The Birth Story of Archer William Burnett

*****Disclosure***** This is a birth story, so it will be graphic-ish. Don't expect cute and fluffy. It will be the raw, unedited real deal!       

 I have been wanting to get this story written down for some time, but due craziness of the entire story, it has taken me some time to process everything, and put it into words. Archer's birth story is unique and very empowering for me. Enough with the intro though. Lets start at the beginning... ish...
      Imagine huge pregnant Kylee being a week over due. I was all sorts of miserable. No baby, feeling huge, trying so patiently to wait, and zero signs of baby coming any time soon. I asked my amazing friend and neighbor to do some foot zoning on me to help put me into labor. She came over on Friday, September 9th. She spent a couple hours working on me, and said that she felt like baby was close, but not quite ready yet, (but she also has a 48 hour "almost" guarantee to start labor). With that "almost guarantee" I figured Sunday would be the longest I would be pregnant. I certainly hoped anyway. Also, by this point, I had been losing pieces of mucus plug for the past 2 days, (for me this was weird, because with Jace I lost my plug while I was in labor. It all sort of happened at once). And to lose little pieces slowly was very different because I never knew quite how close I was to going into labor.
         Saturday, September 10th I woke up feeling just as normal as ever. I remember being slightly bummed that no baby came because Sue had worked on me, and I definitely wasn't in labor. The morning went like most Saturday mornings usually do. Paul mowed the lawn while Jace and I picked the garden and pulled some weeds. We came inside and had some breakfast/lunch when I started noticing a few contractions. I couldn't quite tell if they were real or Braxton Hicks because I had had so many BH contractions throughout my pregnancy. But I could tell that they were slowly starting to become consistent so Paul and I started to track them. I also asked Sue if she had some time to come work on my feet again, (with hopes that it would keep things going and help it progress). Paul had me text our midwife, Rachel, and let her know about the contractions. I didn't really think that I needed to, because I didn't think I was in labor, but I ended up sending Rachel a text with a heads up. She definitely thought that I was in labor. I refused to believe it because I felt WAY to good to be in labor. I just remember feeling miserable and puking with Jace. But she still seemed to think so.
       After we put Jace down for a nap, Sue came over to worked on my feet some more. I didn't really feel like contractions were picking up, (at this point they were inconsistently between 7 and 20 minutes apart but, but also not gaining any intensity), but they were definitely still going. We had a relaxing afternoon watching the office. I even tried to take a nap. 5:00 rolls around and still no baby.
       Our neighbors were having a party to watch the BYU vs UofU game which we had said we would attend if baby hadn't arrived yet. So we figured we would just head over, (it was literally 2 houses away), and if we needed to leave to come have a baby it would be a piece of cake. Contractions still hadn't picked up so I figured that we would maybe have a midnight baby or early Sunday morning baby so I wasn't too worried about getting things set up. Paul thought that we should at least inflate the birthing pool before we left, (yes we planned to have our baby at home), but I shrugged it off and said we would have plenty of time when we got home to set it up.
       The game starts and I'm still feeling same old same old. We have some snacks, and watch the game a little bit, but still no crazy increase in intensity or closeness of contractions. Rachel called and asked if anything had picked up. I said that it hadn't really picked up yet, (still thinking I'm not in labor). She suggested doing some movements to reposition the baby. She said he might just be mispositioned and thats why labor was somewhat stalled. I shared this information with my friend Meagan who suggested we go and do some rebozo to try to help coax babes into a better position. Meagan and I snuck away and walked back to her house to get her equipment, (by the way Meagan is an awesome doula so she is super knowledgeable about all of this stuff). Meagan had me lay on the floor almost in child's pose but with my butt sticking up in the air. I felt ridiculous, and I am sure I looked a little ridiculous as well, but she just pulled out her scarf and did her thing, and didn't even mention anything about how silly I felt. After about 10-15 ish minutes maybe less we decided to head back to the party.
       All the while I was continuing to track contractions. Once we got back to the party I noticed that my contractions started picking up a little bit. It was half time at this point so I was thinking Paul would for sure get through the game before we needed to head home. Slowly over the next few hours my contractions started to get closer and closer together as well as grow in intensity. The app on my phone told me probably every 3 contractions that it was time to go to the hospital. I just chuckled and didn't think much about it because 1, I feel like people go to the hospital way to early and just wait around doing nothing, and 2, I wasn't going to the hospital so I only needed 5 minutes to get home and I was good to go.
