Rowley Ramblings

Never a Dull Moment

2012-01-26T18:37:00.005-07:00

Having a 4-year-old can be quite challenging. There's never a dull moment in our house with Jace. He keeps us on our toes...well, at least me. He seems to behave a little better when Lance his home. I guess mommy's the one that has taken it more easy on him and he thinks he can get away with things easier with her. Something I need to work on, I guess. That kid likes to make mischief. I can't keep up with him!!! It can be overwhelming at times finding his messes. And usually, I don't even hear him doing it. That's what boggles me. He's so quiet and sneaky. And he's fast too! He usually makes these messes while I'm feeding Ariana or something quick like that. Here's what I mean:

The other day, while I was feeding Ariana, Jace came running into me telling me he had cleaned his floor. I was shocked he could do that because his floor was not exactly clean. Where did everything go I wondered...oh...here it is! In the bathroom. I screamed when I saw the mess, and then I laughed, and then I cried a little because I knew I would have to help him clean it up.

Today, I was in the bathroom getting ready and walked out to find all of his toys lined up outside the bathroom door, toys that had been downstairs. Somehow, he managed to carry his toys from the basement and get them upstairs before I got out of the bathroom. There weren't just a few toys. There were about 20 different cars, 2 racetracks, a toy piano, etc.

How does he do it??? Let me tell you....being a mother can be a little overwhelming at times. I get really frustrated and wonder how I can do it, but I just keep trudging along because I am reminded daily from my little boy that he loves me and those are the moments that I love the most.

I just have to post this as well because I love it. About a month ago, Jace had a pen and paper and I managed to get him to write his name.

I can't get over it! I love it. Then, today, I brought him into my work for a little while where we met Lance. I looked over at the board to see this:

This is honestly the first thing he's ever drawn that you actually know what it is. It's a picture of his daddy. The little scribble on his head is his hat and he also gave him a little beard too. Is that not cute? I love my kids!!!

6 Months!

2012-01-23T13:31:00.003-07:00

Ariana is 6 months old. Did I really just say that? Can it already have been 6 months with her part of our family? Time goes way too fast! These have seriously been some of the best 6 months in my life. I absolutely LOVE having a daughter. I love having a son too, of course. There's just something so special about this little girl though. Here are some things about this little girl that I would like to remember at 6 months.

*She's sooo happy. The only time she cries if she's really really hungry or if she gets really tired.

*It took 5 months, but she has finally turned into a binky baby. It has been seriously the GREATEST thing! I don't think she is attached to the binky, but if she gets really tired, all I have to do is stick her binky in her mouth and she's out like a light.

*She loves to sit up. As long as someone is holding her, she's pretty happy.

*She loves to nurse, and I honestly love nursing her, but sadly, I think my nursing days are about over. I nursed Jace up to 6 months and I couldn't do it anymore. Sadly, the same thing is happening with Ariana. I don't think I'm destined to nurse past 6 months. No matter how much water I drink or what I do, my body just stops producing enough milk at 6 months. It's been an emotional time thinking of stopping with her because I've nursed her since birth and I love it.

*We're still working on solid foods with her, but so far, it still hasn't been going very well. I've been adding breast milk to her cereal and I think it helps maybe a little, but she still isn't too interested in it. So far, I've also tried feeding her sweet potatoes, carrots, squash, peas, and even bananas and she hasn't really gone for it. She spazzes out everytime I give her a bite. I think it might be a texture thing rather than a taste thing. We'll just keep working at it.

*She has finally rolled over once from tummy to back and once back to tummy. She still just doesn't understand it very much. She's just kind of a slowpoke at picking up on it.

*She sleeps through the night and has been for awhile. She wakes up pretty early in the morning, but after a feeding, she's back to sleep until like noon.

*She's my cuddle bug. Jace would only go to sleep in his crib as a baby. With her, I can wrap her up and give her a binky and she'll fall asleep in my arms. I love it!

*She's still ticklish.

*She loves blankets and dresses, whatever she can grab and pull up over her. I put a dress on her for church last week and the entire time at church, she laid on the floor with her dress pulled up and nuzzled to her face. Everyone was so concerned about it, but she was happy as could be.

*She lights up whenever someone walks into the room. When daddy gets home or Jace gets home from school, she gets so happy to see a new face.

*She's getting really close to sitting up on her own. She doesn't quite have it, but we're working on it everyday.

*She's still my little chunkeroo. Her 6-month appointment isn't for another month because she had her 4-month appointment so late, but I know she's chunky. I took her to the doctor for eczema a couple weeks ago and she weighed I think 18 3/4 pounds, something like that. I don't know the percentage of that, but I'm pretty sure it has to be in the 90's at least.

*She currently has no teeth, but I know she's teething. The way she drools and chews on things constantly, I know a tooth has got to be popping up sometime soon.

I have a girl in our neighborhood taking pictures of her this week, so hopefully I can post those soon after getting them taken!

100 posts! And what we've been up to...

2011-12-26T16:44:00.002-07:00

So, I've been blogging for approximately 4 years now, and I'm just now getting to my 100th post. That shows how much I update my blog. Oh well...I try. So, I know I said last month that I would update after Ariana's 4-month appointment. Well, that was about a month ago and I'm finally getting to it. Ariana did great at her doctors appointment. She weighed 17 1/2 pounds (97%) and honestly, I can't remember her height but I think it calculated to like the 95% or something like that. So, she's a pretty big. This is where the appointment go interesting. They looked at her growth for her head and it was off the charts big. I always knew she had a bigger head, but I guess I just didn't realize how big it was. The doctor got a little concerned about the size and wanted to schedule an appointment for an ultrasound on it at Primary Children's. They thought she was developing normally and stuff, so they weren't too concerned. There's just always concern about water on the brain with some bigger-headed babies. Anyways, our insurance has paid everything for the rest of the year, so I went ahead and went with it. I figure I'd rather be safe than sorry. So, the following week, I headed up to the hospital with baby girl in tow. Lance just HAD to get the stomach flu that morning, so I took my mother-in-law with me for support. Got up there, got checked in, got right back to the room and they looked everything over. Ariana was a real trooper and was happy for most of it. I think it got really hard for her to hold still and eventually got fussy. We got results the same day. Radiologist said everything looked on the high end of normal to her. There is some liquid in her soft spot area, but nothing to be concerned about. It should clear up by the time she turns 1. What a relief! Poor Ariana has the big-headed genes I guess. Our baby is happy and healthy and that's all that matters.

Ariana is now 5 months old and such a sweet and good baby. She's such a joy to have in our family. Jace loves her so much. I hear him every morning when they both wake up talking to her and assuring her she's okay and mommy will come and get her. He loves to rub his head into her and talk to her and it's funny how much she likes it. She just loves her big brother and loves to watch his every move. Some more things about Ariana just so I can remember them (I was never very good about documenting things about Jace and now regret it). She hasn't rolled over yet. I guess she's going to be really slow at it. She loves her mommy! She is really good when her daddy takes care of her, but will eventually get really fussy, but the second she sees her mommy, she just gets a big smile like she's so happy to see me. She is sooooo ticklish! I don't think I've ever seen a baby as ticklish as she is. She loves to stand. I think I remember Jace always sitting, but Ariana, all I have to do is grab both hands and she automatically goes to a standing position. We noticed today she's a little bit of a thumb sucker. She won't take a binky. We pushed it for a little while and she would eventually start sucking on it, but she was never very big on it. Sometimes I think she is teething because she's starting to suck on her fingers and everyone else's fingers and she drools like no other! Good thing she got lots of bibs for Christmas because I think she is going to require one. I started Ariana on baby food, but it has been so hard for her to pick up on how to eat thicker stuff. I've been trying for about a month to feed her rice cereal and even tried sweet potatoes once. It's almost like she just has a really hard time swallowing it. I push some into her mouth and she automatically sticks out her tongue and it all comes back out. I don't ever remember giving Jace baby food being this difficult. She's definitely big enough for it. I'm just continuing to work on it and hoping she will pick it up soon because it sure has been frustrating trying to get her to eat it everyday.

As a mom, I really worry about my kids. I know I'm not the only mother to say that. I just really watch my kids and see how they're developing compared to other kids. Sure every kid is different, but I just really watch and tend to notice things. I noticed a lot of things about Jace and then found out later I wasn't crazy and he has aspergers. I just look at Ariana and worry about her as well. It's a little worrisome that she hasn't rolled over yet. I think it's more worrisome that she doesn't really try to roll over. Whenever I lay her down on the ground on her tummy, she just lays there. I feel like she should be making attempts to roll over by now. I also worry a little bit that she doesn't try to grab at things yet. A lot of babies by this age are starting to touch things and hold onto them. I put a toy in front of Ariana and she just looks at it. I put something to her hand and she just drops it. Maybe my problem is I have 2 kids now and Ariana is very different from how her brother was. I'm not too worried about her yet because she is still young and she does do a lot of things like smile and laugh and react to things. It's just other things physically that she doesn't do. It's just really interesting to me to see the difference between babies.

I suppose I should post about Jace as well. I can't forget about that little guy. Jace is just a super fun little boy. We just celebrated Christmas yesterday and it was a blast with him this year. Lance and I decided to forgo doing gifts for each other this year and focus on Jace. I don't regret it one bit. Jace memorized about every Christmas song that came on the radio. I think he's going to be a little sad getting in the car finding that Christmas songs are now over. I think his favorite was Jingle Bell Rock. Jace was excited about gifts this year. He opened all of his presents and was even excited over all of Ariana's. He went around the room with my family and had to help all of them with opening their presents. We got home so late last night that we told Jace we didn't have time to get his toys out because it was bed time. This morning, I found him sitting with his toys around him just looking at all of them in their boxes waiting until Lance and I woke up to get them out for him. Jace still loves preschool. He has now learned all of the capital letters and most of his numbers as well. We are now trying to focus on helping him learn his lower case letters. He loves to see things written out and tell us what letters they are. He is finally really starting to get good about letting us take pictures of him. If you remember, Jace has always hated getting pictures taken. I'm excited because he's getting pictures tomorrow with his cousins and hopefully they should turn out really good. Getting pictures of Jace isn't such a traumatic thing anymore. And sadly, I don't have any new pictures of with me to post of him right now.

As for an update on me and Lance....I'm still working, but just PRN (as needed). I was worried about not having guaranteed hours, but it has been great so far. I've been picking up quite a few shifts, especially with it being the holidays. Lance picked up a temporary second job, just where he already works but taking phone calls. He's gone all the time, but it's been a blessing for our family his work letting him do that. He had interview with another company to work a second job, but I'd rather him keep doing what he is doing for as long as they'll let him. We'll see what happens with that.

Anyways...I think that's about our life right now. Things are going great with our little family. I'll write again next year!!!

Lots of Ariana

2011-11-29T12:06:00.010-07:00

So, Ariana turned 4 months last week. She's already 1/3 of a year old...seriously!?! I plan on posting next week all about my baby girl as soon as she has her 4-month doctor appointment. But for now, I will just post pictures of our first 4 months with her (in no particular order).

We sure love having this little girl in our family!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACE!

2011-10-21T15:44:00.004-06:00

I can't believe my little boy is already 4 years old! He's growing up way too fast. He was so fun to celebrate his Birthday with this year. All he ever asked for for his Birthday was Thomas the Train toothpaste. Then, he wanted to go to school on his Birthday and celebrate it with his school friends and have them all tell him "Happy Birthday Jace!" Lucky for him, his Birthday fell on a Wednesday this year, which happened to be a school day. We celebrated his Birthday this year by going to Jungle Jim's on Saturday with Lance and I's families. That way, I didn't have to do anything but make a cake. Jace was in HEAVEN when we got there. He was hugging every one's legs and just couldn't stop smiling. Even though there were a lot of kids and it was a little hectic, it was SOOOO worth it to see that smile on his face. Sadly, I don't have my camera with me to upload the pictures of his party. On Wednesday, he got "Mommy's donuts" (isn't it sad the local donut shop is mommy's donuts?) for breakfast and then he got his wish and got to go to school.
So, here are a few things I love about this kid:

*Even though sometimes he's a little rough with her, he loves his baby sister. He constantly has to hug and kiss her even if she is smothered by it. Yesterday, in fact, she was in her carseat on the floor and next thing I knew, he had her pulled out onto his lap so he could hold her.
*He keeps me on my toes. I'm constantly cleaning up after his messes, whether it be crayons on the wall or strawberry syrup painted on my kitchen floor. Not fun to clean up, but something has to get me up and going in the day!
*He gets excited over everything! And he'll always tell me "Oooh...I love that!"
*He is turning into my big helper. Not necessarily the best thing because things can turn a little messier than they already were, like when I ask for 1 diaper and he brings me a whole armful of them and drops them on the floor, or he unloads the dishwasher and sets the clean dishes with the dirty ones, so I never remember which ones I already washed and which ones still need to be washed.
*He is always so concerned about people. My in-laws all caught the flu on Monday and Jace kept asking me if we were going to go over there so he could take care of them. Unfortunately, I wouldn't let him. Then, my mom had surgery a couple days ago. When we went over there this morning, he asked her "Grandma, are you feeling better? I said a prayer for you that you would get better." Cutest thing in the world!
*He has the sweetest voice I've ever heard. It's hard to turn him down for things he wants because he's so sweet!
*The way he gets excited over a dollar and says "Look! I have 50 dollars!"
*The times I hear him reading to himself or singing a song I didn't realize he even knew.
*The way I find his toys under the covers taking a nap or with food on them because they had something to eat.
*How he predicts the weather forecast for the day. He's always been right telling me which days it's going to rain (when there's not a cloud in the sky) or it's not going to rain.
*He's my little shopping list. I'll take him to the store and he'll tell me which things I need to remember to buy. Leave it to him to remember things I probably would have forgotten.

There are so many more things I could say about this little boy. He's just such a blessing to me. He teaches me patience and a whole lot more. I honestly could not imagine not having him as part of our family.

Newborn Pictures

2011-09-24T12:50:00.014-06:00

So, I finally got back all of my pictures of Ariana. I'm very happy with how they turned out. Just a warning....lots of pictures! But they're of a cute baby, so who can complain?

I just love this little girl! I can't get enough of her. She is such a good baby. She only cries if she's hungry. Yesterday, she was more fussy than usual because she had to get her 2-month immunizations. She is such a chunky baby. She's doubled in size since I had her. I took her to the doctor yesterday and here are her 2-month stats:
Height: 23.6 inches
Weight: 14.3 pounds
Yep, she is a big baby. The doctor pulled up her growth chart and she went from the 75% range for height and weight to 98% at 2 months. She sure is a joy to have in our home. Jace can be a little mean to her (if we're not watching him), but I think he loves her. She's starting to smile a little bit and sometimes I think she's cooing at me. It's hard to tell because she grunts so much. We're very happy to have this little girl in our home!

A little update

2011-09-09T11:09:00.005-06:00

I finally was able to go to my parents' house and upload all of my pictures to her computer the other day, so I decided to update the blog. For some reason, my computer won't recognize our camera. I'm not sure why, but it's a pain not being able to put pictures on our computer straight from my camera. I guess that's my excuse for not blogging a whole lot....that and being busy with 2 kids and trying to sneak in sleep any chance I get. No, I can't complain. Ariana is a good baby and a pretty good sleeper. As long as she's changed and fed, she's pretty good about sleeping.

Last week, Jace was able to start up preschool again. We took him on Monday to a "back-to-school night" and once he got to go in his classroom and play a little, he was happy and excited for his first day. So on Wednesday, he was up bright and early and all ready for his first day. He takes the bus, so we went outside early to snap a couple pictures. He refused to let me do his hair. Oh well.

Isn't he so handsome? I was so happy he actually let me take his picture!

Then, on Sunday, we were able to bless Ariana in church. I went all out and got her a really fancy dress. I wasn't planning on it, but I loved the dress I found and it was the right price. I had been looking forward to her blessing day since I had her. I couldn't wait to dress her all up. As Jace put it, she was a princess.

Daddy and his little girl.

Lance gave a beautiful blessing. We had a get-together at the park after. The weather couldn't have been better. We're grateful for family and friends that were able to come.
Anyways, that's been our week. I started work again on Monday, but thankfully, I was able to come back to work PRN, which is basically oncall. No more 4 nights a week! Now I just work as needed. It's hard leaving both of my babies to come back to work, but I know they're in good hands. I miss them both like crazy. My first day back, I was nearly in tears I missed them so much. Today was the first day that Jace went back to grandma's to be babysat since both Lance and I had to work. He got there and automatically starting crying and went up to Lance's mom and said "Guess what grandma...mommy had to go back to work." It broke my heart knowing that he was crying that I had to leave him. Anyways, it's been a good week.

Soccer Mom

2011-08-24T09:31:00.010-06:00

Lance and I have thought about putting Jace in soccer for awhile. We just thought it would be a fun activity for him to be part of where he can just run on the field back and forth and get to be with other kids as well. I found out from a friend that she signed her children up to play soccer, so I jumped and decided to sign Jace up as well. I told Jace about it and he wasn't very excited about it. I took him to his first practice and he started out okay running with the kids and enjoying it, but the second he got hot and tired, he was ready to quit (it was only a few minutes into practice). He wouldn't go back onto the field without mommy or daddy doing it with him. Let's say....I learned my lesson. Jace needs to have a nap and I need to learn to take a water bottle to practice for all of his "breaks."

