Our New House

After many days, weeks, and months of looking at houses online and in person, we finally found a house that we like. It is located in a small town about 20 miles east of downtown Nashville called Mt. Juliet. It is out in the country on 1.4 acres. The house is smaller that the house in Denver, but it suites our needs. It was just built and is all brick with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a 2 car garage. We are not sure what to do with all the acreage, but I'm sure we have our work cut out for us. The builder cleared away about half the land and the other half.........has potential. It has a huge lawn which was just seeded. Jace is already enjoying all the room to run and explore. We are really excited about it and are supposed to close on Sept. 7th. We hope you all can come visit soon.

Angie's Cards

I have recently gone on a card frenzy. I enjoy making them and they are really easy. Blaine continues to ask me who I am making all of these for and the only answer I have is, "No one right now, but I will be prepared. It's just fun." So they are starting to overtake our small apartment and if anyone is interested in some, I am cheap labor. They are available as a pack or individually. Sorry the pictures aren't great, but if you want a better close up, just let me know. No pressure.

Nature Ride

We took a bike ride along one of the many rivers here. It was really hot, but we had a great time. It's a popular spot with lots of trees and bridges. A lot of runners, walkers, and other bicyclists enjoying the morning. Jace was trying out his new bike seat for the first time. We thought he was enjoying himself until we realized that he had fallen asleep about 3/4 of the way through the trip. Must have been a comfy seat.
1. Near the end of the ride. Jace is asleep with his arm sticking through the outside of the seat.
2. Along the river. The speck is Jace and Angie.
3. One of the train bridges we went under. The speck is Blaine.
4. At the beginning of the ride when Jace was conscious.

Walking the Tight Rope

Jace has been walking on his tippy toes forever it seems. He has just recently started doing it on command so getting pictures of it (for blackmail later) was much easier. I'm sure he is doing it to strengthen his calves for his future basketball career. He's not the ballerina type.............is he?
Sorry I couldn't figure out how to turn the pictures.

GUM

Well the secret is out! Jace loves gum! I was on the computer yesterday with Jace in the room with me. He walks out and shuts the door behind him, which he is good at, but he has yet to master the art of opening doors. Anyway I was okay with him being in the other room, I thought he was playing with his toys. After a while I noticed that it was awfully quiet so I went to investigate. Upon opening my door, I find a little guy with a big mouthful of gum, wrappers and all! When he saw me, he hurried to put the piece he held in his hand in his mouth, but luckily I intercepted in time. Looking into the package, I only found one and a half pieces left, so upon my calculations, he had about 6-7 pieces in his mouth. I have found out the hard way in the past that Jace has an unbelievably strong pair of chompers, that was why I wasn't too keen on sticking my fingers in his mouth to retrieve the wad of paper and gum. But being the brave and hopefully good mom I am, I put that all aside for the good of my son. I tell you, it took awhile to coax him into relaxing his jaws and then wedge my fingers inside, but we all turned out fine. No bitten fingers just really fresh minty breath.

Jace the Acrobat

Yesterday while Blaine was at work, Jace and I decided to clean the car. Blaine has recently been taking the car to work because of high gas prices and as a result, the car has dust everywhere. On this particular day, Blaine drove the truck and I decided to give the car a good cleaning. So with Jace tagging along, I loaded my arms up with cleaning supplies and we headed outside. Jace is usually content, even vigilant, about staying in the driver's seat playing with the steering wheel and all the knobs and buttons. That being said is the reason I thought I could clean the car and keep him happy at the same time. So now the cleaning is underway and things are going pretty well. We have the windows rolled down to get what little breeze there is and Jace is happy and Mom is busy. After a while things get a little hairy. It is really humid out and Mom is sweating profusely and Jace isn't so content with the driver's seat and has now mastered the art of climbing from one seat to another, even into the back seats. As we are nearing the completion of the cleaning, Mom is in the middle of the back seat, scrubbing like crazy while Jace is in the front passenger seat playing around. When the next thing I know, I hear the sound of a door opening and look up to see Jace hanging on to the door through the open window that is now swinging open. He does have a good grip on things, but is consistently slipping lower and lower. I scramble out of the back seat and around my open door just in time to catch him. He had somehow unlocked the door without me knowing it, reached out and opened the door from the outside and pushed it open. Mother of the Year!!! At the time I was pretty upset with him, but Blaine and I got a good laugh out of it later that night.

A Day in Jace's Life

Well we have finally returned to Tennessee. Blaine is glad that we are home (or so he says). The flight back was a little challenging because it just happened to be the day that I come down with the stomach flu. To make a long story short, the trip could've been better, but I am glad that we are finally home and that everyone is healthy. I hope you enjoy the pictures of our trip. We had a great time and Jace loved being there in the "wide open spaces". I thought these were some of the good ones. Thanks to my family for having us for so long. We love and miss you already. And to Blaine's family- it was good to see you and hopefully next time, it will be a longer visit.
1. Jace is a future Mozart--that is unless the NBA picks him up.
2. Jace and his cousin Ashlee
3. My brother, Justin, who returned home from a mission in Chile with my older brother Westy.
4. We were able to make a trip to Rexburg to see the temple.
5. Mr. Cool with his shades and mohawk.
6. Covered in grass as we flood irrigated the yard.
7. A few members of the Pickup family after a long ride.
8. Jace and his cousin Lucy. They are great friends.

Home Away From Home

I may have disappointed a few people here with setting up a blog and only posting once. I am now here to redeem myself. Jace and I have been visiting my family in Idaho for the past few weeks. (is that a good excuse?). One of my brothers returned home from his mission in Chile and we were able to be here for his homecoming. Blaine also flew out for a week, but he felt like he needed to return home for something called work. Jace has had an absolute wonderful time here "on the farm". With all the animals and space, he doesn't seem able to squeeze enough time into each day to do everything. We have tried to spend a lot of time outside, since we don't get out much in Nashville because of the heat and humidity. I have also been enjoying it. I hadn't realized how nice it is to have a constant babysitter willing to watch Jace whenever I needed. Daliss, you've been a great help!! Blaine went home a week ago and Jace is missing his daddy. We return home next week and we will be ready. It has been nice to visit, but our real home is in Tennessee where we are together. Some good news is that we finally sold our house in Denver after nearly 6 months on the market. What a relief and blessing. We closed on it last week and we are anxious to start house hunting in Nashville. We have been there nearly 6 months and time has really flown by. We hope to return to the West for a Christmas visit. We have decided that we need to work on our Southern accents and get used to feeling wet all day because of the humidity. We weren't even really good with dry heat. I will try to do better with updates in the future so until then........