died and donated their bodies to science. It was really hard to believe that all these people and parts were actually real people at one time. The most interesting part to me was they had actual fetuses there at like 6 weeks on. I actually got to see what that stuff looks like! I also really liked getting to see the difference between clean lungs and smokers' lungs. I got to see everything! I wish I could tell everyone the cool things I got to see and learn. I was really nervous about going to this because the way Lance described it was horrible. The worst part about the whole thing was there was a lot of walking. I walked so much yesterday and it was a little much for my foot to handle. All in all, it was a really nice weekend. I had a lot of fun getting to spend time with Lance and Jace and our families.

Count Your Blessings

I haven't had much to post about lately. Lately, I've really been noticing the blessings in my life. I had surgery on my foot again about 2 weeks ago. They removed all the hardware in my foot. It was crazy. They gave it to me as a souvenir, and it looked like something I could use to fix something in my house. I thought I was feeling pretty good getting used to having screws in my foot, but I feel so much better having it out. I'm walking more normal than I have in over 6 months! It's strange to think that half of my son's life, I've had a broken foot and haven't walked normal. Jace is now 13 months and I keep hearing about other people's kids walking. Well, I've kind of moped and been kind of sad that Jace is a little bit slower with it and is behind kids that are even younger than he is. This week recovering from this surgery, it dawned on me...it's actually a blessing that he isn't walking! As much as I want him to walk, the Lord is watching out for me. He's not giving me more than I can handle. Now that I'm walking almost normal now, it'll be soon that Jace will get going right along with me.

Since I last posted, Jace has changed a lot. Teeth #7 and #8 are coming in and they're big nasty molars! Ahhh! He's really starting to copy the things we say. His favorite word to say is "dog or dogin (also dog)" and "dad". He's also made his attempts at hi, grandma, grandpa, cracker, hot, and several other things. He also says "Tom" pretty well (my little brother). We've been working on saying "ho ho ho" with him for Christmas and it always comes out "haha". The only thing he won't say is "mama". For some reason, that's just not something he wants to say. He's also been giving hugs to everyone he knows lately. He gave his first kiss today to my little brother. He loves his Uncle Tom.
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Today, we went and got pictures of Jace taken for his 1-year Birthday. He was so happy for them. He didn't smile really big, but he had this happy little content look on his face. He was so sweet and they turned out so cute! Unfortunately, I don't have any copies of them to post. Anyways....not anything too exciting to post about right now. I'll post pictures later after I take some.

Tag...I'm it?

Wow...I've never been tagged before.  It's kind of crazy that this is the first time.  I'm a little embarrassed to admit my quirks, but oh well.  

Rules: 1. Link the person who tagged you.  2. Mention the rules on your blog 3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours 4. Tag 6 other bloggers by linking them.

1. I love to eat toast and chocolate milk together and sometimes I even dip the toast in the milk.   Honestly, I like to have chocolate milk with anything I eat like donuts or scones.  I can't eat that stuff if I don't have chocolate milk there too.

2. I never have long fingernails because I like to rip them off.  If I don't have fingernail clippers, I can't wait to cut them.  I just rip them off instead of biting them.

3.  I leave hairclips everywhere!  They never go to where they belong. They're always elsewhere.  My mom couldn't stand that and my husband can't either.  I'm always buying new hairclips because I lose them.

4.I hate hair!  Just mainly individual strands.  If I have a piece on me, it just bugs me until I can get it off.  It kind of gives me the heeby jeebies when it gets stuck to me. I also can't clean the bathroom because there are sometimes stray hairs.   Yuck!  I hate that my dog sheds because it can get places and it bugs me like crazy!  

5.  I would rather text or email than talk to someone in person.   

6. I constantly do math in my head!  I always have to add, subtract, multiply, or divide numbers that I see.  It doesn't help that I have a job where I'm constantly updating addresses, insurance id #'s, etc.  I know so many zipcodes!!!

I tag really whoever feels like doing this.  If you have time, then fun stuff and if not, then oh well!  It's kind of fun to see everyone's quirks though.  

Privacy

Hey Everyone....so Lance informed me that he wants to make our blog private. I can't help but agree with him, but I just haven't gotten around to doing it. Please send me your email addresses so that I can make sure and include you in our list to open it up to. I'll do it in a couple weeks so everyone has some time to send me their email addresses. Thanks everyone!