Anyways, this past saturday was Jace's first game. We got there and the coach sent him in at the beginning of the game. He went out for about 5 seconds before he came back wandering to the sidelines saying he was tired. So, Lance and I pretty much had to go out on the field when they called Jace in and had to hold his hand. I haven't moved that fast in a LONG time (and I didn't even move that fast). Anyways, it turned out better than we thought it would. We were worried about Jace being the only one that didn't want to play or that would leave the field crying, but there were other kids that got knocked down and that refused to play. I mean, we were the only ones that had to hold our kids hand and run with him, but at least it got him to play. Here are some pictures courtesy of Lance's phone and his coach's wife.

Okay, not the best picture because you only see me and can't even see Jace.

Lance taking a turn running with him.

Here's a really good picture of him.

Jace's cheerleaders. My mom was nice enough to bring Brynn, Cambree, and Trevin to cheer Jace on.

I can definitely see soccer being in Trevin's future!

Lance took a video on his phone as well, but I need to figure out how to add it to the blog.

I need to apologize. I've taken so many pictures of Ariana, but my computer doesn't recognize our camera for some reason, so I need to put the pictures on someone else's computer and upload them to a cd so I can blog about her. But for now, here's a cute picture Lance took on his phone of her.

I can't believe my little baby is already a month old!!! She's growing so fast and starting to put on the pounds! I must feed her good. It's so fun to have a little girl to dress up and even paint her nails! She's still such a good baby. She wakes up in the night and goes right back to sleep after eating, but in the morning, she is starting to be wide awake and only want to be held....not good for days when mommy wants to go back to sleep until Jace wakes up. Anyways, she's a joy to have in the family. We are having fun with her!

Our baby girl

2011-08-04T20:35:00.012-06:00

I know I'm overdue at posting this, but I'm happy to announce that our little baby girl has arrived! Yes, she was early, but she's as perfect as can be. Here's kind of how it happened. I started getting high blood pressure at the beginning of July. I began monitoring it and it wasn't really going down much. We went to Lava Hot Springs the second week of July and basically, I was just aiming to get through that vacation since it was planned way in advance. When I got home from vacation, my feet were like tripled in size and to the point I couldn't walk and my blood pressure was up. I went to the doctor on tuesday, July 19, and they sent me down to labor and delivery to be monitored. After lying down for awhile, my pressure went down, so they sent me home on bed rest. With Jace, I had a c-section, so with this second baby, I was really shooting for a VBAC. The doctor knew that and he kind of told me that they wouldn't induce me because if I didn't go on my own, then I probably wouldn't be successful in delivering the way I wanted. He also said that he did not want me to make it to 40 weeks because of Jace being so big and because of my blood pressure. Well, on Friday, I woke up and took my blood pressure and it was higher than it had ever been, so Lance drove me out to Salt Lake to the hospital to be monitored again. We dropped Jace off with an overnight bag at grandma's because I had pretty much decided at this point that I was just going to have another c-section. I pretty much knew things weren't going to work out the way I wanted them to and I wanted to be prepared for a c-section this time around (my c-section with Jace was miserable because I was so unprepared for it!). So, we went to the hospital and they monitored me and my blood pressure was not going down at all. So, when my doctor came in, I told him I was ready for a c-section and they had me in the operating room within a couple hours. It was a totally different experience from having Jace. I was able to have a spinal, which worked like a charm and I was able to be awake and aware of what was going on. It was a much better experience. So, our baby arrived on July 22, at 2:34 PM weighing 7 lbs. 11 oz. 21 inches long. I can't imagine how big she would have been if I would have gone the last 3 weeks! Jace was 9 lbs. 10 oz. I didn't want another 10 pounder! It took us a couple hours to settle on a name, but we finally decided on Ariana Aileen Rowley. Aileen comes from Lance's 90-year-old grandmother.

I love how clean babies come out when you have it by c-section!

Seeing my baby for the first time. It was sure nice being awake this time around! With Jace, I was knocked out, so I didn't see him until the next morning.

So happy to have my little girl here!

I wasn't sure how Jace was going to react to her, but he has loved her from the beginning! That first day, if anyone else held his baby sister, it was his turn. He wanted her all to himself. This was our "first family picture". I don't know why we didn't take one with everyone looking at the camera.

Getting ready to head home from the hospital.

When we got home, all Jace wanted was to lay on the bed with his baby sister. He's such a big brother!

Ariana is such a good baby so far. She's really loud and squeaky, but she rarely cried within the first 2 weeks of life. I've seriously never heard a baby grunt and make sounds as much as this little girl does.

When Ariana was 5 days old, I took her over to my sister-in-law's house to get some newborn pictures taken. With Jace, we never got newborn pictures, so I really wanted to get some this time around. Here is just a preview of them. I can't wait to get the rest!

Like I said, I seriously LOVE these pictures. Can't wait to see the rest! Hopefully with 2 kids now, I'll take more pictures and post more updates!

Dear Baby Sister,

2011-06-28T19:29:00.003-06:00

Dear baby sister,
That's what you're known as in our house. I'm writing this so I can remember my pregnancy with you and remember how different it is compared to that of your older brother's 4 years ago. I am now 34 weeks along with you. 6 weeks left...hooray! Actually, I've been confused since day 1 of when your due date actually is. When I went to my first doctors appointment, somehow they came up with August 13 as the date. But everything I've looked up, including the doctors method of figuring it out, said August 11. Where did the 13th come from? Who knows? Then at your 20-week ultrasound, you were measuring to be due the 8th. Only 3-5 days difference, but every day matters to me. At my appointment a couple weeks ago, they told me August 8, but I really just don't know. I guess you'll come when you come. Your daddy and I have yet to agree on a name for you. We just haven't agreed on any yet. Your daddy has a family name that he has his heart set on (and we're not going to say what it is at this point), but I like the name more for a middle name. I guess we have 6 weeks to come up with a list to at least take to the hospital. You maybe be nameless for a little while.
My pregnancy with you has been different from that of your brother's. I have actually gained a significant amount less with you than I did with your brother, but a lot can change in 6-weeks time. I was hoping you might be smaller, but looking at my tummy and feeling your movements makes me doubt you're a small one. I think you're going to be big just like your brother was. As long as you're healthy, that's all that matters. Today was the first day in 9 months that I woke up and said that I was done being pregnant. I'm not sure I'm ready for 6 more weeks. I've had a lot more aches and pains in my legs and hips than I ever experienced with Jace. I really can't wait for you to come so that I can brush my teeth again without feeling like I'm going to throw up everytime, I can roll over in bed without saying ouch everytime, I can sleep for more than a couple hours without waking up with either acid reflux or having to go to the bathroom. We're getting really excited to meet you. I'm not sure what big brother is going to think, but mommy and especially daddy are really excited to meet their little princess. Give me 3 more weeks so that I can get my vacation in for the summer and then please feel free to come anytime!
Love, Mommy

Thoughts of a Working Mom

2011-06-07T16:59:00.002-06:00

I have a lot on my mind today. I've been thinking a lot lately about being a working mom and how hard it is working the hours I do, especially lately. I'm not sure what it is, but I think it's starting to take a toll on me. I've worked throughout the whole 4 years since I was pregnant and had Jace. As baby #2 quickly approaches, I keep thinking about how much harder it's going to be going back to work with 2 kids at home. I might ramble on a lot in this post because I'm not very good at putting things into writing. I know a lot of moms have to work and I honestly wonder how they do it. Lately, I've been working pretty much full time hours covering for other employees and to earn a little extra money before I leave for maternity leave. And I feel like everyday, it just gets harder and harder for me to leave Jace and Lance. As I've said before, Jace has been diagnosed with aspergers. Before he turned 3, he had a lot of social problems. We actually tried setting up a playgroup with a neighbor and Jace would always play by himself at the group. So, basically, the playgroup didn't continue because the kids were never playing together. Here we are a year later and Jace is like a new kid. All he longs for is kids to play with. And it kills me. Because of my job, we never have time to join in on those activities. A lot of kids go to McDonald's or to the park, but because I have to go to work, I can't take Jace. Today, I think it really hit me. We had someone come over to check out our swamp cooler and his kids came with. Jace was having so much fun with them that when they had to leave, Jace actually climbed into their truck and asked to go with them. I had to make him get out and he just cried and cried after that. We got invited to go with them because they were getting lunch, but because I had to get ready and go to work, I had to feed him leftovers and make him stay with mommy. I have never ever seen my little boy so sad in my life. It just broke my heart. Being a full time working mom is so hard. I wish I had the option of staying home with my little boy everyday and letting him go out and do fun activities with friends every once in awhile. We've never "clicked" with people in our neighborhood I think because we're never home.

I think working full time has taken its own toll on our marriage. I'm not saying my marriage is bad because it's not by any means. But things haven't been as peachy keen as they used to be when I only worked 20 hours a week. Lance and I just work completely opposite schedules. It's hard because I want to stay at home and cook dinner and sit at the dinner table every night with my husband and little boy. Instead, I have to hear about Lance and Jace sitting at the table together having fun little conversations. I don't enjoy cooking because if I cook, I just have to leave it for Lance and Jace to eat later. I long for date nights with my husband, but I work every weekend. Our only real days together are Sundays. I just miss all the time we used to have together.

Anyways, like I said, I'm not trying to sound like a complainer. These are just thoughts running through my head lately. Working is just something I've got to do at this time. Everyday, I secretly wish I could quit my job especially when my baby girl comes. I wish that we had the budget for me to quit. How do all you stay-at-home moms do it? Honestly! If you made it through this post, bravo. If not, I don't blame you!

Naptime

2011-05-26T17:09:00.004-06:00

I know it's been awhile yet again since I've updated my blog. What can I say? I guess life just isn't exciting in the Rowley household. It's hard to find things to blog about. But anyways, here's at least a little bit of what we've been up to in the past couple months.

I know the past couple posts, I've talked about Jace's potty training, and I'm sure you're probably sick of hearing about Jace's potty training. It honestly felt like a never-ending battle getting him potty-trained. I didn't feel like it would ever happen. But last month, I finally got rid of his pullups. He now only has underwear and it's been going great! He doesn't really have accidents, except occasionally in bed. He only struggles when we're away from our house or mother-in-law's house. He can seriously hold it for hours beyond hours! He'll go all through preschool and not go potty, but he won't have accidents either. The main thing though is that there is improvement and he's doing very well!

We're approaching the last little bit of being pregnant with this baby. I'm now between 29 and 30 weeks, so we've reached the last trimester! Yay! Things with her are still looking good. We're getting pretty excited to meet her. I think my nesting has kicked in a little because I've been on a cleaning spree this week. Once I start cleaning, I just can't stop, and then I suffer later with being sore. But hey, it's worth it to have a clean house. I think my cleaning has motivated Jace to do his own cleaning. I got home at 10:30 last night and Jace was still up (he isn't usually up, but he took a really late nap). When I got home, all he wanted to do was clean his room. It wasn't exactly in my plans, but how do you say no when they're asking to clean? Then, today Jace pulled out all of my clorox wipes and wiped everything down for me from the side table in the living room clear to the kitchen table. Again, I wasn't upset because he's saving me a little extra work. Now that I've gotten the inside mostly clean, I'm VERY anxious to get some flowers planted in my yard. Last year, I made the mistake of starting working outside and I got so stuck on keeping it looking nice, that I neglected the inside of the house, so this year, I knew I needed to do it the other way around.

Preschool ended yesterday for the year. I don't know if Jace quite understands that it's over and he won't get to take the bus for a few more months. I'm a little sad to see it end because Jace loved it. I guess I just need to find some fun things for him to do this summer to keep him occupied. I'm very grateful for Jace having been to that preschool. I've seen so much improvement in him since he started there. I'm anxious for it to start again already.

Now, onto the title of my post. Jace is a funny kid. Lately, when he falls asleep in the car, he covers his head. I guess the dark helps him sleep better. So, whatever he finds in the car to cover his head, he'll use it to cover his head. \
For instance: his jacket

Or: his umbrella

So, anyways, that's about it for us for now. Hopefully as we do things this summer, I'll blog more about them, but this is it for now! Nothing exciting, as usual, but hey, at least it's something.

Daddy's Little Princess

2011-03-23T16:10:00.009-06:00

Well, as the blog title pretty much says, Lance is getting his little girl. Yep, Jace is getting a little sister, and we couldn't be more excited and thrilled about it! This ultrasound was so much funner than when we had Jace. It just seems like they went over every little part of her body and we could see so many great details. Not to mention that my bladder didn't have to be full of 32 ounces of water this time! It's just amazing how technology has grown. We could see all 4 chambers of the heart beating together. We even saw her swallow! When they were taking shots of her face, you could see her hand up right next to her mouth and her opening and closing her mouth like she was trying to get her hand in there. It was just so sweet. Before I even got pregnant with Jace, I had a dream one night that I had a little boy and he looked just like me. Then, the next night, I had a dream that I had a baby girl that looked like Lance. So, I'm thinking that if it's right, then this little girl is going to come out with dark hair and brown eyes. But then again, I was sure that with Lance's strong genes, Jace was going to come out with dark hair. Boy, was I surprised when he came out with blonde hair. Anyways, here are just a few shots of my little girl.

Here she is looking right at the camera.

Her legs...she's already a perfect lady and had her ankles crossed.

A shot of her spine.

Here she is...definitely a girl! Lance was so cute. When the ultrasound tech said girl, he kept asking "are you sure?" The tech said she was pretty sure.

They kept trying to get a profile shot, but she was just not going to have it! This is the best they could do.

They measured the baby and everything. My due date is August 11th, but based on her measurements, it looks like she's measuring just a few days big and is showing the 8th of August. I'm sure they'll keep the due date as the 11th though. It's funny because even though she's measuring a little big, I haven't gained any weight yet. Maybe I'll get lucky and won't gain the tremendous amount of weight I gained with Jace. We'll see!

So, when I was 9 months pregnant with Jace, my grandfather passed away. I felt so lucky to bring a little boy into this world at that time. Anyways, a couple weeks ago, my grandmother passed away, so I feel very lucky to be bringing a little girl into this world. I know that they're not replacing my grandparents, but there's just something really special knowing that my grandparents are getting to know my little ones right before they're coming to this earth. I feel like they're getting to bond and my grandparents are just up there getting them all prepared of what is to come.

Anyways, we're halfway done now! Crazy to think in 20 short weeks, we'll be having a little girl join our family. We can't wait!!!

Life with a 3-year-old

2011-02-23T15:32:00.002-07:00

I need to warn all readers...this post is kind of to express the frustrations of having a 3-year-old. I'm writing it mainly so I can remember Jace at this age since I've been so great about documenting life with him as he grows (notice sarcasm). So, anyways, Jace has always been such a great kid. Don't get me wrong, he still is a wonderful little boy, but since he's turned 3, he's become a slightly more troublesome child. They say kids go through terrible two's, but believe me, at least with Jace, age three has been more terrible than the two's.

Let's start with potty training. So, in my last post a month ago, I mentioned that I decided to take away the diapers and make Jace go potty. Well, it went so super, at least for a couple weeks. He wouldn't have accidents and he would tell me when he needed to go potty, even if it was on a car ride to grandma's. Well, at least with going #1. When it came to #2, he refused to go. He would just hold it for so long. Then, problems occurred. He became so constipated that he would just cry out in pain all the time. So, his pediatrician told us to stop potty training him and start him on a laxative called Miralax. So, the only change I made was I put him in pullups a little more because I didn't know what the laxative would do to him right at the beginning. I didn't take away his underwear. I just put pullups on more often. I didn't think it would be a problem because even when he was doing so well going potty, he learned not to wet his pullup. Then, Jace just became completely uninterested in going potty altogether. I still put him in underwear, but he has more accidents or he just holds it for as long as he can. I think everything got screwed up all because he had a hard time pooping in the potty. I admit, a month ago, I LOVED potty training! Now, I hate it. I guess I figured it was too good to be true having him do so well at the beginning. He's not easily motivated either. Bribes don't work. Stickers don't work. He has his mind set on making this difficult for me.

I know this is common with probably all kids, but I can't even take my eyes off of Jace for one second. He is just a mess maker. By the time I get one mess cleaned up, he has another one made. Our house is never clean because he always has a new mess made in a new place. Today, I was cleaning up the living room and he took all our plastic sacks, garbage sacks, and ziplocs out of their boxes and scattered them on the kitchen floor and down the stairs. So, I got the living room clean, but now there's a new mess for me to clean tomorrow. It's a never ending process. I put Jace in the bathtub yesterday and stepped out of the room for a couple minutes. By the time I got back in there, he had 2 brand new bottles of body wash completely dumped in the tub. It's hard. I can't keep up with him. I don't know how other mothers do it. Believe me, nobody can see the inside of my house because it is honestly a disaster 99% of the time from my crazy 3-year-old.

