Snow day!!

We were so excited to see all the snow this weekend.  Especially since it was Chase's first real snow (I don't count those flurries that we got about a month ago as 'real' snow).  We spent about 10 min. getting all dressed, ready to play outside...Then we got outside and Chase lasted approximately 5 minutes.  Part of the problem was that it was right before his morning naptime.  Either way he looked pretty cute in his little outfit.  :)

He seemed happier when we held him...So that's what we ended up doing.  Oh well.  It'll be more fun next year when he can actually walk around in it.

Birthday celebrations continue

Even though my birthday was over a week ago, apparently we are still celebrating. :) My mama drove up after work on Thursday and met Chase and me to do a little shopping and go out to dinner. It was a rare treat for us to have her all to ourselves since I'm one of three girls (who, of course each also have a child). Usually when I see my mom I'm having to share her with a lot of other people. Chase and I were excited to spend some quality time with "Meme". :)

We love you!!

Hard at play

Yesterday at Leslie's Chase apparently tired himself out with all the playing that he did. Here's a picture of him playing with Samantha...
Leslie went to lay Samantha down for a nap and when she turned around, she found Chase laid out on the floor asleep in the middle of all the toys.

Just for the record, he has never done this before at home... :)

Happy Birthday, Lauren!

Here are 3 pictures to show our attempts at getting Chase to hold his sign for Aunt Lauren...It turned out to not be as easy as I thought. In fact, as you can see, we even had to use the remote to help hold Chase still long enough to take this picture this morning.

Happy Birthday, Lauren!! We love you!!

Chase is back!!!

Like I mentioned before, Chase has been sick for the last week. The poor little guy has had a rough time with stuffy, yet runny nose that made it almost impossible to breath through his nose. We'd go check on him while he was sleeping and his mouth would be partially open with his pacifier hanging out to the side so that he could breath. Anyway. Here's a particularly pitiful-looking picture that I took the first day he was sick while we were playing before bed.
...Now THIS is more like it. This is the Chase that is happy and feeling good. Here's the silly monkey that we know and love. (If you look carefully you will also see another tooth busting through his gums on the far right- thanks, Doug for pointing that out on Sat. night... We realized that on top of being sick he had his 7th tooth pushing through...What a rough week).

Date night

We made dinner plans with our friends Doug, Lynette and their sweet little girl, Ada last week before Chase got sick. I made sure they knew that we had some nasty germs flying around our house but decided to brave it since Ada just got over a cold herself. (It builds the immune system, right?? ) :) We were really excited to have them over and had a blast watching the 2 babies interact. Chase was a gentleman and let Miss Ada ride in his wagon while he pushed her back and forth in the living room. You can see from his red eyes and nose that he doesn't feel well but he was a trooper and played for a little while at least.

Ada showed Chase how to climb up onto the shelf in the kitchen island. Looks like the cookbooks that used to reside there will be finding a new home. (Don't worry, guys. It was only a matter of time before we had to move them anyway...)
Here's the 2 of them sitting together after dinner.

Thanks for coming over for dinner, Doug and Lynette! We had a great time despite our sick little guy and really hope that Ada doesn't catch Chase's cold...

Sick baby

The pictures that I took of Chase in his red hat were taken on Tuesday night last week. As you can see from his smiles in the pictures, he seemed to be feeling good. Unfortunately, the very next morning, he woke up with a cough, runny nose, and was sneezing. I'd been counting our blessings that we've made it this far without Chase being sick so I knew it was only a matter of time...That was the beginning of a pretty rough week for the poor little guy. He had a fever all day Wednesday so I decided to take him to the doctor Thursday just to make sure there wasn't anything else going on (i.e. ear infection, bronchitis, etc.). Luckily it seems to be just a plain ol' miserable cold. He's had such a hard time sleeping since his nose is so stopped up so he's really tired and fussy. Yesterday I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and let Chase just rest during a walk around our neighborhood. Turned out to be a good idea because he fell asleep within minutes. Here's some sweet pictures of him sleeping. Poor guy...

Ugh. It's so painful for Matt and I to see Chase feel so bad. We hope he'll feel better soon...

New red hat

Chase got this red hat for Christmas (thanks, Pam and Gordon!). He was in a silly mood tonight so we had some fun with it before bath time.
I think Matt and I had more fun with the hat than Chase did. As you can see from this picture below he kind of just wanted to take it off...

