So I'm horrible about updating Jayce's blog...oops! Sorry! Well, today my baby boy is EIGHT years old!!!! I can hardly believe that he is already 8! Where has the last 8 years gone???

Jayce was on the our local news Channel 8 this morning! Below is the link.

http://www.kcci.com/video/21638423/?taf=des

He was super excited when he saw himself on the news this morning!

For his birthday, Dustin & I got him his very own laptop! Recently, Jayce had asked that when we got a new laptop if he could have our old one...well we found a new one for him and it was a really GREAT deal so we couldn't pass it up! He just kept saying this morning how AWESOME it was!! It was a little more than we typically spend on his birthday so it will be part of his Christmas from us as well.

At his school, they put the kid's names with birthdays on their sign.

I think he is having a pretty good birthday so far!! YAH!

IT'S ALMOST GAME TIME!!

IT'S ALMOST HUSKER GAME TIME AND MY BOYS ARE READY!! Below are a few pictures of Jayce & Brody sporting their husker gear from last year...but I thought these were cute and it would an appropriate time to put them on the blog since the first HUSKER game is tomorrow! We don't get Fox Sports Pay Per View on our cable so Dustin emailed the cable company ranting and raving about it yesterday...surprising they emailed him back saying they are in the process of hopefully getting it added sometime in the future (great but it doesn't help us out any this weekend!)

Ah...aren't they cute?!?!

Future Husker?? Maybe if he ever weighs more than 50 lbs!

WAIT BRODY...COME BACK!!

Fair & First Day of 2nd Grade!

Well, the 2009 fair has come and gone and we survived! We had company at our house for ALL 11 days of the fair! All of our family in Nebraska all make an annually appearance for the Iowa State Fair! It's a fun time & I love almost every minute of it but I'm not going to lie, I'm kind of thankful when the 11 days of the fair is over (don't get mad at me mom!). A few highlights of this year's fair...

~Seeing Big & Rich for only $20/ticket - Jayce really enjoying seeing them

~Jayce getting tonsillitis in the middle of the fair's 11 days!

~Dustin & I seeing Brooks & Dunn before they split up

~Buying 'as seen on tv' Slap Chop

~Consuming WAY too much greasy food on a stick, but loving every minute of it at the time!

~Jayce feeding a huge camel & going for a camel ride

~A goat eating the hood of Jayce's coat while Jayce was feeding a camel! HA

~Awesome fireworks every night

~Spending time with family & friends...AAAAHHHHH!!

Mark your calendar's...2010 fair will be August 12-22, 2010! I took a lot of pics that I will upload later.

Jayce started 2nd grade today! I can hardly believe I am the mother of a 2nd grade! He's growing up so fast! I have always taken him to school & picked him up after school on his first day. So this year was no different EXCEPT for the 1st time, Dustin went with me! (he is usually out of town at a NASCAR race when he starts school). It was rainy & cool morning today. So we go to take to him school and I have my camera flashing and I go into his classroom with him so I can take a picture of him sitting at his desk (keep in mind, I'm the ONLY parent in the classroom!) and Jayce says to me 'Mom, you do realize that you don't have to stay here with me all day, right?!?!?" That hurt my heart a little but yes, I realized that so I took just one more pictures I think and left for work!

He's so grown up!

Zoo & More

We visited the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo for the 1st time since Jayce was 2 about 2 weeks ago! Pictures are posted on Jayce's shutterfly link that is posted off to the right of this post. We decided to make a long weekend trip to Omaha. It's been a long time since we have visited friends & family in O-town and we had a great time! Thank you everyone for hanging out with us, watching Jayce all weekend, feeding us, & putting us up for the weekend! It was great to get to see little Miss Ayla and Heidi (oh and their parents too I guess!)

Jayce had to hurry back to Des Moines on Sunday evening though after our trip to Omaha. Vacation Bible School started that Sunday and it was everynight last week from 6:15pm-9pm. Everyone knows that Jayce usually goes to bed at 8pm so last week was a long week in our household as we had a very tired little man on our hands after a few nights of VBS! Jayce always has a great time at VBS though so we suffer through the crabbiness every year! VBS concluded with a carnival on Friday night!

We are all excited for the fair which starts next week! It's always a busy time at our house at fair time! Our house is usually full of visitors and it seems like we go to the fair EVERY day/night since we are so close. Can't wait...only 10 days away!