I think Jace has turned into kind of a little rebel. I can tell him no not to do things and I almost feel like he's going against me and does it anyway even though he knows there's going to be a consequence for it. For instance, I had a bag of m&m's out to eat and they were opened in one corner. Jace found the bag and slowly starting pouring small piles out. I got after him and told him to stop and he looked at me and ripped the bag open and poured them all over the floor and ran away. It's liking telling him no means nothing to him. I think Jace is just finally old enough that he gets really bored. He always has to find something to do. I honestly wonder what having a new sibling will mean to him. I'm not sure if he'll be any better or worse. Luckily, I have 24 weeks to think about that.

I'm not trying to sound like I'm complaining. I knew Jace wasn't always going to be the easiest child. I got lucky with him up until he turned 3. Anyways, he really is a joy. I love hearing the things he comes up with. He makes me laugh on a daily basis. Here are some great things about him right now.

*He is really starting to figure out his shapes. He loves to draw circles. We told him to draw a triangle the other day and he managed to draw the v-shape. He just couldn't quite get the line to connect them.
*He knows his colors and is starting to kind of figure out that 2 colors will change something to another color. I was giving him a bath the other night and I put a yellow and red tablet in to change the color and he was able to tell me that the water was going to be orange.
*He is still such a memorizer. He knows songs and commercials and everything.
*He has such an imagination. He has 3 yogi bear toys and today he was playing with them like one was him, one was daddy, and one was mommy. Woody from Toy Story says the phrase "there's a snake in my boot". So, Jace got one of his cowboy boots the other day and his toy snake and put it inside the boot and told Lance that there was a snake in his boot.
*He loves preschool. His favorite part is still the bus ride. I love it when he gets so excited and brings me home things he made at school.
*He always makes us stop what we're doing when he has a scratch (aka, an itch).
*He loves sunbeams. His favorite song is "Hello". He just smiles when they sing that song.
* He is a singer. He really does love to sing. Whether it be a song from preschool or even a song he made up.
*He's very curious. He always asks us "What's happeping? What's that sound? What are you talking about?"
*He's all of a sudden very complimentary. I put on a new shirt yesterday and he came up to me and said "Wow mommy! I really like that shirt!" Or he'll tell me I look very handsome.

Anyways, Jace is such our pride and joy. Even though he is at a more difficult age right now, I can't imagine going a day without him in my life. He makes me smile on a daily basis as he comes up with the funny things he says or does. He is a mess maker and a little rebel, but I guess I need that little piece of chaos in my life. I can't imagine not having him around to clean up after.

On a side note, I'm 16 weeks pregnant now! Yay! It's hard to believe I'm that far. I'd post a picture, but at this point, I still feel more fat than pregnant, although, I do kind of feel like some of the fat on my tummy is starting to look more like a baby belly. In a month we find out the gender, so I'd love to hear your guesses! I might post a poll on the side of my blog, because I'm very curious to see what everyone thinks! Until next time!

A Whole New Year

2011-01-18T18:21:00.005-07:00

Wow, I can't believe that it's already more than halfway through January. Again, sorry for my lack of blogging. I guess I'm just not motivated to blog because I don't know if anyone out there ever reads it. Does anyone read it? Please comment if you do so I know you're there! Who am I talk though? I read all of my friends' blogs and I never comment. So, anyways, I can't believe it's January! Christmas came and went. Our Christmas was wonderful as always (sorry, no pictures for now. Lance has them all on his phone). Jace actually was sick through Christmas. He was feeling well enough that we were able to go to our familys' houses on Christmas Day, but everyday before and after that, we pretty much enjoyed the comfort of our own home. This was actually the first year that Jace was actually super excited for Santa Claus and the presents and everything. He just brings me such joy.

Anyways, what we've been up to. Jace is in preschool. Not sure if I've mentioned that yet, but he started preschool at the beginning of December. He was diagnosed with aspergers a few months ago and got accepted into a special preschool in our school district. I still can't believe my little boy is in school. I wasn't expecting that for another year or 2.

This was the best picture I could get of him on his first day. Isn't he such a stud? I still can't believe how grownup he is.

Jace also started Sunbeams at the beginning of the month. I wasn't so sure how he was going to do because there aren't toys in there and they do a lot of coloring. Jace has never been one to sit down and color like other kids. Also, I play the piano in primary and I thought that the second he came into sharing time, he would high-tail it to me. Well, Jace did great in Sunbeams that first week, but once all the kids went potty, he had to come find me because "he had to go potty too" (at the time, he wasn't potty trained at all and refused to go potty, so he used it as an excuse to leave class). I made him go back to class, which he wasn't so happy about. Then, just as I assumed, the second he saw me at the piano in sharing time, he ran straight to me and was upset when I let his teacher take him back to sit with his class. He pretty much cried all through sharing time that week. After week 1, I think he knew what to expect and has done great in Sunbeams. Now he loves it, and when we get home from church, he'll attempt to sing the songs he's learned. It makes me happy to know that even though he doesn't "sing" in sharing time, he does still pick up the songs. With the aspergers though, he's always been really amazing at memorizing.

So, potty training Jace has been a super frustrating process. I think if it was up to Jace, he would never go potty. Well, with going to preschool and Sunbeams, he's had to go into the bathroom a lot with his little friends. And he tells me about it. So, finally I decided last week that it was time to just stick him in underwear and tell him his diapers were all gone. And....it's worked like a charm. He's been amazing at telling me he needs to go potty. He's only gone #2 in the potty once. I honestly think he holds it until nap time and can poop in his pullup. He also really struggles other places and if other people need to help him. He's just more comfortable with mom or dad helping him. He kind of freaks out if other people try to make him go. So, he's been doing good, but we still have a long way to go. We need to still work on going other places, going #2, and standing to go #1.

And here's our last update for this post.

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BABY #2 IS EXPECTED TO ARRIVE AUGUST 11!
Okay, so I facebooked this awhile ago, so if you don't check facebook and read this, then it'll be news to you. It took longer than expected to get pregnant this time, but we are way excited that Jace is FINALLY going to be a big brother. I think he's excited too, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't completely understand what's going on and how it's going to affect him. So far, this pregnancy has been slightly more difficult than my first one, but I'm still pretty lucky compared to most pregnancies. I went through about a week of really bad nausea, but since then, it has pretty much subsided. I'm VERY picky about what I will and won't eat, which is to be expected. We had our first doctors appointment on Friday and it was so wonderful to see the little person inside of me. The best part was seeing its arms going all over the place. The doctor said with its heartbeat, it's a girl, but of course, it's too early to say right now. I think everyone's secretly hoping for a girl, but we'll be happy with either.

Anyways, that's everything as of late that I have to share for now. To end, here are some way cute pictures we got of Jace at my sister's wedding back in October.

Shutterfly

2010-11-17T15:45:00.004-07:00

I'm not a big fan of paying big money for Christmas cards and stuff. Actually, this year, I contemplated the idea of not doing Christmas cards. Then I heard about a promo that Shutterfly is doing for 50 free Christmas cards. I figured it might just be worth it. I've done a couple things on Shutterfly in the past and I'm very happy with it. I actually made a calendar with our pictures on it and it's just great quality and looks nice in our house. I looked through their variety of Christmas cards and I'm happy with them. I love that they have such a great variety and they're all so cute. It's hard to decide which one I might actually want to use for our cards this year. I haven't actually done their cards in the past, but if they're like other things I've done, then I know that I'll be happy with them. I plan on doing just a simple card with a picture or 2 on them. I don't think I'm going to do one where I mention everything that happened through the year. It just seems too much for me this year. Shutterfly offers a lot of promos and their prices are also good. Here are a couple links to check out their products.

http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/5x7-folded-greeting-cards
http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery

Check out their site and you'll also find several other fun things you can make!

Recent News

2010-10-24T19:56:00.014-06:00

So, I just got done with a 3 hour nap and I decided to blog a little more about what we've been up to, ya know since I just never blog anymore. Plus, I know people are DYING to see recent pictures of our little guy. However, there aren't too many of them because like I said in my recent post, he hates having his picture taken. Every attempt I make, he is usually screaming NO to me.

So, in recent news, there's not much to report. I think I'll let the pictures share everything we've been up to.

Jace was able to spend a day at Bear Lake with grandma and grandpa Rowley. From what I heard, he had a blast. Who wouldn't have a blast running on the beach clotheless?

Jace had his first dentist appointment. I was a little concerned at how it was going to go because he's never been a fan of having his teeth brushed. Come to find out, he LOVES the dentist! He was so good and cooperative. And he got to watch Mickey Mouse while they did the whole checkup. They told me I just need to floss his teeth because some of them are looking a little tight. Thought it would be a disaster even trying that, but he loves that too! Sometimes Jace just surprises me.

I canned salsa for the first time without having to be walked through it. My friend, Sarah, came out one day to learn how and we made 2 batches at one time. It was a long day of hard work, but it's so nice having all this salsa in our food storage. I tried something not even my mother-in-law, the salsa queen, has done. I added habanero peppers to some of the jars. It turned out awesome. My hubby is one happy guy!

I wish I could remember where these were taken. I just found them in my phone and I just love them. It just shows how happy Jace really is. And it shows how much he loves lemons and limes. This kid just loves all tastes. He can eat anything from super sour to really hot (like the habanero salsa I made).

I love how this picture expresses Jace too. That's how he always lays when he watches tv or anything.

Lance was able to go and spend 9 days in Mexico. He's been nagging me for I think years now to go back to his mission. Finally, we got to a point that we could afford for him to go. He really wanted to take me, but he really just wanted to visit his mission areas and visit people. Not speaking the language, I decided that he'd probably have a lot funner if he took his younger brother, Derek, with him. So, they planned it and had a lot of fun. Lance was constantly worried that I'd be upset I didn't go and stuff like that, but honestly, hearing about his trip, I'm so glad he was able to spend a week with his brother and get sibling time and just have fun with him. I don't regret not going because I had a lot of fun at home. I took the week off work to spend with Jace and also for my sister's wedding. My mother-in-law came out and we literally cleaned out the house and built Lance an office. We also canned a bunch of peaches. Yum!

It was really clean when he got home, but Jace likes to call it his 'car' room. He likes the big desk (from KSL, of course)and he likes the spots on top of the desk to park his cars in.

It's actually really funny to come downstairs to find all the cars parked in the garages. My boy is a car kid. He loves them! I didn't take pictures of everything I did in the house, but I also bought a shelf and put it up in the basement for all of my food storage and stuff I've canned. We put a hole in our laundry room and hung up a pole with hangers to hang up clothes as they come out of the drier. We rearranged Jace's room to cover up the big hole in his wall that he made. I feel like I live in a new house!

As I mentioned in my last post, we celebrated Jace's 3rd Birthday. Still can't believe I have a 3-year old. For his actual Birthday, I was able to get the night off work, so Lance and I decided to take Jace to a pumpkin patch to pick out pumpkins.

He loved the pumpkin patch. Of course, he wanted every pumpkin in the patch. He mostly liked it for the running space.

With my sister's wedding and Lance going to Mexico, we went back and forth on having a party for Jace. At the last minute, we decided to have a party with our families. It wasn't big by any means. And Jace didn't get a nap, so he was extremely ornery the whole night.

Before the party, I took Jace out in grandma's backyard and took pictures of him all decked out in his cars attire. Much to my surprise, he loved getting his picture taken and was being cute for me. Too bad my camera doesn't take great pictures and a lot of them came out blurry.

I had ideas in mind for a cake and then procrastinated, so at the end, I just borrowed a car cake pan from a neighbor and baked it. My sister-in-law iced and decorated it for me. I think Jace was pretty happy with it. And he blew out all the candles all by himself. He got pretty spoiled with lots of cars stuff. Car rugs, car bedding, cars, talking truck. I have one pretty happy little boy. Anyways...that's pretty much our life the past few months. Jace just got Halloween pictures taken the other day, so as soon as I get them, I'll post them.

The Best 3 Years

2010-10-24T12:24:00.003-06:00

Well, it finally happened. Our little boy turned 3 years old this past week. It's just crazy to me that our little boy is all grown up now. He's not my little baby anymore. So let me just take a second to talk about this sweet little guy.

*He loves cars. Not just the movie CARS, but any cars. We have cars everywhere in our house. He can't go anywhere without a car in hand.
*He loves to count. He can count to 20 now.
*He loves to sing. If there's a song playing on the radio that he likes, he'll ask us to play it again. Just hearing songs only a couple times, he picks up the lyrics and will sing along to it.
*He still hates getting his picture taken. It's a rare occasion that we'll get a smile out of him while he's looking at the camera.
*He loves being with mommy and daddy. He's constantly talking about doing things with both of us. This past week, he's been assigning us a certain car to play with.
*He loves his family. He's always asking about going to his grandmas' houses and playing over there. He especially loves his uncles.
*He likes to "clean". Mommy, however, doesn't like him to clean because it usually turns out worse than it already was.
*He refuses to go potty. We tried potty training for a couple days and he did pretty well. However, he now refuses and will throw tantrums if we even mention the potty to him. We've tried a reward for going and it doesn't matter what he is offered. He just doesn't like it. Hopefully it will come in time.
*He finally has learned his colors. We tried working on colors with him for a long time and one day, it just finally clicked. I think his favorite color is blue.

Jace is such a joy to have in our family and we really couldn't imagine him not being a part of our little family. We could just talk about him all day long nonstop because he is just the joy of our lives. We can honestly say, our family wouldn't be complete without him around. Happy 3rd Birthday our little Jacer boy! WE LOVE YOU!

A Vacation of "Firsts"

2010-06-29T15:25:00.031-06:00

This past weekend, I was able to go to a family reunion with my husband and his family and it was all a vacation of firsts. Just about all of it was things I've never experienced before! ***Warning...lots of pictures! And writing!*** Here are all of the fun things I did for the first time.

First time traveling to Nebraska

We went and stayed at Fort Robinson. It's about an hour away from Lusk, so almost to the border of Wyoming. Fort Robinson is where the army barracks for the civil war are. It was pretty darn cool!
We got to stay in one of the barracks, so there were bunk beds, but there were also a couple rooms with queen size beds. There was also the mess hall where the soldiers actually ate. Eating at the mess hall leads me to another first.

Eating Buffalo!
Yep, there was buffalo written all over the menu. I decided to be brave and try it. There aren't many opportunities to do that here in Utah. It was...interesting. Very dry, but good. I'd be willing to try it again. Now onto the next "first".

Taking a Jeep ride up to the Fort Robinson Buttes

This was a little scary for me. I didn't expect to be off roading up all these hills to the top of these mountains (well,they aren't really mountains...Nebraska doesn't have any mountains). It felt like I was at the top of the mountain though. I was the only one holding on for dear life riding up. It's not like we were inside a vehicle. We were out in the open air. It was the most beautiful drive though and it really was a lot of fun. We saw lots of wild sheep up there. There was even a butte they call Turtle butte because it looks like a turtle, or at least it's supposed to. Up at the top, we were able to get out and walk into a space enclosed by a chain link fence. I wasn't going to dare let Jace down though. I'm sure he would have been able to escape knowing him.

Owning a pet bunny

Okay, so I didn't really own a pet bunny, but we had a little one that lived outside our cabin at Fort Robinson. It was the cutest thing and Jace loved it! He would run outside and go to its hole looking for it telling it to come back out. Just take a look for yourself!

Going to Mount Rushmore!
Mount Rushmore was only a couple hours away from where we stayed, so of course we had to drive up there. It was nothing like I expected it. I didn't realize how small it is and how far away it really is. It was so great to see though and I'm so glad I got to see something like that! While we were there, we enjoyed the yummiest icecream I've about ever had. We also went to the gift shop and got to actually meet one of the carvers of Mount Rushmore. He was able to sign a book for us and we were able to get a picture taken with him. His name was Nick Clifford. I'm definitely going to be going back there someday.

Driving through a herd of buffalo

That's right. After going to Mount Rushmore, we went to Custer State Park. There was a wildlife trail that we decided to go check out. They warned us we would probably see buffalo on this drive since it was later in the evening. But BOY did we see buffalo. We did not expect them to be all over the road and to get to drive right through the middle of all of them. It was a little frightening because we had our windows down. I thought they were going to run right into us. They must be used to all of the people though because they didn't seem to care that we were there at all. I could have reached my hand out the window and touch one if I really wanted to, but who wants to take a risk like that? Those things are quite large!

Seeing both ends of a rainbow

I wasn't able to get pictures of this. We had this crazy lightning storm one night while we were in the mess hall eating dinner. The lights kept going out while we were eating. But the sight after the storm was so amazing! There was an actual double rainbow. I've never seen that before. Not only that, but you could see both ends. That doesn't happen in Utah because of the mountains and the big cities. We tried to get pictures, but our camera just couldn't pick it up. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Seeing Needles Canyon

There was another place in Custer State Park called Needles Canyon. I was very worried that it just wouldn't be worth going up because the drive was uphill and took a really long time to get to. Jace was getting ornery and we were all tired from being on the road so long already that day. But the drive was so worth it. The views were amazing and we were able to hang out at the top for awhile and run around and take pictures. On the drive up, we went through several one-way tunnels. Jace loved them because before you could go through, you had to stop and honk the horn so that somebody from the other end wouldn't accidentally go through at the same time as you.

