Easter 2011!

This is our trip to My sisters house for Easter this year! They all had a blast looking for Easter Eggs together! It was Jace's first time to actually hunt for Eggs and he loved spending time with his cousins. Last year we still had snow on the ground in Idaho and so we just used the time to practice hunting for eggs. I'm still looking for our pictures from last year.

My Cute Family!!

Pregnancy!

I dont have a lot of pictures of myself, but I do have a few of me through out this pregnancy! I like to see how much I've changed each month and make Jared take at least one or two pictures of me each month (I'm in charge of taking pictures in our family so there are very few of me in our albums).

Here are a few!

This is when I was 4 months pregnant!

This is when we went to see Thomas the Train at the beginning of April. I was about 5 months pregnant! All I have to show for it is that little belly in the above picture the one below is just cute!

Here I am at the end of April, Easter weekend in Oklahoma (6 months along). One month made a big difference! I look bigger in this picture than I was because I haven't really grown that much since this was taken almost 2 months ago.

I dont have any more recent pictures yet. I know we took pictures this last month, I just dont remember who took them. I have about 6 weeks till my due date! Then maybe, if he comes "on time", it wont be pregnancy pictures but ones of our new little baby and Jace together! Those pictures will be more exciting and cute!

It's a good day!!

Because I had a doctors appointment this morning; we got to spend extra time with Jared. It was really fun waiting for Jace to wake up because he was talking in his sleep again, and he didn't know that daddy would be home. Jace talked about Lizzie, our puppy, in his sleep before waking up. He said "Lizzie that is Jace's," so she must have been taking a toy or snack from Jace in his dream!!

When Jace woke up and found Jared home he said "Daddy at work, nooo Daddy home with Jace!!" Then he gave him a big hug.

Here are a few pictures of our puppy Lizzie!

She never wants to sit still for her for a picture so I had my mom hold her down!

Jace really likes to spend time with Lizzie. He loves giving her a bath usually because he wants to dump out a cup of water on her head! Lizzie likes him just as much, even though he's pretty rough with her. If he's gone with Jared for a few hours she'll wait near the door every time she thinks she hears him come home. When it's not him she run off just to come running back when she hears something outside. This will go on until Jace gets back home.

Sick

This time I am not going back on my goal of getting my blog updated, I just got sick. Went to bed sick Wednesday and am still trying to get over it today. So it looks like Jace's ear infections might have just been from being sick! We'll still need to wait and see.

Little Behind!?

So it's been a few months (yeah try closer to a year and maybe even years) since we have put anything on our blog and most of our family and friends have given up on us! Thats ok, I dont blame you. Now that I'm feeling better (and only really have off and on for 2 months), I'm almost ready to get back involved in this darn blog. Actually I think it's just part of nesting now that I'm only 10 weeks from my due date! I've been trying to get everything taken care of with all our boxes but my iron count is low like it was my last pregnancy and I don't have the energy to clean or go through boxes. The blog doesn't seem as intimidating as everything else I should be working on. At least I'll feel like I'm getting something done!

I wish that we had our latest pictures on our computer so that I could some pictures on today, but that will have to wait till tomorrow. The biggest news about our family this year is getting our puppy, Lizzie. Jace loves having a puppy even though she bites from time to time. Never really hard and she is doing a lot better lately. We've only had her from a little over a month so the improvement with biting and house training has been wonderful. Jace tries to get her into trouble by saying she's biting him but I was watching closely yesterday (when he thought I couldn't see him) and she's mostly sniffing and licking him.

We took Jace to the Doctor and found out that he has an ear infection again. I have to remind myself that even children without his ear problems still get ear infections from time to time and his last ear infection was back in March 2010. Going as long as we have without one has really been a hugh blessing to Jace, since before his surgery he had one only after a day of being without the antibiotics. One tube has been out since December and the other one is on its way out. We have to wait and see what the specialist says to know if he'll need to get tubes again.

Jace and I started walking yesterday now that we got a new stroller. Jace has really missed going on walks. He knows where all the parks are and tells me which way to go to get there. I wish we could have gone today but I didn't want to be out if it started raining. Not with Jace getting over his ear infection. That's about all I've been up to other than cleaning and getting our stuff ready for the new baby when I can. Hopefully I'll be better about posting this time around!!!

Surprised?

Sarah has been getting on to me about my not commenting on this blog even though it was my idea to start it in the first place. I thought it would be about time and maybe a nice change for her to see that I am finally contributing a little. I guess I could give my view on what things are happening with our family now.

