Jace's Open House and Science Fair

Jace's school had their combined open house and science fair this past Tuesday. Jace decided to do his project on the Water Cycle. He earned a science fair ribbon and a free homework pass for participating. Here he is with his project:
The poster he made from a digram we found on the internet. We printed the pictures and then he cut them out and reassembled them on his own poster, making his own title and name on MS Word.

A couple pictures of the jar...he filled the jar with a layer of rocks and sand adding a leaf to represent plants and a little pool of food colored blue water. Then we set it out in the sun before the fair for the water cycle experiment here is the proof that it works...a tiny blue speck of condensation shows that the blue water evaporated and then condensed on the side of the jar.

The whole thing

Jace's class did a Reading Restaurant, complete with menus. Jace served us stories in his Chef hat:

Back at the science fair, the boys enjoyed a demonstration of Boo Bubbles...a science experiment with water, soap and dry ice...the effect were these cloudy bubbles that would sit on your hand.

Happy Engagement Anniversary to us!

St. Patrick's Day marks 12 years since Matt asked me to marry him up on top a very cold and snowy mountain in Wolf Creek, Colorado. Pretty romantic idea, but for someone who hates being cold, it sucked to have to take off my gloves! I was very surprised, and of course, I said yes! I'm so glad I did...I love you, Matt!

In comemoration of that day, Matt brought roses home on St. Patty's Day...and no, they were not green! Here's a close up since I didn't think to take a picture until AFTER we got back in town from Amarillo...they were looking kind of sad...I picked the best one...

Amarillo Trip - FUN TIMES

Last weekend we had the pleasure of heading to my hometown, Amarillo, Texas, for my niece's (Chuck's 8-year-old daughter, Tecoa) baptism and my nephew's (Chuck's 7-week-old son, Benjamin) blessing. We took Jace out of school on Friday and left early that morning, stopping along the way in Lubbock to visit Matt's grandma, aunt and uncle, which was an added bonus.
We had not really planned on going due to the ambiguousness of the house progress and also because my sister, Heather (who lives in Midland), was due to have her 2nd baby any day and we didn't know what was going to happen with that. I had promised to come help her with Kade while the birth process was going on and I wanted to make sure I was available. But, by Friday, Heather had been having a few contractions, but nothing consistent for any amount of time. SO we decided to go on to Amarillo and check with Heather along the way about her progress. 1/2 of the way there, she was having contractions, but by the time we got to Big Spring, which would have been a great place for us to turn off and west toward Midland, things had stopped and we decided to keep heading north.


We made it to Amarillo and headed straight to our hotel to meet up with KATHI and her family!!! They came down from Colorado for the events and we got to stay together and hang. That night, we left our husbands with the kids, met Chuck in the lobby and headed next door to the Waffle House where we enjoyed each other's company over hot chocolate and Chuck's waffle (we all had a bite or 2). Kat and I were not used to not having a "no smoking" law and were grossed out to find that Amarillo doesn't have one...it was yucky but we had a great time anyway. We went back to the lobby for a little while to chat until Chuck got fed up with the aspect ratio of the flat screen TV...it's settings were wrong so all the people were squished looking and also the fact that the hotel phone kept ringing and no one would answer it, "Hello, La Quinta Inn, we're severely understaffed!" All of us decided we should go to bed, so we went our separate ways to get some shut-eye.


In the mean time, Heather was going into labor. She and Phil, her husband, pretty much stayed up all night. By morning, she was ready to head to the birth center as we all headed to the baptism and blessing, which started at 10:00. We kept tabs during the baptism via text with Phil. They made it to the birth center and they checked her just before the baptism started and she was at 6 cm. The baptism went very smoothly. It was so cool to see all of Tecoa and Benjamin's families from both sides be there for their special day. Growing up, none of our relatives are members, so we never had that. And as a bonus for Kat and me, we got to see some of the people we grew up with, Trudy, Judy, Judy, Marcia, and Sue, to name a few. After the baptism, we headed out to take pictures and let the kids run around the church yard. Phill texted to say that Heather was at 9 cm. By the time we left the parking lot, Heather had had her baby, little Carter Tate, around 11:20. Kat and I teared up and were a little sad about missing it and not being there for Heather, but things worked out fine and she was able to go home the same day. Kade hardly missed them!