Anyways, I know there was a lot of other stuff that I did for the first time, but those are some of the big highlights. Nebraska was really so much fun and I wouldn't mind going back at all! I look forward to taking more trips there with my hubby since his grandma and grandpa are from there. His plan is to move there someday, and to be honest, I don't think I'd mind it as well. It was just so peaceful and it's so great to hear of his family history there and to hear about his grandpa's stories from there. I know this post ended up being really scrambled with the writing and the pictures, but I made it the best I could so that it didn't seem so long. And just to end, here's an awesome family picture we got up in the canyons.

Gardner Village

2010-05-12T12:22:00.006-06:00

Last week, my friend, Sarah and I, decided to take our kiddoes to Gardner Village. They have a small petting zoo this time of year and I thought Jace would just love it. So, we headed there and as I suspected, Jace loved it. I don't recall having ever been to a petting zoo, so it was fun for me too. Jace was fearless. He would push animals out of his way and walk over them. No fear from my boy. I guess perhaps it comes from being raised with 2 dogs in the house.

I broke down and bought Jace one of the animal backpacks that also doubles as a leash. I love this picture because you can see the cute lion on Jace's back.

This was one of those times that Jace was completely fearless. He walked into a small space and this huge goat was back there. Well, Jace wasn't going to take it being in his way, so he literally pushed it out of his way. Poor goat.

I think Jace liked petting the big sheep more than the baby lambs because of their wool.

Of course, you can't go to the petting zoo without letting him ride the horsey. He absolutely loved being on the horsey, but about halfway through the ride, he started screaming that he was all done and wanted off. I think he just wanted to go see all the other horseys and ride them all.

After the petting zoo, we ate lunch and went to a few stores. Mostly we just let the kids run around together. It was Gardner Village's 30th Birthday, so they had a big truck with a cake and stuff on it. Sarah's little girl, Dagny, wanted a picture up by the cake, so I put Jace up with her. Well, Jace didn't want his picture and that made Dangy upset, so instead of a smiling picture, we got a picture of both kids pouting.

Oh funny funny kids. Gotta love em though. It definitely proved to be a fun day that day though and the weather was absolutely perfect. We'll definitely have to do it again.

What Mommy Doesn't Know...

2010-05-12T12:07:00.004-06:00

Sometimes Jace just gets into trouble that I just don't know about until I turn on my camera and run into a few random pictures.

I sit and stare at these pictures wondering what they are and when in the world I took them. Perhaps Lance took them? Then I look a little further into the camera pictures and I find some pictures of the culprit.

And I just laugh my head off! How can I get mad at that? Just way too funny!

I Know

2010-05-12T11:28:00.004-06:00

I have the most musical little boy. He just loves to sing and the thing is, he still jabbers quite a bit, but he definitely can carry a tune. His favorite song of all time is "Have you Ever Seen the Rain" by Credence Clearwater Revival, or as Jace likes to call it, "I Know". we listen to the song about 50 times a day. Today, while in his highchair, he decided to start singing it on his own, so I caught a little bit of it on my cell phone. Now that he has video of himself singing it, I think we'll be listening to his version a lot more.

Okay, so I lied. I just showed the videos to my husband and he didn't even know what Jace was doing in them. So maybe he's really not singing in tune, but that's because he's not singing to the music. He's singing it solo. You'll just have to take my word that he really can carry a tune.

We call him trouble

2010-04-05T21:08:00.013-06:00

So, Jace has been a stinker lately. He's been doing things that he has never done before. Such as this...

After breakfast this morning, he climbed up on the kitchen table.

Then, later in the day I was making some yummy strawberry freezer jam. I went into the bathroom to find this...

I counted a total of 12 things in the toilet including tilex, shampoo, bubble bath, a toy boat, a book, toilet paper, etc. At least he didn't try to flush it. Silly kid.

Anyways....so, last week, we had family pictures done with Lance's family. We all pitched in and got pictures done for his grandma's birthday that is almost 90 years old. Sad to say, none of them looked great. Between all the little kids and Jace screaming, there wasn't one picture with everyone looking at the camera. Here are a couple good shots they did get of Jace when he wasn't looking.

This is a picture of Jace taking off running and Lance running after him. It turned to be a good picture though if you ask me.

Just another cute picture they caught of him running. This kid was not happy at this photo session unless he could run.

This picture could have been really cute if they would have angled us differently. Oh well....what can you do? So, yeah...no group pictures and it was mainly because of Jace. It seems like in every picture, somebody was looking at him or laughing at him (mainly me). We have still yet to get a really good family picture. If there are any photographers that can perform magic and make my 2-year-old smile, then we could use you. Trust me, it's not an easy task.

So, Easter is now over. Crazy! Time flew by. Can't believe it's already the first week of April, and get this, it's snowing outside! For Easter, of course we did egg dying the day before. It didn't prove to be easy with a toddler. He wanted to put the egg in the dye himself. He didn't want help. Of course, we didn't let him do it himself to avoid a stained table, so he was mad at us the whole time.

Here's daddy helping show Jace how to color on the egg and put it in the dye.

On Easter morning, we gave Jace his own little Easter basket. He was pretty excited about it. He only looked at it for a minute though and then went on to other things.

We got him a lawn mower too with his basket and thought he would be so excited about it. Right now though, he could care less. Oh well.

After conference, we headed out to West Valley so that Jace could do an egg hunt at Grandma Rowley's.

He got into it for a little while. After only a few eggs though, he was done. All he could care about was that he was outside which meant he had space to run! Have you picked up yet that Jace likes to run? And he's not a slow kid either. I can barely keep up with him (but I also have the excuse of a bad foot. Ever since I broke it 2 years ago, I'm not very quick on my feet).

After eating dinner and everything with the Rowley's, we headed over with my family and played an egg game and the kids got Easter baskets.

I'm so mean. I made him stand with me for a picture, but he wasn't happy about it!

He was funny. In his basket, he got 2 motorcycles. He also got the bunny mask. He wouldn't wear it on his eyes, so he pushed them up on his forehead and wore them there the rest of the night.

So yeah, Rowley's are doing pretty well. Just living the life with our crazy troublesome 2-year-old, but loving every minute with him! Hope everyone else had a nice conference and Easter weekend as well.

Girls, girls, girls....

2010-03-23T21:26:00.003-06:00

Jace has had a busy week with friends. On Monday, he got invited to his first Birthday party. Of course, it was for a 4-year-old girl in our ward, but we went anyways. The whole theme of the party was princesses. There were princess games and songs and decorations. There was even dressup, oh boy! It was okay though because there were boys there too and boy dressups. The first thing in the dressup that Jace went for was the necklaces. Someone has to teach my son right! Of course, Jace could have cared less about anyone being there. As long as there was food and running space, he was completely happy. Anyways, I have to laugh at this picture because he's sitting at a table surrounded by girls with a princess tablecloth and he is not happy! It wasn't about the girls. It was about the food not being there yet.

On a side note, someone just asked me what ended up happening with our car. The insurance ended up totalling it (hooray)! and we got a nice white 2006 Nissan Altima to replace it. We love it so far. And we got a warranty on it that lasts us like 6 years I think. We're really wishing we would have had a warranty with the Jeep because we only had it for 3 years and it caused us more problems than you can imagine. Then, of course, the Jeep gave us one last hoorah when the radiator went out the week before it was totalled. Oh well...what can you do.

I know I don't blog often. I guess our lives are uneventful. Jace is growing like a weed. I was looking at him playing with some other kids today and I couldn't believe how tall he is! Then, I picked him up to change his bum and he felt like a tank. When did he grow? He's just changing daily. He's talking so much more. He still loves cars. He's happy as long as he has cars or trucks to play with. The other day, I held up 2 options of a drink. One wrapper was blue and the other red and when I asked him which one he wanted, he told me blue. I'm just so surprised as to how he comes up with these things! It amazes me. He just comes up with them out of nowhere. Like the day I told him to say thank you and he said you're welcome...Ahhh...I love him! Anyways, I'll try to be better about taking pictures and posting more often! We're still alive!

Trials make Me Stronger

2010-02-14T11:09:00.006-07:00

This past week has been one pretty crazy week. To start off, a week ago last Friday, our car had some problems coming in to Salt Lake to go to work. We knew we needed a new radiator because of a very minor leak in it, but it began to worsen, so we finally had to take it in. So, as you can imagine, we paid quite a chunk of money to replace the radiator and a few minor repairs that needed to be done. I was happy as a clown having a new and improved Jeep and having heat that worked like it should and just everything like that. It was like I had a new car!

Then, less than a week later, everything changed. I was driving into work with Jace heading over to my mom's house to drop him off. I went to turn left into the neighborhood making sure that the cars heading the opposite direction had completely stopped. When I went to make the turn, a girl driving in the shoulder slammed into me. Yeah, not fun at all. Luckily, Jace and I were in a Jeep, so we were okay, but that doesn't mean both of us weren't scared out of our minds. Luckily, it was the passenger side that was hit and both Jace and I were on the driver's side. So, our poor Jeep that we just got fixed a week ago is looking pretty yucky now. We have no idea yet if it's totaled or if it's fixable. We have no idea what will happen with the insurance because the other driver made up her own version of what happened and I know it's to cover her butt. I guess we'll see what the insurance decides on. Anyways, it's over now for right now and hopefully we'll know more tomorrow about what will happen with our Jeep.

Here's what the other car looked like after hitting me.

And here's my poor Jeep. How sad. The pictures don't even do justice of how banged up the Jeep really is. The doors were completely knocked out of place. One of the windows popped out a little. It even cracked the metal in one spot.

I just want to say how incredibly blessed I feel right now. I know without a doubt that the Lord is watching over our family. We've had a lot of trials, but we've been able to overcome them and I'm so grateful to know that. My little brother just went through the very same accident like a week ago and he was able to walk away from it just fine. I can't even express how incredibly lucky I feel that Jace and I are fine and that nothing worse happened to us. I just think back since Lance and I got married and we really are blessed. That first year we were married, Lance's appendix ruptured and he went a week with it like that without knowing that's what it was. I'm so lucky that didn't kill him. The next year, I fell down the stairs carrying Jace. I came out of that with like 4 or 5 broken bones in my foot, one of them being broken into several pieces. I'm lucky Jace didn't get hurt being as young as he was. Our basement has flooded several times since we moved in and hopefully this year, we can fix the problem for good. But each time it happened, we were able to catch it before it caused too much damage. We've had our share of car problems and all that stuff. I'm not mentioning this stuff to make anyone feel bad for us. I'm mentioning it to say that our family is so blessed. We've had our trials and each one we've been able to overcome as difficult as they are. Sometimes we wonder why we were meant to move to where we are, but we know that we are supposed to be here for some reason. Maybe it's to have these trials and learn and grow from them. I don't know, but we know we're here for some reason.

I just want to brag about my wonderful husband now. The day after my accident, my husband surprised me at work with the most beautiful bouquet of flowers. I know it was for Valentine's Day, but it just brightened my day having them brought to me at work. My husband is not the average guy. He doesn't order the typical roses for Valentine's Day. He likes to do a variety and I just love that he likes to be original and honestly, I love the variety of flowers.

I know it's not the best picture, but I couldn't get it to load from my camera, so it had to be taken with my cell phone.

I love my husband so much. He's always been supportive of me and my decisions. I suffer from anxiety and he's always been there to help me through it and calm me down. When I was in my accident, he only cared about me and Jace. He didn't care what damage was done to the Jeep or how much it might cost us. He really proved to me that Jace and I are more important than any material object. I'm so grateful to have a husband that works so hard for our family and goes to school at the same time. He's so funny and can bring a smile to my face any day of the week. He has his quirkiness about him like making up his own songs and talking to himself. He's so knowledgeable on any topic you bring up with him. I just love everything about him. Happy Valentine's Day Sweetie! I love you so much!

February Fun

2010-02-08T14:48:00.009-07:00

I know, I'm really a slacker with blogging. There's just nothing exciting going on lately. I haven't been taking pictures of Jace because he just won't look at the camera. He runs when the camera comes out of the case. We haven't been up to much lately. Jace is just as cute as ever and I can't get enough of him. He's starting to act terribly 2, but I'm pretty okay with it because he's the cutest kid. He's starting to talk so much more and have conversations with me. A lot of it is still jibberish, but oh well. He loves music. His favorite song by far is "Have you Ever Seen the Rain" by CCR. He loves to sing along with it and will ask for it to be played over and over again. He actually had about a week where he wanted to use the potty, so I finally bought him an Elmo potty. He would only go once a day. Now, he's kind of dropped the idea and doesn't want to do it anymore. That's okay, he's still young. Today, we were at the store and he knew where the underwear aisle was because we've looked at it before to see what kind there were when we do want to put him in underwear. He led me right to the Elmo pairs and asked for them. Maybe one of these days I'll break in and buy him some.

Also, something new is I applied to work at my old job, the place I worked before where I am now. I got the job. It was the hardest decision to make because I don't mind my job now and I just never thought I would go back to my previous job. Anyways, at the end of it all, I decided to take it. There were so many pros and cons of going back, but after talking it over, it just seemed like the right thing to do right now. If I had my choice, I would just stay at home with Jace everyday, but unfortunately, that just can't happen right now.

Last night was our annual Superbowl party with my family. It's one of those things that we look forward to every year. The girls usually do some sort of craft while the guys watch the game. Jace got to play with his cousins and he had a blast. And he was so good. There were no tears from Jace hitting them or anything like that. Unfortunately, one of the nieces and nephews were sick. But there was one healthy one for Jace to play with. Let's cross our fingers he doesn't get it! One thing about the Superbowl this year that we've never done before is a game to go along with it. My mom made up a chart with all of our names on it and a bunch of numbers. At the end of each quarter, whatever the score was, whoever's name was by those numbers got a prize. The other game they did was everyone filled out a paper beforehand with our guesses about what would happen during the game and then at the end, they added up who got the most and they got to pick a prize. There were questions like "will the national anthem be longer that 1 min 42 sec or shorter" and "who will the MVP thank first" with some options. Anyways...I outbeat my whole family and got 8 out of 10 questions right. I told my family that I know more about football than they think. Of course, they didn't buy it. Lance about gave in when I told him that. Anyways, we had quite the choice of food items. It's like thanksgiving, but with a whole ton of junk food. My mom said that next year, they're not doing that. I told her it wouldn't be the Superbowl without all the food.

So, anyways, this year, the girls did a Valentine's craft. I've really been enjoying doing crafty stuff lately. I never thought I would be crafty. So, here's what we did last night.

I think it's the cutest decoration and one thing I don't have hardly any of is Valentine's decorations. I went out today and bought the ribbon and I had to watch a youtube video on how to tie a good ribbon. I think it turned out pretty cute. Now, I have a St. Patrick's decoration to do. I've been wanting to make a heart wreath for my front door, but everywhere I go either doesn't have a styrofoam heart or is sold out. I guess that project might just have to wait until next year.

Anyways, here are some pictures for the Superbowl.

Okay, this picture is kind of from the Superbowl. I decided I was going to take dessert since I knew there would already be a lot of other food. Well, I wanted to make a pie for my dad because our car broke down the other day and he came and rescued us. Anyways, I got a food processor for Christmas and I really wanted to try it out with a pie crust. I tried it last year without a food pro and it didn't work. So, I put it to the test again this year and it turned out perfect! I was sooo happy! I accomplished something that a lot of people can't do. Well, it was almost perfect. I still am not sure how to make the fancy edge of a crust.

Jace and Cambree were such buds last night. They share their dinner and they watched movies together. Then, later in the night, Cambree was sick with some sort of stomach bug. Woops....guess I should have kept Jace away and not let them share their food.

They're so cute. I love that they're so close in age.

Brynn wouldn't let me get by without taking a picture of her. She was the only healthy child there besides Jace.

Here's sicky Dillan. He was my bud last night laying on my lap so I could scratch his back. He wouldn't pull a real smile so that's why I have a grumpy face. I was trying to match his but he managed to pull out a small smile.

Anyways, it was a fun night last night with the fam. I look forward to next year (unless my mom won't let us bring all the food).

Mommy's Little Helper

2010-01-11T14:14:00.004-07:00

Jace loves the vacuum cleaner. He greets it when we get home from somewhere and he'll even tell it goodnight at bedtime and put it to bed in the closet. I just think it's the funniest thing. We got him a toy vacuum for Christmas and he'd still rather play with the regular vacuum. In fact, we found a broken vacuum that someone put on the side of the road and I picked it up because I knew Jace would like it as a toy. But, he still likes our vacuum that we use for cleaning. He's always been a little scared of it when we're actually vacuuming, but I think he's starting to warm up to it. In fact the other day while I was vacuuming up the living room after taking the Christmas tree down, he came and took it from me and decided he would vacuum for me.

So, I guess that's one chore I no longer have to do because I've got a kid that is more than happy to do it for me!

No Naps

2010-01-03T19:13:00.003-07:00

Today, we started 1:00 church. We have been really concerned how this is going to be considering that is right when Jace takes a nap. So, anyways, today was the first week of later church. Jace did very well throughout church. I knew he had to be tired. Tonight, I made dinner and Jace was in the highchair. Lance went into the bedroom after eating and I came in to check the computer. Well, all of a sudden, I realized it was too quiet and Jace wasn't telling us he was done or anything with his food. Sure enough, I went in to check on him and found this...