       All the wives were sitting in the kitchen chatting while our husbands were down the stairs watching the game. I remember sitting with the girls, just chatting, and then as soon as I felt a contraction come I would hit my timer. Then when the contraction would finish, I would hit my timer again. All the while just carrying on conversation and trying to keep myself distracted with what they were saying. As the football game progressed so did my contractions. Eventually they got to the point where I could not comfortably sit through a contraction, I needed to be standing up. This should have been my first sign that things were starting to progress. I think I was just recalling my labor with Jace, that even after contractions were close I was still pushing for several hours. I eventually texted my midwife to update her. I told her that they were getting more intense, and about 6 minutes apart. She said she would head out if I needed her, (she lives 40 minutes away). I replied that I wasn't sure, she would be a better judge if I was close enough or not. Rachel ended up calling me just after that text and told me that she would leave in about 10-15 minutes so as to arrive within an hour. At that moment I started having a contraction and continued to talk to Rachel on the phone through the contraction. She said, yeah, you should be fine, but I'll head out anyway.
       Now keep in mind this whole time, I was waiting for the moment when I could not talk through a contraction and I had to just stop and focus and breathe. Meagan said that that would be a good indicator that I was getting close. So being able to talk on the phone through a contraction was me thinking that I still had plenty of time left before I would be in transition. Meagan and Kaylene, (my amazing friends), were so great to talk with me, and encourage me, and even massage my back occasionally during a contraction. (They were pretty much awesome). And we still waited for my contractions to be too intense.
      The BYU game was basically over. Only 18 seconds left with no hope of BYU winning, so I told Paul that he needed to leave and go fill up the tub. I asked him to take Jace home with him and get the tub ready and I would be over. I started to collect my things and was headed out the door when I started to have another contraction. This time though, I started to feel a pressure as if I were just about ready to push. Not quite ready, but I certainly felt the pressure. I turned to say bye to my friends, then wobbled out the door. Halfway from Kaylene's house to mine I started having another contraction. Because of the pressure I had felt at Kaylene's I felt a sense of urgency to get home quickly, so I forced myself to walk through the contraction and get home. I came in the garage and headed down the stairs. I saw that Paul had the tub inflated and was in the process of filling it up. He was also frantically laying down plastic in the walk ways and such.
       I walked myself straight to the bathroom where I proceeded to undress. I was seriously SOOO hot at Kaylene's so all I wanted to do was strip out of my layers so I wouldn't be so hot. I switched into my sports bra and put on some basketball shorts then walked out to see how the tub was coming. (I really wanted to be sitting in the tub instead of standing in the hall). It wasn't even half full yet and I felt the urge to push. Along with this though I just knew I was going to poop because I totally hadn't pooped all day, (even though I had been trying so I wouldn't need to in labor. Like that would ever happen though right!). I told Paul that I needed some tissues right away. He handed me about 5 and I pushed, (and pooped) and grossly, caught the plopper in the tissues and wobbled back to the bathroom to flush it down the toilet, (and try to get some more out). Squatting in the bathroom I felt the urge to push, and I don't even remember pushing it just sort of happened, then a big pop came, and a huge gush of warm liquid splashed all over the floor in the bathroom. I yelled to Paul that my water broke and asked him to text the midwife letting her know that my water broke. I also sent a text to my friend Meagan, who I had asked to kind of doula/be a birth photographer letting her know my water broke.
       Paul ran in with Rachel on the phone, (he had texted her, and she called him back), telling Paul to get me off of the toilet and said be prepared because baby's head would probably start crowning soon, and obviously she wasn't going to make it to our birth in time. Paul pulled me up off the toilet, and held on to my legs because they were shaking like crazy. Right as Rachel said that baby would start crowning I said, "Paul, the baby is crowning."  Rachel heard and told Paul to reach his fingers up and make sure there was no umbilical cord around baby's neck. At this point Paul told Rachel that he needed to put her on speaker so he could use both hands. He set the phone down super fast, but before Paul could check and see if there was a cord around baby's neck, baby was sliding out and into Paul's arm. He was seriously holding me up with one arm and catching our baby with the other. Right after Paul caught babes, he looked and said, yeah, no cord around the neck. He quickly handed baby to me as our little guy took his first breaths and started crying. I was a little nervous at first because baby sounded gargly like there was a little bit of liquid in his lungs, but he was pink, and breathing, and I just felt really peaceful like everything was ok, so I stopped worrying and tried to take in the moment. I was also a little worried about hemorrhaging especially without a midwife there. But again, that peacefulness came over me and I didn't worry about it anymore.
