A Whole New Year

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

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

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

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"

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.