I am the only one who is up so I thought I'd take this opportunity to upload some pictures! I'll have more later :-)

Merry Christmas!!!!

So I was just texting Jennifer a little while ago, telling her I went a little overboard this year for Christmas and she said "you say that every year". Huh, I guess I do! I LOVE CHRISTMAS! And aside from all the presents, I love the decorations, I love how everyone is so giving and happy and generous, and I love cooking with my Mom among 5000 other things haha. We started putting presents out last weekend and they are all out now and Jace seems to be getting super duper antsy to open them all. At first he didn't care but then he accidentally ran into one and it started making noise and now I find him over there all the time! Anthony put some bows on a few presents last night and he's already ripped them all off and opened 2 bags and a wrapped pair of socks :-) Part of me wants to stop him but I also want him to want to unwrap stuff on Christmas so I'm kind of letting him explore. He pushed his little rocking chair right up to the tree and I watched him stand on the chair to reach a shiny ornament (we didn't put any at the bottom). He was doing so good with the Christmas tree but I gave the kid an inch and he is taking a mile. I honestly let him touch the branch one time and now its like we are starting all over again!

Anyway, Have a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year and I'll post lots of pics soon!

I haven't posted in a while...unintentionally. I tend to get consumed with the holidays :-) We finally have the tree decorated, I'm nearly done shopping, and now I have to get to the wrapping of presents. I actually like wrapping and I bought that super cool new pop up tape dispenser that you wear on your wrist haha

There is not a whole ton of new stuff to report. We are going to try and see Santa tomorrow. Of course we didn't go last week when the smart people go so we will be standing in line with all the other parents for God knows how long. Oh well, he's a man worth waiting for!

Jace is actually starting to listen to me when I tell him not to do something (only if I use my mean voice and give him a stink face so he knows I mean business) and he doesn't listen all the time but I'm making progress. I have a hard time saying no...and being stern...and making my kiddo upset. But I guess it must be done so I don't have a little brat so I'm working on it! The best kids always have Mama's who lay down the law haha.

Jace had his one year appt on Monday, he weighs 24 lbs (the 67th percentile) and was 31.5 in (the 90th percentile!). Everything went well and according to the Dr the healthiest babies are always "thick" haha. Does anyone know when all the shots stop? I guess I could google it, this is getting pretty ridiculous if you ask me. I didn't realize there were so many deadly diseases we needed to get vaccinated for, sheesh its at least two shots every time we go! We have an awesome nurse though and she does shots so fast and usually has the band-aid on and Jace sitting up before he's even sure what just happened to him.

I think walking has opened a whole new world of mischief for Jace. He likes to take off and then be extra quiet while we search the house trying to find him. He did it to my Mom a few weeks ago and he's been doing it to me, one minute we are reading books and folding towels and the next minute he's sitting under the table not making a peep. It's incredibly frightening but our house is very baby friendly so as long as all the doors are closed I know he can't really do much damage while I frantically search for him. You really should see me running around the house with my giant dog following me around like we are hunting, I'm sure its comical. Oh, and I am happy to report that after one year, Jace pet Chula nicely today for the first time. It was the cutest thing, he tries to pet her all the time but it has always been more of a smack than a pet but this time it was a really nice soft pet, I was so proud of him...and Chula for enduring the smacks for the last 6 months. Speaking of Chula, Jace has been following her around and lifting up her tail to see what's underneath. So far he's just looking and she doesn't seem to mind so hopefully he will lose interest soon.

Here are a few pictures :-)

I found a promotional code to get 100 free Christmas cards, woo hoo! And of course I found out about it on Friday afternoon and it expired tonight so we took some impromptu pictures of Jace for the cards this afternoon, haha! I'm not going to post the pics we chose for the card, but here are some funny ones from the day. You can still get 50 free cards through the end of this month, and you get to design them yourself so let me know if you want to know the website and promo code and you have time to snap some pictures before the end of the month (or I guess you could use old ones haha) :-)




Can you imagine sleeping like this?! My leg is falling asleep just looking at the picture!

Well, I got so excited about Halloween that I forgot to mention that Jace is walking now! He had been teasing us taking a couple of steps here or there for a couple of weeks but right before Halloween he started to get a little more daring and he's been flying solo for about a week and a half now! Every day he gets a little more sturdy and confident. By confident I mean faster! There was this magical period of time right around 5.5 months where Jace had learned to sit, but wasn't really mobile yet so he could be put in one place and would play without going anywhere. It only lasted a few weeks before he started to scoot around but I find myself thinking fondly of those days :-) You know how celebrities always say that they keep their figure by running around after their children all day? Well I used to think it was a load of bull but now I believe it. If I want any kind of break from running around the house I have to lock Jace in one of two rooms filled with his toys so he can't escape. And he has about a 30 minute time limit in jail before he tries to open the doors and break out. He's about 1/100th of an inch away from being able to reach the door handle if he stands on his tippie toes :-)