Boy's best friend

Our dog, Whitey, and Jace are seriously the best of friends.  Jace loves to give him luvs and say "ahhhh" everytime he does it.  He won't give me or Lance hugs, but he's always giving Whitey luvs.  

Also...a fun thing.  Tonight, we were playing with Jace's tractor that he got for his Birthday with Jace.  Jace was in such a good mood that we stood him up with it on the back of it to push it and he took off!  He just started running like crazy.  So, he's walked for the first time and he wasn't on tippy toes.  There is hope.  He'll be walking sooner than we realize I think!  We took video, but I don't know how to load video onto my computer.  

My Little Stinker

Yesterday was Jace's second Halloween. We consider it more a first because he was too newborn to have anything to do with last Halloween. We had a lot of fun getting Jace in his costume yesterday. Poor little guy was in and out of his costume all day long. Everytime we got into the car, we had to take his costume off because he didn't fit into his carseat with it on. First, I took Jace to my work in his costume and then we took him to Lance's work and showed him off. He didn't really collect any candy because he's not going to eat it anyways. After our works, we took him to Lance's mom's house and hung out there and had her normal Halloween dinner of Chili in pumpkin breadbowls (they're just bread bowls that look like pumpkins) and salad and jello. It was so yummy. We also attempted some pictures at her house, but he didn't participate very well. For Halloween, Jace was a skunk and he was the cutest skunk I've ever seen. It was so funny because whenever he would crawl, he actually looked like a skunk! It was the perfect costume for a crawling child.

Lance's coworker is an awesome photographer, so we had her take some pictures of Jace in his costume outside of Lance's work. She did a great job considering Jace was constantly crawling away from her. I'm glad she caught this really cute picture of Jace in front of this tree.

Here he is taking off. We couldn't get him to look up at the camera while he was on the move.

Isn't this the cutest picture? I love the glimpse of him from behind where you can see the stripe and the little paw print.

This is when he started to get mad because he was sick of the pictures.

Jace with Grandma Rowley's pumpkins. He kept pushing them over, so we had to quit trying with those pictures pretty quick. He was trying very hard to push them off the table. After we tried to take these pictures, Jace crawled around on the lawn with the dogs. My dog thought Jace was another animal and was chewing on him and trying to get him to play. I tried to catch a shot, but it wouldn't work.

My brother and sister-in-law just moved around the block from my mother-in-law, so they walked over to trick or treat. I tried to get a photo, but it was an impossible task because Jace was too intrigued by my niece's fairy wings to look at the camera. Jace the skunk, Brynn the fairy, Dillan Peter Pan, and Cambree the fairy. They all looked so cute in their costumes!

Birthday party fun

Today, we finally celebrated Jace's first Birthday. It turned out to be so much fun, but I'm pooped after everything. It's one of those fun things about being a mom...going all out crazy for their kids Birthdays. Let's also just say that Jace really hit the motherload with all the presents. It was like Christmas in our house except for everything was just for him! We didn't get any pictures of him opening presents, but we got plenty of the best part....the cake! He didn't care for the presents as much as he cared for the cake. For his Birthday, we just had our close family come over and have dinner and play a couple games and that kind of stuff. The food was so yummy too! We just had mainly little appetizer things like deviled eggs, mini eggrolls, cocktail franks wrapped in bacon and brown sugar, meatballs and a couple salads. I owe my mom a huge thanks for helping out so much with all the food and my sister-in-law Andrea a huge thanks for bringing her cake stuff over and helping me decorate what we could with the cake. Here are some fun pictures from his first Birthday party.

Jace's First Birthday cake...do you have any idea what it is? I'm not a cake decorator by any means. It's supposed to be a caterpillar and then there's oreos as dirt with gummy worms.

Jace didn't know what to think about it at first. The picture came out a little blurry.

First, he started out with eating the eyes. Of course, he's like his daddy and goes for the cookies first.

He wouldn't touch the cake much at first, but then, he finally got his hands into it and just destroyed it!

Then, he finally started eating it. He was such a mess to clean up. I couldn't even get him into the bathroom without dragging a huge trail of crumbs behind.

My cute niece and nephew enjoying the party. They were there all ready to party. They made Jace his Birthday signs and they picked out a ton of presents for him.

