Same-ies!

Jace was SO excited to wear the same jammies as Noah tonight. This is just the beginning of all of the twinner outfits they have. Tara and I hit a lot of the same sales together and got Jace & Noah matching outfits (not necessarily on purpose, we just like the same things and got really good deals on them!)



Jace just loves his little "cutie pie" cousin and loves spending time
with him. Lucky for Jace (and Brooklyn) Tara & Wes come over to play every Monday and Tuesday evenings while I'm on-call and Trevor's at work! We're so lucky to have Tara, Wes, & Noah!!!

Change in Venue

Trevor started Nursing School yesterday (YahOoO!) and thus his prison sentence has begun. He's also working part time, and I'm still on-call 4 nights a week, which means we will be lucky to see each other at all during the week.

About a month ago Tara so graciously offered to watch the kiddos so that Trevor and I could spend some time alone together before our lives get crazy. It started out as long weekend to Vegas. Then, I was able to get more time off of work, and we thought about doing something a little fancier (Mexico, Hawaii, etc.). Airfare was so expensive so we went back to "Plan A" and decided to go for a little longer to trip to Vegas. Well, a few days before we were going to leave, Trevor out-of-the-blue said "What if we go up to Canada?". Just like that we changed plans and decided to drive up North. (We did contemplate taking the kids with us, but didn't know how they (or we) would do with two 16 hour car drives in one week. Everyone was very disappointed. I'm pretty sure they'd rather see the kids than us!) So off to Canada we went.


I didn't take very many pictures, and this one isn't the greatest with all of the shadows, but it will have to do! This is what we did almost every night for dinner. It was MUCH cooler up there which allowed us to eat outside without melting.

While we were there we had to have Trevor's mom's fried chicken. She grew up in the South and makes fabulous fried chicken (among other things). She was very patient in teaching me how to prepare the chicken, bread it, and fry it! (I even had to take the back-bone out of the chicken. Yuck!)

Here's our finished product! YUM! I'm drooling just looking at it! (Especially since I'm in the process of losing all of the weight I gained up there as well as the weight I gained while Trevor's sister was in town. Those Canadians sure know how to eat!)

Trevor and his Mom. It was so nice to spend time with his parents. In a way it was kind of refreshing not to have the kids with us because we were able to devote more time with his family. I missed them desperately though!!!

Trevor celebrated his 29th birthday with Black Forrest Cake (his favorite)! We had a lot of family and friends over to celebrate and had way too much good food! Trevor has such a great support system up there. Makes me sad we live so far away...

Trevor and Tom. Tom is Trevor's best friend from his pre-marrital days. They brought the foosball table outside and played like the good ole' times!

We had such a blast! Time went by too fast, although I missed my babies so much!!! Tara & Wes were such troopers watching them for so long! Tara recorded Jace while we were gone so we could see him. It's the sweetest little video and makes me realize how much he's growing up! I must have watched it 10 times when we were up there and teared up almost every time. If you didn't see her blog entry click here. We are so lucky to have such great family! Thank you SO much to Tara & Wes for loving and watching our kids. Thank you too to Trev's family for letting us come and bombard you with such a short notice!!!

Now....back to the reality of life....

Jace's First X-Ray

At church on Sunday I was sitting in class and recognized a sobbing little boy in the hall. I got up right away and Jace was in hysterics. His nursery leader was holding him and he was holding his hand up. I immediately saw his poor little finger. I guess he was trying to move his little folding chair over to the table for snack time and got his finger pinched in the hinges. The top layer of his skin was broken and it was already swelling and bruising pretty quickly. It broke my heart to see him in so much pain! We put ice on it, went home & got him some motrin and headed out to find an Urgent Care. Of course, the few that are by our house were closed. So we started calling around. I really didn't want to go through the ER because it takes forever and really, it didn't seem to be emergent. The only place open by our house that accepted our insurance didn't have an x-ray tech on site. *sigh*. By this time, Jace was back to laughing and joking. We decided to just take the kids home, let them nap, and see how he did. When he woke up you would have never thought there was anything wrong with him. He used his finger just fine and was bending it and everything. It was still swollen and the bruising was really starting to show. I finally got a hold of his pediatrician and he said he wanted an x-ray just to make sure.

The only way Jace would show me his finger is if I asked him how old he was. (He's really holding up three fingers, although it kind of looks like two).

