I hope I always remember...

Jace was a silly boy this afternoon - I hope I always remember...

When I asked Jace what was in Mama's tummy this afternoon he said a baby bad guy

When I gave him a piece of bread with peanut butter on it, he took his plate outside and  started using a rock to cut his bread. Then he used the butter knife (kid version) I had given him and started digging up a weed in the backyard.

Today is the first day that Jace could reach the pedals on his tricycle.

Last night was the first night that Jace made it an entire night in his very own bed.

Jace told me that he was going to eat a gobble gobble like a shark!

Jace tried to remove Chula's tail because he wants one.  Then he started crying when she tried to run away "my tail, my tail! Chula, kennel! Bad dog, Jace's tail!"

Its a boy!

Big news! Which I know everyone knows already, but whatever...we are having another BOY!  Woohoo! I'm pretty excited, Jace is going to be a great big brother! Probably in a push you down and steal your toys kind of way, but still :-)  There was a newborn in target the other day crying and Jace told him "its ok baby, no cry". So cute!  And I had no idea that kids talked this much at 2...well under 2. Jace has a lot to say, he is quite the chatterbox and he has an opinion on everything...just like his Mama :-) He's been counting to 5 pretty consistently for about a week now so that's exciting.  He also knows red, blue, yellow, green, black and white.  I would say he gets those colors right about 80-90% of the time (this week).  Other ones I can tell he just guesses but that's ok, he seems interested in learning them so it's still a fun game and hasn't become boring yet.

He has also started occasionally calling Anthony "Ant" instead of Daddy and he sometimes refers to himself as "Beebo" instead of Jace.

We turned the office/star wars room into a play room and I must say - it is a pretty awesome room! I'll post pictures later in the room becasue I don't really feel like getting up right now to find the cord and the camera :-)

I've been pretty busy...and this time I'm not exaggerating.  Here's an example...you know the Chilean miners that were trapped for 69 days? Yeah, I hadn't heard anything about it at all until the rescue yesterday. And if I hadn't been looking at Facebook on my phone while at a red light on the way home from the pumpkin patch, I probably would have never heard about it at all.  I have no idea what is going on in the world, I have no idea what is going on in politics...which is pretty sad considering its election time! The house has been a mess since...it's been a while and I will never ever again be caught up on laundry. In fact, I think my Mom does more of our laundry than I do. I swear, she washed at least 3 loads for me every time she comes down!

But all that being said, we are doing really well.  I'll be honest, this blog post is more for me than anyone else.  I intend to use it as a memory book of sorts one day. Unfortunately, it looks like I'm missing a  few months of memories, haha! So here is my attempt to recapture some!

 Lessons learned:

*I'm not a perfect Mama and have decided to stop wasting my time trying to be
*Unfortunately, I'm not a perfect wife either. But I've learned that I should at least try to put a little effort into that.  Sometimes I get caught up in being a Mommy.
*Work will always be there tomorrow...in piles.  I'm never going to get caught up, I'll probably be behind forever. But I will try my best, I will be as efficient as possible, and I'll do what I can!
*Jobs that pay well come with lots of responsibility
*Families that flourish come with lots of responsibility
*The best parenting advice comes from other parents...not books.  I'm no longer reading parenting books, partly because I don't really have time, and partly because they make me manic :-)
*It's ok to be poor. I don't see us getting out of the poor house anytime soon...well not as long as I keep popping out babies! I am ok with my Target purse because when its full of capri sun and has bite marks from the dog, I don't really feel so bad. 
*Can you say your poor when you have a beautiful house, two good cars, a big backyard, food in the fridge, and date night a couple times a month? Nope :-)
*Hard work always pays off, and so does generosity
*I need faith in my life...whether its faith in my family, faith in God, faith in our sprinkler system...whatever! Sometimes you just need faith!
*I still have a lot to learn. There have been 2 distinct periods in my life where I thought I had it all figured out...one at 15, another around 25.  Both times I have been mistaken. Doh!  Someone slap me when I turn 35 because I see a trend here!

The new baby:

*This kid is a whole lot nicer to me than Jace was!  No puking, I'm not as tired, no crazy allergic reaction to my own placenta, nothin!
*This baby is alot more hungry than Jace was.  Or at least I am.  I'm alot bigger this time :-(
*We have passed the 20th week and still don't know the sex.  Hoping to find out next Wednesday!
*Back to the topic of books, I haven't read anything about this baby.  I don't know where it is as far as development.  Feeling really guilty about that one
*I think it's a girl.  But I really don't care either way. I want a boy for Jace and Anthony...and a girl for myself.  Either way, I don't think it really matters.
*We have almost everything we need from Jace...except clothes, receiving blankets, and diapers...alot less daunting this time!
*I pray every night this baby will sleep through the night after the 1st week.  I have faith, remember!!