         Ok, so keep in mind, that all of the above paragraph happened within a matter of minutes. Seconds almost. I have played it over and over in my head and it seems like it happened within the blink of an eye. Really it wasn't that fast, but seriously, two pushes basically and my baby was here. Now, Jace had rushed back to the bathroom with Paul, not sure of what was going on. He ended up getting to watch the birth of his brother. I hadn't fully decided if I wanted Jace there or not, but I guess there were other plans that had decided that he was going to be there. I hope he wasn't traumatized, but he seems ok right now.
       After Paul handed me baby, Rachel told him that I needed to lay or sit down and wait. Paul ran out of the room with Jace, took Jace upstairs to our sister in law, (who so graciously saved the day and watched Jace for the next 30-60 minutes), also yelled at Jess to turn the hose off upstairs because the pool was now about to overflow, and then rushed back to me in the bathroom carrying loads of towels. He gave me one to wrap around baby, (I was worried that he was going to be too cold), and put the rest on the floor to try and mop up the blood that was EVERYWHERE. Seriously, guys, white linoleum floors make red blood look really red! (thankfully I cleaned and disinfected the bathroom a few days ago on a whim). So here I am, laying on towels, my legs covered in blood, waiting for the midwives to show up. Paul is running back and forth trying to get everything sorted out (bless his heart), and baby and I are just chilling. I remember sitting there in disbelief that all of this had taken place so fast.
      Rachel's backup midwife, and apprentice showed up about 15 minutes after the birth. They started cleaning up some things, and checked me and baby to make sure that we were good, then set to work doing some more cleanup. I still hadn't delivered my placenta yet, nor had I felt the urge to push it out, so we were just chilling. 5-10 minutes later Rachel showed up. They pushed on my stomach to try to convince my uterus to contract and push out the placenta, but still nothing happened, then Rachel said, oh, its just sitting right here, give me a quick push Kylee. So as weird as it felt, I pushed, and out slid the placenta. Paul got to cut the cord which had long stopped pulsing at this point, and baby was free! I passed him off to Paul for a minute while the midwives stood me up and tried to clean up some of the blood that was coating my legs. I had wanted to take a shower, but there was no hot water left from filling up the tub, and they had already drained the tub so I couldn't get in it to rinse off. So I had a wet wipe bath for the time being.
       They got me cleaned up and walked me to my bed where I got to snuggle it up with cute babes. Paul brought Jace down to meet his baby brother, and we all spent a few minutes together just cuddling and snuggling. Then Paul took Jace and put him to bed. I was worried that with all the people and the commotion he wouldn't want to sleep, but he went down without a fuss, so that was really nice. I think the fact that he had spent the previous 4 hours running around with his friends, then got to bed 2 hours late really helped.
      Our baby was born at 9:38 pm. Not even joking you, he came 10 minutes or less after I got home from Kaylene's house. While I was 10 days over I fully expected to have a bigger sized babe. But our sweet boy weighed in at 7 lbs. 3 oz. It took Paul and me a good 12 hours to decide on a name for him. We had narrowed it down to 3, then to 2, and I felt like he could be named either, and I liked both equally. After prayer and thought, we decided on Archer. Archer William Burnett. William is a family name on my side of the family, and Paul's as well. We chose Archer because of the meaning behind it.  Archer means just that, a bowman. Someone who uses a bow and arrow. Even though Archer is going to be a younger brother I feel like his personality is going to be more of a protector, which, an archer would use his bow to protect. I also felt the connection to Nephi in the Book of Mormon, and the faithfulness that he had, despite his bow being broken, he was still able to provide for his family. It is hard to put in words the connection I felt to Archer's name, but there is my best effort. :)
      As I have pondered about our experience it has gone from a crazy whirlwind of emotion and memories,  to a spiritual and empowering experience for me. My biggest fear when asking Rachel to be my midwife was that she would not be there to attend my birth. It just worried me that she was so far away. But I also felt really good about choosing her to be our midwife. So despite my fears, we made the decision to choose her. I know, that while Rachel wasn't there for our birth, Paul and I were not alone in that bathroom. We had so many experienced hands helping us bring our sweet boy into the world. Even though they could not be seen, I know that they were there, each doing their part to keep me steady and on my feet,  directing Paul's hands where they needed to be, holding onto Jace while he stood there watching, and safely guiding baby here. I feel empowered because I know that I can do hard things. I am strong. And even though society thinks that women are inferior, I know we are not. Not that I would choose to deliver my next baby the same way we delivered Archer, I am so grateful for the acknowledgements I was able to make because of it.

