Chase's ride

Chase absolutely loves his new car.  And we are loving this gorgeous weather that allows us to take him outside and "drive" his car around.

He loves pushing the horn and the buttons that make the radio come on (Oh yes.  There is a radio.) and the blinkers make their sounds.  He's also perfecting opening the door and climbing in and out.  Fun stuff.

More pictures from Chase's big day

Since my dad drove 8 whole hours (from Chattanooga, TN) for Chase's birthday last weekend, we wanted to make the most out of his time here.  So we went to the playground in our neighborhood for our very first trip to a playground and had a great time.  The weather could not have been more perfect so I really wanted to take advantage of such a beautiful day.

Here's a funny picture of Chase after Matt got home with the balloons.  This expression cracks me up.

...And, this picture breaks my heart.  I really do promise that Chase did really well during the party and seemed to be feeling ok, under the circumstances.  However, this picture shows one of his moments that he doesn't look like he feels so great.  Poor little birthday boy.

But he fought through and I managed to convince him to eat at least a little bit of his cake once I gave him this spoon to use.

Chase's birthday weekend

Well, let me start by saying if you came to our house on Saturday and you are now sick, I am truly sorry.  So you know I said earlier that Chase had a stomach bug last week?  Well, it started last Tuesday and continued into Friday.  So we said as long as Chase didn't throw up Friday night or Saturday morning, then the party was still on.  So, he didn't get sick at all Friday (other than that morning) or Saturday.  Until Matt hung him upside down to show my dad how much he likes that game.  Great idea, Matt.  Turn the kid who's been throwing up all week upside down.  (To give Matt credit, Chase really does think it's hilarious... Normally.)  As soon as Matt turned him over, Chase started throwing up.  This was 1 hour before the party was scheduled to start.  But what can ya do?  We had no choice but to hope for the best and keep pumping fluids in our little birthday boy.  And, surprisingly enough, he did great.  (As a side note, now that I'm re-reading this, it sounds crazy that we decided to still have the party.  I really do promise that other than the hanging- upside- down incident, Chase really had been feeling a lot better).

(Jenn, I hope you don't mind, but after Noah's party I thought this idea was so great that I 'stole' it from you.)  We had this book for people to sign so that we can read it to Chase as he gets older and he can "remember" who came to celebrate his first birthday party.

 This is the precious monkey cake that my talented mother-in-law made.  It turned out better than I imagined.  Thank you, Betty Ann!

 Here are the cute little favors that Betty Ann made to hand out.

To give you a closer look, they are little banana candies with notes on them that say "Thanks for coming to my party".  Then on the back (that picture didn't turn out very well) it says "Love, Chase 3-20-2010".  Such a personal touch.  Thank you, again, Betty Ann!!!

 

My dad came into town for the weekend from Tennessee and was a huge help while I was getting the house (and myself) ready during the day.  Here's a picture of one of fun activities Chase played with Grandaddy while I was busy and Matt was out buying last minute items.

 Here's our sweet birthday boy with cousin Olivia.

Look at all those teeth!!  (Have I mentioned lately that he also has a MOLAR coming in now??)

Chase had fun playing with Jake (my sister, Abby's son) before everyone got here.  They are only 3 months apart in age.

 I love this picture.  It looks like he's just sitting back watching Jake here.

 Don is holding Chase and Samantha (Leslie's daughter).  Sammy is looking at Chase like, "What's wrong, Chase?  You act like you just threw up an hour ago."

 He really was a trooper.  If you'd sat a chocolate dairy-free cake in front of ME when I was feeling bad (which was later Sat. night) I would've thrown up all over it.  Not Chase.  He took a delicate little nibble - only when the spoon was given to him- and then was done.

 Here's when the fun finally started.  Chase, Jake and Justice all went for a ride in Chase's new wagon.

 But the best of all was when Chase got to ride in his new car.  He absolutely loves this new "ride".  It plays music, has real blinking turn signals and everything.

 See?  He's just sitting back and enjoying his ride.

 Well, Chase.  You're first birthday is over and despite all three of us getting sick, we made it!  We love you more than we ever imagined possible!!  Love, Mama and Daddy

Happy 1st birthday, Chase!!!