We headed to Mr. Gatti's for some pizza and games and then back to the hotel for some quiet time. After Chuck's extended family left (his wife, Heather's, family had come in from California and New Mexico and stayed with them), we went over to their house for some hang out time. The kids got in some good play time and the adults got to hang out in the kitchen for some left over birthday cookie! Then we headed over to Bahama Bucks for snow cones. That night, Kat, Ryan, Matt and I got to hang out after the kids were asleep. The next morning, we had to go our separate ways. Brett said the prayer over our Sabbath-breaking Donut Stop donuts, his little voice cracking as he asked Heavenly Father to help us be able to be together longer. That was it...we headed south back to San Antonio and Kat and her crew headed back north to the snow. Sadness...


We got to meet Matt's parents in Big Spring for lunch, which was nice, and then made it back to San Antonio before the sun went down, in time for Matt to head to the hosue to check on things.
Boo to me for not pulling out my camera, but thanks to Kat for keeping hers handy and sharing the pictures. I chose about a million to post, so if you don't want to look, just don't!



Trudy, me and Benjamin

Jace made paper airplanes for all the kids with the baptism programs. Here he is with Bayli...

Kat, Chuck, me and Benjamin

All the grandkids minus Benjamin (and Kade and Carter, of course)

All the Jewells in attendance

Chuck's family

Chuck and Benjamin

Tecoa and Benjamin

Heather and Tecoa

Bronco stomping on a memorial stone in the church yard chanting, "Someone's dead! Someone's dead!" Very reverent...Kat, my kids would NEVER do something like that!

My little family...the first picture of the 4 of us since 2006...sad, I know!

Reilly and me

Bronco and Jace holding hands. Jace is so good and patient with others...

Kat with the Toot'n'Totem behind her...a convenience store in Amarillo right by our old house...in between there and the church...

Me and Kat in front of our old house

Quiet time in the hotel after Gattis and the baptism

Digging in the dirt in Chuck's backyard

Pigging out on birthday cookie...Chuck, Kat and me

Matt holding Benjamin...see, honey, you do like babies! I know, I know...when they belong to someone else!

Brett with a bag on his head during Tecoa's present opening

My crazy sister walking my brother's cats...on leashes!

Yummy Bahama Bucks...kids got their own table...

Boys will be boys

Ryan didn't want to feel left out

Bayli being silly...how cute is she?

Me drinking the 1/2 gallon soda Matt and Ryan brought back for us...that's a BIG cup...notice the small cup in my hand...that was my dinner...left over My Thai...mmmmmmm

Building Table Top Basketball Goals...

The highlight of Saturday (before the refrigerator shopping mentioned in the previous post) was building tabletop basketball goals at Lowe's. The kids have a great time at their kid clinics.
Brett with his completed project:

Spring Break!!!

Last week was Spring Break for us...a little early but kind of nice to have the week to recover from the spring forward day light savings time change. The week started out with beautiful weather and we spent a lot of time playing outside Monday and Tuesday...then Wednesday we hit our high first thing in the morning and then stayed in the 40s the rest of the week, finally warming up on Sunday afternoon just in time to go back to school Monday morning!

At the beginning of the week, we had Jace make a list of the things he wanted to do over spring break. On Monday, we went to lunch with Matt at work and the boys chose Chick-Fil-A with smoothies for dessert. On Tuesday, we played outside and had a great time just together. On Wednesday, we planned to meet Matt at the bowling alley but when we got there it had an hour wait, so we let the boys play a few video games and then headed to What-a-Burger for lunch. Thursday, we hung out at home and stayed warm while the rain kept coming down. Friday we tried our hand at bowling again, reserving a lane ahead of time...the boys were excited to be back at the bowling alley but would have rather just played video games than actually bowl even though they had a good time! Saturday, we headed to our local Sears store for some refrigerator shopping...fun times for the boys.