Jayce and His Goat!

4th of July

Can you believe that I am updating Jayce's blog?? I know, it's been FOREVER!! Sorry!
We went to Lake Rathbun & Honey Creek State Park for the 4th of July for some camping, boating, jet skiing, & tubing! It's about an hour 1/2 drive from Des Moines. We got there on Thursday evening and set up camp. (and for the record, when I say we were camping...we were not roughing it in a tent, we stayed with our friends Yt & Donut in their nice big motorhome, so no real 'camping' for this girl! We have water, electricity, AIR, tv, bathroom, shower, fridge, stove, microwave, etc.)
Friday, we thought it was going to be a nice day so we got up, got ready, & headed out to the lake. The sun wasn't really shining and it was relatively cool and not long after we got on the lake, it started to sprinkle! We headed back to 'camp,' grilled some food and just hung out for a bit. About 9pm, a DOWN POUR came! It poured & stormed from 9pm to 9am! Great weather for when you are at a lake! Saturday was very cloudy & cool, so we didn't even bother going to the lake. Instead, we happened upon a VERY small town called Mystic! Every 4th of July, they have goat races down 'main' street. I'm pretty sure the goat races are the biggest thing that ever happens in this town! How it works is that there are goats that are basically on dog leashes and people hold their leashes and race to the end of the 'Main St.' Well, they had an age group of 5 to 10 year olds who could race the goats, with some pressuring (and bribing...cost us $10), we got Jayce convinced to race the goats. Pre-race, Jayce was holding the goat's leash and smiling. During the race, Jayce's face was PRICELESS. He turned as white as a ghost and had an absolute look of terror on his face (please remember Jayce weighs a whopping 43 lbs & his goat probably weighed close to 100lbs!) Half way down Main St, the goats rips his leash from Jayce's hand and gets free. Jayce, on the other hand, completely wiped out but his goat finished 2nd without him! Pretty sure Jayce will never let us live this one down but hey, we made a memory that I'm sure we will be talking about for years to come & Jayce got $10 out of the deal! Oh & of course, I didn't have my camera with. When we left that morning, I thought we were just going to Wal-Mart and to get some lunch...didn't know goat races were on the agenda!
Other highlights of the weekend, Jayce had TWO ticks on his back! One wasn't attached yet but one was! YUCK, GROSS, DISGUSTING!! Thankful, YT was there and got the one that was attached off of him fairly easily. Ticks disgust me so much! Jayce was freaking out about it! He kept asking us questions about if he was going to die from the tick, if other people have died from ticks, etc.
On Sunday, the weather was AWESOME (at least it was nice one day out of three I guess!) Jayce LOVES tubing & riding the jet ski! His grandmas would have been FREAKIN' out if they would have seen our crazy kid on the lake! Don't worry, he had his life jacket on the ENTIRE time & always does! Oh and I thought I would attempt to water ski on Sunday, after I had already been tubing for quite awhile. Needless to say, I was not successful and drank more lake water than I ever could have imagined! Lake water & I are not friends so the fact that I was even in the lake tubing and trying to water ski was a HUGE deal!! Overall, it was a great weekend, minus the sunburns, ticks, & crappy weather but we still had a good time!

On a side note: thru all of the media hype about Michael Jackson, Jayce has become a Michael Jackson fan which I am okay with because Jayce doesn't know anything about the weird stuff in Michael Jackson's life, Jayce just likes his music. I bought him Michael Jackson's One CD and Jayce's favorite song is #9 (he always says #9 before he says what it is) "The Way You Make Me Feel."
I know I have said this before, but I promise (once again) to try to update his blog more often!

NO TIME TO UPDATE!

Sorry for no update lately. We are seriously doing nothing at nights but running from baseball games/practice and to soccer games/practice! It's crazy! Soccer & baseball end the first week in June and to be quite honest, I'm kind of looking forward to it! It's fun having him in sports and going and watching him and all, but every single night of the week...AGH!
So I have tried to upload photos on three different occasions and it NEVER works. I always get an internet explorer connection error but there is nothing wrong with my connection. So still no pics on here of Jayce yet. I'll figure it out eventually if I ever get the time. I don't think we have soccer or baseball tomorrow night so I will be making a much needed trip to the store...don't tell anyone but I'm pretty sure it's been about a month since I have been to the grocery store to actually get groceries (not to just pick up one or two things!)