Happy 1st birthday to one sweet boy!  He is still sick with the stomach bug but was a trooper through his party earlier today.  More pictures to come.  But for now (since I'm starting to feel queezy) this will just be a preview of the birthday pictures to come...

Sick baby boy

Poor Chase has been fighting some sort of stomach bug all week.  It started with him throwing up while Betty Ann was keeping him Tuesday morning.  Then Leslie said he was still a little "off" yesterday.  Both days he's slept about 4 hours between his 2 naps (this is of course in addition to the full 12 hours of sleep each night that he still got).  So this morning Matt and I got up and dressed for work then I went in to feed Chase his bottle.  He took half his bottle then approximately 5 minutes later threw it up all over himself and me.  Poor little guy.  So I changed from my vomit-ey work clothes into comfy clothes and called into work to say I'd be hanging out with my sick baby for the day.  He really was pitiful, just wanting me to hold him and cuddle on the couch. 

This is the sad, sleepy look that he had on his face most of the day.  Luckily he didn't throw up any more today but he wouldn't eat anything except for a handful of puffs and about 5 bites of a graham cracker.  I just kept trying to keep fluids in him so he doesn't get dehydrated.  At one point there were about 8 different kinds of bottles, cups and glasses in my attempt to get him to drink any and everything.  (To further explain, he always wants to drink whatever you're drinking.  So when I was drinking coffee this morning I had to put some juice in a coffee mug for him to make it more enticing than his sippy cup).  At any rate, let's just hope that he gets better by his birthday on Saturday!!!

On the go

Chase is gaining more and more confidence with standing and balancing without holding onto anything. It really seems like only a matter of time before he's walking on his own. In the meantime, though, he's also loving his wagon push toy. Check out this video to see Chase on the move.

(Oh and the reason that he's not wearing any pants is because I'd just changed his diaper and he was about to get a bath. Matt and I thought this video is even funnier because you can see that the onesie is a little bit too big and hanging down between his legs. He's gonna kill us when he gets older. :) )

One year ago

So here we were last year on this day.  Still a couple of days away from the scheduled induction, but hoping that Chase would come naturally and I wouldn't have to be induced.  That apparently wasn't in the plan, however.  Chase wasn't going to come out until he was good and ready...  Or until he was forced out of his warm, cozy little home inside my belly.

People keep asking "So when are you going to have baby #2??"  It's amazing how many people immediately wonder that...Especially now that he's almost a year.  Not that I blame you.  I wonder the same thing about other people.  Well.  To answer your question, I'm not quite ready to look the way that I did in the picture above.  I'm not quite ready to feel the way that I did in the picture above.

However.  I'm not gonna lie.  When I see pictures like these below, it really makes me miss those early days.

Don't worry, Matt.  Calm down.  That doesn't mean I'm ready yet.  :)

Happy (belated) birthday, Noah!

Noah was Chase's first friend. They met when he was 3 months old and first started going to Dianne's (his first babysitter). Noah was born exactly one week earlier than Chase and it was evident even at that young age that they had similar personalities. They were two very happy, easy-going babies. Here are a couple of pictures of the two babies when they were 4 months old. (sniff, sniff)

It's so funny to me seeing how bald Chase was in these pictures. :)

Now, here are the two boys at Noah's birthday party from this past Saturday. I can't believe how quickly time has passed. I also can't believe that we'll be celebrating Chase's first birthday in less than a week!

Check out Noah's mom Jenn's blog to see all the precious favors and decorations from his party: http://koehlerfamily4.blogspot.com/.

Chase loves the ladies.

A couple of months ago, our friends Doug and Lynette came over with their little girl, Ada. We video-taped Chase pushing Ada in his little wagon. It was really funny to watch the two of them interact and especially funny to watch him push her in the wagon considering that he couldn't/can't walk yet. But he can move pretty well when pushing the wagon. It was really funny to us because he'd never pushed it before with something in it. So seeing sweet little Ada riding in it was quite entertaining for us 4 adults.