These were the best pics we got of the night Archer was born. Jace looks so tired in this picture! But he was happy to hold his little brother. Poor Archer still has some blood on his head that hadn't been cleaned off quite yet. 

My sweet sweet boys! and look at me in the comfort of my own bed!! 

I see this picture and it reminds me that I don't have to be a "hot mess" to have a baby. Yes I don't look all dolled up or anything, but I don't look like what society thinks a mom looks like after they just have a baby. 

My sweet hubby holding our cute Archer. I told him that Skin to skin was the best thing, so I made him take his shirt off. :) 

     
     

Pumpkin Patch Adventures

       This year while all of the boys were at priesthood session of conference, all of us girls took the kiddos to the pumpkin patch. My super talented sister in law Jessica brought her camera with her and snapped some pictures of everyone. I seriously can't believe how well they turned out. The lighting was perfect. Jace had a blast doing his thing, and hanging out with his older cousins. At this particular pumpkin patch they had a slide that you had to climb up a hay pyramid to get to. Jace Loved climbing up and sliding down. They also kind of had a petting zoo with some goats and stuff you could feed.

      

  

Jace working his way up the hay to get to the slide 

At the top of the slide getting all ready to come down. 

Could that seriously not have been a better picture? Lighting is great, Jace is actually smiling, and the background is just perfect!

He actually attempted to pet the goats. 

The cute boy cousins all hanging out together. Jace really loves to play with Sage and Milo. He loves to hang out with the big kids and try to do what they are doing. 

Just a fun picture that Jess was able to snap of us. 

The lighting was getting dark around this time, but we coaxed another pumpkin patch goer to take our pictures for us. Amanda came, but she was in the car taking care of Ember. 

This was Jace's pumpkin. Of all the pumpkins in the patch, this is the one that he picked out and liked the most. 

This particular pumpkin patch had this awesome sandbox, only it wasn't filled with sand, it was filled with corn kernels! The boys had so much fun filling up the dump trucks and tractors that were in there. They also broke a lot of the rules that were posted, but we didn't see them until we were getting ready to leave. Ooops. Next year we will know better. 

'

This pumpkin patch also had a fun little corn maze. We saved the corn maze for last and did it on our way out. We kind of  actually got lost in this corn maze and ended up out side of it before the end. I don't really know how that happened, but I think it has something to do with Sage (4) being the maze navigator. 

