Sitting up...Kind of.

I decided to pull out the boppy that we haven't used in months and use it to let Chase practice sitting up. It's pretty funny to see him use the teeting ring as leverage to hold himself up. Make sure you watch the video all the way to the end. :)

Teeth!!

This is not the best picture of Chase but it was the best one we could get of his 2 new teeth coming in!! The first tooth started coming in a little over a week ago and then a few days later we noticed that there was another tooth coming in right beside it!! You really can see them, too, whenever Chase smiles real big or opens his mouth certain ways (as seen in this picture). Our little baby is growing up! :)

Adventures in baby food

This afternoon while Matt was watching football and Chase was taking a nap I felt adventurous and decided to make my first attemp at homemade baby food. (Yes, I know. I'm wild.) I've been wanting to try this even before Chase began eating baby food but didn't have the courage. Well I decided that today was the day. I started with carrots. I bought a bag of organic carrots and peeled them, cut them in smaller pieces and steamed them. While they were cooking I pulled out my cuisinart food processor that I don't use enough. After the carrots finished steaming I used the food processor to grind them down into the mushy mixture soft enough for Chase to eat. Unfortunately the entire bag only made enough food for 5 containers. I was certain that it would make more. This was just a trial run so now I know.After I finished making the carrots I decided to keep going since I had all the "equipment" out. So I put two very large organic sweet potatoes in the oven and cut some organic peaches in half before putting them in the pot to steam. With my confidence growing I decided to keep going and cook more of the vegetable(s) and fruit that I bought yesterday at the grocery store.

Here's the final result. After 2 1/2 hours here is all the baby food that I made. I was very proud of myself. I decided that since I spent so much time and effort making all this food for Chase it only made sense for me to let him try it. I gathered up a bib, fixed a small amount of rice cereal (mixed with breast milk) and pulled out one of the containers of carrots. It was a little thicker than store-bought babyfood so I thinned it out a little with more breast milk. Chase didn't seem to love it quite as much as the bananas or pears that he ate earlier today but he did eat almost all of the first container. Mission accomplished. It's definitely cheaper than store-bought baby food but it is an awful lot of work.

New phase

Chase has been doing this for about a month now and I keep trying to catch it on video. Whenever he lays on the floor (on his back), he starts arching his back and it looks like he's doing a back bend. It also looks like he's about to break his neck. Sometimes he even starts scooting backwards. Check out his acrobatics in this video and see for yourself.

Happy 6 months, Chase!!!

I cannot believe that exactly 6 months ago today we were at the hospital, anticipating what this little tiny baby was going to be like. We wondered what he would look like. Would he have Matt's gorgeous blue eyes? Would he have my red hair (bless his heart)? It was amazing that just minutes after being born Chase was focusing on people's faces, studying everything he looked at, just taking it all in. It's amazing to see a personality forming in such a little person. Every month Matt and I say that it's our favorite age for Chase to be. I suspect that this will only continue as he gets older and his personality becomes even more apparent. I can't believe he's 6 months old today!!! He's starting to look like such a little boy instead of an infant!

This Polo outfit makes him look so grown up! :)

Matt's home!!!

I decided that instead of just driving up to the front of the terminal at the airport, Chase and I would park and go inside so we could surprise Matt. I knew that Matt would be pretty tired from travelling all day and so I was hoping that seeing Chase and me would cheer him up. So I found a seat at the bottom of the stairs that Matt would be walking down and sat with Chase in my lap to wait. Chase was squealing and jumping in my lap so I think that was a pleasant sight for Matt to see minutes after landing. Mission accomplished.

This one's for you

Sorry, Matt. I didn't get any good pictures of Chase yesterday because we didn't get home until right before Chase's bedtime. Chase had a full day visiting with Grandma Dickerson in Henderson and then we had dinner at Cheesecake Factory. Unfortunately we had to leave right after I ate because it was getting late and Chase was ready for bed. Anyway. I didn't want to just post any ol' picture. So Chase put on this special outfit just for Dad. You're welcome. :)

2 days down, 5 to go...

It's just me and Little Man for the 2nd night in a row. He's already asleep so the house is really quiet right now. We miss you, Matt!

This is just a silly picture that we took while we were out, playing at the mall. We thought Chase should try this hat on. It looked pretty funny but he was a good sport.

We miss you, Matt!

Matt left this morning for his work trip to San Diego and Seattle. We're sad that he's going to be gone until next Saturday. Chase and I took him to the airport and stayed to have some coffee before Matt had to board. He's only been gone for a little over an hour and we miss him already!
When we were shopping last weekend we found this cute little Polo outfit on sale at Belk and had to get it. I wanted to make sure to get a picture of Chase in it since he'll only get to wear it for a few weeks before the weather changes and it's too cold for it. I had to put both of these pictures on here because of the funny expression on his face in this top picture.

...Then there's his heart-melting smile in this one. :)

Johnny jump up

Another new fun toy that Chase has been trying out lately (thanks Don and Betty Ann) is this Johnny Jump Up. Within the past week Chase has started wanting to jump in your lap when you hold him so we thought he'd love being able to do this on his own. Unfortunately, he's still learning and I think had more fun swinging back and forth than actually jumping but whatever.

This go round he was more interested in Haven (our insane cat). Here you can see him reaching out for her. If you look closely you can see him smiling at her.

After Haven walked off he began just chewing on the new Johnny Jump Up. We'll keep working on it.

Mmmmm...

I've been excited for Chase to try new foods since he's almost 6 months old now. One of the things that I've been especially excited to try is this mesh food feeder that our friend Lynette let us try out. I put a slice of a peach in it and tried it a few weeks ago. He did okay with it but wasn't really interested in holding it himself. He just sucked out the peach juice while I held it up to his mouth which was not a bad start. Well this past weekend we tried it again with a slice of peach in it (since it's so soft). He did much better and went to town on it, even holding it with both hands. Fun stuff.

A pea in a pod

So this past Saturday when Matt was watching football all day I got bored. I had a hard time sitting still so I started cleaning things out. One of the things I found was a bag of hand-me-down clothes from my sister, Katy. They were all things that my nephew, Justice had outgrown. One of the things I stumbled upon was this cute Halloween costume. We've already been talking about some things that we might dress Chase up as and a pea pod was not on that list. So, in my boredom I decided to try it on Chase to see what it looked like. Matt said it was mean but I thought it was worth it and Chase was a pretty good sport. I hope he stays this laid back.

Mini Matt

I went upstairs to change Chase's clothes on Sat. afternoon since we were going out to dinner. I thought it was pretty funny to see that (by accident) his outfit matched Matt's almost exactly. I swear I didn't do this on purpose.

Happy Birthday, Bebe!!

Dear Bebe,
I wanted to wish you a Happy Birthday. I also wanted to thank you for keeping me every Tuesday and Thursday. I have so much fun when I'm at your house. Just look how excited I was the first day Mommy had to go back to work and I got to stay with you.

I was checking you out at first since it was a new place for me to stay. But now it's my favorite place (other than home) to be. Love, Chase

Laughing and other funny noises

Chase is always excited to see Matt when he gets home in the afternoons. In this video he was especially excited and started laughing hysterically when Matt started talking to him. Pretty cute.

Let it rain

Last weekend we went out to dinner with Don and Betty Ann. When we left it started raining so Don pulled out this very large umbrella to keep Chase dry. Here it looks like Chase is helping him hold the umbrella.