It's just as cute to watch Chase interact with his little friend Samantha. Samantha is Leslie's little girl and Chase goes to play with them three days a week. So, today, he apparently was a little gentleman and pushed Samantha (Leslie's 10-month-old) around in an empty box. Check out the video on her blog to see Chase in action. http://hetzelfamilynews.blogspot.com/2010/03/having-fun-with-my-friend.html What a little stud muffin.

Charming

We found a cute St. Patricks Day onesie for Chase and I wanted to get a picture of it. (By the way, that is mine and Matt's TEN year dating anniversary. Crazy.) Anyway. In playing around with the camera I got these funny pictures of Chase. He was holding my phone (backwards, mind you) up to his ear, "talking" into it. It sounds kind of like "UH?"
And then here, below, he is looking more serious.

Yes, Chase. Mommy definitely thinks you're charming. :)

Lunch with the girls

This past Saturday, Chase and I went to Greensboro to do a little shopping and have lunch with several of the women in my family. Here's a picture of my Mama and her sister, my Aunt Sherry.
Here's a picture of my mom feeding Chase...or staring at him in a "look- at- my- cute- grandson" kind of way. It's also kind of funny that Chase seems to be looking down the long table at all the women thinking, "What have I gotten myself into?". It's like he realized he was the only guy there. :)

I don't know why she wanted to get a picture of all 11 of us at once. It's hard to take a good picture of so many people sitting at a table. Oh well. Here are my aunts, cousins, and Shannon. Thanks for being brave enough to come with me, Shannon! :)

And here's my sweet boy. (Notice his scraped nose. He got 'into it' with a drawer last week and the drawer won so it's his battle wound. It's unfortunately one of many war wounds to come, I'm sure).

Museum trip

We got a really cool gift for Christmas from Matt's aunt Kate. We got a year's membership to the Durham Museum of Life and Science. I'm ashamed to say that we just took Chase for the first time this past weekend, but I promise that we will be better and use it more often. Here's some pictures of from our trip.
This picture makes me laugh. We took Chase out of his stroller because he was dying to get out to touch, climb, and "experience" all the stuff there was to see. The room was really dimly-lit, so it wasn't until I looked at the picture I'd just taken that I noticed that Chase had peed through his diaper and pants. Nice. You can see outfit #2 in all the pictures that follow this one. These are the display cases that show the nasty snakes. But it was good because Chase could practice his standing and seemed to enjoy being able to 'cruise' from one nasty snake to the other. Yuck.

Like father, like son.

Again. Like father, like son.

Even though it seems like Chase is too young to really "get" much out of the exhibits at the museum, he really did enjoy looking and touching everything. Thank you, Kate, for the gift that keeps on giving!!!

8 more days

So last year this time Matt and I were so excited because it was March 4th and we were only EIGHT DAYS until Chase's due date!! (Uh, notice I said 'due date'. Not his actual birthday. More on that later). This is what I looked like last year at this point. I wouldn't say that I was the most comfortable that I've ever been (would YOU be comfortable if your belly looked like this???) but I didn't feel like I was ready to "pop". I could still sleep through the night ok-other than having to get up 3 times to pee. I could still fit my rings on my fingers and my shoes still fit on my feet. So I felt like I was doing ok. At this point last year I still had eight days until I was 'done' with work and beginning my maternity leave. That alone made me pretty excited but of course Matt and I were both so ready to meet our little that we'd felt kicking in my belly for months.
It's crazy to think about what life was like almost exactly one year ago today. Life was a little bit simpler but it's definitely a lot better now. :)

Well climb right up!

Chase has been getting more and more mobile by the day. After dinner tonight, while Matt and I were cleaning up I glanced down at the dishwasher. Chase had both hands on the door of the open dishwasher with one leg raise up like he was about to climb in. Yes, my initial reaction was to scream, "NO! Stop!!". However. My second thought was how funny it might be to see what happened if I let him continue his journey. (Please note that this 'journey' lasted approximately 15 seconds...)
Look at him squatting below like he means business. I mean, really? Chase: You're in a DISHWASHER.

'Oh, wow. This thing comes out!'

This expression shows that he's realizing he might be in trouble.