Here is some ketchup!

I have been quite the slacker with this blog! 

I will say that I will try to be more on top of it, but I can't promise. Now that I am back in school, blogging has to take a back seat! I will blog when I have time, like right now! :)

Tyler and I on Christmas Eve. We had just finished laying out the gifts for our little Macer!

  

The before picture! (Sorry, there isn't an after picture. I am sure you can imagine what it looked like.)

 Christmas Morning! Mace wasn't sure what to do, he was content with the bottle and blanket.

Daddy and Mace getting ready to tear into those gifts!

 Look Mace, you got a red car!

As you can tell, he still wasn't too into the whole gift thing.

He got a Hippo Flashlight, that laughs a funny laugh.

And, as you can tell, it brought a smile to this little face!

Forget about the rest of the gifts, Mace is a happy camper!

Mace got a sled, snow clothes, cars, play dough, a play dough bench, the hippo flashlight, a car track and a dinosaur puzzle. When we opened the puzzle, Mace started saying, "rawr" over and over! 

For New Year's Eve, I had to work. Tyler and Mace went to bed before the new year hit. I guess that means we are pretty boring! Work was great though. The nurses had a competition to see who could care for the more people coming in because they were drunk! It was a pretty crazy night!

On the second day of the New Year, we drove to Delta for a family Christmas party. We forgot our camera, so sadly I don't have any pictures. :( It was a great day and we had so much fun being with the family.

On the forth day of the New Year, I had my twelve week appointment with my OB. I took Mace with me, which I will never do again! (Unless Tyler is with me.) It was a quick appointment, which I was grateful for because of Mace. He was a little freaked out by the doctor and I think Mace thought he was the patient. We listened to the heart beat, which was such a comforting sound to me. I got the flu a few weeks before Christmas, and had some pretty painful cramping. I was worried about the baby, but everything seemed to be great!

On the fifth day of the New Year, Tyler's younger brother, Brad got married! It was a beautiful day. Brad and Liz were so cute and happy! It was neat to be in the temple with Tyler's parents and all of his siblings. 

Roy and Donna looked so nice!

 Mace looked like such a stud! (Thanks Whitney for letting Mace borrow Cooper's clothes!)

All of the cousins. Mace. Sadie. Brenner. Meredith.

Mace and Grandpa!

While I was working last Friday night, everyone went to the Clark Planetarium! Mace weighs 31 pounds! He is not far behind his cousins at 37lbs and 45lbs!

Skiing up Mill D North

I went skiing with Greg and John on Thursday up Mill D North in Big Cottonwood.  It has been snowing like crazy for the past week.  Below are the 7 day snow totals for the Wasatch front ski resorts:  

It is amazing that Solitude has received almost 8 feet of snow in a week!

Here is John on the way up "Short Swing".

Greg and John

John and Greg at the top of "Short Swing".

The snow was so dense and slow that we couldn't really turn on our way down Short Swing without stopping.

John 

Greg

We decided to head towards "Tom's Hill" in hopes of finding some steeper terrain.  In order to get to Tom's Hill we had to go through some dense trees in some really heavy slushy snow.  You can't really tell from the picture of John below, but we were all really struggling at this point to just make it down the hill.

On our way up Tom's Hill we decided to dig a snow pit to determine the avalanche danger.  Here is John conducting the modified rutschblock test.  We determined the snow to be quite stable despite the heavy new snow.

We ran into some skiing celebrities on our way to Tom's Hill.  Andrew McLean and Bob Athey  It was cool to see them in person as we all follow their blogs during the winter.  Andrew McLean and his partner started up Tom's Hill around the same time we did.  By the time we made it to the top, he and his partner had already made it to the top, skied back down, and climbed back up the 1,000ft or so again.

At the top we were treated to an awesome view of Big Cottonwood canyon with clouds filling up the valley.

Here is Greg on his way down Tom's Hill.  The snow was still heavy, but with it being a little steeper it turned out to be awesome.

John

One more panoramic view from the top of Tom's Hill

Greg hit the "jump" I told him too.  Turns out it wasn't really a jump, but more a bush partly covered in snow. He ended up crashing shortly after I took this picture.  It was worth it to get this picture though, right Greg?

"What is your definition of scary cold?"

Mace and I went backcountry skiing with my dad last Saturday.  It is a little stressful trying to go skiing with little Mace.  You want to avoid even the most remote chance of an avalanche, so you have to scratch most places off your list.  You want to avoid trees and rocks too.  You want to be able to make it to the car quickly, so no tours where you have to hike out.  And, of course, you want to make sure that your little dude is warm enough.  Do you think Mace was dressed warm enough?

Does this remind you of anyone?  Gorge perhaps?

Or, maybe the kid on "A Christmas Story"

Mace rode on my back.  My dad carried all the essentials. 

It was a beautiful day.  We went up Grizzly Gulch by Alta. 

Mace was a real champ.  He slept for about an hour, and seemed really happy for the rest. 

I couldn't actually see Mace the entire time; so when we weren't around my dad, I got out the camera and took videos of him to see if he would smile.  If I saw a smile, I figured we were good to go for another 5 minutes or so.

 

When the clouds broke, you could see the most amazing blue sky

My dad 

Mace liked to get a reaction out of me when he would kick my bum with his Lightning McQueen boots.

Then, as we neared 10,000ft, tragedy: 

The binding on my skis snapped without warning.  I was terrified for a few minutes as I thought about how long it would take to hike back down.  It wasn't that we were that far away, it was that you sunk to your knee in the soft snow when you weren't on your skis.  All of the sudden we were a couple hours away from the car instead of 15 minutes.  Turns out, I was able to ski down alright as long as I kept in a left turning tele-stance.

We made it down in about 30 minutes.  Even with the broken binding limiting the skiing, it was still awesome.

Mace and my dad back at the parking lot. 

We are so excited!

Guess What??

We are having another baby!

SURPRISE!!

We are due July 20, 2011. (Mace was due on August 20, so I am hoping to go early again!) So far, things have been pretty similar to our pregnancy with Mace. I feel lucky that I haven't been that sick, though I am tired a lot of the time.We had our first appointment on December 3. It is amazing to be able to see our little one and hear its tiny heart beating! It is so fun to think about how this will change our family! We are excited that Mace is going to be a big brother!

This is the picture from the ultrasound. 

(The little white mass inside of the the blackness is the baby!)

Time to start guessing. Boy or Girl? I want both, so I am really excited to find out what we are having!

My family thinks it is a girl and Tyler's family thinks it is a boy!

The Dinosaur Playground

South Town Mall has a little playground that is so much fun! It is all about dinosaurs. I think it is really good for Mace to be around other kids and learn how to take turns playing.

Mace loves to peek through the holes in the rib cage behind him.

He rode on this dinosaur for most of the time we stayed to play. I think he thought he was a "big kid" because he could get on and off of it all by himself. 

This video isn't too exciting, but I wanted to include it anyways.

Turning 25!

This was the most fun birthday I think I have ever had! Tyler and I went to Incredible Pizza in Draper. It was seriously so much fun! We ate tons of food, raced each other with go karts, teamed up to play laser tag, scored better than I ever have in bowling, and celebrated a hole in one at mini golfing!

Tyler surprised me right before we went to bed, by giving me roses and a really sweet letter! I love him so much!

Thanks Babe for such a fun birthday! You made my day!