We are really getting excited about leaving Rexburg and moving back to Texas. We're hopeful that there is going to be opportunity for us down there with work. I am hopefully going to be down there in October on a trip with the BYU Management Society. They are having a large convention in the Dallas area with almost 100 different firms looking to recruit. I'm just waiting to see if my application has been accepted.

I'm still working with the school in the Facilities Planning and Construction Department working on the BYU - Idaho Center which should be finished in time for Sarah and I to graduate in it.

We're pretty excited about that as well. I've really enjoyed working here and not having to get up at 3:30 every morning for work. It does cut into my daytime routine though which isn't as nice.

I'm really excited for Sarah to be done with her associates degree and looking forward to see what path she takes once we get settled in Dallas. She's thrown out some interesting ideas. We'll just have to wait and see what she decides. She has been doing awesome though at raising Jace. he could not have asked for a better mother. He is so smart and I attribute a lot of that to how she has taught him.

She is watching another little girl right now and having a good time with that. The little girl is so easy though and it gives Jace someone else to play with. He has falling in love with her as well (minus the jealousy when he thinks we've spent to much time focused on her.)

So here we wait, dreading the onset of winter and the endless hours we will inevitably spend indoors due to the sub-zero temperatures. Hopefully winter will be kind to us our last year here.

An endless battle!

There are about two things right now that I would consider an endless battle.

One is this blog, because in order for it to stay current I would actually have to post something everyday or once a week. I can't even manage to post something once a month. We finally got our pictures moved over to the desk top. I would have posted pictures from after Christmas, but we didn't disconnect the camera from the laptop correctly before I broke it. Which meant it wouldn't read our pictures when we tried to connect them to the desktop! Jared finally figured out how to get the computer to recognize the pictures and so soon I will have an update from our last year! I'll try to make it short and sweet.

Quick Update on Jace:

He is doing great after his surgery and is really talking a lot. I was worried that he would be behind because of his ear problems but he is catching up. In fact, Monday, Jace woke up and asked " where's daddy?" Well I told him that he is at work and Jace thought for a minute and said "ok lets get daddy." I asked him if he wanted to see daddy at work "yes." But Sunday we took both cars to church(Jared has meetings in the morning) and came back together . We planned on walking to get the car but it rained all day. So I had to explain to Jace that we don't have a car to go get daddy with. He thought again and said (as he went to the door) "K, walk to get dad, yes? lets go." He was very determined, but it was still raining off and on, so I talked him into watching the Kia movie aka Lady and the tramp. (My parents dog's name is Kiara and the grandkids call her Kia. It's the first dog Jace has really known so all dogs are Kias.)

Battle Number two: Losing weight. I know that most people roll their eye's when I say I need to lose weight. I'm blessed to be tall and hide weight gain really well, but my body feels the strain of it regardless. Despite what people say, yes I really did gain 50 pounds with my pregnancy. I have struggled with the last 20 pounds since he was about 6 months old and this last Christmas, thanks to my mom and dad's wonderful cooking which I can't resist, I made that 20 into 30! So this year I was determined to lose the weight. When we found out about Jace's surgery, I decided to concentrate on him until he had recovered and went a few weeks without ear infections, then I would start working out. I have been eating healthier since mid March (thanks for the book Jessica) and since May I have been working out almost every night with my friend Melissa. I am happy to announce that I have lost 16 pounds since mid March and I am determined to lose the last 14 pounds by August. It's been more than just weight that I have lost. I have lost 5% body fat and am at a healthy level (though my goal is athletic, I'm getting closer). I have also lost a few inches but the most important thing to me is that I have more energy, feel great, and I have rekindled my love of working out and playing sports (I can almost run two miles now, which I haven't done since high school)! Jared has started doing this workout program P90X that we borrowed from a friend because he wants to get into shape now too. He does a home program so that I am able to go to the gym! He is so sweet!

One More quick Update:

Jared is on schedule to graduate in December, hopefully that will stay true. Lately it seems that everyone has had something "left off" their grad. report and end up needing another class. Jared is going to talk to his advisor to make sure everything is correct! But for now the plan is to be out of here by the end of December!!! I'm so glad that we don't have to go through another winter, at least not the whole winter. Jared is such a hard worker, for the last two years he has been going to work at 4 am everyday and he didn't go to sleep most night until at least 11 or later! He is so excited that he doesn't have to go back to work at 4, but can continue to work with the construction department where he is interning this summer! I am so grateful for my dedicated husband and for everything that he does for our family! He is amazing!