Jace Aaron decided to crash this party a little early last night at 7:51pm.

The little champ weighed in at 5 pounds 10 ounces.

Mom and baby are doing well.

We are at Lutheran hospital room 517 for those who want to visit.

It’s been quite a surprise again since Mickie was not due for another 4 weeks.

I’m doing more frequent updates through Twitter, so if you want the latest information check there.

http://twitter.com/joshbyers

I’ll post here with major news.

Its that last one that was quite funny tonight. She asked me to tell her the story of the 3 little pigs. So I did my best to recreate that timeless masterpiece and I think I could have won a voice over Academy Award (if there is such a thing) for my portrayal of the Big Bad Wolf. I might have gone a little over the top on the I’ll huff and puff bit but she didn’t care.

So after I’m done she wants to tell me a story. Here is Mia’s story.

“Once upon a time, upon a long time ago there was Scooby, Daphne, Fred….(big pause as she remembers the other sleuthing members) Velma, and Shaggy. And they were at the beach. And they saw a pirate ship. And Daphne was gone! She was stuck on the pirate ship! Help me! They flew to the ship and then they saw pirates! And Daphne kicked down the door and she huffed and puffed and blew the pirate ship away. The end.”

I love the thought of Daphne playing the part first of Chuck Norris and demolishing a door and then sucking in a huge breath to blow that ship away.

Even though much is the same, this year was very exciting because Mia is old enough now to start doing most of the fun things. Before we left I made sure to tell her all about the “big slide” that we were going to ride, the trains that come so close you can touch them (we didn’t…), the animals and hikes we could take, and the big mountains. And the neat part is that she can comprehend all of this, be excited, and look forward to it all.

We had a blast and it was so much fun sharing all of my memories and traditions with her.

Photos of our trip are up on Flickr.

I have been getting a lot of emails from family and friends with all the cute and cuddly details about their lives. And since my email habits are like my phone habits (I try and spend as little time on both as possible) I’ve been feeling a little guilty about not sharing the details that some of you love (Mom…)

First of all, it would be nice if the temperature would stay above 20 degrees for 2 straight days. I don’t think I’m asking a lot here. I honestly can’t remember a stretch this cold this long in my lifetime. I promise I will never make “Old People Living in Florida” jokes again. My Christmas lights are still half up…and I’m a person who can’t stand it when people leave their lights up past the 26th of December. If I were to try and go on our roof at this point I am pretty sure I would either slide off on to the driveway and break something vital or slide into the power lines and fry something vital. So the lights are staying up for now - at least they’re not on.

I traveled to San Francisco again in January for my job but was unable to bring Mickie along this time. It was too bad too because my second day of training was canceled. I ended up driving to Monterey Bay for the day. It is a really cool coastal town. I was going to go to the Aquarium but it was a wee bit pricey. Its always fun eating by yourself in a touristy place as well. I tried to make myself look like as little of a loser as possible by spreading out a couple folders and made it look like I was working or something. I actually just stared at the water and the sea gulls. I ended the day by driving back up the coast to SF which was really cool.

Probably the single biggest thing to happen in 2007 so far was my acquisition of a Nintendo Wii. If you don’t know the Nintendo Wii is revolutionary game system that gets most of its input based on motion. So if you are playing Tennis you swing the controller just like a racket and the system picks up your motion and translates it on the screen. Mickie and I played one at our friends the Criggers’ house and had a lot of fun. You know it’s a good gaming system when Mick gets into it - and let me tell she gets into it. Playing tennis one day I had to cower in fear against the wall to avoid her Venus Williams like arm swings… The youth group has had a blast with it as well. Bowling is the most popular among that group.

Mia has been going through, well how do I say it, an independent stage…

I probably say this every time I write about her but I love watching her figure out new things. Her conversation gets more mature all the time and I can’t believe the size of clothes Mickie bought for her the other day. She has been memorizing a lot of songs recently and the current hit is from the Little Mermaid. I have a video I’ll post soon or maybe in a year… Her favorite activity right now is to make “Jumpers”. Well, I actually make them she just jumps on them. For the uneducated a “jumper” is a combination of couch cushions, pillows, blankets and anything else that would break the fall of a 2 year old from about 4 feet.

This post is getting a little long so I’ll spare you all the rest and try and update a little more frequently and a lot shorter.

Hopefully none of you are as dumb as this guy…

Click here for the full slide show.

The girls’ trip went well except for one small tiny detail: When Mickie dropped off Mia at her parents she left her suitcase and took Mia’s to Indiana. Whoops. Mickie ended up borrowing some clothes from some friends and shopping for some new ones. I guess she didn’t want to try on Mia’s Elmo undies.

Speaking of Elmo, the new Tickle-Me-Elmo is on sale at a retailer near you. Here is a sample video and there are plenty more to be found on YouTube.

Mia doesn’t have the tickle version but she does have the tinkle version. She has an Elmo that when you put a bottle in its mouth has to go potty 20 seconds later. Apparently like little kids and women on trips, Elmo has a very small bladder… By the way, who has the job of making the Elmo potty sound effects? What a conversation piece that would be at a party.

What I really want to know is when are we going to see a combination of both? How great would it be to tickle Elmo and then have him have to go potty? You can’t tell me that wouldn’t be awesome. I even have a name: Tickle Me till I Pee Elmo or TP Elmo for short. Somebody has got to get on this.