Birthday Fun

For Jace's birthday we had a pool party in our backyard and invited his little friends. Only a few were able to make it, but he still had a blast. Which is the important thing. He is still talking about it. This pool they are playing in was his main birthday present that he actually got it at the beginning of the summer. Best purchase ever! He loves it and never gets bored with it. Hopefully it will last a couple summers?

Jace and Gordon. Ps. Jace hardly ever smiles for pictures anymore he just looks at me. lol.


I dared joe to jump in and he did. :)


More fun in the pool


Taking a break, eating some chips.


And more water fun! Jace diving down the slide.


Ice cream cones!


Later that night we had a birthday party with a few family members. Thanks TaTa, Susan and Sterling for coming! We opened some presents and had cake and ice cream.

He got a lot of great gifts. Thanks to all who gave him gifts! He is really enjoying them.

My little MJ. lol. He loves this basketball hoop!


His car brithday cake! Disclaimer, I let jace help me ice the cake. However, even if he didn't, it still might look like this. lol

Yay! Happy Birthday!


And a few days before his birthday he got a new little cousin! She's a doll! He was so sweet with her. Hopefully this is the case with another little girl that's coming in the future :)

Jace is 2!

This past Saturday my baby boy turned 2. I cannot believe it! All week I had fun planning his birthday that I didn't really realize that my boy was turning a year older until the night before his birthday when I was putting him to bed. I sing a couple songs to him every night before I leave the room, but that night I couldn't make it through the first song without getting choked up. The cutest part is that he just held my hand and still listened to me sing. Anyway, so it was a rough night, but by the next day I was feeling a lot better and was happy to see how excited he was to celebrate his birthday. I love this little boy so much. It's been an awesome 2 years! Here's a little about Jace and what he's up to these days:

1. He loves music, his top songs are:
"Oh Baby Baby" and "Never say Never" (by Justin Beiber, and he can sing the whole chorus of Oh baby baby)
"I am a child of God" (He can sing this whole song. I need to record it sometime soon)
and "Teach me to walk in the light." Yes, quite the variety.

2. He still knows how to count to 13.

3. He knows and recognizes most of the letters of the alphabet (upper case). and sings his ABC's with some letters not quite fully pronounced haha.

4. His favorite show as of right now is Bob the Builder. We watch an hour of it everyday.

5. He now loves the water and will literally dive into his little pool head first.

6. He loves his cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. He gets super giddy when we say we are going to see any of them.

7. He's still a good eater and will eat mostly everything we put in front of him. However his appetite isn't as big anymore and he usually eats in smaller portions now. He loves milk, if I let him he would drink it all day.

8. He is becoming a great helper and will often help me do the laundry, unload the dishwasher, vacuum and "sweep."

9. I find that he is understanding me more and more. Which is really nice because it creates less tantrums when he can understand why we are doing something or why I am making him do something.

10. He has been super super attached to mom lately. He doesn't like it at all if I am not around and doesn't like other people to hold him or pick him up, sometimes not even Joe. Which is weird for him, because he has never been like this before. Perfect timing for a baby on it's way huh? lol.

11. He knows most shapes there are to know (thanks to a certain puzzle).

12. And also knows his colors.

But yep! That's our Jace! We love him to death, and look forward to what this next year brings. :)

Confirmed!

I had my 20 week ultrasound on Monday and it was confirmed that it's a healthy baby Girl! :) We are very excited and jace is excited to have a baby sister. :)

17 weeks/ Gender?

This was me at 17 weeks. It's a totally weird picture. I had just gotten out of the shower and basically remembered that I wanted a picture before my 17 week mark was up because I had already missed the 16 mark. Anyhow, this is me. And it's a weird angle, my belly looks like it comes to a point. It definitely looks more rounded in real life.

Ps. we also found out during this week, that we are most likely having a GIRL! We got an ultrasound but it was an awkward angle and hard to tell, but from what they could tell they said a girl. I'm still not fully convinced, but I have my 20 week apt on monday so hopefully we can know for sure then, and maybe I will really believe it. :)

12 weeks/Aquarium fun

This was me at 12 weeks.



We went to this cool aquarium in Sandy. I didn't know they had one and wasn't expecting it to be that great, but it ended up being a lot cooler than expected.

The seahorses

Sweet octopus


Joe and Jace looking at the fish. I just realized that they match a lot without trying. haha.

Okay, so these sting rays were cool. But the cool thing was that you could pet them. And I actually did it! It took me a couple of tries especially since one jumped up at me, but I did it! They are furry/slimy. I kind of freaked out a little.