Poor kid fell asleep while he was eating his dinner. His head kept falling onto his sippy cup and he would just lift it right back up still asleep. I guess Sundays routine are going to be church and then bed at like 7:00.

Christmas Time is Here

2010-01-02T21:24:00.010-07:00

Okay, so Christmas has now officially passed and it's 2010! Happy New Year everybody. We had a fabulous Christmas and I can't believe it's already over. It just came and went so fast. For Christmas Eve, we went to Lance's parents. They ordered Papa John's pizza (the best!) and we watched Charlie Brown Christmas and The Grinch. Then, we sang Christmas carols. Well, I played Christmas carols and everybody else sang. We also went to my brother's house for a little while and Jace got to open up his Christmas pajamas.

They're flannel Thomas the Train pajamas. It's so crazy because they're size 3 and the top almost doesn't fit him. Can't believe how big Jace is!

Lance's parents also decided to give Jace his presents that night because they just couldn't wait until the morning to do it. The favorite thing he got from them is a snow shovel his size. He pushed that thing around the entire rest of the night and still pushes it around our house. We keep trying to put it out in the garage, but everytime we go anywhere, he manages to find it again and bring it back in the house. Crazy kid. That night, after Jace was in bed, Lance and I decided to exchange gifts so that we could focus on Jace the next morning. Lance got me all of my stuff to do canning this year. I did some canning last year with his mom and had a blast, so now I have all the stuff to do it this year!

Christmas morning was a little interesting. We let Jace sleep in. Luckily, he only slept until about 8:00, so we didn't have to wait all morning for him to get up. He's never been that interested in opening gifts. We gave him his stocking first of all and that may have been a mistake. He got chocolate in his stocking and wouldn't open any gifts until he got to have some candy. Therefore, all of the pictures of him opening his gifts, he has chocolate all over his face. I guess Lance and I had waited long enough to give him his stuff that we weren't patient enough to wash his face before the gift opening. It was hard getting Jace interested in opening his stuff. But once we showed him to unwrap it, he actually got into it. He would open one gift and then wanted to play with it and wouldn't open another gift for a little while.

The main thing Jace got for Christmas is a vacuum. He has an obsession with vacuums. He says goodbye to our vacuum when we leave and it's the first thing he greets when we get back home. In fact, if you ever come over, you'll probably see our vacuum cleaner out because Jace won't keep it in the closet. The vacuum is named Dusty, but Jace calls it "Busty" because he can't make the "d" sound. We were hoping that him having a toy vacuum would solve our problem of him playing with our normal vacuum cleaner, but he knows the difference. He would still rather play with the big vacuum over his toy one. Funny because he's scared to death of the vacuum when I'm vacuuming the house.

Playing with the vacuum after he opened it.

He was so excited about it that he made us take it to Christmas breakfast.

Like I just said, after our house, we went to Lance's parents for their annual Christmas breakfast. Lance's aunt and uncle and cousins came over to eat and then we sang Christmas carols again. Lance's little cousin is about 5 years old and Jace had a blast with her. She acted as a little babysitter for Jace.

They just sat together the whole time and watched a movie together. It was the sweetest thing.

After breakfast at Lance's parents, we went back to my brother's house with my family and opened more stuff. By that time, Jace was tired and he didn't have as much fun.

Anyways, our Christmas was great. Still can't believe it's over. And now it's a new year and a new decade. I'm very interested in seeing what the new year brings. I still haven't set any resolutions. I'm not sure if I will to be completely honest. We hope everyone else had a great holiday season as well!

Sesame Street

2010-01-02T21:08:00.005-07:00

I know I'm way behind on my blogging lately. I just don't have much to blog about anymore and honestly, does anyone read this anyway? I always get the desire to blog and then I don't think anyone's going to look at it. But then again...who am I to talk? I look at everyone's blogs and I never comment, so they don't know that I'm there. Then again, I don't blog only for other people. I blog for my own sake too. If I didn't blog, I would never remember what happened in our lives. Anyways...so at the beginning of December, my mom and I decided to take Jace to Sesame Street Live. I had debated back and forth whether to take him, but then last minute, I decided to just do it because he's had a huge obsession with Sesame Street lately. And sure enough, when the show started, I had about the happiest kid alive. He sat down and watched the whole show.

Me and my sweet boy.

All the characters dancing on stage.

Zoey came back to where we were sitting and shook Jace's hand. I didn't catch a picture of it and I wish I would have because he was just so overwhelmed with excitement about it. He is now in love with Zoey and can't stop talking about her.

I think going to Sesame Street has been one of the highlights of Jace's life! And it was totally worth it taking him.

Christmas magic

2009-12-28T18:27:00.003-07:00

We spent Christmas Eve at Lance's parents this year. Pizza for dinner and a nice warm fire. Jace in his new pajamas. And now for the winning shot of the night....one of the greatest pictures ever (taken by sister-in-law, Tara, on her phone)!

Need I say more?

Oh Christmas Tree

2009-12-06T08:12:00.008-07:00

Lance and I finally finished decorating our living room last night. I got a good start earlier in the week, but thought Lance might like to help out a little. Anyways, I asked Jace to go by the tree and he happily did and gave me a cheese.

Besides finishing the decorating last night, I also made some of this:

and this:

and this:

Okay, so my variations of fudge don't look nearly as pretty as the ones in the pictures, but they sure are yummy! Today we're off to our first Christmas party of the season. Only like 19 days until Christmas now...yikes!

Mr. Destructo

2009-11-30T14:51:00.005-07:00

I know I haven't posted in awhile. To be honest, there's hasn't been anything really exciting that has happened lately. However, the other day, I went into the bedroom to get Jace only to find this...

Yes, that is a big hole in the wall, and no, I don't know how it got there. I don't know if Jace just had a bad dream and kicked the wall or what he did. Like mother like son I guess. I used to put holes in my door and wall when I was young because I would throw tantrums. The thing is, this happened during the night somehow. I didn't hear a bang or anything so who knows what happened?

And just because I can't blog without a cute picture of my little boy. I made Jace a cape last year for Christmas and I decided to put it on him. Well, when I pulled out the camera, it was like magic! He smiled and said cheese.

Please excuse the mess in the background. This was taken right before Thanksgiving and those are all of our ads from the newspaper. Between Jace and 2 dogs, of course the paper didn't stay in neat pile. I didn't want to try and move Jace and risk him not smiling again for a picture! I love this little boy sooo much!

Hey Chuck!

2009-11-01T21:25:00.014-07:00

This year for Halloween, Jace was Charlie Brown. I loved it and I think a lot of other people liked his costume as well. I just love the fact that nobody else is Charlie Brown. Honestly, I've never seen another kid dress as Charlie Brown for Halloween. The best part was the costume was so easy and my kid looks just like him! So, let's start with what everyone wants to see first. Pictures of Jace in his costume. My sister-in-law's sister came up and took some pictures of kids in their costumes. So, of course, I had to take Jace over. Even though I know Jace won't sit still or smile, I figure it's still worth a try to see if we can catch a pose of him in his costume. Even though Jace wouldn't hold still or smile, I really think she did a good job!

Here's my little Charlie Brown holding his Charlie Brown

I put a pumpkin on Jace's lap hoping that he would like it and that it would keep him still for a picture. It worked as far as making him stay where he was, but he didn't like it if you can't tell by his face.

This is the only picture she managed to get of him smiling. I just wish his head wasn't cut off.

I like this picture because it almost looks like he's posing. And you can see his whole costume.

Now, for the Halloween celebrations. On Friday night, we went to Grandma Rowley's and carved our pumpkins.

I put Jace on the table to clean his out. He had no interest in it at all. I stuck his hand down in it and he got mad at me. I have a pretty clean little boy. He doesn't seem to like having yucky stuff on his hand.

He loved taking the lid off his pumpkin and then putting it back on.

Here's the 3 Rowley boys doing pumpkins together.

The finished product. Jace's was the BYU one. I decided to do something easy for his, but even though it was the easiest, I messed up on it the most. It had a lot of toothpicks holding it together because I didn't take the time to sit and think about what a B and a U looked like. Mine was the middle one and Lance's is the other one.

Derek and Tara were going to a Halloween party and Jace was still in costume from going to me and Lance's works, so we took a picture of the only ones that were willing to dress up.

On Saturday, we took Jace trick-or-treating in downtown Tooele. It was a fun little activity to do with him. He got a little inpatient with the places where the lines were longest, so we bypassed those ones.

Me and Jace walking downtown Tooele.

A closeup of Jace. He was mad that Lance was taking his picture, as always.

After that, we headed back to Grandma Rowley's for her annual chili in a pumpkin bowl and then Grandma Rowley took Jace to a few houses down her street. He loved it! Anyways...our Halloween was really great this year. Can't wait for next year.

Jace's Birthday

2009-10-25T18:32:00.027-06:00

Wow, what a week. Jace celebrated his 2nd Birthday last Sunday with family and friends. I loaded all the pictures onto our PC and lo and behold, the PC completely died like the next day. We have a 90 day warranty on it and luckily the 90 days weren't up yet, so we're able to send in the computer and get a new one. The bad news is we lost the pictures on that computer. Luckily, Lance thought to buy a backup hard drive and moved the majority of our pictures onto it, but not all of them were there, so all of the recent pictures are pretty much gone that were on there. The good news is that I save all the memory cards we have and can load them again. So, anyways, yeah. I hope I've blogged about everything recent in case there are some pictures we don't have. Lance bought his own mac for school, so he generously has let me use it to blog about Jace's Birthday and everything that has happened in the last couple weeks since our Vegas trip.

Last Saturday, since we had Lance home, we decided to get up and go to what's called the Pumpkin Walk out in Grantsville at the Benson Gristmill. I wasn't sure what it was all about, so we decided to go. We actually got invited to go on Friday with some ward members, but Jace had his doctor appointment, so we didn't make it. So, I made Lance get up and go with us instead.

They had this wagon full of pumpkins. It was a great location to get some pictures. Now, if only all the people weren't in the background.

Here we are on the little short hay ride. Jace loved it.

Then he got to pet the horse at the end. I was so worried about Jace pulling its hair.

They also had some little booths that the kids could go trick-or-treating to and where you could also buy stuff. It was a fun cheap little activity to do while Lance was home.

On Sunday, we were able to celebrate Jace's 2nd Birthday. It worked out because we had to go out to West Valley for a baby blessing, so Grandma Rowley let us just use her house for the party. Then, nobody had to travel.

Jace has a thing for choo choo's lately, so I decided to put my attempts at making him a train cake. I think it's pretty good considering I've never made and decorated a cake before. Plus, everyone knew what it was supposed to be which is a plus.

I thought Jace might have been excited about opening presents this year. I was very wrong. He could have cared less about the presents until I opened them and gave them to him to play with.

Here he is with his Birthday cake while everyone was singing to him. He didn't like the candles though. He just kept saying "all done" and wouldn't blow them out. It was a little windy then anyways. The wind blew them out.

Here's my big boy eating his cake all by himself.

We were glad it was able to work out and we could spend the day with so many family and friends.

On Monday, it was Jace's actual Birthday. Lance had to work and then he started his second semester of school. I thought Jace deserved to do something fun on his Birthday, so we went up to Layton to feed the ducks with Sarah and Dagny.

This is to show how close they were to us. It was a little scary having geese honking right in our faces begging for food. I was waiting for them to attack us for food at any given moment.

Jace was scared of them at first. He hid away up on this ledge where they weren't and just cried. It wasn't long before he was down running through the middle of them though.

Then the kids got to play on the playground. As you can see, Jace prefers going down the slide backwards.

The one thing I wanted to do for Jace's Birthday was take him to the zoo. He's never been and I just thought he would love it. Lance wanted to go too, so we decided to head up there yesterday. We met Sarah and Noah there. When we planned it, we had no idea that it was trick-or-treat day at the zoo. We were a little worried about it being so crowded, but it worked out. It rained on us while we were there, but it was still so much fun, and as I suspected, Jace loved it.

Here's the cute baby elephant with its mommy.

I know this is extremely disgusting, but while we were there, the mommy elephant went to the bathroom and the baby thought it was her play toy. Yeah, gross.

I just loved the penguins. They were so cute. They just stood there and looked up at the people that were watching them.

Here's the baby giraffe with its mommy. Again, so cute.

This tiger cub was so cute. It just sat in one spot overlooking the bridge where the people were. I can't believe how many babies were born this year at the zoo!

I can't believe I got this picture. i wonder if Jace looked at me because the alligator was his favorite animal or what. He NEVER looks at the camera.

This picture came out just a little blurry, but at least we got a good picture showing what he thought of the carousel. He absolutely giggled throughout the ride.

The train was closed due to bad weather. That was pretty sad because I think Jace would have loved it.

Here's Jace and Dagny in their Halloween costumes. Jace was Charlie Brown, but you can't see the shirt because of his jacket and it was too cold for him to wear the shorts.

I can't believe we managed to get Jace to do the gorilla arms in this picture either.

Here's our whole family posing as gorillas.

That's the end of Jace's Birthday adventures. I think he enjoyed celebrating his second Birthday. I know I did.

One last thing to end this post. I laughed when Jace did this last night.

We were at my nephew and nieces' house and it was time for them to go to bed. Well, my niece, Brynn has a couch in her room. When we went in to put Brynn to bed, Jace grabbed a blanket and went and layed on her couch. I think he thought that since they were going to bed, it was his bedtime too. So, we shut the door and he stayed there. My niece just said to me "now I won't be scared anymore!" I thought it was the cutest thing ever! Jace was going to just sleep over with her if he could and Brynn thought that having Jace in the room with her would make it less scary. Jace loves his cousins so much.

What Happens in Vegas....

2009-10-13T18:07:00.023-06:00

This last weekend, my whole family was able to take a trip together to Vegas. It was a few months ago that my mom told me that they and my brother's family were going down for the BYU game. I told them they couldn't go without us, so we decided to turn it into a whole family thing. So, this past weekend, we headed down. Vegas isn't my idea of the ultimate family vacation. In fact, I'm not a fan of Vegas at all. The casinos are terrible and there are too many people there. But it was pretty fun anyways. We spent a lot of time in the pool because we were in an environment warm enough to actually go in an outdoor pool. Unfortunately, I got there and discovered my memory card for my camera wasn't working, so I didn't get a lot of pictures on my camera until the last couple days we were there. My dad had his camera, but I need to borrow it in order to get the pictures of our family off.

Day 1:
We left at 7:00 am and headed on our way. It was a long car ride, but it was successful. I was very worried about Jace being able to handle such a long ride, but he was so perfect. It couldn't have gone any better. We got to Vegas and unpacked and then decided to hit the pool. Me and Jace went out with my brother's family and the water was freezing. So, we didn't stay there long. That night we went to this:

and it was freakin' amazing. It was a very clean show and just a blast. Jace stayed with my mom at the hotel because he was pretty tired from such a long trip. Lance was just cheering all the through the show and I just sat there with my jaw dropped for most of it. I was amazed at some of the things people can do. The picture of the 2 men pretty much shows you some of it. There was also a crazy hula hooper and men flying in the air on ribbon type things (a little scary!) There was also a juggler that played Fur Elise on a keyboard by juggling balls. He was the host of the show. In fact, here's a video I found of it on YouTube. He's considered the world's fastest juggler.

After the show, we got dinner and then called it a night. I guess we just weren't into the night life in Vegas. Let me just mention that we got really lucky with our hotel room. Our room had a huge closet. I meant to take a picture of it, but of course, I forgot. Anyways, it worked out perfectly because the hotel provided us with a portable crib (like a playpen) and we decided to just stick it in the closet and make it Jace's own little bedroom. My mom thought we were kind of mean doing that, but it worked so perfectly. Jace slept like an angel and in the morning, he would just push the closet door open and wake us up. My brother and sister didn't have the big closet, so when we told them we put Jace in the closet, they just didn't get what we meant by that.

Day 2:
We got up and got our free breakfast. Our hotel we stayed at was actually in Henderson Nevada. I loved it there. There weren't casinos or anything and it was smoke free. And they provided a great continental breakfast. So, another way to lower the expenses in Vegas. After breakfast, we went to a small chocolate factory, Ethel M Chocolate Factory and Botanical Cactus Gardens. The factory was really small, but we got to see a little bit of the chocolate making and even sample some. Right outside of the factory was the cactus gardens. It was fun walking through and seeing all the cactus, another joy of the warm climate down there. We got pictures there, but of course, they're on my dad's camera. Maybe I'll have to do another post when I can steal his camera.

After the factory, we headed over to the Silverton Casino to check out the aquariums there. We were all about free activities in Vegas. Yes, this was a casino, but it was cool to see the aquariums there. After the aquarium, we went to a buffet. What's Vegas without a buffet? Then, we headed back to the hotel for naps and then some of the family went to the BYU game. Me, my mom, my sister, and my baby bro stayed with all the kids while everyone else went to the game. My hubby texted me during the game and said that they thought there would be more BYU fans than UNLV fans. I asked him in the end and he thought it was pretty even. BYU, of course, slaughtered UNLV I think 59-21. Every time BYU goes to UNLV, they win them. My dad said the coach of UNLV would get fired because their team never wins.

Day 3:
We finally got a memory card for the camera!

And here's how happy I was that the memory card worked!