Harry Potter World!!!! And other Florida Adventures

       In exchange for listening to a time share companies sales pitch, Paul got us a free hotel stay in Orlando Florida for 5 days. So we decided that we would make use of a free hotel and take a little vacation. The cute little Jace boy did not come with us on this trip. And Paul and I are ever so grateful that my parents and Kessla watched him for us so we could spend a few days reconnecting.
       We drove to my parents house on Friday June 12 and had dinner with them, and put Jace to bed there. After he was asleep we drove to Paul's parents house to park our car and get a ride to the airport (Paul's parents lived closer to the airport). We then had Peter drive us to the airport to catch our flight. I forgot how much I dislike taking red eye flights. They usually aren't bad, but I had the hardest time falling asleep. We left Utah at about midnight and arrived in florida around 6 their time, which is 4 our time. So we only got about 3 hours of sleep. After landing we got all situated with the time share people. Unfortunately we couldn't check into our hotel for another 4-6 hours. Our hope was to take a nap, then go to the beach, but we had to do it in reverse.The beach that we hoped to go to was about 2 hours away. Running on 3 hours of sleep it probably seemed like it was forever away. My amazing hubby let me sleep the whole drive, (he knows I don't handle lack of sleep very well), while he kept himself awake for the drive to the beach.
       We were told that there would be snorkeling, so we brought our gear. We were so excited to snorkel, until we got to the said snorkeling location and found nothing of the snorkeling type. We ended up mostly playing in the ocean, which, might I add is incredibly warm and amazing. The only down side was that I forgot my water shoes. I just hate touching the seaweed with my feet and feeling things with my toes that I can't see. Needless to say I was freaking out a little bit. But no worries. Paul thought it was hilarious and carried me around most of the time so I didn't have to touch the bottom.
     Some locals said that they saw a few manatee swimming and we looked and looked but couldn't find it. After spending a few hours at the beach, we were exhausted and figured that we should get to our hotel before we were even more exhausted. I can proudly say that I stayed awake the whole drive back to our hotel. Paul and I had to play 20 questions to keep me awake, but I did it! And I even beat Paul once!! We had an early night and got to bed so that we could be wide awake and refreshed for church on Sunday.

Playing on the beach after our red eye flight, three hours of sleep, and a 2 hour long drive to get here. It was overcast outside, but the water felt fabulous. Almost too warm! 

Even though we are married and have a kid, we still kind of love each other ;)

Paul was being camera shy. So I took a picture of him anyway

When Jace falls he makes this face, and does that pose with his hands. I had just tripped in the sand and decided to pose like Baby Jace just to be silly. 

      We only ended up going to sacrament meeting. Then we stopped and visited the temple because it was right across the street from the church building. In order to get our hotel for free we had to consent to going to a sales pitch for the Blue Green time share company. Our presentation time was at noon so after church and our temple visit we went to that. The sales presenter did a great job. Paul and I seriously considered purchasing a time share. It was seriously a difficult decision. But we know that we want to build a house and don't want to have lots of extra debt when we do. So we walked away without buying anything. We spent the rest of the evening on the Disneyworld board walk, eating dinner, and hanging out at the hotel. We tried to take it easy so that we would have lots of energy for the parks.

In front of the Orlando Florida Temple. It was so sunny!

Sitting in the shade at the temple

The front view of the temple

The Disneyworld Boardwalk

We walked all the way around the boardwalk and then found a fun little beach with a porch swing on it. Of course we had to go sit in the swing and take a picture of ourselves.

....and on of our feet

And on of Paul

We thought this was pretty sweet. Its Lady and the Tramp but the whole sculpture is made out of different kinds of greenery. Quite incredible. 

This is what Mimi and Papa let Jace do while Mom and Dad are away. 

