getting ready for school

After he came upstairs to use the bathroom by himself, yelling at Joel to "stay there, no come here", he proceeded to ...Joel snapped these pictures of the little man getting ready.

Easter party

There is really not much in life better than the genuine excitement of a little boy finding the treats left for him while he slept on Easter morning. Our morning routine needed to start a little early today since the Easter church service was half an hour earlier than normal. We are pretty much always late and wanted to try to do better today. Jace practically jumped out of bed from a deep sleep at the whisper that the Easter bunny may have visited. He followed a trail of eggs down the stairs to find a small Easter basket waiting for him. Yes, he did have jelly beans before breakfast today.

At the 8 a.m. service Jace was the only kiddo in his classroom so he got lots of attention which I think he enjoyed.

At Gary and Elaine's house Jace was able to join the neighbor grand kids in their egg hunt and then take a nap before the Wyoming family arrived for dinner.

It was a fun day. Jace played cards and hunted eggs and chased imaginary monsters with all the cousins. He got lots of laughs with his repeated protests to being called Darling by Great Aunt Bonnie. Every time she said, "Oh, isn't he just darling." Jace would reply very clearly, "I not darling. I Jace Daniel Palmer."He got a little help from Daddy during the egg hunt.

Happy Easter everyone!

colored eggs and tall towers

The night before Easter at Palmer's house. We colored eggs, watched Jace build towers and enjoyed some Chinese food.Jace carefully puts the finishing touches on his colored eggs.Lots and Lots of stickers!
A little builder's latest accomplishment.

Zoo trip - Sat. April 16

A look back at last week's zoo outing. It was a beautiful Saturday. We got some great pictures on the carousel. Jace is learning how to make faces for the camera. He has his standard "smile" face which is a hilarious tightened face with squinty eyes and a puckered mouth. When you tell him to smile, he looks more like he just sucked a lemon.During the short carousel ride I snapped lots of pictures. I just kept trying to get an image that showed how excited he was. My favorite was this one: he was really hamming it up.That's Joel's hand - good thing he is there to make sure the two of us don't fall off the ride while we are goofing around.

Here's the "Let's do that again." Real smile picture.And here is what he looked like 7 minutes into the ride home from a super fun morning at the Zoo. He has a brand new elephant to add to the menagerie that is his bedroom and he is snoring softly.

BINGO was a ...

Jace has a new take this evening on a traditional tune: There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name. CAT. B I N cat, cat. B I N cat, cat, cat. B I N G cat and Bingo was his name O. Cat. Happy Birthday today to Aunt Kadra. Hope you have a great birthday. Can't wait to see you in May.

Our little builder

Saturday night is was warm enough to play in the backyard with shorts on. Sunday it snowed most of the day.

On Saturday, Jace discovered the wood scraps that Joel kept from the fence building project last summer.

Jace is quite the builder. Tunnels are his specialty.I did not help with construction. It took a couple tries for him to get the tunnel wide enough for his trucks to fit through.

On Sunday night he was upset to see the blocks and trucks covered in a blanket of spring snow.

that's better

As I lay down with Jace to read a story at bedtime. He said, "I smell your hair Mommy. Your hair smell nice."

Really?

This morning I was helping Jace finish up in the bathroom when he said, "Mommy, you stinky." This from a boy who pooped his pants 3 times yesterday. I went straight to the shower.

Spring Break's end

The spring break week flew by. My one large goal was to work on potty training with Jace. I am very pleased to report he is doing great, much better than I expected him to be doing at the end of the week. He is super cute in his "big boy pants" and I'm pretty sure he can run faster now.The first few days of potty training looked like this (every 30 minutes, when the timer sounded). The cartoons were the reward for trying. Now that he is getting the idea, we can spend a lot more time playing and not so much time worrying about trying to potty.

The weather this week was mild but pretty windy. We got outside a little bit each day. Our attempts at flying the kite were frustrating because the wind was gusty and changed directions a lot. Also, Jace didn't understand what we were trying to do with the kite so he would grab it and take off running, even when the kite string was wrapped around him. We switched to hitting baseballs off the T. It was our own version of spring training.Joel was trying to show Jace the way to hit. Jace just wanted to do his own thing. This shot cracks me up.The last day of spring break, Jace and I spent the morning at home. I did some chores while he used the paint program on the computer and moved every book he owns out of his room and into the hallway. So much for getting any spring cleaning done. This afternoon Jace got a haircut and we enjoyed the best weather of the week by running around the park before dinner. I think we will have tons of fun this summer.