Funny stuff

Chase was in SUCH a great mood this afternoon. Matt got him laughing hysterically. It was so cute that I had to catch it on video.

Baby gate

For the last few months Chase has been getting progressively better at climbing the stairs.  You know, at first I tried thinking of it as something that would really help him developmentally (which it will).  But then it's started getting progressively more DANGEROUS.  For instance, I'd be working on dinner and Chase would be pleasantly playing with all the bottles, bowls and sippy cups close to me in the kitchen.  Then, in a split second, he'd get bored with his current activity and/or spot the cat and sprint after her.  Approximately 3 seconds later, I'd finish stirring the spaghetti sauce, and go check on Chase to find him at the fourth step up our staircase.  Huh.  I guess it's time to get a baby gate in place.  See exhibit a:

Here you see Matt hard at work putting together our very first baby gate at the base of our stairs.  Chase wasn't all that interested...He was a little more interested in Matt's golf clubs...

"Wait.  What are you doing, Dad??  That looks KIND OF interesting..."

Chase decided to check things out.

Sneak peek

So.  I'll admit it.  About a month ago I started thinking about the fact that Chase's one-year-birthday was coming up and we'd be planning a party.  My initial thoughts were that we'd keep it simple.  No theme.  Not many people.  Not a big deal.  I've been to several one-year-birthday parties over the last few years and (no offense) they just always seem so overwhelming for the child who's the guest of honor.  I just didn't/don't want to do that for Chase.  However.  Since then I have had more time to think about it and see pictures of other parties and have sort of changed my mind.  For those of you who know me, I may be good at some things, but I am not so much a detail-oriented person.  I'd rather get 10 things done in a day and do all of them sort-of well than spend all day perfecting just one thing (like Matt).  Well, I've decided to try and pay attention to the details in the planning of our sweet boy's first birthday party.  I've been thinking of the cute invitation (yes I know it's not necessary, Matt) that I'll put in his keep-sake box/book and all the pictures we'll take of all the cute decorations. 

So we (I) decided on a theme.  Since Matt's always loved monkeys since I was pregnant and we found out it was a boy, then monkeys it will be.  Here are some monkey pictures that we took of Chase today to use for the invitations.

'Banana?  Mama, why did you give me a banana??'

'Ok, it doesn't make sense to me, but I'll have fun with it then.'

Here's our silly monkey!  This picture is so cute it makes me want to go upstairs right now and wake him up...Ok, not really but it does melt my heart when he smiles like this.

11 months!!

Chase is 11 months old today!  I can't believe that in exactly one month we will have a one-year-old.  Here's some funny things he's been up to...

Last night after taking a bath, Matt was having some fun with Chase in his room.  He called me in there so I could see that Chase had not only climbed up into his rocking chair, but was standing in it.  Not the safest thing for him to be doing but it was pretty funny.  I think that the look on Chase's face here is also pretty funny...  :)  It's like he knows he's not supposed to be doing that.

"What??"

Then, this morning, I was doing a load of laundry.  Immediately after seeing me open the laundry room door, Chase abruptly left his toys and- with rapid speed- crawled over to me so that he could "help".  What would I do without him? 

There he is with his tongue out in concentration (like his dad).  ("Whew!  This is a lot of work, Mama!")

"Wait.  I've got this one."

It truly amazes me how much time Chase spends playing with things that aren't toys in our house.  He has a ton of toys in different places downstairs for him to play with.  But no.  He'd much rather play with the drawers in the kitchen, the drawers in the coffee table, or- as you can see here- the diaper changing caddy.  I pulled open the little drawer because I had the diaper cream "hidden" in there, since he's been particularly interested in that lately.  I also keep several other things in that little drawer: all the things spread out on the floor in this picture, to be exact.  Matt and I got a kick out of watching him because he started trying out all the different pacifiers.

"Hmmm...This one kind of tastes good, but let me keep this other one in my hand just in case I need that one."

"Mmmm, yeah.  I like this one.  But look at this cool butt cream!"

Happy Birthday, Aunt Katy!

Happy Birthday, Aunt Katy!!  It was good to see you last night and I hope you have a good birthday!  I love you, Chase.