Here's Jace right after breakfast hanging out in the hotel lobby while daddy continued to sleep.

Another pic of my cute little man.

After breakfast, we headed over to the Stratosphere. If you don't know which building that is, check it out.

My baby bro was looking forward to going up to the top and riding the rides up there. Let me just say, scary! I was almost talked into going on them with him, then when we went to buy tickets, I chickened out. I still rode up with him to the top to play photographer, but there was no way I could have handled the rides. My little bro had his fun though and I had my fun watching him.

Does it really look like I'm in Vegas in this picture?

Here's the view from the top of the Stratosphere. I went to the wrong side, so it's not the strip.

Here's Tom on the X-Scream. Basically it's a giant teeter-totter that propels you 27 feet over the edge of the Tower, 866 feet above the ground. Yeah, scary. It's supposed to look like you're going to fall. Tom said it was lame, but I know I would have been scared.
Then, he went on the big shot.

Yes, basically the rocket at Lagoon, except for it's 1000+ feet from the ground. I hate the rocket anyway. Why would I want to be up that high from the ground?
Then, the last ride he went on was Insanity.

A massive mechanical arm extends 64 feet over the edge of the Tower and spins you at a force of 3 Gs for a truly mind-bending experience. That's only some of the description. It also hangs you at a 70 degree angle, so basically you're looking almost straight down at the city. Yeah, scary! I was so lucky to get a photo of Tom going at full speed because it was going fast. I just had to keep shooting pictures and hope that one of them was Tom. Thank goodness for a new camera that could take pictures fairly quickly.

And here's me and my baby bro up at the top of the Stratosphere together.

After the Stratosphere, we went and picked up Lance to take him to the one place he wanted to go.

Yes, In and Out Burger. He was so excited to go there.

He just stood there anxiously waiting for his number to be called so he could get his food. He could have sat, but he was just too excited to try the food.

And here we are with our yummy burgers! Yummo.

After lunch, we went and swam some more. Later that night, me and my mom hung out in the hotel while Lance went to a couple more places he wanted to go. First they went to the Las Vegas Temple.

I love how beautiful temples are when they're lit up at night. The temple was much bigger than I remember it.

Then, they went to Fremont Street. They do like laser shows on the ceiling.

Day 4: the final day
The final day, we basically had breakfast, went swimming 1 more time, and then headed home.

We did make 1 more stop for my hubby. He saw the Dunkin' Donuts sign and just had to try them out. So, he was happy. He got to try 2 places he'd never been before.

Jace was very exhausted from the trip. He was out like a light before we even got out of Vegas. He slept until St. George and didn't sleep for the rest of the trip.

We rented a car for the trip and rode with my parents to cut down on gas prices. This is to show the tight spaces in the back seat of the car.

Anyways, sorry for the long post. Our trip was a lot of fun, but we're so glad it's over. It feels so good to be back in Utah again.

Utah State Fair

2009-09-27T17:35:00.016-06:00

I've been wanting to blog about the fair for awhile, but I didn't have any pictures to go along with it until now. My camera was broken, so I had to wait until I could get pictures from my friend, Sarah, that went with us the fair. We went to the fair on the 14th, which was a Monday. Sarah and her husband Noah, and kids both came with me and Jace. Lance had to work, so he wasn't able to come. Anyways, when we got to the fair, we decided to just price the kids rides because we thought it would be fun to take the kids on a few rides. We found out the unlimited ride wristbands were buy 1 get 1 free. So, Sarah, Jace, Dagny, and I all got one. Jace loved it. I'm not so sure about Dagny though. She covered her eyes for most of the rides.

Here we are waiting in line for the carousel. I was very excited to take Jace on it. I just thought he would love it and he did. We didn't get any pictures on the carousel though because Sarah took the camera on the ride with her and it's hard, as you can imagine, to take pictures while you're trying to hold your child on.

The big yellow slide cost money, but luckily, they had a miniature one for the kids that was free with our wristbands. It was scary getting to the top. I can't even imagine hiking to the top of the yellow one. It was very hard getting onto the slide without your bag falling down ahead of you and then getting Jace onto my lap.

Here was our first ride down. Jace didn't like it so much the first trip down. I think it was a little scary for him.

The second ride down was lot more fun for him. Not Dagny so much. She covered her eyes on just about every ride we went on.

When we got to the bottom, we always would go past the slide and our butts would hit the hard ground.

Here's Sarah and Dagny riding the roller coaster. There wasn't room for me and Jace, so we had to wait for the next ride.

Jace absolutely loved the roller coaster. He let me hold his hands up in the air and everything. I've never heard him laugh so hard in my life.

I didn't like this ride. All it did was bump up and down and go in a circle. Jace didn't care for it as much either. I think he liked the excitement of the other rides a lot more. This ride kind of made me a little motion sick after awhile.

Here's Dagny in one of the buildings. She leaked through her diaper and had wet pants. Luckily, I took an extra pair of Jace's, so that's what she got to wear. You'd never know these were boy overalls, would you?

Sarah and I decided to be adventurous and go on the mini rocket. We were scared out of our minds going up on this ride and then waiting for it to drop us. I'm a big wimp.

We were very happy when the ride was over though.

Thanks Sarah, Noah, and Dagny (and Sunny, of course), for coming with us to the fair this year. It was so much fun! Even though it rained like crazy. It made it all the more fun being there. Let's make it tradition and go every year!

Goooooooo Cougars!

2009-09-27T16:50:00.006-06:00

So, yesterday, my dad gave me and Lance his tickets for the BYU game. My dad gets season tickets every year. He usually takes my brother or Lance to the game. Yesterday, however, he had to work so he gave me and Lance his tickets. It was pretty exciting because Lance and I have always said we'd like to go to a game together. We've just never got to since there's always only 1 ticket for another person. So, anyways, we dropped Jace off at my mom's and me and Lance were able to go out on a date and have some fun!

On our way to the game!

Yay! We made it there right at kickoff.

After the first touchdown. Go cougars!

Notice the change of shirts. At halftime, we decided to go to the Cougar den and just see if they had any good prices on shirts. We found a nice 50% off rack and decided to buy ourselves a new shirt since neither of us were in BYU attire.

And here are our happy faces of beating the traffic on the way home. We left after BYU scored the 2nd to last touchdown. By then, we knew we had this game beat.

Yeah,I know every picture is the same...self portrait. It was a fun game though and a fun night away from Jace. Thanks dad for the tickets!

Yum!

2009-09-19T08:46:00.010-06:00

So, for my Birthday, I got a new camera. I hadn't gotten a chance to play around with it much and test it out, so I decided to take it out to Lance's mom's when I went to pick up Jace from being babysat. Jace was eating spagghettio's and cookies for lunch, so I decided to catch some pictures of him. I know, I take a lot of high chair pictures, but it's about the only time I can get Jace to look at the camera. Jace hates getting his pictures taken, but I learned the trick to get him look and smile is the flash on the camera. I would just tell Jace to look at the light and he would smile. Some of the pictures are of him not very happy (because, like I said, he HATES getting pictures). But at the end, I had a pretty cute and happy boy.

Okay, so this first picture is of Jace playing with the peanuts in the box the camera came in. Of course, his eyes just have to be closed.

I had to test it out on the way home too and I just happened to catch a smiley boy.

Yummy! Loves spagghetio's!

Then, of course, got to have a cookie and juice in each hand.

This kid loves his cookies. You can just see the pure joy through his pretty blue eyes.

Look at that smile. Yes, he has chocolate all over his teeth. I learned that Jace likes to squint when he smiles really big.

Ahh...I love this kid! Just look how sweet he is.

I just can't get enough of him!

Talking Jace

2009-09-03T18:34:00.002-06:00

I'm writing this post for my own journaling purposes. I haven't been very good about recording things down in my blog like I had intended to do when I started this blog. I'm just sitting here listening to Jace talk to me and I can't believe how much his speaking has improved just in the past little while. I know he doesn't speak as well as some 22 1/2 month olds, but that's okay. As long as I see improvement, then I'm happy. Anyways...here are some of the things Jace says now.

Dada
Mama
Moe - more
Bampa - grandpa
Gamma - grandma
Pom - Tom
Hello
Uh oh
Nye nye - night night
All gone
Hi
Dilla - Dillan
Binn - Brynn
eye
Baff - bath
Ga ga - cracker (but he uses it to refer to any food)
Say (he really likes to tell us to repeat things he says)
Wa Wa - Whitey
Seyna - See ya
Bum
Wuv woo - Love you
baa bee - baby
Boppy (what he refers his diapers to)
Womp Womp wah (just a fun sound, like when you lose on a game show)
Owww (like when you're hurt)
Dagna (his friend, Dagny)

Then, of course he says like animal sounds as well, his favorite being the duck, and he is also learning to put 2 words together like saying hi to someone and bye to someone. He can probably say a lot more than this. This is just a brief list.

CRAFTS!

2009-08-23T08:40:00.009-06:00

I've never considered myself a crafty person at all. I always said that I don't enjoy it and stuff like that. That's until I actually do it. Lately, I've done a lot of painting and crafty sort of things. Yesterday, I went to a Super Saturday in my mother-in-law's/sisters-in-laws ward (my mother-in-law and brother are in the same ward). My mother-in-law knew I liked some of the things they were doing this year, so she decided to give them to me as an early Birthday gift. Anyways...here are some of the cute things I was able to do yesterday.

I think these are so cute for the Fall. I'm so excited for the Fall season to come up so I can put them out to decorate! I didn't do the edging detail right, so the paint is a little heavy on the edges. Oh well...I like it anyways.

Then, I made this frame with our last name and when we were married. The lettering didn't come out completely straight on the glass. But it still looks pretty good.

This was my biggest project of the day and probably my favorite as well. It took so much time to trace letters, paint, cut out, glue, etc. to do this. It was so worth it though!

Here's a picture of the frame and family letters put together on the table. Can you tell I like black and red together?

These last 2 things were done a few weeks ago. But I wanted to show them off anyways because I'm pretty happy with myself.

This shelf, I found for really cheap at a thrift store. I bought it and sanded and painted it and I'm going to hang it up. I think I'm going to do another coat of paint because I keep finding all sorts of missed spots.

I really wish I could take credit for this project. My mother-in-law did this for me. We have a spot where we're going to hang up the shelf and this picture and since we did the shelf, we figured that it would be a good time to do the picture as well. My mother-in-law is really good at making flower pictures. She mostly does them that say like "love" or last names. She had a frame picked out specially for my house. I'm so excited to hang it up in our kitchen area and decorate!

I'm way excited to decorate with all these fun things I (and my mother-in-law) did for my house!

RIP Nikon

2009-08-17T19:54:00.002-06:00

Today, there was a sad death in our family. My camera was sadly run over (I'm not sure if by me, or someone else). I took it outside because I had intended to take pictures of Jace out there. I also took the video camera out. I ended up only taking video of Jace rather than taking pictures. Anyways, since I didn't use the camera, I stuck it on the back of the Jeep. After I was done taking video, I also stuck that on the back of the Jeep. I pushed the video camera back behind the spare tire because I was concerned about it falling. Anyways, I suddenly remembered that I needed to return a movie that was actually due last night. So, without thinking, I stuck Jace in the carseat and started driving. As soon as I reached the end of the road, I realized both cameras were back there. So, I pulled over and jumped out. The video camera was still there, but the Nikon didn't make it. I hurried back down the street to see if I could see the camera in the road thinking by chance it might still be okay. Then, there it was. All broken apart. Luckily the memory card still seemed okay, so we didn't lose any pictures. Anyways, I called and broke the news to Lance. He told me I did it on purpose because I've wanted a new camera for some time. I've just never had a good excuse to get one. Well, my Birthday is coming up in less than a month and hopefully I'll be getting a new camera. I'm telling the truth....as much as I hated this camera, I DID NOT DO IT ON PURPOSE!!!

World Series

2009-08-17T10:54:00.010-06:00

My dad has worked in baseball for some time now. He worked as an umpire for several years and loved it until his knees gave out on him. So, he had to quit and now he works as a commissioner for Babe Ruth baseball. Anyways, the Babe Ruth World Series is coming to Utah this year. On Saturday, they had a tailgate party out at the Murray baseball field to get ready for it. They had some things there like face painting, food, sno cones, and stuff. I decided to take Jace out there while Lance stayed home and caught up on sleep. It was pretty fun. Jace seemed to enjoy it.

We started out with face painting. Uncle Tom decided to try and hold Jace, but he just wasn't going to stand having stuff put on his face. They would put paint on and he would reach up and smear it off.

Then it was my turn to try and hold him, but by then, he was just too angry. I even tried doing the painting. There was no way he was going to get his face painted. At the end, we decided to try and stick a little tattoo on his arm. He screamed so much about it that it didn't work either. Oh well...at least we tried.

After all the torture of the paint, grandma came to the rescue with a sucker for Jace. That cheered him up. He was perfectly content sitting on Tom's lap eating his sucker. You can see the paint got smeared around his eyes and nose.

While we were sitting there on the grass, the Stingers (is that what they're called now, I can't keep them straight!) Bee came up and Jace was very quick to notice him. He got so excited to see this big bee come up to him and shake his hand. He was all smiles and just squeals of joy seeing him. It was the highlight of the day by far! I'm hoping that this means that he'll like other characters like Santa Claus again this year.

After seeing the pure joy of seeing the bee, we decided to take Jace to see the Little Caesar's man. He was just as excited to see him. He was pretty much dancing around seeing him!

At the end of the event, we were in the baseball bleachers and Jace was very mad because we wouldn't let him go out of our sight. So, we made him come up by us. The Stingers Bee noticed that Jace was upset and came back and cheered him up again. I know, you can't tell how excited he was in the pictures because he kept looking away, but you'll just have to take my word for it!

All in all, it was a good day. Thanks mom and dad for inviting us!

***********************Okay, I'm an idiot. My husband just pointed out to me that it says right on the Bee's shirt that they're the Bees. Not the Stingers.

4th of July

2009-07-19T15:27:00.008-06:00

Okay, so I know this is a little late, but it's Sunday, and frankly, there's not much to do on Sunday afternoons. Lance and Jace take their naps. Usually if I take a nap, then I can't sleep at night. So, here I am. Anyways...we had a lot of fun this past 4th of July. We decided to get up as usual and head over to the Tooele parade. We didn't get the breakfast they serve this year. Lance's mom came out to see the parade with us. Jace didn't care too much for anything besides the motorcycles that begin the parade. He didn't care about the candy or anything.

Doesn't he look just so happy to be there?

Right after the Tooele parade, we headed out to Magna for the Magna parade with my family. I've never gone to a parade with niece and nephew, so it was a lot of fun. There was also candy there. There weren't a lot of kids around us, so I took my niece and nephew out and showed them to yell for candy and then to hurry and pick it up. It was a lot of fun. It rained a couple of times during the parade, but it made it all the better!

After the Magna parade, we went back to Lance's mom's for a barbecue that night with his family. It was fun. His cousin came with her 1-month old baby, Gavin. It was so fun to hold a little baby again. It made me a little baby hungry. I was in charge of the dessert that night and I was very impressed with what I made!

Here's baby Gavin. He was so sweet and tiny. He didn't even weigh what Jace did at birth.

Check out this cake! It's so easy and the yummiest! It's just 1 white cake mix. Just bake it on a cookie sheet. Then, whip 1 pint of whipping cream. Set it aside. Then mix 2 packages of cream cheese and 4 cups of powdered sugar and fold in the whipped cream. Put it on the cake (after it's cooled!). Then, you can either use like pie topping/filling or I like to make the strawberry danish dessert and add fresh strawberries in. Obviously, on this cake, I used blueberry topping and then did the danish dessert/fresh strawberries. Usually, people make it as a Valentine's dessert, but I did my own thing and tried it as a 4th of July dessert and it was a hit! The whole thing was gobbled up!

Heritage Makers workshop

2009-07-16T12:33:00.002-06:00

Hey everyone that reads my blog (if anyone does). I just wanted everyone to know that I will be hosting a Heritake Makers workshop at my house next Wednesday night, July 22. Anyone that wants to is invited to come. It will be at 6:30 PM. It should be a lot of fun. It's such a fun company. Come learn how to put your photos into nice hardbound book, posters, greeting cards, calendars, etc. I know I've done a wedding album for my parents and Lance and I and it's been a blast. So, please come! Let me know if you want to come.

Family pictures

2009-07-07T17:39:00.009-06:00

So, I realized that I don't blog as much as I used to. I think it's because I don't ever know where my camera is and I don't like to blog without putting pictures with it. I think more people are in for the pictures than anything. I wanted to blog about the 4th of July, but as usual, my camera isn't around. Then, I realized that I have our family pictures on here from May and I never did put them up. So, anyways, here are some of the best ones of our family.

So Tired!