We went to the park today and Jace had a run in with a bad little boy that I almost punched in the face! Jace and another little boy were playing by some giant plastic flower and the bad boy jumped on the flower and kicked Jace's friend and slapped Jace in the face! He hit them both hard enough to knock them on their bottoms. He then proceeded to run over to the butterfly and pull a little girl off of it by her hair!! And what is the Mom doing? Oh, talking on her cell phone not even paying attention! Grrrrr! But Jace was a real trooper and he didn't even cry! Poor guy, I still feel so bad. But if nothing else, I was reminded that no matter how young or old you are, there are always bad apples in every crowd. I guess as you get older you get better at finding and avoiding them!

The video below is from October 28th...Jace's first documented steps! I'll post some more tomorrow but for whatever reason I can't ever upload more than one video at a time and this is the first one :-)

Warning!

If you do not like reading about poop or vomit, just skip to the pictures!

My evening: Anthony and I trade off every night giving Jace baths. He loves the bath, but he is darn near impossible to control in there so I think it's safe to say that neither of us really love the task. Jace was a real monster today, trying to grab the shower curtain, trying to step onto the ledge, looking up the spout, and dancing around! So I get him all clean (I am soaking wet by this time) and I'm letting him play for a minute and he lets out a giant fart. Gross, but he starts laughing and so do I. Then his face gets really really red and his expression becomes very serious. I know this face! He's pooping! My reaction is not to let him poo in the tub, so I grab the cup we use to rinse his hair and I catch his poo! Yes, gross, but I did what I had to do! Anthony has had this cup FOREVER and it has a giant poo in it! I get Jace out of the bath, put him on the bed, wipe his bum, and then let him sit there while I reach for the diaper. In that nanosecond, he pukes...all over his private parts because I haven't had time to put his diaper on yet. UGH!! I clean up the puke, get him dressed, walk into his room to look for a bib and he pukes again...all over my arm and all over his jammies. Long story short - he had a bath tonight, but I don't really think he ended up clean at all! Oh, and last thing...tonight was Ant's night to give Jace a bath!!!!

Halloween seems boring compared to tonight, but here are some pics! We went over to Kevin and Margaret's house and had a really good time. Jace looked so cute in his costume, even though it was too small for him! I thought he would be scared of everyone in their costumes but he didn't seem to be phased by it at all :-) The next day we went to the state fair which was pretty fun too. We checked out all the stinky animals and Jace had a little run in with a sheep which resulted in a few tears. Stupid sheep! Earlier in the week we went to the park down the street and watched people feed the ducks. Jace LOVED it! And those ducks get so crazy! I'm glad there is a dock they can't get on, otherwise I have a feeling they would have been climbing all over us!

Oh, one more story! The park that has the ducks also has a little playground area with sand. Jace is too little for the playground equipment but he sat in the sand and played for a while. I was so careful not to let him get too crazy in the sand because I knew it would be everywhere. Before we got in the car, I tried to clean all the sand off of him and I thought I did a really good job. So we get home, and we are playing in the den and Jace keeps grabbing his diaper and wiggling his butt around. I felt his diaper and he wasn't wet, but he kept doing it so I took him to the bedroom and lo and behold, I find about 3 tons of sand in this poor kids diaper! I was so careful with the darn sand!! Not careful enough I guess! If he didn't like it so much, I'd make a house rule to stay away from sandboxes, haha

Is it just me or did it go from being way too hot on Monday to a little cold today? Brr, I went for a run this morning and was cold almost the entire time. I guess its good motivation to go faster! Speaking of going for a run, my Mom signed her and I up to run the PF Chang's half marathon in January! I'm not sure how this happened but my Mom is in considerably better shape than I am at this point and she can run faster and longer. Good for her, not so good for me! If we both survive I think it would be a really cool thing to do every year...if we survive :-)

Jace is taking more and more steps on his own! Yesterday I think he was up to about 6 steps and he seemed to think it was really funny :-) He doesn't want to crawl anymore but he's not walking yet so he grabs a hand and pulls us around the house to walk with him wherever he wants to go. Thank goodness for the little car that he can push around when I need a break! He's starting to say Hi to people now too (to people and to Chula).

Below are some pictures from our trip to Flagstaff last weekend and a few from when we got home. Has anybody seen those travelocity commercials where they take pictures of the little garden gnome at various locations? These pictures remind me of that except Jace would be the gnome. He does take some nice pictures though; if only I could be so photogenic! I suggest scrolling down to the end and then going back up because I put the pictures in the opposite order...not that anybody really cares or it matter but it's bugging me so I thought I'd throw that out there