We got Pin the Tail on the Donkey for the kids and I was a sport and got on my knees and joined in the fun.

Uncle D-Rock, Lauren, Grandpa Rowley, and Grandma Great.

Grandma Rowley and mom-mom

Aunt Andrea, Uncle Kyle, and Great Grandpa Campbell

Great Grandma and Grandpa Campbell. My grandpa was so cute with his party hat on.

Jace enjoying his John Deere tractor he got. He looks so cute scooting on it. I'm hoping it will help him walk because there's a handle he can use to push it. He tried it and actually walked a few steps. I'm excited for tomorrow to go through all of his stuff again.

After his party, my family left and Lance's hung around for a little while. It was so much fun having them all there. We went in and sang hymns together and it was so much fun just having family there. I really enjoy being raised and married into musical family. Whenever we would all sing, Jace would start clapping and would get really excited. I really had a fun time today celebrating Jace's first year of life. I can't wait for many more!

Trip to the doctor

Today, I took Jace to his doctor for his 1-year visit. Those visits are horrible! It's one of the hardest things to go through as a parent. They haven't been so bad so far, but the 1-year is definitely the worst! Jace now weighs 22 pounds 4 ounces and is 30 inches long. So, he has finally averaged his weight/height out. When he was newborn, he was huge. He was off the charts up until about 6 months. Then, after that, he finally averaged out his weight and height. He's actually still above average on his height, but he's average on weight. He had to have 6 shots today. It was rough for both of us. He usually only gets shots in his legs, but being that it's flu shot season, he got to have them in his arms as well. Let's just say...I'm very glad to have gotten today over, but the next few days might be a little rough with a grumpy baby. I hate shots!

Happy Birthday little Buddy!

Today is a very sad day for me because I feel like my baby isn't a baby anymore now that he's one year old. I feel like he's out of that baby age. I just can't believe that this first year of having him has flown by so fast. This past week, I was seriously thinking that maybe I had his Birthday wrong because it doesn't seem like it should be the one year mark already. My little Jacer is just growing too fast. It's kind of been a hard weekend. We had a party with our families all planned and everything changed when Lance, Jace, and I got the flu this weekend. We think it started with Jace because he threw up on like Wednesday or Thursday and then he's been having messy diapers constantly since then. Then, Lance and I woke up yesterday morning with the same thing. So, unfortunately, we cancelled the party until later this week. It's a little sad to have to have done that because it's so much funner to have your party right on your Birthday and I was so excited to have it, but then at the same time, Jace will never know the difference. It juse means putting off his first Birthday cake and presents until later in the week. My sweet mom is still going to come by tonight to give Jace a little Birthday dinner since I still don't feel up to cooking. Jace did get a donut for breakfast this morning and he loved it! It was just one of those small powdered donuts, but still, it was a real treat for him. Here are a few pictures of Jace in his first year of life.

Our beautiful 9 lb 10 oz 22-inch long little boy born October 19 and 12:21 AM. Yes, he was very huge!

This is the most recent photo we have of him. I know it probably looks like we're like pulling his arms, but we're really not. Jace just likes to walk on his tiptoes and go very fast, which is the reason he can't walk yet. He's now 20+ pounds and probably like 30 inches. His one-year appointment is this week, so we'll soon find out.

I wish I could just post every picture I have of him, but I thought these were a few of the best ones. I'm sure I'll post again once we actually have his Birthday party later this week. Let's hope nothing else gets in the way of it. Happy Birthday my little guy!

The Money Shot!

Didn't I already say that Jace is going to be just like his mommy?

Lance caught this picture and it's what he likes to call "The Money Shot!"

Birthday Fun

Last Friday, I celebrated my Birthday. It turned out to be a wonderful day. Lance gets to work half days on fridays so he can help watch Jace, so I switched my schedule around to work only a half day as well so that I could spend the afternoon with my little family. It was a lot of fun. Lance bought flowers for me and delivered them to me at work. I work with my mom, so she put together a little gift as well. And my desk was all decorated by my coworkers. My coworkers were going to buy lunch for me and a couple other people since I'm not the only one with my Birthday that day, but since it was my half day, that didn't work out.