Crazy hair

We were having fun with Chase's hair after his bath tonight.  It's getting pretty long (in fact sometimes it looks a little bit like a mullet, but I think it's still cute and I'm definitely not ready to cut it yet).  Here's some of the silly pictures.

(Yes, this is diaper cream that he's holding).

"whatchu lookin at?"

January birthday celebrations continue

Lauren and I both had birthdays in January but due to the snow and other bad weather we had right around both days, we postponed the celebration until this past weekend.  We went to dinner at Mez which is now one of my favorite restaurants.  It was really yummy and a fun place to eat.

Here's a picture of Chase with Pops feeding him chips.  Mmmm.

Here you can see that he convinced Aunt Lauren to let him sit in the window sill behind our table.

If you look closely you can see Chase chewing on Matt's bottle of clear eyes.  Probably not the best thing to let him chew on, but whatever helped keep him happy at the restaurant worked for us.

I love this picture.  That look on his face is priceless.

Aha!  I got your glasses, Bebe!

Thank you, Harris Teeter.

I always forget about the free balloons that Harris Teeter has for kids.  I used to notice them but thought that Chase was too young to 'get' it and therefore didn't get a balloon for him.  I think I was wrong about that.   Last week while we were waiting to check out, Chase was getting pretty fussy and I was having a hard time entertaining him.  I noticed a balloon that was tied to the display right next to where I was standing, so I pulled it down where he could see it.  He immediately lit up and started grinning really big.  Thank you, Harris Teeter for that lovely metallic balloon near the check-out counter.  I'd also like to thank you for the free orange balloon that Chase and I got to take home that afternoon.  Who knew how much fun balloons could be?

We even had some fun with the balloon after we got home.  I tied it to Chase's high chair so it wouldn't fly up to the ceiling.  He looks a little bit like a birthday boy sitting there enjoying his peas, doesn't he?  Hard to believe that next month he'll actually BE the birthday boy!

Size 3-6 months

We bought this little sleeper from Baby Gap back in July when Chase was 4 months old.  We bought a 3-6 months size thinking that would be right size...Well, not so much.  As you can see from the first  picture, this is how big it was on him at the time.  I stuck it back in his closet with the intention of pulling it back out when he was big enough for it.  Well I forgot about it and just stumbled upon it a few weeks ago.  Even though he's almost 11 months old, luckily he can still fit in it.  (It's so wierd how varying sizes can be based on the store...)  It was interesting, though, to see compare how he's grown.

More snow pictures

I didn't buy any sort of snow 'toys' last Friday in anticipation of the snow because I was determined not to jinx things.  (For some reason I thought that if I ran out and bought a sled it wouldn't snow).  Plus I thought that Chase was too little to really enjoy playing in the snow.  However, after seeing pictures of a couple of our friends' kids in their super cool sleds (thanks, Doug and Lynette), I thought I'd take a chance and see if I could find a sled for Chase.  I called the Buy Buy Baby store thinking that they would laugh at me and say that they were sold out but I got lucky and they still had some for sale...for only $17!  So I left work early yesterday and brought Chase's new sled home to take advantage of the beautiful sunny day and leftover snow.  Lauren even came over to join in the fun.

The wardrobe change was due to the drop in temperature when the sun started going down.  When Matt got home from work we went back outside for round 2 of Chase's sledding adventures.  He had a great time...as you can see.  :)

Here's Aunt Lauren taking a turn pulling Chase.

New stroller and cabin fever

I wanted to make sure and get a picture of the house in the snow since it doesn't happen often.

Here's a picture of Chase looking outside at the snow.

We started getting cabin fever (especially Matt who had been home sick for a day and a half before it even started snowing).  Even though the roads weren't great we decided to head out to the mall for lunch and a little fresh air.  We also just bought this new "big boy" stroller for Chase so we busted that out as well.  Not sure if it's meant for the snow but whatever.

We also felt like this was the perfect occasion for the Elmer Fudd hat.  :)

P.S. I love this stroller.  It's so lightweight and easy to fold-up.  So much better than the other big stroller we thought we needed.  Oh well, you live and you learn in the world of baby equipment.  Now I know why so many people write books all about advice on what you do and don't need.