On Sunday morning, I came out to the living room to find Jace completely dressed for church, which was a total surprise because it is usually a struggle getting ready for church each Sunday. He's trying to hard to make good choices and doing very well...we just love him so much! That afternoon, we took the Gorman family out to the new house for a visit. Then we took some cookies over to a fellow UBuildIt home owner. While we were there, we were visiting on his back patio visiting while the boys were playing and all of a sudden we couldn't see Brett any more! He had fallen off the patio which was about 6 feet out of the ground. Fortunately, he landed on his feet and caught himself with his hands and didn't hit his head. He was fine after about an hour of rest and some dinner with me panicking the whole time that something was wrong that we couldn't see. I've been extra vigilante all week...I hate when things like that happen when I could have prevented it with a little more protectiveness. Then Monday, I pick him up from school to find out that he fell off the slide that day and then he told me that he also fell off his chair in primary on Sunday, too. I think maybe he is just growing...balance is off...anyway, we are so thankful that he is OK and that we still have his happy little stories to make us smile.

Here are a few pictures from our week:

Brett and Jace playing a little DDR at the bowling alley:
Dad, Brett and Jace preparing to play ski ball:

Dad and Brett playing some driving-chase-the-bad-guys game:

Heartfelt thanks to my sister, Kat!

With the beginning of 2009, I really wanted our blog to have a new look. I couldn't think of anything, so I turned to my most-creative sister, Kat, to come up with something. Unfortunately, she was feeling most-uncreative for a few weeks, so it took her a while to be inspired. When the time came, niether of us could think of a new title...and then I asked Matt who almost immediately said, "Jenni-locks and the 3 Bears"...and followed that with "Jenni-locked in the house with the 3 Bears". As you can see, Kat took that and ran...and so now we have a new look! Thanks a million, Kat! I never would have had time to do a new header myself...love you lots! Now get your butt to Texas!

Scouting for a Tree House location

On Sunday afternoon, we went out to the house to look for a good tree for a tree house. Here are a few pictures of the boys playing while searching:

Matt climbing a tree to try to determine if it is still alive:
Jace down the hill:

Brett down the hill:

The boys checking out a culvert:

Jace vs The Piano

I've been trying to convince Jace to take piano lessons and have tried to spark his interest lots of times to sit down with me and learn some basics, but he has not been interested. Not until his Uncle Chuck told him how much he wished he had learned and that it would have made him a much better percussionist if he had learned. You see, for some reason, Jace loves Chuck and wants to be just like him...SCARY! So, Jace has decided that he would like to learn to play the drums like Chuck (not to mention the fact that Daddy plays them, too). And when he heard that straight from Chuck, he made a bee line for the piano. Most nights he and I sit down and learn a little bit. He has learned his first song. We are having a good time together. So, thanks to Chuck for the motivaton!

Fun at Home Depot!

On Saturday, we went as a family to the Home Depot Kids' Workshop to build raceways. Such a cool little thing they do at Home Depot and Lowe's...and it's free! The kids get little aprons and kits to build the project for that day. They had a blast!

Working with Dad...we got there early and they let us start:
Mom & Brett...I'm finally in a picture!

And we can't leave Home Depot without "riding" the tractors:

Jace with his raceway after we got home. We painted them at home, but I was too lazy to take pictures after the paint:

Happy Spring!

I took this picture last week because the Mountain Laurels smell so good and I happened to have the camera in my hand...happy spring!

For Kat and Heather...from Jace

Jace begged me to video he and Brett doing DDR so that he could show Kat and Heather that he can "rock it out" on the "hard" setting. This game is Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix that is a GameCube game (the Wii will play them). We had borrowed DDR Hottest Party from a friend, and I got tired of the scantily clad women on the regular DDR and to be honest, it is too hard for little kids but I guess that's not who it's made for. This one is perfect for them and features Mario and Luigi...who could ask for more? Anyway, here is the screen shot of the scores. Jace got a "B"...
I also have a video of them, but silly me turned the camera on its side and now I need to figure out how to edit it so that it views right...so it's coming to this post soon...