      Our plan Monday was to get to the park a good 30 min before all the rides opened. We wanted to get a good parking spot and get a jump on the lines. We got to the parking lot around 8:30 and got going on our day. We went to Island of adventures first and rode the Hulk roller coaster. The wait was only 5 or so minutes so we breezed through it so quickly. It was great! Then we hit up the spiderman ride and a few others along the way to Hogsmeade. Somehow the lines weren't very long today. We rode almost all of the rides at Island of Adventure and barely had to wait. I think the longest wait was maybe 30 min tops. By around 6 we were hot, sunburned, out of cold water and exhausted. So we left the park early to have dinner and relax. The weather was so hot. 96* with humidity! Your clothes were seriously damp all day long. You couldn't do anything about it. Even if you weren't super hot the humidity made it seem like you were sweating like crazy anyway. We found this hole in the wall pizza buffet place for dinner. Eating dinner there for the both of us pretty much cost less than feeding one of us inside the park. Again we had an early night and pretty much crashed.
      Tuesday we changed up our game plan a little bit. We planned to get to the park early again, and instead of staying all day, we figured we would leave at lunch time, eat and rest, then come back and enjoy the rest of the park in the evening out of the hottest part of the day. We definitely enjoyed Tuesday a little bit more because of that. We started the day off in universal studios and hit up all of the rides and visited Diagon Alley. The park was definitely busier than it was yesterday. Despite getting into the park as soon as we did, there was still a crazy long wait for a lot of the rides. I think we actually did spend 1 hour waiting for the Harry Potter, Gringotts ride. We got as much fun in as we could until we got tired, then we left, got some lunch, and went back to the hotel to nap. We took a pretty decent nap, and then headed back to the park for the evening shows and the rest of the rides we missed. We got in a pretty good amount of rides in before they all closed. Then we just had to wait for it to get dark so we could watch the cool fireworks show-thingy universal does. We ate dinner at an old 50s diner and had delicious burgers and fries! The show was pretty cool. But nothing amazing. Mostly just little clips of some of the movies that Universal Studios has produced.
     Wednesday was our last day in Florida. We woke up early and tried to get everything all packed and ready to go. We got to the park around the same time we normally did with a plan to get on the Despicable Me ride very first. Both days we were there the wait was pretty much always over 65 minutes. So we stood in line and waited and did that one first. We still had lots of people in front of us, but the wait was only 30 minutes as compared to the 80 minute wait it became a few minutes after we got inside. We knew we would only have so much time at the park because we had to be at the airport around 6 so we tried to get in everything we could. We doubled up on some of the rides, and went to see as many fun shows as we could. We went to see a Fear Factor live show, and I am TOTALLY wishing that Paul and I would have auditioned. We could have done some pretty cool things like rappelling type stuff. But by the time we saw the show, we didn't have enough time participate in the next show.
      We made sure that during our stay we ate at the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade and at the Leaky Cauldron in Diagon Alley. Both atmospheres were so fun. Of course we tried the butter beer. Multiple times actually. Paul loved the stuff. I thought it was good, but it just tasted a whole lot like butterscotch and cream soda mixed together so I wasn't quite as oooh-ed and ahhh-ed as Paul was.
      Our trip home was uneventful. We dropped our rental car off, caught our flight, and got picked up from the airport. We had a late flight, and we knew Jace would be asleep already, so we just spent the night at Paul's parents' house and went to get Jace in the morning. We thought it was going to be this big fun event to see how Jace reacted to us coming to get him, but he didn't react a whole lot. He did just wake up from a nap and wasn't quite all all there, but he acted for a minute like he didn't even recognize us, or he was just being really shy with us. Eventually he warmed up to Paul and myself and didn't want to leave our sides for quite awhile after that.
     Florida was great, but man is it nice to be back in Utah weather. Its hot, but its dry hot.

Its Hogwarts!!!

And Hogsmeade!

We were so excited that we decided we should capture the moment on film!

Another view of the castle. It was so crazy how cool they made everything look!

They had lots of wand shops. There was always a line a mile long at Ollivander's Wand Shop to pick out your wand, so we snagged a shot of Gregorovitch's Shop instead.

The inside of Diagon Alley. There were tons of little shops and things to look at. They did such a fantastic job recreating it!

Paul hanging out in front of the Weasly's Wizarding Shop

Paul thought this was kind of silly so we snapped a picture. The owl post. They totally made it look like real bird poo! 

Waiting for the Hogwarts express at platform 9 3/4

So they had this really cool set up that made it seem like you could totally run through the barrier of 9 and 10 to get to platform 9 3/4. We tried to get a picture of it, but because they use mirrors for the effect you can't really see how well it works from a pictures. But the experience is priceless!

The lighting is bad, but this is Paul at the entrance to Dumbledore's Office

Hanging out by a cool looking door. On the Hogwarts ride at Island of Adventure, they made the wait for the ride really neat. It wound through the castle, kind of giving you a tour of Howgarts while you stand in line. It was pretty fun. 