Nothing Really

I don't really have anything in particular to update about...Dustin was giving me a hard time for never updating so that's what I'm doing. We have been super busy lately with between soccer & baseball games & practices. This week, it's baseball practice tonight, soccer practice wednesday night, baseball game on thursday & a performance at school (which happens to be my b-day!), then baseball pictures & game on saturday morning at 8:45am!
Jayce's 'advance' class at school seems to be going well. He looks forward to it every day and always comes home and tells us all about it. They have been doing different experiments using light bulbs and batteries. Him and the three other students have been practicing and preparing to run the school store. From the sounds of it, they will be selling items and giving students their change. I'm pretty sure I wasn't able to make change for people when I was in 1st grade!
I don't really have much else to update about. We had a great Easter weekend, busy, but fun. Jayce had 3 Easter egg hunts and got lots of candy! Jayce has hardly put down his book of poems "Where the Sidewalk Ends" that Aunt Dew got him for Easter. It was one of my favorites and it seems to be one of his now too! I really need to download pictures from my camera so I can add some on here. I'll work on that...sometime!

PEE WEE RED SOX 8 - TWINS 7

Well, it was our first baseball game tonight as Dustin coaching and the RED SOX WON! It started out a little rocky but the boys did great and pulled off the big win!! Jayce struck out once and made it to 3rd the other two times that he hit but our team got 3 outs before he could get home! DARN IT!! This coaching thing isn't as easy as I thought it would. I tried so hard to keep it all organized and orderly but it was a big cluster tonight! And on top trying to get the kids ready to bat, getting the catcher's gear on and off, waiting on the boys to get back from the bathroom...I had to be the scorekeeper too!! UM, didn't have a clue what I was doing but one of the kid's grandma was nice enough to give me a quick lesson. Funny thing is that the other team was trying to say that we only have 7 runs so it would have been a tie but their scorekeeper had less of a clue as to what was going on than I did so I won that battle!!
Our schedule for the week:
Mon = baseball game
Tues= baseball practice
Wed= soccer practice
Thurs=baseball game
Fri=what...no games or practice?? what will we do?
Sat=baseball game & soccer practice
Sun=soccer game
Sounds fun doesn't it?? Jayce is going to be exhausted! He might have to maybe just play soccer in the fall and baseball in the spring...two sports at once is madness!! And to think I was going to throw golf into the mix right now too! Glad I opted not to! I'm thinking about maybe getting him private golf lessons this summer because both soccer & baseball end the 1st week of June so what is he suppose to do all summer??

KC

We had a GREAT time in Kansas City last week. It's pretty rare that it is just the three of us, so it was good, quality bonding time! At one point, I asked Jayce if he was getting sick of just being around his dad and I and he said "No, because if I said YES, that would be mean!" hmmm....so I take that to mean yep, he was getting tired of just us!! We left on Thursday and came back on Sunday. We ate at a lot of GREAT places...if you are ever in KC, we highly suggest you visit Hereford House. It's a steakhouse and their food was amazing!! Dustin wants to drive to KC just to go to dinner there! We also went to Crown Center and the Plaza (however Dustin wouldn't let me out of the car at the Plaza!) TORTURE!! It was pretty cold and it was packed due to the NCAA basketball tournament being in town (side note: speaking of basketball, I'm in FIRST in the brackets in the pool at work...no idea how! I just randomly picked!) We took Jayce to a family fun center place and we bowled and played mini golf. Jayce got to swim every night at our hotel. It was a good time and I think we will try to do little trips like that more often. We have already started saving our change again! We had a big, empty, Jack Daniels' bottle that we kept telling Jayce that once we got it filled, we would take a vacation. We had close to $200 in the bottle just in change and we haven't been really saving our change for that long!!

