Addicted

I should NOT be allowed to read! It encompasses my whole life and nothing else seems to get done. I'm not a normal person that can just read a couple chapters a day before I go to bed or read some here and there. I become encompassed and can't focus on anything else until I finish a book. And then when I finish I'm almost sad, in a way, that I didn't draw the book out longer and enjoy it a little more.

Well, last week (or so) the final book in the Twilight series came out and I decided I wanted to read (well, in this case, listen to) the first three books again to get myself all pumped for the last one. Tara so lovingly put them on my i-pod and I listened to all three in a week. I listened when I went on a walk with the kids in the morning, I listened while driving. Books on tape are such a wonderful thing! I finally finished on Monday and decided I wanted to read, instead of listen, to the final book since it would be my first time through. Anyway, I'm finally finished and now my life can go back to normal. Trevor is ecstatic to have his wife back and is excited to come home to a clean house instead of the mess he's been coming home to this past week. He hates it when I read! I guess I'll take a break until I read Harry Potter before the next movie comes out, unless anyone has a good suggestion for a new book for me to get addicted to!?

Happy Birthday, Jace!

Well, today is my little boy's special day. Two years ago (at 5:18 pm to be specific) I gave birth to my Jace Man. My life hasn't been the same since.












What happened to my little boy?! It seems like only yesterday we were taking him home from the hospital, and now he's TWO?! He wanted to get in Brooklyn's car seat today, and kept saying "buckle" (they barely fit) but I thought it would be a good way to show how big he's gotten. I can't believe how much our lives have changed in the past two years and how happy I am to be Jace's mom. He certainly keeps me on my toes, but I wouldn't want it any other way.

Jace decided since it was his birthday he would sneak a cupcake early. He reached up and plucked it from the counter and shoved it in his face.


Here's Jace's cake. You can't really tell from the picture, but it's supposed to be a bouquet of balloons. Jace LOVES "noons", so I did this cupcake cake just for him.

We had a birthday party at "Mama" and "Gampga" Barnes' house since our yard consists of weed, dirt, and earwigs! Jace made out like a bandit! He got fun toys to play in the sand with, a lawn mower, a sprinkler attachment, a train, and a swing set (although we haven't been able to put it up yet because our yard is not quite a yard yet).

Even though Jace got a lot of fun stuff, his favorite things were the balloons and water. He decided to mix the balloons in the water to make it even funner!

Brooklyn was quite content playing with anything she could get her hands on. She particularly liked the tissue paper. (Now we know what to get her for her birthday!)

The day was not without a little blood and tears. Jace tripped and bumped his lip on a toy. Poor guy!

Jace started out with one cupcake and was pretty excited about it! He didn't quite understand to blow out the candles, he just pointed at the flame.

He decided that two cupcakes were funner than one. Eventually, he added a third, but didn't eat much of any of them. I was kind of disappointed because last year he devoured the cupcake and shoved it in his face. He had frosting everywhere! This year he barely touched them.

All of the kids had fun running around "Barnes Park". Here's Rylan, Kylee, and Dylan playing on the teeter-totter. Jace just loves his cousins!

When we got home, there was another present waiting for Jace. He wanted to play ball all night and had a hard time going to bed.

Jace seemed to have a pretty good day, and we were all exhausted by the end.

We were sad that Trev's family was not here to celebrate Jace's special day with us, but are happy we were able to see them last month.

We are so blessed to have Jace in our family, and it's fun to celebrate his birth. I hope Jace will always know how special he is to me and how much I celebrate the day they entered the world. It's not just his day to celebrate, it's mine too.

Splash Pad

There's a new park in South Ogden that has a Splash Pad that we absolutely LOVE! There are two playgrounds, lots of grassy area, a gazebo with picnic benches, and most importantly a large area with all sorts of fountains and water where the kids can run around and get wet. This is right up Jace's alley because he is obsessed with water! I've been really impressed with him too, he's really brave and isn't afraid to get drenched.

Brooklyn has enjoyed the park as well, and loves to sit by the little fountains and splash her hands around. It's funny, because whenever she crawls on hard surfaces she crawls on her feet instead of her hands!

Here are some really fun pictures my friend Becky took of Tara and I with the kids a couple of weeks ago.

It's been such a relief to have a fun place to go and cool off this summer, especially since it's FREE! We're just bummed because it's only 2-3 minutes from our old house, and now it's about 20 minutes away. Oh well, it's certainly worth the drive!

Blast from the Past

My old next door neighbor and good friend, Becky, sent me some pictures she had taken of me and the kids at the Splash Pad (will post them later) and I was pleasantly surprised when she sent me some pictures of my little Jace Man from last summer. What a cutie! Same little face, just a smaller body. Judging by the pictures and the number of teeth he has, he's almost a year in these pictures. It's crazy because Brooklyn is almost that same age but is SO much smaller!

I can't believe how much my little Jace has grown! In fact, we'll be celebrating his 2nd birthday on Monday! I can't believe it!! He used to crawl everywhere. In fact, he didn't walk until he was 15 months.

Well, I hope you enjoy this blast from the past as much as I did....

Look at those cheeks...don't you just want to eat him up?!

And that cute little bum when he crawled...

I love this kid!

(Thanks Becky for the great pictures and the great memories! I miss hanging out in your front yard and letting the kids play...)

Oh Canada!