After I got off work, Lance and I went and picked up Jace and headed to the Utah State Fair. It's something I enjoy doing every year. Lance doesn't enjoy it quite as much as me, but he was a sport and went along anyways. We took Jace to look at all the animals. He would just look and point at them, but that was about it. He tried sticking his fingers through the gates at times. Lance bought a back support and then he bought me a few tanktops as a Birthday gift. Lance was most looking forward to the fatty fair food. Jace enjoyed it as well. We got a funnel cake to try out and it was very good! They had some white tigers there and Jace really enjoyed looking at those as well. Altogether, it was a lot of fun, but very tiring since my foot is still trying to heal and get used to walking again.

That night, we planned on dinner with just my parents at Famous Dave's. When we got there, I was surprised because my brothers were there and my older brother brought his family. I was very happy to get to see my nieces and nephew. I don't see them as much as I used to. We had a nice dinner together. My dad, brother, Lance, and I shared one of the great big garbage can lids full of food. It sure was hard to share! Lucky me got to bring home all the leftovers. My 4-year-old nephew was the sweetest kid at the restaurant. He kept telling me that I looked nice and he liked my hair and stuff like that. He's going to be a real lady's man I can tell if he keeps acting like that.

Saturday, I got up early and went and spent the morning with my mom and sister. We went up to Park City and hit some of the sales up there. My sister got me some new shirts and my mom got me a couple things as well. I felt so spoiled. Then, we met up with my sister-in-law and the kids again and went to Leatherby's. It was Lance's first full day alone with Jace. He was a little nervous about me leaving all day. By the end of the night, I received a call from Lance saying he didn't know what to do. Jace was fussy and into everything. I told Lance to give him a bath and he said he didn't know how to do it alone. By the time I got home, Jace was so exhausted that he was sleeping on Lance's shoulder. He's not used to his mommy being gone for so long at one time.
On Sunday after region conference, we headed out to Lance's parents where we had a barbecue. If you haven't noticed, I love barbecues and barbecue food! The only negative about it was there were bees all over our food when we tried eating outside, so we all ended up eating inside. After dinner, we played a game of rodeo golf (the new horshoe). It was very enjoyable sitting outside taking turns playing each other. Me and Tara (Lance's sister) matched up pretty well considering both of us were pretty bad at the game.

Jace reaching in to pet the goats

Mommy and Jace looking at the cows

Looking at the White Tigers

Jace was pretty tired by the end of the fair

The family after the bbq watching Rodeo Golf. Jace doesn't participate very well when it comes to getting his picture taken.

Tara, Derek, and Lauren playing a round of Rodeo Golf

Lovebirds Derek and Lauren were very competitive

Grandma Rowley's dog, Scooter, posed for a picture

Jace was so happy outside

Jace climbs all over everything! He loved climbing over Unca D-Rock outside.

It turned out to be a wonderful weekend spending it with family. I can't believe that another year passed so fast. It seems like I just had a child and now he's 11 months old! It's crazy. He doesn't walk yet, but he sure is all over the place constantly. Last week, he learned to do 3 things seriously at one time. He was standing next to the couch and he hates when he gets in that position because he won't walk holding on to the couch and he can't figure out how to sit back down. All of a sudden, he started taking teeny tiny steps to where he could reach Grandma Rowley's hand. She said patty cake and suddenly, Jace let go of the couch and started clapping! Then, he got a little closer and we told him to give her a 5 and he reached out and hit her hand. It's crazy how things are suddenly clicking to him. I've been trying for months to get him to learn these things and it's like they finally got to his head and he understands. He's climbing up to everything now. He just has to learn the walking. We were at my mom's yesterday and he was standing up at the baby gate keeping him from the kitchen. I looked away and when I turned around again, he was walking along the wall. He's never done anything like that before. Hopefully in the next month or so, he'll get walking a little better and start walking more.

Today, I took him to a play group in our ward. I used to be out in Salt Lake everyday, but I had a chance to change my schedule to be home 2 days a week and just be a mom and we were able to go to the play group. It was funny because there were kids all over running and Jace was the only one that wasn't. I'm hoping that soon he'll be running around with those kids. I know other moms think I'm crazy for saying that and I'm sure I'll regret saying it later. It is one of those things I look forward to though.

Anways...I meant to keep this short, but it ended up being long as usual. Now that I'm home more, maybe I'll blog a little more as well.