2009-06-14T13:02:00.007-06:00

Jace has been a little sick for the past week and a half. It started out just as a really bad cough, but this week it seems to have turned a little bit worse. My dad had the possible swine flu this past week. My mom was really sick for awhile as well. Lance even came down with something the other day. I was really concerned. I was so worried that Jace would catch this swine flu going around. This morning, he woke up really early and you could just tell he wasn't feeling well. He was running a pretty high fever. I decided to take him in to the instacare because I really was concerned about this swine flue. Well, they did the swab for the flu and luckily it came out negative. I can't even tell you what a relief it was to hear that. Anyways...as it turns out, he just has an ear infection. I never even suspected it because everytime I do suspect it, it's not that. I'm just so relieved. Anyways, we got home from the doctor and I put Jace in his highchair to eat because he has to eat with the antibiotics they gave him. It wasn't long in his highchair that I looked up to find this....

Poor kid. He was so exhausted from getting up so early that he just layed down in his highchair and went to sleep!

Memorial Day!

2009-06-02T11:03:00.002-06:00

We had quite a crazy Memorial Day. This year was probably the most we've ever done on Memorial Day before. Like I said in my last post, we started out Memorial Day weekend by taking Jace to the farm. After we got home from the farm, we went up Middle Canyon, which is right by our house, and went camping. I was hesitant about it at first because I didn't know if anyone else would come, but it turned out being so much fun. We were in a nice secluded area. Me and Lance's family came up on the first night. My family stayed and visited and ate dinner with us and then Lance's family stayed the night.

I was really worried about taking Jace camping. Last year we took him and it didn't go over so well. He cried the whole night. This year, we went in the tent with him and he ended up going to sleep. Well, we got out of the tent to hang out around the fire. When Lance and I decided to go to bed, we climbed back in the tent and Jace woke up and just started screaming! He must have screamed for at least an hour. It was very crazy. He finally managed to go back to sleep.

The next morning, Lance's mom and I got up and went shopping. Yes, we were very dirty, but we went shopping anyways. We always go to the DI, a home decorating store, and a baby store out in Tooele (kind of like a Kid-to-Kid store).

The next night, we decided to go home and sleep since it was just mainly us. It worked out because Lance had to teach a lesson on Sunday and it ended up raining that whole night. It was kind of fun going to a camping spot so close to home, but at the same time, it was kind of weird. I kind of felt like I shouldn't have been able to go home whenever I wanted.

The last night, Lance's siblings stayed at the camping spot with us along with Lance's friend Steven. We weren't able to get a fire going that night because it had rained all day long. We ended up just going into Steven's tent and putting together all of our flashlights and lanterns and playing Apples to Apples. It was a blast. Meanwhile, Jace was in our tent sleeping like a baby. It's like he finally got used to the idea of being there and knew he had to sleep there.

On Monday, Memorial Day, we woke up pretty early and packed up and headed home. We were all so exhausted. When we got home, we showered and then headed to Salt Lake for a picnic at Murray Park. It was nice enjoying a BBQ on Memorial Day. We didn't stay for long because we were all so exhausted and had to work the next day.

****Warning....picture overload*****

Jace and Grandpa Campbell

Jace and Cambree. Cambree came up for dinner.

Sitting by the fire. Look at that dirty face.

Jace has always had to lay back when he drinks his milk. He's never been one to just carry his milk around with him and drink it that way. The only place to lay him was in the camping chair.

Tin foil dinners....Mmmm...so good!

Our first thing in the morning with no sleep picture.

We found this chair at the DI. Jace loves it!

Jace sitting with daddy.

Derek was our entertainment. He brought up his guitar and played so we could sing along.

We brought Schroeder up on our second day. Poor thing got leaves stuck in his fur everywhere!

Me and Lance at the picnic. Lance wasn't happy that I wanted a picture, so I just made a grumpy face with him.

Jace and Derek hanging out on the blanket at Murray Park. We were all so tired!

Going to the Farm

2009-06-02T10:47:00.004-06:00

On Memorial Day weekend, I started the weekend early by taking Friday off work. My mom, sister, sister-in-law, and I all took our kids and went down to Thanksgiving Point to the farm they have there. It was really crazy and hot, but it ended up being a lot of fun. My mom told me the farm was small, so I wouldn't need a stroller, but that ended up being the biggest mistake! I wished I had a stroller. I should have known that my toddler was going to run. That's all he does at home.

Jace and Brynn sitting in front of the chicks. I can't get this kid to look at the camera for the life of me! He just doesn't like pictures.

Jace getting a nice lick from the baby cow. This cow was so cute!

Jace walking. This kid could seriously walk a mile!

I had to kind of laugh at this goat. I thought it was funny how he just stood on the fence waiting for food.

My cute niece Cambree.

I finally pulled Cambree out of the stroller and stuck Jace in because he was driving me crazy! Poor mom couldn't keep up with him.

Dillan and Brynn on the wagon ride. I didn't take Jace on it because he screamed anytime I held him. He just wanted free reign and to run.

I thought it might be cute to get a picture of Jace on the tractor, but he didn't like it. He screamed.

Jace was so exhausted after the farm. This is how he slept the whole ride home. You would imagine his arm had to have fallen asleep or something at one point being up in the air like that.

Spring City Visit

2009-06-02T10:25:00.003-06:00

I haven't posted anything in quite awhile. May has just been such a busy month between Birthdays and Mother's Day and Memorial Day. I have a lot of catching up to do now. One thing we did was go and have some good family pictures taken by my sister-in-law's sister. She did a really good job. I will put some of those pictures on when I get a copy of them in the next couple days.

My mom and I decided to go down and visit my grandma in Spring City the week before Memorial Day. She doesn't get a chance to see Jace all that often either. So, we hopped in the car and went. We were only there for a few hours, but it turned out to be a lot of fun going down and visiting her and allowing Jace to see her again.

Jace and Great Grandma. You can tell he's more focused on trying to get down than anything. He just loves to run!

We love Grandma Graham because she always has ice cream!

What a smile!

3 Years

2009-05-07T21:06:00.002-06:00

I know this is a day late, but I didn't get a chance to get on the computer yesterday. Yesterday was me and Lance's third anniversary. It's crazy that him and I have been together for 4 years now, married for 3. It's been a teriffic 3 years too! I could never imagine having a husband like Lance. I just knew that when I met him that he was meant for me. It just clicked and that has never happened to me before. I want to use this blog to let Lance know that I love him so much! I've been so happy being married to him. It's crazy to think of the trials we've been through, but also all of the amazing things we've been through since we've been married. Thanks for helping me bring such a beautiful little boy into this world and being such a great daddy to him. Thanks for being such a patient loving husband to me. I'm so lucky to have you as part of my life. I love you so much sweetie! I can't wait for many more wonderful years with you.

First haircut

2009-04-22T22:24:00.004-06:00

Today, we took Schroeder, our puppy, to get his first haircut. Let's just say that he really needed it! Here are the before and after shots of our little guy.

Before

And after

Okay, so they're not the best pictures ever. I was very surprised when I went to pick him up from the groomer. He looks like a completely different dog. I was so surprised that I just laughed. The girl that did it was worried that I didn't like it. I've seen what the schnauzer cut is and I didn't think I liked it. Well, we wanted to give Schroeder a schnauzer cut at least once and I really like it! He's so soft and just looks so different. I'm still shocked by the new look!

Jace's 18 Month stats

2009-04-21T10:50:00.002-06:00

I just got back from taking Jace to the doctor for about the 4th time this month. All of the previous appointments were for illness, but this one was actually a good appointment for his 18-month checkup. The results were good. He weighs 25 pounds, which is the 32% for weight, and is 33 inches tall, which is 75%-80% on height. Basically, he's tall and skinny, which we already knew. And the doctor said he's got a big head, which he's always had. He's developing normally and is very healthy. I think Jace is over his lactose intolerance finally. It seems to have just been temporary.

I don't know how many know this, but Jace's full name is Robert Jace Richard Rowley. Yes, he has 2 first names. We did it like that to incorporate my grandpa's name, Robert, in since he passed away less than a week before Jace was born. Having 2 first names is proving to be kind of difficult lately. We've had to decide what to tell the doctor his name is, if we want it to be Robert or Jace. I know that when he goes to school, we'll have to decide if we want to enroll him as Robert or Jace. When I had Jace, there was another Nicole Rowley in the same hospital just down the hall from me delivering her baby. When we had visitors at the hospital, they all ended up in the wrong room. It was very frustrating because I constantly worried that they were going to mix up our medical records or do something wrong. We received a bill in the mail and they actually billed her insurance on our account. It was just pure craziness! Well, we've recently discored that there's another Jace Rowley that goes to the same doctor as Jace. Today, when I went to check him in, they pulled up the wrong one. Thank goodness for Hipaa and making us verify our information. Well, we went back to the exam room and they took all of his history and asked me all of the routine questions to make sure Jace is developing correctly. After all of the questions, they ask me for Jace's Birthday and they had put all of this info in the wrong Jace Rowley's account. I guess I've learned my lesson. I've now made sure that his name is under Robert Jace at the doctor so this doesn't happen again. Who knew there were so many Nicole and Jace Rowleys out there?

First Trip to the Park

2009-04-19T22:24:00.005-06:00

Yesterday, we had a fabulous day. Lance woke up with Jace in the morning and let me sleep in because I don't get the chance to do that very often. When I woke up, I felt great. So, I got up and put Jace down for a nap and let Lance take a nap. When they woke up, we decided it would be a great day to just clean up our house a little. It was just nice to work with my hubby and even Jace and get a lot done. After cleaning up, we decided that since it was so nice outside, that it would be nice to take Jace and the dogs to the park. We've never taken Jace to the park before and he loved it there! He got to go on the slide and ride the swings and just run free for a little while. Lance was very hopeful that we could teach the dogs to play fetch, but that didn't work so much. Whitey thought that as soon as he was off the leash, he could run wherever he pleased. He was so excited that he just went crazy. So we had to put him back on the leash. But Jace had fun nonetheless.

Jace sitting at the top of the slide. He actually didn't hate it like I thought he would. Of course, he had to be held onto or he would have flown right off!

He wasn't so sure about walking across this bridge, so he crawled.

When I put him on the swings, he just giggled. He loved it!

Okay, so this isn't the best picture because of the sun, but here are all 4 of the boys in my life!

Running free! He loved that there was so much space to just run.

We'll definitely be making a trip back to the park again soon. Let's just hope that the weather stays nice from now on so we can go.

Jace is officially 18 months old today! I can't believe it. I can't believe that my little boy is old enough to go to nursery. Time flies so fast. I was hoping for a better result with nursery today, but just like last week, Jace hated it. I don't know if I can say it was quite as bad as last week though. I took him in and when I took him in, he went straight for the toys and didn't care, so I decided to sneak out while he wasn't looking. Well, I went and looked in the window a few minutes later, and he realized I had left him and was screaming. So, I went in and he went back to playing and I continued to try and leave him, but every time I would go back, he would realize I was gone and be screaming again. I tried to just ignore it hoping that he would just get used to me being gone, but he would get screaming so hard and the teacher would have to take him in the hall, so I knew it just wasn't going well. I sent Lance in him for the second hour because I have relief society duties to do each week and Jace was fine with Lance in there. I guess I need to get together with other kids more so Jace can learn to socialize with them and hopefully like going to nursery soon. To celebrate turning 18 months, we decided to give Jace a chocolate donut this morning. He loved it and couldn't get it in his mouth fast enough.

I love my little boy! He's such a cutie. He has a dr. appointment on Tuesday, so I'll be sure and post his stats.

Easter

2009-04-13T21:12:00.007-06:00

We had a lot of fun yesterday for Easter! Luckily, Jace seemed to be feeling a little better, so we were able to take him out on Easter to church and to the family get-togethers. Jace was extremely grumpy in the morning when he woke up. We decided to just stick him in his highchair and give him his basket to see if it would cheer him up. You can tell by the scowl on his face that it didn't do the trick. We got him a talking Elmo and you can tell he's not too thrilled with it. This is Jace's Easter outfit from Grandma Rowley. He was so cute when we put it on him. He knows when he looks good. He will just run around the house and show off. He wasn't very happy that I insisted on taking his picture. The bowtie he has on is another hand-me-down from when Lance was young.

Then, we were able to go to church and enjoy a wonderful fast and testimony meeting (only, I spent a lot of it out in the hall holding Jace since he wasn't happy during sacrament meeting). Jace officially turns 18 months next Sunday, the 19th. I've been so excited to take him to nursery so that I can get him out of my hair and enjoy sunday school and relief society for the first time in 18 months. Well, I decided that I might has well take him a week early just for a trial run to see how he does. I took him in and the minute we stepped in, he cried, even though I was with him. He cried the whole time. He didn't care about the other kids. He didn't care much about the toys. The only thing that kept him happy was goldfish crackers. I took advantage of him enjoying his snack for a few minutes so that I could run and do something for my calling. I got back not 3 minutes later and he was crying again. I don't understand why he hated it so bad! Let's just say that Lance is taking him next Sunday.

After Sunday school, we left to go to the Campbell family party. It was so much fun. My mom and sister did a treasure hunt and then an Easter egg hunt. My nephew, Dillan, was the only one that really did the treasure hunt. We took Jace out to do the egg hunt and he caught right on and loved it!

Lance was so good to walk Jace around and show him the jist of picking up the eggs and putting them in the bucket.

He really caught on quick and had a blast finding eggs and just playing in the backyard!

After we had the Campbell family fun, we went over to Grandma Rowley's and had more dinner and then just visited with family. We watched "Marley and Me" after dinner and that movie always makes me and Lance cry, no matter how times we watch it.

This is probably the first smile I got out of Jace all day! He's such a stud.

Jace was exhausted by the end of the day. He didn't get a nap. We found him in random places just with his head down from being so exhausted.

Lying on the floor

And on grandma. We've gotten a lot of this cuddle time lately and it's so fun!

Easter was great this year! Can't wait until next year!

Sick kid

2009-04-13T20:52:00.004-06:00

These past couple weeks just have been torture. Like I said before, Jace has just been sick and it breaks my heart. Here are some pictures of this week when he had the stomach flu. This is all I got when he was in his highchair. He doesn't look very happy.He spent a lot of time on mommy and daddy's bed cuddled with his doggy blanket.He would just lie there and watch cartoons all day. This is just not my normal little boy that is constantly up and on the go!

I would go back in to check on him to find him sprawled out on the bed sleeping. And I let him.

I think his sickness is over for the most part. It's just weird because every other day, he still throws up like once and then has 1 huge blowout in the morning. It just doesn't seem right that it hasn't ended. Lance and I are kind of thinking now that he may be lactose intolerant. I know everyone probably thinks we're nuts for thinking that, but we actually learned today that after having the stomach flu, a lot of kids become lactose intolerant temporarily. We don't know for sure, but that's just our best guess right now. We'll just keep watching. We've had him on soy milk today and we'll see how it goes tonight!

Hand-me-downs

2009-04-13T20:46:00.003-06:00

This couldn't possibly be a Rowley wearing this shirt, could it? No Campbell would ever allow this! Lately, Lance's mom has been going through Lance's clothes from when he was Jace's age and Jace has been wearing them. I can't imagine where this shirt came from!

Rough Week!

2009-04-06T17:17:00.002-06:00

Jace has been sick all week. Last Sunday night, Lance's and my family came over to our house. Jace was fine. After they all left, Jace fell asleep and woke up and threw up all over his crib. He was sick for a few days and one night, reached a fever of almost 103 degrees. It was absolutely terrible! We took him to the doctor the next morning and found out he had tonsilitis. You could tell his throat hurt because you could feel the bumps in his throat from swollen glands. Well, a few days went by and he seemed to get better. This weekend, we had some friends come up from Arizona and Jace was happy and normal as could be. Well, today, we took him to my sister's to be babysat and he was fine. My sister was driving him over to my mother-in-law's for the afternoon and he puked all over her car! Yeah, rotten. Well, I was hoping it wasn't anything, but once he got over to my mother-in-law's he continued to throw up and have diarrhea. It's just so horrible having such a sick kid. He's never been so sick in his life and been sick for so long! I'm stuck at work knowing my little boy is there just not doing very well. Well, anyways, I hope he recovers soon from this stomach flu or whatever he now has because it's just been crazy! I'll keep you posted.

Fun in the Sun

2009-03-31T20:22:00.004-06:00

I think we finally got a small peek of Spring last week. It was so great! I took the advantage to take Jace out in the backyard to play with the dogs. It was fun for the most part, we have a puddle back there (still don't know where it's from) and Jace wanted to keep following the dogs into it, so finally, we had to come back inside.

Jace loves his Schroeder pup. He kept getting down to play with him.

He also loves Whitey! They are still great pals.

The dogs loved have Jace out with them just as much as Jace loved being with them!

Jace loved having free reign of the backyard. He just ran everywhere (don't mind our nasty backyard. We really need a dog run so that we can make ourselves a nice yard)!

More running. Jace has never got to be outside much, but he sure loves it!

Here's my sweet Schroeder. Isn't he so cute!?! I love him to pieces. He really needs a haircut though. He just loves posing for the camera.

Here's Whitey in the infamous puddle. He just gets so excited when we go outside, that he has to go stand in it for the attention. You can see how dirty he gets from the puddle. Silly dog.

Here's Schroeder smiling for the camera again! Have I mentioned that I just love this dog!

I can't wait for more warm weather so that we can have more fun days going outside to play!

Best Friends

2009-03-31T19:55:00.005-06:00

So, I've been meaning to post for awhile, but our SD Card broke and I wasn't able to load the pictures on the computer. I mean, what fun is a post if there aren't any pictures to go along with it, right? I found the adapter from the computer to the camera tonight and I was finally able to load the pictures on the computer.