We recently took a two week vacation to Canada and had a blast! The kids did really well on the plane ride both ways, and enjoyed spending time with their Grammy, Papa, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Jace especially loved being able to boss his cousins around. We were spoiled rotten and loved being able to spend time with Trev's family and friends. I didn't take nearly enough pictures, we were way too busy having fun! The kids were such troopers and (for the most part) slept really well and had a lot of fun. It was so nice spending every day with Trevor and not having to work.

Brooklyn debuted her tiny weeny PINK bikini and looked adorable. Trevor thinks I'm dressing our daughter like a hussy, but I think she looks precious.

The kids celebrate the 4th of July in style and patriotism. These are all of the Zezula grandkids, and it was hard to get them all holding still let alone looking at the same time. They had fun running around Auntie Jen's back yard playing with the balloons "noons" and in the fish pond. Jen BBQ'd ribs and Grammy made her famous baked beans. It was fun to celebrate the 4th even if we were in Canada.

We did a lot of fun things while we were up in Canada. These pictures are taken at the Legislative Grounds. There are fountains for the kids to run and play in. Both kids absolutely LOVE the water!

Jace loved to play on Grammy's newly acquired "Pano". Grammy and Papa were so kind an patient to put up with Jace's plunking for two weeks!

I took the kids with Jen and the girlys to West Edmonton Mall (aka the BIGGEST mall in the world). The have an amusement park there, and Jace got to ride for free, so we enjoyed the day there. The girls loved taking the kids on the rides, and Jace loved it!

On our last Saturday in Canada we went with most of the fam to Ft. Edmonton Park. A historical fort in Edmonton that has a lot of old fashioned shops, and people that walk around like they're from the 1700-1800s. It's a lot of fun and just so happened to be the Bag Pipe Festival which made it really busy. They had these turkeys wandering around and they got up close and personal with the kids. Brooklyn went crazy and wanted to touch them. One of them actually ended up pecking at a cracker in her hand. She though it was pretty cool.

We absolutely loved our trip and two weeks was WAY too short! Many thanks goes out to Trevor's parents who put up with chaos for two weeks and didn't complain about it once! We're so sad we live so far away, but are grateful for the memories that we were able to make!

Getting Too Big Too Fast

I have been such a terrible blogger but I really do have some valid excuses. We FINALLY moved into our house two weeks ago from today and are loving the extra space. I'm still not too sure how I feel about the area, but I'm sure it will just take some time to meet friends and get used to things. We finally got phone, TV, and the internet yesterday, so I've been going 2 weeks with none of those things. Yikes! It makes you feel very disconnected with the world, that's for sure!So I've got a lot to blog about, but as I was looking through my pictures, I just had to blog about my sweet little Brooklyn. She's getting so big lately, and I have to share these precious pictures.
Thanks to her Daddy's genes, both of my kids have teethed early. She now has 4 teeth! I keep thinking of what my niece Olivia said when Jace was getting teeth. She said, "he kind of looks like a freak with all those teeth". She definitely looks like a little goof but I love her sweet little smile.

She's also started crawling!.I know! Jace didn't crawl until he was just over 10 months old and Brooklyn started at about 8 months. She's not a little terror yet, she only crawls to toys she wants, and if someone is close by, but she's getting better every day.
She's starting to stand up to things as well. Isn't she too small to be doing these things? I don't even think she weighs 14 lbs yet!
With Brooklyn's new mobility and with growing up in general, her and Jace have started interacting a lot more. The other day I was driving and Brooklyn started laughing and then Jace started laughing, and they kept going back and forth so I adjusted my rear view mirror to find Jace's arm stretched across the back seat and holding Brooklyn's hand. It was the sweetest thing! Where's my camera when I need it? Jace loves his little sister and loves to give her kisses. He also loves to push her over and hit her sometimes too but that's another blog. It's fun watching them interact and I hope that they'll be best friends.

Well, there's much more to blog but nap time is coming to an end. I'll post some pictures of the new house too. It's not decorated, but things are pretty well unpacked. We still can't fit both cars in the garage, but hey, it's a work in progress, right?

We're Still Alive!

For those of you wondering, YES, we are still alive! Sorry I haven't posted anything in several weeks, but we're currently in limbo. We moved out of our house on May 30/31st and have been homeless since!

First of all, I have to say how much I completely DESPISE moving. Every single part of it was completely miserable. I'm just so thankful we have such supportive family, friends, and neighbors. We are SO grateful for every one's help! There's no way we could have done it without them. We had several last minute hiccups but when all was said and done we survived. Now all of our belongings are in the garage of our future home in Syracuse. We will hopefully be closing in the next few days and will begin the fun task of unpacking.

For the meantime, me and the kiddos have been crashing with my sister in Tooele (thank you SO much Shel & Marc!) and Trevor's staying with my parents in South Ogden so he doesn't have to commute to work. It's been hard to be away from him but the kids are having a blast with their cousins and haven't been spoiled with so much attention for such a long period of time before.

Now I'm just going through withdrawals from moving. We love our house and neighborhood so much and are heartbroken to leave. (Why did we sale our house again?) I guess change is hard and we just have to adjust. Hopefully we'll find some great friends and neighbors in our new house, if we can ever get into it!

(By the way sorry for the lack of pictures (postings without pictures can be awfully boring) but my sister has some cute pictures of the move so I'll get them from her and post them soon. My camera is somewhere in limbo.)