Life in Vegas, trip to UT

Hi dear ones,

Welcome to Summer! And for Kristy in cold Alaska, maybe we can send some of our 110 degrees your way! Yes, it's a heat wave here, but we're doing good. Everywhere has AC and we have passes to the pool, a fun indoor playland called "Rock and Roll Kids" where the boys also take a class, and a great park close that has the biggest, coolest sprinklers/water toys around. Oh my, a "Severe Weather Alert" just popped up on my screen as I was typing. If it gets too hot, they just tell people to stay inside, kind of like in Utah when there was extreme cold. Oh well, we've done our errands today anyway and we have fun indoor plans tonight anyway.

We're celebrating Paul's 33rd birthday tonight with his brother Brent, who is passing through heading for his new job position with GE. We'll eat dinner here, light the candles on the cheesecake (Paul's favorite) then maybe go play some games at the Excalibur gameroom, one of the truly family-friendly places on the strip. Paul and I will go out on Saturday night for a real date. We found a super 11-year old who will baby-sit in her home while her mom supervises. Aaron is her little brother's age, so they will have fun. It's nice to be getting to know people better in our ward.

I just got back from visiting teaching. It still hits me funny when I go to pick up my companion on Las Vegas Blvd. (right by the strip) that we really are living in Las Vegas, but it's amazing how normal life is even a few minutes away from all the glitz. We love our home and our ward, and still feel very certain that this is home for at least a while. Speaking of our ward, I was really thrown "into the fire" on Sunday when our ward organist didn't show up. I've been taking lessons, and have been planning on playing the organ July 9th after I feel comfortable with this very new instrument. But when she wasn't there 3 minutes before the meeting, I walked up to a very relieved bishopric and told them I could at least play prelude. There were so many buttons to push and I couldn't remember all the ones to push/not push, but I did my best for prelude. However, I didn't see her as the counselor got up to start the meeting, so I played the opening song and looked for her. There was no ward business, so they jumped right into the sacrament...and so did I. I think it sounded a little loud, but I got through it and was informed the real organist was finally there (she had arrived in time for the sacrament, but a switch would have been awkward). I could tell she had had a rough morning, so she slyly found a moment to sneak over to my bench mid-meeting and we decided I'd just finish the meeting music so people would just think it was my week instead of knowing she was so late. She was so embarrassed, but I got through the closing song and it went okay. The organ is so different than the piano! It's a good stretch for me and the closing song "Be Thou Humble" really hit home. I certainly felt humbled by this new calling and vow to practice very well. So for any of you who have been given this calling with little or no training, what are your secrets? Any shortcuts or suggestions would be appreciated!

In other music news, we finished the 10 demos for FLYlady two weeks ago while I was in Logan. We were absolutely blessed to accomplish in one week (5 days) what it typically takes 6 months or so to do (all the guitars, drums, strings, percussions, vocals, and most of the harmonies). John Carter was amazing, and Jay Richards was able to work on one song too and did great. FLYlady heard them and was even in "purple puddles" over one of them (her term for crying). Mom Benson and Jordan and Tera Sweat were so great to watch the boys so I could work all week long. It was fun to have a music-filled week like that, but it was really physically and mentally demanding and made me appreciate even more that I get to stay home with my boys full time and do music on the side.

The CD (title still not decided) will be released September 4th or so on flylady.net and will be a fun project to work on in the next few weeks, though not as intensely. The hard part of orchestration is done, so now we get to record live strings, hire a couple people for vocals, then mix it the first week of August. FlyLady decided last week she wants one more track on the CD (surprise!), so we'll try and get that done ASAP. I'm having a blast with it, and I never knew cleaning songs could be so much fun! We may recruit some of you locals or those passing through to sing harmonies or backups on a couple tracks, so beware! Paul and I have so much talent in our families, we hope you don't mind if we pull you into all this! Paul will also be hired to put together the CD guts and possibly the cover since he's done it before. The goal is to have it all done and out of my hands before our baby arrives. She is getting (I am getting) quite big, but other than feeling a bit yucky last week, I'm doing great! I like being pregnant when I'm not deathly sick! This has been a great pregnancy.

The other fun part of our Logan trip was getting to see Mom and Dad Lacey and Shannon on Saturday in Logan. I got to sing in a Songwriter's Showcase at Summerfest (like a county fair). They were so nice to come support me, take us to dinner, etc. Ooh, writing about the visit is making me crave some of that Aggie Lemon Custard ice cream we had at the cheese factory...ooh, with strawberries. Okay, this is an official craving. Next time I'm in Logan... :)

Our boys are doing great. They got matching sunglasses like Paul's new birthday ones, so we'll send a picture of the three guys in their "sunnies." They keep each other entertained by telling knock knock jokes, playing cars, cowboys, wrestling, etc. Aaron is loving the Hooked on Phonics books we checked out from the library and can read about 10 of them so far. Jacob surprised all of us this week by telling Paul he had to go potty and doing it in his little bear potty three times! He thinks it fun and loves the chocolate kiss he gets each time he goes. We all had fun with my cousin Laurie Funk and her family when they came for dinner on their way through to San Diego on Sunday. Their four darling girls were so cute to our boys, and our boys showed their true flirtatious personalities by charming them and making them laugh. They take after their father!