... But not before we got one more good picture of him smiling. I love that you can see all six of his teeth in this one :)

What the...???

Yesterday morning when we went in to get Chase up, this is what we saw. Chase was rocking the off-the-shoulder look with his sleeper outfit. I have no idea exactly how this happened but it made me laugh. Especially considering he didn't even seem phased by the fact that half his upper body was hanging out of his sleeper. (Don't worry, surprisingly enough, he was actually still warm.)
Again, he was just smiling like it's normal to pull your arm out of your shirt and wear it like this. It makes me laugh right now looking at this picture again. He's a mess.

Open mouth, insert battery.

Yesterday, Chase and I got home and I pulled out some new toys that he'd gotten from Christmas thinking that he might be excited to play with them. He was mildly amused for approximately one minute. After quickly losing interest in the new toys, he crawled over to the coffee table. He very carefully opened one of the drawers and started pulling stuff out. The 'stuff' that up to this point had been stored in those drawers were basically random things, mostly things that are not appropriate for babies to play with (i.e. lighters). He'd never had an interest in these drawers before last night. So of course I immediately started taking those things out of the drawers, moving each thing to the kitchen counter so he couldn't reach them. As I was in the midst of transferring things out of Chase's reach, I glanced down at him and noticed that his lips were closed tightly and he seemed to be chewing on something. I immediately took him into the kitchen and try to push my finger into his mouth. He clamped his jaw down more tightly and started sqealing angrily. At this point I definitely knew he had something in his mouth. I remembered from taking First Aid and learning that you never reach directly into someone's mouth if they are choking to avoid jabbing it further down their throat. So, keeping this in mind, I pushed my finger in the side of Chase's mouth and swept from one side of his mouth to the other. Out comes this tiny battery. Hmm. Odd. Because I never saw him pick up the battery, much less stick it in his mouth. So, needless to say I was/am slightly shaken up by this but so thankful that he didn't swallow the battery. Jeez. And to think that I was arms-length away from him when this happened...What a scare.
(I sat the battery beside the chapstick so you'd have an idea of the actual size.)

Hide and seek

Chase now likes to crawl on all fours into the dining room and then make his way under the table. Then, once he's there, he makes his way from chair to chair. This is the view that we get when we walk over there.
Then when you bend down, here is Mr. Handsome. Just chillin' on these 2 chairs... ...And now these 2 chairs...

And finally here (with his tongue sticking out like his dad does when he's concentrating on something.)

Exciting Saturday night

Everyone talks about how your life changes quite a bit when you have a baby...Not that I/we are complaining about that at all. But let's just say that our Saturday nights used to be slightly 'wilder' than they are now. (We aren't really visiting many bars these days.) Last night our friends Champ and Angie came over to visit. They hadn't seen Chase since their wedding in October and of course he's changed quite a bit since then. So our entertainment for the night ended up being a little 18-lb. 9-month-old. Not a bad Saturday night...Just a little more tame than previous years. :)

It began with Chase being Champ's entertainment, but then you can see things changing a bit as Chase warmed up a little bit and started realizing that Champ was pretty entertaining to him as well. We appreciate you guys coming all the way to Durham to visit us!!

Into everything

Chase is starting to get into EVERYTHING. He is not walking yet but crawling at rapid speed and pulling up on everything he can get his little hands on. This past weekend he was in our bathrooom and we heard splashing. We look over to see Chase standing up by the toilet, leaning in on his tip toes, spashing in the toilet water. Thank God the toilet was flushed and clean. Still. I guess it's pretty nasty. But also pretty funny at the same time. Just look at this guilty little smile at what he is now able to "get into". What a mess. :)

New shoes

I'm pretty sure we've established how much Matt and I love finding cute little hats for Chase. Well, now our new obsession is finding cute little shoes for him. Here's an ever-so-stylish (and, of course, absolutely necessary) pair that we found this weekend. Some of you may recognize them as being pretty similar to a larger, men's size 11 pair that belong to another person I know. :)
And here we have Chase modeling them for you. What a little stud muffin. Looks like he's about to go for a run, doesn't he?

Rocking horse

Chase got this cool rocking horse from Matt's Aunt Sarah for Christmas. What an awesome and unique gift!! We had to help him a little with balancing on it but I'm sure it won't be long before he can climb up on it all by himself! Thanks, Sarah!!