Birthday boy

Jace Ryan was born April 30, 2007 around 1:30 pm. I cannot believe it has been a whole year already! Jace has been a wonderful addition to our family. Here are some things about Jace that I will never forget:
*He has really big hands, we like to call him "Bear claw."
*Along with Bear Claw, other nicknames include Jacity and Jayshum.
*He cried a lot when he was 1-2 months. He generally screamed from 6pm-11pm...thanks mom and dad for all your help! One thing that helped with this was the snuggli - he loved being in it! It really was a life saver!
*He started crawling when he was only 5 months old (never learning the army crawl)
*Jace had to be swadled to go to bed until he was 11 months old.
*One of my favorite times of the day was when he'd go to bed. I would swaddle him up and he would be asleep and all of the sudden open his eyes and just start smiling and talking, out of nowhere. It was so cute and I always hated laying him down, but I knew that if i didn't, he'd never go back to sleep.
*He's always been really skinny (usually in the 5% for weight) so when he started walking it was so funny to see this skinny little thing walking around.
*He's always been a good sleeper at night. He slept through the night when he was only a week old. Now, he goes to bed at 8:00pm and usually doesn't get up til 9 or 9:30am. Naps are another story, but they are getting better.
*He has the funniest facial expressions, especially when he's sad (pretty pathetic). I think it's because his eyes are so big. We like to have staring contests sometimes.
*He's always been a mamma's boy, so much so that for awhile he wouldn't even let daddy hold him.
*He's just the cutest little guy ever! We love him so much and glad he was brought to our little family! Happy Birthday little Jayshum!

Favorite word

Just in the past week, Jace has started saying some words. His favorite is "ball" and says it all day long. Anything that has a circular shape he calls a ball (rocks, acorns, oranges, rings). He also says dog, pop (for popcorn), uh oh, bye bye, hi, and bubble.

Happy Birthday Tyson!

Describe your perfect date...I'd would say April 25th, it's not too hot and not too cold, all you need is a light jacket....and you know what else is so perfect about this date....It's Tyson's birthday! So, if you see him, wish him a happy day and tell him how awesome he is (just look at the pictures...need I say more)!

We love you!!! -Miche, Lexi and Jace!!!

Party!

Today we had playgroup/birthday party for Jace and Lexi here. Jace's birthday is April 30, and Lexi's isn't til June, but since everyone is starting to leave we thought we'd have it a little early. It was prince and princess themed (Jace's choice :-) The kids got to decorate their own crowns and make wands. The cupcakes are always a hit.

*Bowen enjoying his cupcake* Love the cheesy grin. I didn't even have to ask him to do that!

Pin the princess in the castle

The Princess and Prince

Landon and Jace

Ellie decorating her crown

more crowns - Gretta, Mia, Kya

Cupcake time!

Boston and Jace

Kya and Lexi

Jace snoozin' after the fun filled party!

A Visitor!

A few weeks ago, my little sister Allison came to visit. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures. We had a fun time though, and I'm glad Alli got to come experience a little of the New Hampshire life. We got to go shopping, story time, tried to see Horton, but ended up at the Beef side instead, and she even babysitted for us so we could go to dinner with some friends. Thanks Alli, we miss you! Come see us again!

Quote for the day

"Hey mom, nice jeans." - Lexi

reply:

"haha, thanks for noticing." - Michelle

reply:

"your welcome, hot stuff." - Lexi

Where do kids get these things???

*FYI - Tyson does not call me hot stuff! I really don't know where she got it

One Year Ago - The FLOOD

*I know this is long, and totally understand if no one reads the whole thing, but it's for me...reminiscing about this awful event that happened last year. It makes for a good story :-)

It all happened on a Monday morning. We woke early (really early like 4am early) to the sound of water pumps outside of our apartment window. Tyson and I were so annoyed, because neither of us like being woke up in the middle of the night. Lexi came running into bed with us around 7:30 am, which was fine since that’s when Tyson usually got up for school. Luckily she had come in our bedroom because we had no power that morning. When Tyson got out of bed he stepped on the floor and to his surprise found that it was wet and said “Did Lexi pee on the floor???” He then took one more step and realized that...we had a flood. He went in to use the bathroom and saw that the bathroom had about an inch of water on the ground. Lexi went chasing after him and slipped as she entered the bathroom. Tyson was taking a leak and couldn’t help her and I (38 weeks pregnant) was too tired to get out of bed. She lay there crying and wet for a minute until Tyson was done. At that point we said “why didn’t they start those pumps sooner???” We talked to the maintenance guys and they said that they had things under control and there shouldn’t be any more water leaking inside the apartment.