Well, that's all for now. Happy Birthday to little Jared in Alaska tomorrow. And the rest of you, please write back! We love and miss you all.

Love,
Amy, Paul, Aaron, Jacob and little princess


Congrats to Jordan on his first date. Please write with all the details. You know 6 older siblings are dying to know all about your love life! And it was great to see you Megan and Nate when we were there too. I'm sorry we all shared the stomach flu while we were there. Hope you're all better now!

Hot Summertime News

Wow, so this is summertime in Las Vegas, huh? Over 105 today and still 94 at almost 11 pm. What have we gotten ourselves into??!? We were at church today and the power was out in half of the building. Unfortunately that was the half that also ran the air conditioners so we were melting in there. I think Amy and the other pregnant ladies had it the worst but it wasn't too fun for anyone. It definitely makes you feel grateful for the wonders of modern amenities!

We've had a good week, despite the heat. The boys have had fun in all of the activities designed to beat the heat. We went to a fun water park yesterday (along with half of Las Vegas), although Aaron was bummed that he couldn't go down the waterslide with his dad. He was tall enough, but without his life jacket he wasn't ready to go down alone. But we had fun in the kid's pool and Aaron practiced his kicking and paddling in the deeper water. They also had fun over at friends' houses and in the back yard with the sprinkler running.

Amy got some great news on Friday. She heard back from Logan's radio station that her two songs she had entered into their songwriting contest made it into the finals of the Logan Summerfest competition. She'll get to perform them on June 17th at the Songwriter's Showcase. The two songs she entered are Love's Worth Fighting For (MP3, Lyrics), a song that Amy and I wrote for a date night a few months ago, and We Almost Fell in Love (MP3, Lyrics). The guy on the recordings with Amy is Michael DuBois, an incredible singer that also sang the Victory song that Amy and Tera Sweat wrote last year.

While I go to Dallas to do some training next week, Amy will be heading to Logan with the boys to start recording on the FlyLady CD project. We're anxious to get started on this exciting project for the summer. Amy's got 9 of the songs written and will be working with John Carter next week to get some of them orchestrated.

The boys were cracking us up tonight. They both had on cowboy hats riding their stick horses that Grandma and Grandpa Lacey gave them. Aaron was Cowboy Aaron on his horse, Old Pete. His partner was Cowboy Jacob who named his horse Hee-haw! Aaron was tipping his hat talking in a drawl. What fun!



Well, we'll close for now. We hope you are all doing well. Take a minute to drop us a line and let us know what you're up to. We also realized that we haven't sent pictures of the house yet. We'll try to get some taken this week and post them next time.

Take care!
The Las Vegas Laceys

March Madness!!

Hi Everyone!

It's been awhile since we've updated this but we have a bunch of pictures we wanted to show everyone and thought this would be the best way. We hope you enjoy the pictures of Jacob and Aaron's birthday parties (both the Logan and Las Vegas versions).

Jacob is recovering nicely from his surgery. We hope he'll be all back to normal by tomorrow. You'll have to call and let him tell you how the "Docta" removed his "Ad-di-noise."

We'll leave it at this for now and let you enjoy the pictures. Hope you're all doing well. Drop us a line or leave a comment here and let us know what you're up to! We just got our new furniture delivered so look for our house pics coming next week. We love you all.

Love,
The Laceys

Jacob's Birthday 2006

The night before Jacob's birthday we had some clowns from our new ward stop by to welcome us. Jacob was so excited and thought it was all for his birthday. They blew up balloons for the boys and sang "Happy Birthday!" It was great timing and Jacob still talks about those "Funny Clowns!"








They made snakes for the boys. Jacob spent no time in popping them!












This is a gourmet bundt cake from a famous bakery in Las Vegas that our Realtor dropped by. It was so delicious and so big, and again was conveniently delivered the day before Jacob's birthday. So after we sample a little, we re-frosted it, tossed on some sprinkles, and added a candle for Jacob's party.

Aaron's Birthday in Logan

This is Aaron's entire preschool class. They all came for his after-school birthday party. Even his teacher, Mrs. B.
A little Chicken Dance to get out some wiggles of this very active group of party-goers!
The only two girls at the party, Halli & Andie. Aren't they cute?

Party in Vegas!

Playing duck - duck - goose with a few of Aaron's new friends.



Aaron's much - anticipated puppy cake! His parents were under pressure to exactly replicate the picture Aaron had seen months ago! We had fun making together for our date night the night before.
Loads O' Loot! These kids sure know how to welcome a kid to the neighborhood.
Aaron got a Hot Kicks game, which Amy swears Jared & Nate would have played for hours as kids.

More presents...

Aaron got a cool Spiderman mask and sound effect gloves. He's got the alter - ego thing down now, as we don't know whether to address him as Aaron, "Peter Parker," or Spiderman. It seems to have given him super spider powers as he has been climbing all over everything, including his daily ritual of scaling the playhouse!
Aaron's very first Transformer! Paul & Jacob picked it out. You'll have to call Aaron to get all the details of this toy (please allow at least 30 minutes for a very animated discussion!).