I picked Jayce up from school today and his Principal cornered me and said that she is going to create a special group of just 4 1st graders to help challenge the advanced kids. She said she really wants Jayce to be in the group and asked if I would be okay with that?!? UM, HECK YES!!! This is what I have wanted them to do ALL year long so he would actually be challenged!!!! She is going to have the group of Jayce and 3 other students meet EVERYDAY!! THANK GOD!!!! I told her that I have tried talking to his teacher about giving Jayce special assignments or doing something more geared towards his abilities and gotten nowhere. I'm really excited about this and Jayce will be too! He loves to learn & be challenged! He gets in trouble for talking when the teacher is talking...well duh, it is because he already knows what she is teaching!! I have told her this MULTIPLE times too! YEAH...I'm so excited!!! Too bad there is only 2 months of school left but oh well, maybe if this group meeting daily works out, it will continue NEXT year!!

Conferences

Dustin and I went to conferences tonight. Same story everytime. Academically, Jayce is AWESOME!! Best at everything in his class...math, reading, writing, etc. He is reading at a level M which is where he should be reading at the END of 2nd grade but she also said that Jayce can read anything they put in front of him so he is probably at a higher level but they didn't test him any higher because the content of the books at the higher levels gets a little deep for 1st graders....WHAT?? If he is able to read at a higher level, I think his brain is probably able to de-code the deep context of 3rd grade level books! We always hear the same thing that Jayce likes to talk over the teacher and the kids focus on Jayce. Well, maybe if they were ACTUALLY teaching Jayce something he didn't already know, then he would listen. But when they are teaching stuff that he already knows, he doesn't need to listen. I'm not saying it is ok that he talks when the teacher is talking but I have discussed with her several times about different things that I think she could try to actually CHALLENGE him and he wouldn't talk so much but she doesn't listen! My child LOVES to learn and if he is working on something he doesn't know...he is very focused and concentrates but when they are counting from 1 to 100 in 1st grade (which he has been doing for years), yes, he is going to be a distraction! I'm a little frustrated if you can't tell but I don't know what to do about it!
It's Spring Break and I'm still trying to figure out where we can go next Thursday-Sunday. I'm thinking we might just go to Kansas City. Jayce hasn't been there since he was 2 I don't think.

AGH

So Jayce is feeling better but Dustin has been sick since Thursday and I am starting to feel like crap too...sore throat, chills, headache. I think it's just an AWFUL cold so I'm trying to fight it off before it gets any worse. We'll see!
Jayce got to go see Toby Keith in concert last weekend and he had a GREAT time! It was his first concert at a big arena and he really seemed to love it!! He was singing along and dancing to the music! Can't wait until Jayce is singing in those big arenas!! :o}
We went to two Iowa Chops hockey games this past weekend. We are becoming big fans of the Iowa Chops (even though they USUALLY lose when we go to the games). Jayce enjoys watching the games most of the time.
Spring break is coming up. Our trip to Denver is a no go now (long story) so I'm trying to figure out somewhere that is fairly close that we could go to. Lots of places/hotels are already sold out since it is a spring break week. Hopefully, we will figure something out to do.

Weekend

Jayce is finally feeling better!! He had a busy weekend last weekend. Friday, I went to school for his Friendship (aka Valentine) party. Highlight of the party for me...one of Jayce's friends told Jayce that he thought his mom was cute & hot! YESSSS!!! :o} Jayce was caught a little off guard by his friend's comment and didn't really know what to say back to him. It was funny until the little boy got in trouble for his comments! Then we came straight home and stayed in. We got 7 1/2 inches of snow on Friday afternoon. Saturday, Jayce was a 'butler' at my niece's, Kinley, 5th birthday party. She had a fancy tea party with some of her friends and they needed a butler and Jayce was just the boy for the job! Saturday night, we went to the Iowa Chops hockey game. It was a good time. Jayce really gets into the game and was in his seat chanting 'fight, fight, fight.' I informed him not to get any crazy ideas about ever playing hockey because it is pretty much the only sport I won't ever let him play. It's way too violent but fun to watch!

Monday (President's Day) Dustin & Jayce neither one had work or school so they got to have a father/son day. For Valentine's Day, I had gotten them both a bucket full of stuff for their next father/son day like new movies, new videos games, sodas, candy, popcorn, giftcard to taco john's (because I refuse to eat there), etc. So they had a fun day hanging out & making good use of the stuff that I had got them.

Now that wrestling is over, we have two more free nights during the week...that is until soccer, baseball, & golf starts!!

PS-I have pictures from the friendship day party & from Kinley's birthday party that I will try to upload in the next few days. I'm not very good at downloading my pictures from my camera very often.