I took Tyson to school and came back to the apartment to try to move things so that nothing would get ruined. Our neighbor across the hall was out of town and had someone house sitting for him. I met her and checked out how things were in that apartment...didn’t look good. She came over and helped me move the couch and a few things. Meanwhile, the water is getting worse. I call Tyson and tell him we need to get cinder blocks and get everything off the floor. This was at about 9:45am...by this time, water was pooling from underneath our bathtub and the carpets were considerably worse. So, I went and picked up Tyson from school. On the way, Lexi found a pen and broke it and got ink all over herself. We went and got lunch at Taco Bell and while we were there, Lexi threw up all over me. Not just a little throw up, all down the front of my sweatshirt. At this point I’m thinking that my water’s going to break or something. It was just one thing after another. When we got back, the maintenance people had ripped up a lot of our carpet and were still trying to get the water from underneath the bathtub under control. They told us that they were going to move us into another apartment in the building (next to the one we had been in). We then decided to get a uhaul and put most of our stuff into storage, since we were planning to do that anyway because we were moving to Ephrata in a month. Tyson got his buddies to come help us (which was a huge nuisance with it being the last week of school...right before finals, but so grateful they could help!!!). Kylene watched Lexi for us! We got most of our stuff out (besides kitchen stuff) and got a little bit situated in our other apartment around midnight. We were exhausted! I got into bed (we just had our mattress on the floor) and my back was throbbing! It hurt to move in any direction. I went to take a bath and could barely walk to the bathroom. The bath helped a ton though and I felt fine the next day.

The next day, Melanie and Becky came to help me get the last of the stuff out of our flooded apartment. Another long day. Tyson had his oral argument that night, so was gone all day preparing. I had a doctor’s appointment that day and I thought they were going to tell me that I was dilated to at least a 5 and that I’d worked so hard that the baby was ready to come...not the case. Nothing had changed and I was shocked! But, honestly, that would have been a horrible time to have the baby.

A week or so had passed and we (I) went and talked to the management about getting out of our lease. Since we were leaving for the summer, we were going to have to be paying rent until someone else came along to rent it, which meant taking a risk on how many people were actually looking for apartments. I went and told the lady that we were one of the apartments that had been flooded out and that I thought we deserved more than just a change in apartment. She looked at me and said “People always want more.” What?!?!? Here I am 39 weeks pregnant at this point and that’s what she said? She told me to put my feelings in writing blah blah blah. I was so mad! A few days later, we went to talk to another manager, a nicer manger, and we were later told that we could get out of our lease, that we would get our deposit back, and that we could leave whenever, no questions asked without any check out procedure. Yeah!!!

Those were the worst two days of my life, harder than giving birth. But it turned out to be a great blessing for us. We were sick of that place, sleeping on the floor, sitting in camping chairs, etc. but it happened for a reason. We were able to get out of our lease, saving us a lot of money, we got our things packed up quick (maybe a little too quick) and put into storage, so we didn’t have to worry about it after Jace was born (that would have been crazy), and it strengthened us. Tyson and I were able to discuss our options and make decisions quickly as it needed to happen. Exactly two weeks after the flood, Tyson took his first final, and the next day, Jace was born (which is another story in itself!). We put the flood behind us and looked at our beautiful new baby boy.

A night at the Ball

Friday night was Barrister's Ball, basically prom for the law students. We had such a fun time! We didn't go last year because I was 37 weeks pregnant. It was great to be there with most of our friends. Thanks Jamie for babysitting! I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted, but here were a few.

Paula, Tyson, Michelle, Mary

Kylene and Todd Pratt

Taylor and Pete Norseth

The Gang (notice how Tyson has his arm around Mike...and not me :-)