Here's another shot. You can't really tell how bad it is, but it looked like a "way big owie", which is what Jace called it.

Here's Jace at the hospital after getting registered. Give him a couple suckers and he's as happy as can be!

Here he is getting ready for the x-ray.

Here's a cheesy grin of him afterwards. He got a cute little elephant and they gave us a copy of his x-rays.

Here's an x-ray of his whole hand, the middle finger is the one in question.

Verdict: No broken bones! I really didn't think it was, but better to be safe than sorry.

Jace is THREE!!!

Today is Jace Man's THIRD birthday! I can't believe it!!! In some ways it feels like he's always been in our lives, but in others, it seems like he was this tiny only yesterday.

Jace at the hospital....so sweet...so innocent...it was definitely love at first sight.

I love his big mouth! When he cried it took up his whole face!!

Here is Jace on his first birthday. LOVE those big BLUE eyes. During my pregnancy Trevor always commented on how he wanted him to have blue eyes. I told him the chances were pretty unlikely considering his are dark brown and mine are hazel. I am happy to have been wrong....

Jace on his second birthday, becoming such a big boy.

Here's my baby today. Not really a baby anymore. It's sad but so fun at the same time. I love getting to know him more every day. He has such a fun personality and always wants to have a good time.

We celebrated Jace's birthday on Saturday while Jen, Kevin and their girlys were in town. Here are the kiddos fishing at the fair.

And of course we had to indulge in Cotton Candy!

Here is the birthday boy at his Mickey Mouse party. All of the fam came over and we ate incredibly good food (spring rolls, dips, spreads, stuffed mushrooms, antojitos, veggies & dip, etc.) and visited.

Here's "Sissy Mouse" (that's Jace's nickname for her....so cute.) in her tutu and Mickey Ears.

Jace was really good at letting Brooklyn help him open his presents. He was so excited with each gift that we had to remind him that there were more to open.

Kylee drew Jace a beautiful birthday picture!!

Jace driving his new Jeep. He caught on pretty quick and can go forward and backwards. We're still working on his steering.....

Brooklyn wanted to take a turn too. She just puts the pedal to the metal and goes until she crashes into something.

Jace blowing out the candles on his Mickey cake. He had a lot of practice this past week with Wes' & Vickie's birthday.

Jen & the Vixter are trying to get kisses from Brooklyn. She's such a tease!

All of the kids enjoyed Jace's gifts. It was fun to see how well Shel's kids got along with Jen's kids.

The "bigger" kids got into it too!

Even though we celebrated Jace's birthday on Saturday, I still wanted to do something fun for him today. I called Tara up and we took the kids to the Kangaroo Zoo. It has all sorts of bouncy slides and toys for the kids to play on. At first the kiddos just wanted to jump at the bottom of the slides, but they got pretty daring and had fun going up and down the slides.

Brooklyn riding the dinosaur/Loch Ness Monster.

It's been a lot more fun this year because the kids are more into birthdays and actually understand the concept of it. We've been discussing birthdays for the past month or so and Jace was really looking forward to his special day. We just love our little Jace Man!! It's nice to have an excuse to celebrate him (not that we don't celebrate him every day) and remember him as a little baby.

Fun Makes Time FLY!

We have had so much fun this past week! Why is it that the more you enjoy life, the faster it goes by? This week has come and gone so fast, if we hadn't taken pictures, I'm not sure if I would have believed it all happened! Here are a few highlights of what we did:

The Splash Pad

Jace was loving the water gun...

Brooklyn's a little dare-devil and doesn't mind getting wet.

She was in heaven because her cousin's were at her beck-and-call, getting her drinks whenever she wanted and carrying her around.

Covering the water with her tootsies...

Chrissy's about to get splashed!

Jace's "Cheese" face! He's in heaven at this park....

Giving kisses to Sarah-Boo.

Vicky's Birthday:

The day started at IHOP per the birthday girl's request.

Then we went to the Hill Airforce Base Aerospace Museum.

The kids "helped" Jen make a Black Forrest Cake.

And Miss Vicky girl turned 10!!! Jen made us the best ribs I've ever tasted!

Now the week is over, our house is empty, and I'm probably 10 lbs heavier! Tomorrow is going to bring a food diet, a money spending diet, early morning exercising, and work. I guess all good things must come to an end...