Looking into the Pensive in Dumbledore's office

The sorting hat! 

Our first time having butterbeer. You could choose three different kinds, frozen, regular, or hot. With the temperature, we both got the frozen kind. So so good, and so so refreshing! 

We got some random strangers to snap a photo of us in front of the universal studios entrance. Gotta love strangers! 

We have a 1 year old!!

    It is hard to believe that Jace is one! I can't believe how fast the time has gone. I do think that living with Paul rather than apart from him has contributed to the speed of time. A little update on Jace: He isn't walking independently yet. He loves to speed crawl all over the place and walk holding on to things, but the little stinker just doesn't care enough to try it on his own. He had a lip tie and tongue tie revised a few weeks ago and has been not quite as friendly with strangers as he was before the procedure. Hopefully he will over come this phase or we will have long days ahead of us. He loves to play with cars, and basically that was his first word. Kah! he says and points to his cars. He also loves to play with daddy's basketball and soccer ball. He hasn't tried to say ball yet, but he always points to them when they are out of reach, and attempts to dribble the basketball when it is in reach. We are in a picky eater phase. He used to gobble up nearly everything, now its a hit and a miss with what he likes, even if he liked it before, there is no guarantee he will like it today. He hates it when Daddy leaves for the day, and usually makes me take him up to the garage so he can watch Daddy leave. But he also loves it when Daddy comes home. When he hears the door close, his ears perk up and he usually makes a beeline for the stairs to go greet Dad. I can still get Jace to take 2 naps, but I think its mostly because he doesn't sleep as long as most kids during the night. He gets 10 hours of sleep and is up for the day. But I will admit I do like having those two times during the day where I am awake and can actually take advantage of the time he is sleeping. He weighs 20 lbs 14 oz. and I guess he is now in the 20th percentile for height, weight and head circumference. He hasn't even gained a full pound since his 9 month checkup, but I think thats mostly because he has slimmed out a ton from crawling all of the place and being so active. He has 6 great big chompers in his mouth, and the looks of a few more coming soon. He loves to give kisses and has started making an attachment to a blanket and a stuffed animal. Its super cute. Jace keeps us on our toes and we love him to death!!

      The week of Jace's birthday was quite fun. Paul took Thursday and Friday off to spend some time with us. On Thursday, we went to the aquarium for Jace's birthday. We went with Paul's brother Eric, and their family. It was a hoot to have the nephews with us. Jace is at the age where he actually looks at the fish, and animals around him, so it was fun to see his reaction. He wasn't particularly keen on putting his arm in the cold water to pet the stingray, but he did it anyway. It was so cute to see his eyes go back and forth as the fish and jelly fish swam back and forth in their tanks. I am excited to see what he thinks of the zoo again the next time we go.
    Sage and Milo were so cute also. Sage was SO excited about everything! He was running wild all over the place and we were having a hard time keeping up with him! Milo was just as curious about everything. They all especially loved seeing the sharks! Man, that shark tank is so cool! I love how it is a tunnel and you can walk underneath it, and see the animals swimming all over the place! Pretty sure we stayed in the shark tunnel for a good 30 minutes!
     After the aquarium we made a stop at home, I went and tutored, and then we went out to dinner. Paul's work told him that he could take me out to dinner on them because he did such a fabulous job with one of their bigger audits. So we got to take Jace out to a pretty nice birthday dinner. I am sure we enjoyed it far more than he did, but thats ok!

Jace being all cutesy and posing in the shark tunnel

Seeing the turtles up close was so fun! This turtle in particular has an air bubble in her shell so she has a weight pack on her back to help her butt sink. As you can tell it still likes to float up. 

When we visited the penguins, they weren't very active. They were all just napping!! But Jace thought it was fun to grab the beak of one of the penguin posters. 

It was really cute to see Paul take Jace across the rope bridge! I feel like a lot of the daily adventures Jace and I have are without Paul because he is at work. But it was really nice to have him with us this time!