Jace is now almost 18 months! He's like 17 1/2, but close enough to me to consider it 18. I'm starting to count down the weeks until he goes into nursery. I'm a little nervous for that time to come though because I've notice recently that he doesn't like being left with complete strangers. Lance and I both had to sing at the Relief Society Birthday party a couple weeks ago, so Jace got to go to the nursery. Let's just say...he cried the whole time. Hopefully he'll adjust to being in there really quick.

So, I've recently discovered that Jace has a best friend! It's not another kid. Lance's grandma gave Jace an Elmo stuffed animal for Christmas. Well, I went on a relief society visit a couple weeks ago, and Elmo came on the tv and Jace just started dancing and laughing and pointing at him. I've never seen him so excited in my life! Well, I finally decided to give him his stuffed Elmo and he carried it everywhere. I would pretend to make it talk, and it just makes him laugh. Here are some pictures I've caught of Jace and his new friend.

I definitely think this is my favorite. Jace actually stopped and looked at me while I had the camera. It's like he wanted to show off his Elmo.

He will just carry it everywhere! He loves him to pieces. He's sitting here watch me blog about it and he's pointing at the pictures saying "Elmo".

He even has to take him in the car with him. You can see that Elmo is about the same size as him.

Here he managed to get his head out from behind him.

He even likes reading with him. They really are the best of friends!

Jace has been pretty sick the past couple nights. Well, the other night he was up crying and I couldn't get him to sleep or anything and Sesame Street came on at 1 AM. So I turned it on and Jace was just as happy as could be watching it. I guess it was the cure he needed seeing his favorite, Elmo, on the TV.

Our House

2009-03-03T08:52:00.004-07:00

So, like my last post said, it was a VERY windy night last night. Here's proof of that. And it wasn't even the windiest it's ever been out in Tooele. Last year we had like a hurricane wind storm that seemed to be much worse than this. Anyways....here's how our house handled the wind last night.

I've been going around our yard this morning collecting pieces of siding, but after seeing the extent of the damage, I think it's time to call the homeowners insurance. And maybe while I'm at it, maybe I'll get them to fix the carpeting in the basement too.

Going Crazy!

2009-03-02T21:43:00.002-07:00

I'm not one to use my blog for complaining. In fact, I really hate complaining to other people. I'm sure I complain to my husband all the time. I just want to say that life is chaotic right now! It seems like we start to get things under control and then something bad happens. Lance's poor truck got broken into a few months ago and we need to fix the window on it so we can register it and we've been waiting for a tax return to fix it, so until then, we only have 1 car and who knows how much it costs to get a window replaced?!? I hope the weather turns good soon so I can get my exercise in. Being in the relief society presidency, there is a lot to do each week and now I get to use my own 2 feet to get where I need to go. That's okay though, as long as the weather is good, I don't mind getting a little exercise in. Plus, it's good to get my foot healed from when I broke it back in last May (yes, I'm still recovering from it!)

I don't know how many times our house has flooded since we moved in, probably like 3 times. We need to find a way to dig up our yard and fix the problem, but again, until the weather is nice and we know what we're doing, it's going to be a little hard.

This week, I've tried to get cleaning done and then when I went to vacuum, it wouldn't suck any of the garbage up off the floor...blah. I guess we should have asked for a new vacuum for Christmas like Lance wanted to do. I guess I need to listen to him more often.

Tonight is a very windy night. We left our puppy outside because we were planning on getting home later tonight. I joked around with Lance on the way home just saying that I hope our puppy didn't blow away. Well, when we got home tonight, I could hear little crying but couldn't see anything. So, I got out the flashlight and walked around and found the poor little guy stuck in the window well. I think the wind must've blew him in there. I'm just grateful that he didn't get hurt at all. I was worried about him breaking a leg or something like that, but he was fine.

Can I mention again that it's VERY windy outside tonight! Well, we found another surprise coming home tonight. We have siding blowing off our house. There's 1 big piece gone and another heading on its way off. That's a whole other project we need to get to. We haven't gotten our carpet put back down in the basement yet from it flooding. Who knows when the siding issue will get taken care of!?!

Anyways, like I said, things are crazy in our lives right now and I know that through all of these hard times, the Lord is watching over us. He knows our needs and is taking care of us. I know that by paying our tithing, it makes things a little easier for us. He really is watching over us and loves each and everyone of us!

Doctor frustrations

2009-02-26T10:35:00.002-07:00

So, Lance works for Select Health and the other day, he was working and found out that all of the doctors in my OBGYN's office are no longer going to deliver at IMC. They are going to only deliver at St. Mark's. I'm not sure of the reasoning or anything like that. Anyways...if we can't talk my dr. into doing anymore deliveries at IMC, then I'm going to have to find a new dr, which is very unfortunate. There's no rush right now into finding a new dr. because I don't plan on having a baby this year or anything. If anyone has a really good dr. that takes Select Health insurance and delivers out of IMC or even American Fork (I really like that hospital, but I doubt anyone else uses that one), then please let me know. I hate to just go to some random dr. that nobody has heard of or anything. Like I said, this is only for the future, but I might as well start looking into it now.

Jace and his puppies

2009-02-21T21:00:00.002-07:00

Jace sure does love his puppies. This picture is proof of that. He's laying back on Whitey and decided that he wanted to hold Schroeder at the same time. He's been going around picking up Schroeder a lot lately and just walking around and he continues to go to Whitey and give him big hugs, hugs that he refuses to give anyone else. It's kind of sad. When we ask him where Whitey or Schroeder is, he'll just woof. It's really cute.

Babies!

2009-02-21T20:53:00.002-07:00

So, Lance's best friend, Jeff, had twin boys on Monday. They are so cute! They are named Caleb Edward and Tyler Alan. They are healthy baby boys. Anyways...today they had a Birthday party for Clara, Jeff's 2-year old. It's funny because 2 years ago, Clara was born on President's Day and then they had their twins on President's Day this year. We were able to go down to Provo today for Clara's Birthday party and we got to really see the twins together for the first time. They are so cute and so much fun. It kind of makes you baby hungry seeing new babies, but then I go running after Jace everywhere and that's a reminder that he keeps me busy enough. I don't need another baby quite yet.

Tyler is the one that's asleep and Caleb is the one with his eyes open

I love this face!

2009-02-04T16:22:00.001-07:00

I just love this face and those dazzling blue eyes! Where did I get such a cute little boy?

What doesn't belong?

2009-02-04T16:19:00.003-07:00

This is my drawer that holds our measuring cups and all of that fun kitchen stuff. I opened it the other day to see a couple things added to it. What is it? (Hint...the 2 things are the same thing and Jace's hand is reaching for one of them). Where Jace found empty cans...I don't know. They must've been left over from the Superbowl. Jace is such a tall kid that I've been finding stuff in random places. He carries my kitchen broom everywhere now and I find some silverware in random places because apparently, he can now reach into that drawer as well. I guess I need to baby proof my house a little better.

SUPER Bowl fun!

2009-02-04T15:50:00.004-07:00

On Sunday, my family had our annual Super Bowl Party. It ended up being so fun! Lance and I hosted it since we got out of church the earliest. It's so nice having a home where we can have a lot of people over and do stuff and we enjoy having people over at our home. Anyways, to celebrate the super bowl, everyone in the family gets to pick their favorite food or snack and then we pig out. We always have stuffed mushrooms, mini cocktail franks in bbq sauce, mozarella sticks, double-stuffed baked potatoes, and the list goes on a lot longer than that. Those are just the stuff that I remember at this moment. Then, for dessert, we have fondue with all the stuff to dip...strawberries, bananas, apples, cookies, sugar wafers, pretzels, etc. It's so yummy and filling. I think I look forward to the super bowl party more than a lot of things. After we pigged out, the girls hung upstairs with the kids and worked on a craft while the guys watched the big game. This was our first year ever doing something crafty, but it was pretty fun hanging out with the girls doing our craft. We made magnet boards and they turned out cute. I didn't get any pictures of it though. Here a just a few pictures in no particular order of what we did that night (and, of course, Jace refused to look in any of them. He's not a camera person).

Me and my sweet hubby enjoying the end of the game

Brynn and Jace playing blocks together building their tower. Brynn was trying to build while Jace was trying to destroy.

My cute niece and nephew enjoying their favorite super bowl food, fondue.

Our attempts of getting a picture of Brynn and Jace together. Of course, it failed.

Oh my...is my son drinking coke? Don't worry, the can is empty. He was just hopeful.

Andrea and Jace doing backward somersaults. It's the only thing Jace likes to do with Andrea. Jace just doesn't ever go near her for some reason!

Me and Cambree. She is such a cutie!

Me and my boy. He wouldn't smile, but at least he's looking at the camera. You can tell he's trying to push my hands down from holding him.

Baby Tag

2009-01-27T12:24:00.003-07:00

I got this from another blog and thought it seemed kind of fun to do.

1. Where were you when you first found out you were pregnant? At home in my bathroom.
2. Who was with you? I was by myself. Then, I called Lance on the phone. I probably should have waited for him.
3. What was your first reaction? I was shocked. I couldn't believe it. I took another test to be sure.
4. What was your husband's reaction? He was so happy. He left straight from work and came home to be with me.
5. Who was the first person you told? Lance, of course. And then his mom.

6. Were the pregnancies planned? Definitely!
7. Was everyone happy for you? yes
8. What was the sex? Boy
9. Did anyone throw a shower for you? Lance's Aunt threw one and then my sister and sister-in-law
10. Did you get any outfits you wouldn't use? I think just mainly the newborn ones. He was so big that he never fit into them!
11. How much weight did you gain? A lot! I don't think I would want to admit that.
12. Did you get stretch marks? Yeah...they came all at once. They came so fast I couldn't avoid them.
13. Did you crave anything crazy? Not really, but there are things that I wouldn't eat like chicken
14. Who or what got on your nerves the most? I'm not sure
15. Where were you when you went into labor? I never went into labor. I got induced and still never labored
16. Did you have any complications? .Previous to being induced I was going into the hospital to be monitored about everyday for high blood pressure. They finally induced me and I never really labored. I was at a 1 forever. Then, finally I started dilating 1 centimeter every hour until I got to a 5 and then it just stopped. By that point, I had been in the hospital for so long and had been "laboring" for so long that they did a c-section. Well, when they did the c-section, I could feel half of it, which was horrible, so they had to give me medication to knock me out. I saw them pull Jace out and that was the end of it.

17. Did your water break? No, they broke it for me

18. Who drove you to the hospital? Lance
19. Did you go early or late? pretty much on time, I think I would have stayed pregnant forever had they not started labor for me.
20. Who was in the room?Lance, Dr. Rappleye, anesthesiologist, and lots of nurses
21. Did you video tape it? no
22. Did you have any pain medication? I did get the epidural. I didn't need it when they gave it to me, but I was afraid if I sent them away, they'd never come back. The epidural didn't work like it was supposed to though because I could feel it in the end
23. Did you have a c-section or natural? C-section. I didn't want it that way, but after so long, I finally agreed to it because I knew it would be better for Jace. I'm a little afraid for my next birth experience.

24. What was your reaction to the birth? I wasn't really awake for the birth. I was knocked out by the medication they gave me
25. How big was the baby? 9 lbs 10 oz...yeah, he was a biggie!
26. Did your husband cry? I think so. I wasn't awake for his reaction
27. When is the next one coming? Maybe in a year...I'm enjoying having just Jace to think about having another one right now
28. If you could would you do it all over again? Of course. It was one of the greatest moments of my life!

Just a few cute pics

2009-01-20T23:32:00.005-07:00

I haven't posted many pictures lately. After I posted last, I felt guilty and got the camera out and took some pictures of Jace and a few more of the puppy so you can see how Jace is growing.

This is my happy little boy. I can actually rarely get him to look or smile for the camera, so I was happy that he was smiling for me.

This is the rocking dog that we got from a neighbor. He never cared for it, but he loves it now, especially that he now knows how to get on and off it on his own.

Today, Jace learned how to use a spoon on his own. You can see here he was using his right hand.

And here he switched to his left hand. He's still trying to figure out which hand he is. I think he's just ambidextrous. After he learned he could do it on his own, he would freak everytime I touched it and tried to help him.

You can't tell what this picture is very well, but Jace got a hold of the puppy. I wasn't supervising him very well. He loves to give loves.

Jace got this plastic toy pen thing from grandma Rowley. It's great because it functions as a toy and a play pen at the same time. The other day, we put the puppy in it while we went to work.

That hole in the right hand corner is the hole we didn't notice was there and is where the puppy got out while we were at work. Oops! I guess I should've checked it out a little better.

Living by the Mountains

2009-01-20T22:26:00.003-07:00

Today, I had a very scary experience. I've always thought living in Tooele is great, at least since we've lived here. That is....until today. I was outside taking my dogs potty. I have a fear of them being outside alone since the death of our puppy. And we have dogs that moved in next door that are big and loud and I'm a little afraid of them. Well, today I'm out with the dogs and our bigger dog, Whitey, starts barking at something out front. Well, I look through the fence and see a bunch of trucks that almost look like animal control trucks. Someone has called animal control on me before, so I was a little concerned that they were after me. One of the trucks happened to be a wildlife truck. So, anyways, I'm curious about what's going on, so I take the dogs inside and go out front to get our garbage can and to see what's going on. A lady comes up to me and asks if I've seen anything out in the field in front of our house. Oh...sorry...I neglected to mention we live across the street from a field. Anyways...I tell her no, but then I ask her exactly what it is they are looking for and what does she tell me? A mountain lion. I about freaked. I grabbed my garbage can and ran back inside. I watched out the window for awhile and there were several people out in the field looking around. After awhile, they all left. I have no idea if they found anything or what happened. I'm now scared to death of a mountain lion picking me or one of my dogs up and running away with me. I get anxiety really bad, so this didn't help anything. I don't think I can ever leave my house again without the fear of something happening to me!

I'm a sucker!

2009-01-17T15:51:00.003-07:00

I haven't blogged in a long time. I guess I feel guilty because I never take pictures anymore. I'm a horrible mom that doesn't take pictures of Jace very often anymore. I guess it's because I don't like our camera. It's very slow. It delays, so it never moves quick enough to catch the good photo moments. I told Lance I want a nicer camera because it'll convince me to take more pictures, but he's satisfied with what we have. I guess until I win the lottery or something big happens, I'll get by with what we have.

Not much has happened lately. Jace is walking better and better everyday. He's not looking so much like a chimp as he used to. Now, he's kind of turned into Frankenstein. He walks a lot with his arms out in front of him. I know he can walk very well, but he's just very cautious and doesn't like falling, so he will still get down and crawl a lot.

I'm hesitant, yet excited, to announce that we have a new addition to our family. We got a new puppy. I know...I'm nuts! With our bad luck with dogs, why did I give in and get another one? A couple weeks ago, Lance found some miniature schnauzers for sale in Erda, which is very close to Tooele. I saw the pictures and fell in love. I kept telling Lance that it was a terrible idea and he told me that we could just go look at them. Of course, looking at dogs just isn't looking. I always give in to taking one home with me. Just as I suspected, we went and looked, and I loved them! I'm a sucker! I always give in to Lance's ideas and then I end up doing something crazy. We didn't take it home that night because it was still young. It gave me a couple weeks to really decide "do I really want another dog?" The other day, I got a call that little Schroeder was ready to go home with me. So, I went and got him and I love him to death. He's still only 6 weeks old. Yeah, he's a youngun', but the owners thought it was better that he go to a new home soon. He's so sweet and cuddly. I picked the cuddliest dog they had and the one that seemed the least curious of them all. He's such a good puppy. He's really picking up on potty training I think pretty well. He's had his accidents in the house, but what puppy doesn't? Anytime we do take him out, he goes potty right away. The first night in his crate was what was to be expected. He cried all night. We put our other dog, Whitey, with him and I think it helped calm him down a little. Last night, we didn't get home until 1:30 in the morning, so we were all so exhausted that we put the puppy downstairs so if he cried, we wouldn't have to hear him. Does that make us mean parents? Anyways...I hope we have better luck with this pup. The holes in our fence are being filled this week so it will lessen the chances or something happening.

Schroeder really likes to use Whitey as a chew toy. Whitey just puts up with it, just like he does Jace climbing all over him.

He reminds me of stuffed animal when I look at him. He's very soft and furry. Jace would treat him like a stuffed animal if we would let him. He would squeeze him if he could.

Things are going well in the Rowley household though. We have a big superbowl party coming up at the beginning of February, so hopefully I'll be able to catch some pictures then and have something to post about.

Contemplating

2008-12-30T12:01:00.002-07:00

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

2008-12-27T18:51:00.003-07:00

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

2008-12-27T18:30:00.003-07:00

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

2008-12-18T10:28:00.008-07:00

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!

2008-12-08T20:35:00.002-07:00

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!

2008-11-29T16:21:00.002-07:00

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

2008-11-29T10:44:00.012-07:00

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

2008-11-20T12:52:00.002-07:00

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?

2008-11-11T21:02:00.003-07:00

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

2008-11-06T18:28:00.003-07:00

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!