Jace:

*Jace is the best
*Every day that he gets older I find him alot more fun.
*He is quite the chatterbox.  He talks alot, Anthony and I can understand almost everything he says, others can probably get over half.  Who knows, maybe more. Although you do have to know his code: yaya=raisin, mocha=milk, boo-boo=booger.  There are a few more that don't really make any sense but overall he does a pretty great job speaking.
*The last week he's been doing alot of speaking in sentences...fragments, but sentences nonetheless.  "Jace drive vroom vroom Nana house", Chula eat Jace fishies no no bad" "Yaya bite Chula owie" "Dada vroom vrrom moo cow pumpkins (this ones a little harder to understand.  We met Anthony at a little pumpkin patch yesterday, he was trying to explain to me on the ride over there that Anthony was driving his own car to the pumpkin patch). "Jace wash hands"
*And the phrases that are so overused, I will not be sad if I never hear them again: "all done!", "more please", and "uppie down".  Uppie down is the worst, it means he wants to be held and he will repeat it over and over again, hook onto a leg and not quit until I pick him up.
*He loves to hop - I would say he gets off the ground one out of every ten times maybe?
*He's almost 2...which means he's almost terrible! haha his behavior isn't bad, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been smacked, that he hasn't thrown himself on the floor, that there haven't been plates of food thrown across the room or that there isn't a fair amount of whining and crying at our house.  He's actually a very sweet boy.  Very spoiled, a total attention hog, but very very sweet.  When he does naughty things I can see him laughing on the inside.  When he does mean things, he is immediately sorry. I would say 85-90% he is an angel...the remaining time, well, we work through that.  Patience is a virtue!
*He's funny! I don't know how to explain this one, you just have to see it. He dances, he hides, he giggles, he is really sneaky, he crawls into pillowcases and pretends he is a pillow, he's just a goof.  I tend to be over-serious sometimes and so does Anthony, but he makes us goofy too.
*He adores Chula.  And he is so bossy with her! He yells at her like we do, he makes her go out her doggie door when we go out back instead of through the arcadia doors, he kisses her every day, he pets her, he pokes her eyes, pulls on her teeth, tries to force feed her play doh, teases her with snacks...just about everything he should and shouldn't do with a giant 65 lb dog! She is still a huge giant pain in the butt and we (Anthony) threaten to get rid of her every day.  But how could we? So, she stays another day!
*He says cheese when you take his picture
*He was born to live on a farm!
*There are so many more things to write but my legs are on fire from the heat of the laptop! There are a bunch more pics on my FB page

Just Pictures Today

So we have a little problem.  Jace wants to play outside - its 500 degrees outside.  The temporary solution has been to go out in the mornings and find water.  It's working so far!  Yesterday and this morning we went to the park down the street and played in the splash pad and harassed the ducks who were trying to take a nice peaceful nap under the shade trees.   Sorry ducks! Its so hot outside that in the 10 minute bike ride home, Jace was almost completely dry after we put him into the bike trailer soaking wet.  Welcome to summer! We went swimming yesterday for about an hour or so - the public pools here are so much cleaner and nicer than the yucky pools I remember going to in Flagstaff as a kid.  Although I hear they opened a nice new rec center with a nice pool so we will have to check that out one of these days!

I forgot to put Disneyland pictures up last week :-)

I can't beleive it's been a month

So in the last month we have done alot!! The summer is officially here, which really stinks but we've been playing in the water a lot and staying in the A/C.  The other day, Anthony and I were watching deadliest catch and had the AC really cold and I swear it felt like winter! The rundown on what we have been up to: My Mom, Jace and I got back from spending four days in Disneyland about a week ago.  We had such a great time! Jace was a real trooper, he stayed up until about 1 every afternoon and then passed out in the hotel and we were back for round two in the afternoon!  I think the rides were a little scary on day one but by the last day he was standing up and pointing and talking and so much more excited to see everything.  We were lucky enough to discover that Jace is obsessed with cars/trains/boats and planes so we used that to our advantage whenever we needed to (Jace, come see the train with Nana, Jace, let go of that toy, lets go see the choo choo!) Our room was really nice and the headboard lit up and played music.  We laid in bed one night and listened to the headboard for probably half an hour. 

I had this great idea to surprise Anthony for Fathers day so I booked a hotel at one of the local resorts that had a water park since him and Jace both LOVE the water.  Well, let's just say that 10 years ago this might have been a wonderful place to stay, however, totally not worth the money now.  So we checked into the hotel, went swimming for a couple hours, then went to the front desk and I told then the hotel needed to be renovated and we ended up leaving, haha.  Every single time I try to surprise Anthony something goes wrong, I'm not sure why I was expecting anything different!  So we went back home after stopping at the Chandler mall for a really late luxury dinner at the food court :-) We spent Sunday lounging around the house and playing in the kiddie pool.  We also brought in all of Jace's toys from the patio since we can't really do much of anything outside for a while.  Some of them went into the garage, and others (like the giant play house) found their way into the house. 

Yesterday Anthony met us at Gymboree for a little while in the afternoon and we ran around and tired Jace out.  I'm learning that the more energy I can wipe out of him the better he sleeps! Jace is going to be starting day care in a couple of weeks and we've looked at lots of schools - all of which seemed really nice so now we just need to decide.  I think he will have a fun time playing with all the kids and they do so many learning activities, I am pretty excited about.  He is such a sponge right now, and he loves to learn so I think it will be great for him to have a challenge.  But who am I kidding, I am completely petrified for him to go! Give them roots and let them fly, right?!