Paul and Jace playing on the Orcas in the play area

Almost like Lion King.... but you know, with killer whales instead ;)

Jace has developed a LOVE for driving the car. Whenever we walk out to the garage he always points his cute little finger at the car and says kah! and keeps pointing until we take him over to the car. He loves both standing in the drivers seat, or playing in the passenger seat. As long has he can turn the steering wheel or reach the buttons, he is a happy camper!

     Paul took Friday off of work as well. We used that day to get everything all put together for Jace's party. We ran some errands, and we went out to lunch together as a family. And we spent the rest of the evening putting food together for Saturday's party.
    For some crazy reason I couldn't sleep Friday night. I think I was just too excited about Jace's party. Yeah, it was weird to be sleepless over my baby's birthday, nevertheless I was. I was definitely tired Saturday, but I made it through without being too grumpy or cranky.
    Lisa Walters and her fiance Matt met us at the temple early Saturday to do sealings. I had called 4 or so days before to make an appointment so we could get in and out with enough time to finish prepping for Jace's party. When we got to the temple, they told us that they didn't have an appointment for us and that they were crazy busy with weddings. I heard this and just got so stressed out. We were on a time constraint and they didn't even have us penciled in! One of the temple workers asked if we wanted to sit in the celestial room and after 10 or so minutes check back in with them. We decided to go and sit in the celestial room. Paul was just enjoying himself calmly taking everything in, and I was trying so hard to not be stressed about getting home in time. I finally started to relax and the temple worker came to get us and tell us that they were able to work something out. They ended up having a few workers that had a few extra minutes before they had a marriage. We didn't have lots of time with them in the sealing room, but that was just what we needed. The sealers had to be at a wedding at the same time we needed to leave to get home. The Lord was definitely watching over us, and made sure that we were able to go to the temple, but still make it to what we needed to with enough time.
     As soon as we got home we got right to work getting the rest of Jace's party all set up. Thankfully we had some family members that came over early to help so we could get everything all set up in time. We had lots of fun with all of our family members and friends that came to celebrate Jace's first birthday. Paul would say that I went overboard, and maybe I might have just a little, but his first birthday was everything that I hoped it would be, so I am happy and satisfied!

Photo Credit for most of these pictures goes to my amazing sister in law Jessica Burnett! I did take a few with my not so great phone, and my friend Meagan Heaton gets credit for the video!!

Jace loves his books so I thought it would be fun to do a story book themed birthday party. That way guests didn't feel like they had to buy him some crazy gift, they could get a book for him new or used if they wanted to. It worked out really well. It wasn't quite as extravagant as some of the parties you might find on Pintrest, but everything turned out super cute! This is the food spread, minus the pigs in a blanket and green eggs with no ham. :)

Here is the cute cake table with the birthday banner. And yes, those are weights used to hold the sheet up to create a back drop. We aren't professionals here, we had to work with what we had :)

This is Jace's fun smash cake. The frosting had a few issues, and Paul did a jolly job and scraping a chunk off the back, but you definitely can't tell from this angle. For my first try piping frosting, I think it turned out pretty ok thanks to all those Pintrest tutorials!

Jace about to open the very first present. He actually got in to the whole ripping the paper and opening the bags part of his gifts. It was super cute! I think Christmas this year will be a hoot!!

Jace just looking up from one of his birthday books! 

He was seriously so excited about his books. I bet he would have been just as excited with toys, but the teacher in me was so glad that he just loved the books he got. 

Putting those hands up to throw that wrapping paper on the floor!

Now he wasn't too thrilled that we took him away from his presents to eat cake. He cried the first little bit. 

Sadly, this is about as intense as it got for his cake. Jace didn't really get into it quite as much as some other kids do. But he did try, and that was cute I though. He sort of poked the cake with one finger rather than getting all of his hands dirty. Paul ended up smashing his little hands into the cake to see if he would get a little more into, which he didn't. But thats ok!  

Jace is showing us that his hands are dirty and he isn't too excited about it. 

This was the party that happened after the party! Both boys went down for naps, and I spent a few minutes picking up, then took a nap myself! It was a long day, but so worth it. We loved having all of our family and friends over to celebrate Jace's birthday.