Gosh, did Christmas even happen?  December was such a blur and now it's a new year already!  AND...Jace is 4 years old now!  Can you believe it?  I sure can't.  He's getting so big so fast it seems and I hate it.  I want my boy to stay little and sweet.  The last two weeks have been great since I had to take them off, I got to spend them with Jace.  Thankfully soccer is over and we took a break from swimming due to a bad cold and fluid in his ears, so the entire day was ours.  So here's the latest from birthday to New Years...

For Jace's birthday he wanted to eat at home so Bamma and PopPop came over.  Jace's choice for dinner was pizza and jello.  He made his own pizza and had orange jello with mandarin oranges in it and of course whip cream on top!  For his cake he just wanted white cupcakes with white frosting so I made little ice cream cone looking ones for him.  I think his favorite present was the Hungry Hippo game (personally not my fave, very noisy).

On Christmas Eve we went to our church service which was held outside (bet you Oregonians can't say that!).  Afterward they had a bunch of stuff for the kids to enjoy.  There was snow brought in to sled on and a petting zoo and a wagon train ride.  When we got home we made brownies with Bamma and took them to two of our local fire departments to show our appreciation.  I guess Bamma and Jace see them in the store all the time and they are always super nice to Jace.  That night was no different...they gave him a fire hat and gave him a tour.  He got to sit up on the engines and everything.  At one of the stations they even got a call while we were there and had to rush off.  He was super excited!  Bamma and PopPop stayed the night so they could see Jace's face when he woke up Christmas day to find his presents.  All Jace told Santa he wanted for Christmas was the big dinosaur and he sure must have been a good boy this year because Santa delivered!  We just hung out at home all Christmas day and enjoyed being with family.  Gavin came the next day and got to spend a week with us.  They spent a lot of it playing Xbox 360 together (kills me to see Jace play that so well already!).

New Year's Eve was pretty mellow.  We ate homemade tamales at Bamma's house for lunch and then went to see the Bedtime Stories movie.  We all agreed it was pretty good.  We went home and relaxed a little and then Bamma and PopPop came over again to bring in the new year with us.  We had some snacks and then staged and early New Year for Jace at 9pm because he can't make it to midnight (I barely can anymore).  He slept right through the true New Year and we went to bed pretty quickly ourselves after it was over.  On the 2nd Gavin flew home and it was PopPop's big 60 birthday!  He didn't want a big shindig though, so we just went to dinner and then to their house for dessert.  Jace kept insisting he was going to get PopPop the Hungry Hippo game for his happy birthday (that's how Jace says it).  Thankfully we were able to detour that idea at the last minute and he was content to give him a light for the BBQ so he won't use Jace's Wall-E one anymore.

So that sums up the end of 2008 for us as we welcome 2009.  May it bring you (and us) all health and joy.  It can only get better right?!   :o)  Oh yeah, and don't forget to check out the new pics in the gallery!

Just a quick side note...Jace's other grandpa Poppy (my Dad) got his double lung transplant after only being on the list for a short time and is having an amazing recovery so far.  All I can say is there is a God and he does answer prayers when you least expect it!