Sick AGAIN!

My conversation with Jayce at 3:30am
Jayce: "Mom, I had a dream about triangles attacking my ear & now my ear hurts!"
Jamie: (half sleeping) "WHAT?"
Jayce: "I had a dream about triangles attacking my ear and now my ear hurts!"
I was very confused so Jayce climbed into my bed. I just figured that he had slept on ear funny or something. Well, he was awake tossing and turning from 3:30am until 6am. So needless to say, I was awake too! I was yelling at Jayce to please just go back to sleep and he was crying because his ear hurt so badly. We got out of bed at 6am got ready and I took him to urgent AGAIN! Second visit in less than a week! The dr looked into the ear that wasn't bothering him and said "oh wow...that ear is RED!" - next ear (the one that he was complaining about), she said it was BRIGHT red and the worst ear infection she had ever seen! So now, I was feeling horrible because I didn't believe he had an ear infection because he was running a fever. Jayce has never had an ear infection and NOT had a fever too. He seems to be feeling better...he is all drugged up on cough medicine & antibiotics. HOPEFULLY, we have a more peaceful night's sleep tonight!
Jayce really wants to go to school tomorrow...it's Friendship Party day! I just finished his box for his valentines. I'm going to bed myself, I didn't function too well today on 4 hours of sleep! Beware of TRIANGLES attacking ears! :o)

New Blog Location

Ok, so I wasn't very good at updating Jayce's shutterfly blog because shutterfly wasn't very user friendly and I was always have to submit and resubmit journal entries and they wouldn't post correct. I have heard that blogger is alot more user friendly so we are going to give it try!

I haven't updated his shutterfly blog since Halloween I think so there is alot to update everyone on so this one might be a little long!

Jayce turned 7 in November. He had a party at a indoor playground place with his family and some school friends. Christmas was good & Jayce was spoiled as usual. He got a Nintendo DS...the one thing that he really really wanted! Along with a new MP3 player, Nintendo DS games, his very own tool kit (from Great Grandpa Gene & Jayce thinks having his own tools is pretty cool! Thanks Paw), night vision goggles, a karaoke machine, movies, books & lots more that I'm sure I'm forgetting.

Wrestling started in December and he had practice on mondays & wednesdays. He really improved in wrestling this year over last year. Jayce had a scrimmage two weeks ago and we got to go watch and Jayce pinned the kid! He wrestled in only his 2nd tournament this past weekend. The first match he was got pinned (oops!), second match - he beat the kid 15-0, third match - he lost 9-4 but in his defense...he has had a horrible cold for about the last 5 days and by the third match, Jayce was starting to cough and was having trouble breathing. We think he probably could have beat the last kid if he wouldn't have been sick! If he wrestles next year, we will go to more tournaments so he can get more experience...BUT he did improve! Last year, he got pinned in both of his matches!

Jayce will be playing soccer, golf, & baseball coming up. Dustin is going to be his baseball coach...we'll see how that goes! Wish us luck!

We will be taking a long weekend to Denver in March over Jayce's spring break. Jayce hasn't flown before so we figured a short flight to Denver would be good for his first flight. Jayce's Granny Connie is going to meet us in Denver and we will get to visiting our friend Natalei who lives in Denver too.

Guess I should probably talk about Jayce's schooling. He is doing awesome in school still. Reading well above his grade level. They gave him a reading test and he was able to read 158 words per minute with 100% accuracy & 100% comprehension! I don't know if I can read 158 words per minute!! He still gets in trouble occasionally for talking but his teacher pretty much refuses to challenge Jayce by giving him harder stuff to do so I think he is bored. She even told me that Jayce knows everything that she is teaching the other kids! Just great huh??
THINGS UPCOMING THIS WEEK:
Jayce is having a 'friendship' party at school on Friday (when did they become 'friendship' parties instead of Valentine Day parties?!?). I'm going to go to school on Friday afternoon for the 'friendship' party! On Saturday, Jayce is going to play the role of a butler at my 5 year old niece's birthday tea party! Then, we are going to go to a hockey game on Saturday night. Should be fun!
Let's see...I can't think of anything else to report right now. I'm sure as soon as I post this I will remember something else that I should have added. I PROMISE TO DO BETTER AT UPDATING THIS BLOG!!!