The giant Sea Turtle. I think they are so cute.


Shark.

Penguins.

And piranhas (I think)

Well, if you haven't been to the aquarium, now you have! Since I posted a thousand pictures. No but really, if you haven't gone and you live in the area, it's a pretty cool place.

Traditional Families = Better Economy

Okay, so I don't normally blog about things I learned on a documentary, but I want to share the one I watched today, and this blog is kind of like my journal too, so if you don't read it... I'm okay with it, but I hope you do. It was inspiring. Now I majored in this subject and knew a lot of the things that they mentioned but a lot of things I didn't know or realize, one in which I want to share.

So one of the main things this documentary talked about was how traditional families need to be reestablished to better help our economy and the welfare of our nation and our world. The coolest part is that this documentary was held with multiple professors and researchers across the nation and world, of different beliefs and faith. In fact a lot don't even have a religion or believe in god. But they all agreed on one thing that research is showing more and more, that traditional families are very important to the world and that with them diminishing we are headed for harder times. Less and less people are getting married, even more people aren't having children, and a significant percent who do both of these things (get married and have children) are divorcing.

How they said diminishing of traditional families is effecting the economy, and will greatly effect the economy, is because when a child is not raised by both a father and a mother, and the stability and interaction that that entails, they are far more likely to not develop as well cognitively and mentally. So thus they struggle through school and learning and life, which ultimately leads to less and less people who are capable of running our country at the level that it needs to be ran. We then have less competent leaders, engineers, doctors, teachers, professors, etc., the main people who run and work this country, which isn't good for us. They then showed stats...

Children the least likely to do drugs: have parents who are married/come from traditional family

Children most likely to go to college: parents married/traditional family

Children most likely to have good physical and mental health: parents married/traditional family

Children most likely to have good relationships with their peers: parents married/traditional family.

Etc. (there were a ton more, I just dont remember all of them)

Now I have to say a disclaimer, because I know that not every person that comes from a broken family has these struggles. There are many who come from hard working single moms or dads and have become amazing and awesome people. My mom is one of quite a few people I know, who came from a broken home, yet turned out great and has done great things for the world. They are talking about majority here.

Another thing they mentioned: that people who are not being raised in families, or who aren't creating or wanting to create families are creating individualism, which isn't good. They talked about how families create an environment that promote selflessness, putting others before yourself. Without this family environment people are becoming more selfish and more focused on the self, which is destroying the "group effort/team work" community and nation that we know (or knew) and love.

Basically their message was that if we keep seeing the family diminish... then our prosperous world in which we know it, will basically diminish as well.

I just thought that this was cool to learn, because not only do we know through the gospel and through our prophets and apostles that families are important, but through researchers and data as well. That having as many children as possible come from solid families is a necessity for a prosperous life for all of us. Not saying we all need to have a ton of kids (cause that's very personal), but that getting married and having children, whatever amount you have, in a stable home is more important to our country, and to ourselves, than I realized. I just really think it's neat to learn both spiritually (most important) but logically as well. "I will tell you in your mind and in your heart," that families are important.

Thanks to anyone who reads this, I hope you found it interesting as well.

Video birth to 1 yr

So I recently finished a video of Jace with a lot of his pictures and videos from birth to his one year mark all summed up into 8 mins. I am planning to do this for each of my kids to keep inside their baby book along with other things. I have been working on it every now and then during my down time. I don't know why it took me so long to finish cause I started it in the fall. Maybe it was just because I knew I would realize in full picture and music how fast my boy is really growing up. It is crazy to think that he will be 2 in June. I have found that motherhood is a lot of work and at times overwhelming, but it is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. It has changed me for the better through the hard (pregnancy:) and the happy and wonderful times I have with Jace everyday. There are many times when I am praying at night and tears are brought to my eyes with the love I have for him.

So like I said it is 8 mins long. So if you don't have the time I completely understand or if you simply don't want to, I can understand that too. But nonetheless, here it is. :)

Ps. I need to explain the 1st song played and the reason I chose it. It's "God must have spent a little more time on you" by Nsync. I realize that it is written for a girl and what not. But when I heard it on the radio while pregnant with Jace and listened to the words. I knew it would be how I would feel about this special person that was coming to our home and it was exactly how I felt when I saw him and still how I feel when I interact with him and watch him interact with others. He is very special son of his Heavenly Father. I am blessed to be his mom.