The Money Shot!

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

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

Birthday Fun

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

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

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

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

Jace reaching in to pet the goats

Mommy and Jace looking at the cows

Looking at the White Tigers

Jace was pretty tired by the end of the fair

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

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

Lovebirds Derek and Lauren were very competitive

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

Jace was so happy outside

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

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

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

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

Oh What Do You Do In The Summertime?

I haven't updated by blog for quite some time and I was just looking through the pictures on my camera and there's a lot that went on this summer that I never did blog about.

Let's start off with Whitey. He has found his own personal mud pit in the back yard and his favorite thing to do is play in it. We had to take the picture through the back door because of course, we weren't going to risk opening the door and letting a muddy dog in.

Next off, we got a new addition to our family. This is Lola. We adopted her from the animal shelter out here. Yes, we're crazy for taking on 2 dogs. Lola is a sweetie. The only thing wrong with her is that she runs or rolls over every time we go near her. We think that she may have been abused before she came to us.

It seems we have a little musician in our hands. He takes after his mommy. He has a little piano at Grandma Rowley's that he loves to play and he likes to "sing" while he plays it. You can imagine his excitement when mommy put him on her lap and let him play the real thing. One thing I love about Jace is that when he learns or gets to play with something new, he has to look around as if to show off his new exciting thing.

I just realized that I never did write about the 4th of July. I won't write too much about it because I know that people really don't care now that it's over, but I want to include the cute pictures that we took from the day. We took Jace to the parade that days. Then, after the parade, we went and had a picnic in the canyon up the street from our house. Then, later that night, we went and saw fireworks. One funny thing that happened during the fireworks was a guy came walking up the street right by us with a huge buffalo. It was maybe just a little scary seeing a huge buffalo walk right past us.

Jace didn't know what to think about the parade. Some things he really liked and a lot of it, he could have cared less about.

We took Jace to his cousin, Ireland's Birthday party and they had a pony there for the kids to ride. Of course, I couldn't pass up the chance to let Jace ride it. He didn't laugh or anything. For the most part, he only cared about the saddle. He didn't care about the animal underneath him or anything. One thing that we've discovered quite recently is that once Jace gets focused on one thing, you can't pull him away from that. With his crawling, once he sees something he wants, he is focused on getting it and nothing can draw him away from that. I could not, for the life of me, get Jace to look at the camera while he was on the pony. There were too many other things he wanted.

Last week, my whole family wanted to do something. I've been planning on taking my niece and nephew swimming for quite some time, so we decided to make it a family get-together. My brother and his wife brought their three kids, my other brother and sister came, and also my parents. We had a blast! We didn't take too many pictures because we were all having a lot of fun swimming. Jace even liked it. Dillan insisted over and over to go down the water slide. He absolutely loved that thing. Brynn absolutely refused to go down the slide. We didn't think my baby niece, Cambree, would enjoy the pool, but even she was kicking her legs about. It was just so much fun having something to do that the whole family was part of. Both of my parents were good sports and got in the pool as well. Lance decided that no matter what, he was going to take Jace down the slide. Poor kid. He didn't cry, surprisingly, but he was a little shocked about all the water in his face at the end. I don't think he liked it all that much. I decided that even though my foot was still a little sore, I was going to tough it out and climb up the stairs to the slide and go down as well. It was well worth it. What a fun family activity! After we swam, a friend from work brought his whole family over and we barbecued up some Sanpete chicken and had a couple salads and just had a nice dinner at our house. It's kind of fun being hostess and having people over to our house.

Anyways....that's about it as far as the pictures go. It's a little sad to see the Summer go by so fast, although it really shouldn't make much of a difference since neither Lance or I go to school. Jace is almost 11 months old now. It's getting that time to start thinking about his Birthday, not that I plan on doing anything big for him or anything. He continues to grow more and more everyday. He's still scooting around like crazy. The only thing he won't do is stand up long enough to walk or anything. He will sometimes stand up next to things, but he won't walk even if he is holding on to something. He knows how to pull himself up to things, but once he gets up, he looks down to sit back down. I think he's maybe a little lazy. He was lazy with trying to crawl and I can see it with walking as well. I see babies that are a couple months younger than him just walking everywhere and he won't do it. However, today, I went into his room and he pulled himself to a standing position for the first time in his crib. He just giggled when we went in because he knew that what he did made us happy. He really is such a cute kid. I enjoy him so much. I got the chance to change my schedule to work 3 days a week instead of 4. I'm so excited for it because that gives me one extra full day to be with my son and to just stay home and be a mom.

As for an update on me, I've finally got rid of the boot. I still don't walk well, but I know it'll take time. This week is the last week for my therapy and then my insurance won't cover it, so I'm all on my own! I know I walk with limp still, but I don't care because I'm without a boot! I actually walk okay with a shoe, but it's going to take awhile before I can go barefoot again I know.

Anyways...hopefully I can keep up on the picture and the blogging so that next time, I don't have to cram several things into 1 blog.