Here are some pictures from June :-)

Good Mama - Bad Mama

I have good Mama days - where I make really healthy meals, we do lots of learning activities, I make Jace sit in his booster chair, we nap on time and we go to bed on time. I am productive during nap time like yesterday when I washed all the sheets and blankets, did the dishes and vaccumed. 

And then there is today! I did make blueberry pancakes so that was good but I didn't feel like sitting at the table so we ate breakfast in the living room in front of the tv.  And I gave Jace extra syrup so he would eat all his pancakes and then I somehow put his shoes on the wrong feet when we were heading out the door. And I let him play in the water at the mall even though he didn't have his swim trunks on and then I bought him an icee and he got brain freeze :-) haha oh well, I guess the Mommy police are going to come get me! 

I started this Blog when Jace was two or three months old.  And since then there were really only two people (who I don't see everyday) that I knew would always be reading it - my Aunt Lizzie, and Anthony's Aunt Kathy. Kathy passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly last month, and I have sat at my computer at least a dozen times to try to type anything and I just can't. And then I think to myself that if I am too upset to write my Blog, then I can only imagine how the rest of her family feels, and I get too sad and I start doing something else.  So today I am going to type for my Aunt Lizzie to read since Kathy gets to see all of our shenanigans from up above any time she wants to :-)

A while ago I posted a list of things that Jace could do, so I think it's time for an update.  Obviously the list isn't all-inclusive but I'll try to cover the things that stick out most in my head!

He can climb his slide the right way (from the steps), but not to be boring he can also climb up the slide part. When I make dinner I usually open the back door and let him play outside where I can see him so he's not lingering below the stove.  Last week he managed to very quietly climb up the slide, and before Anthony or I could get out there fast enough, he slid down and bounced onto the patio.  Thank goodness for the padding of the diaper! If you have seen the slide, you know its a little too big for him to be going up and down unattended while on the concrete! 

He doesn't handle the dry Arizona air very well and sleeps with the humidifier on every night.  If I miss one night with it, he will be stuffy for the next couple of days.  He is a humidifier addict!

He likes to feed the dog, as in throw dog food all over the laundry room and force feed Chula random things he finds on the laundry room floor.  He likes to charge at her in a full run and bounce off her ribcage, often knocking himself to the ground.  He likes to grab her tail and tickle his nose with it, feed her food that he doesn't feel like eating, sit on her when she lays down, stand on her when he is feeling adventurous, pull her ear when she is eating, and tell her no no when she bothers him.  At one point, Chula was the one always bothering Jace but sometime in the last month or so the tables have turned and it is far more often that I find myself shooing Jace away from Chula than the other way around. 

He likes to run.  Even if he has nowhere to go really, he just runs around.  He likes to be sneaky and super quiet and he likes to hide.  He is also really into buckling and unbuckling things.  Turning lights off and on, opening and closing doors, unscrewing ans screwing the lids on his sippy cups, etc.

He likes to sit on his little potty chair and fart. He also likes to lift one leg like a dog peeing and fart and laugh histerically about it.  I have no idea where he learned that (although I do have my suspicions!).  I hate to encourage bad manners but it really is funny.  So I try to turn my head away and laugh to myself.

He knows the sounds to the following animals and can point them out in a book: Cow, snake, Sheep, Horse, Lion, Duck (his current favorite). And he can say dog (dah dah), turtle, duck, sometimes bird, ball, mama, dada, nana, nina, nino, juh juh (Justin), Hi, Bye Bye, eye, no no (his favorite word), up, vroom vroom, out and move (both usually directed at Chula), more, done and probably a few others but that seems to be all I can come up with right now.

He can identify his or your eyes, nose, arms, belly, sometimes his ear, feet, and toes. 

His new thing is blowing kisses but he uses them sparingly so if you get one, consider yourself very loved.  They are oftentimes reserved for Winnie the poo or this hanging lemur stuffed animal we got at the Tucson Zoo.

He is wearing size 2t, and still has a bunch of 18month clothes that are getting snug depending upon the brand.  He has GIANT feet, and wears size 7 already.  :-)

His favorite foods right now are apples, blackberries, blueberries, oranges, yogurt, milk, he is still a fan of cheese although he is no longer an addict, rotisserie chicken, strawberries, gerber graduates granola bars and fruit strips, eggs with cheese, tortillas with cheese, cinnamon raisins with peanut butter, goldfish crackers and ice cream.  He doesn't like bread at all and he isn't too keen on veggies either.

I wouldn't have thought this before, but he seems to be a bit of an introvert.  We have been going to gymboree for 3 weeks now and he has no interest in playing with a large group of kids.  He likes to play with one or two but if others come around he will leave and would rather go play by himself.  I'm not sure if that's his personality or if it's just because he is relatively new to gymboree and other little kids.  I guess only time will tell on that one. 

If you have managed to hang with me this long...congratulations!!! I could go on forever but I think this is enough for now :-)