I love my life

Just have to document a few things.

Chase has discovered that if he bangs his high chair tray hard enough, all his cheerios will "jump" off of the tray. He thinks this is the funniest thing ever and he will laugh and laugh. It's really cute to watch.

We went to Bass Pro Shop today to get a picture with Santa. Neither kid would smile. They LOVED coloring. Even Chase colored a bit. He's pretty good! :)

As I mentioned in the previous post, Kate likes to be naked now. So, naturally, her new favorite phrase is "I'm so cold!" Well, I came home from the store today and Kate was following me around outside for a minute. I picked her up and she gave me a hug and said, "I'm...so....happy to see you, Mommy." Melts my heart!

Kate combines the words "open it" into one so it comes out, "opet."

We got our Christmas package from Grandma B today. Chris opened it and Kate gasped, "Oooh!! Presents!!!" We explained to her that we couldn't open the presents just yet. She got so excited though. I can't wait for Christmas!

Oh dear, or should I say deer

Oh dear, it's been a while. I've been a slacker. Sorry Mom! :) It's just that when I have free time I never feel like blogging. I'll really, really try to do better. So here's a few updates:

Chase is growing like a little weed. He is really, really turning into a cute little boy. I always tell people he thinks he's twice as old as he is. He thinks he can do things that Kate does. Well, at least he really wants to. Kate likes to run around the house with a push toy of hers and tonight Chase was crawling and crawling as fast as his little body could go but he just couldn't keep up with her. He was getting so frustrated. So, I put him behind the push toy and he started walking behind it!! Oh boy. And the other day he stood on his own for about 3 seconds. I would say I'm gonna have my hands full, but I already do. He's getting into everything! (see pic below) I took him into the doctor last week for an ear infection and they weighed him and he's 20lbs 4oz! Can you believe that! That's what Kate weighed when she was a year old! He's a solid kid. We love him. He's such a cute, happy natured boy. And, he's sleeping through the night about 50% of the time now. Hopefully we'll be consistent soon.

He's discovered the DVD drawer....thanks to Kate

Proof that Kate's gonna get what she deserves! Whenever Kate attacks him I tell her, "you better watch out girl, he's gonna get even soon!"

Kate's personality is really blossoming lately. She's soooo cute. Her new phrase she always says is "You love me!" She pauses between each word for emphasis. "You! Love! Me!" So funny. I think she got it from the Barney I love you song. She is singing tons lately. Yesterday morning I was changing her diaper and singing Santa Clause is Coming to Town and she was filling in some of the phrases for me. So cute. She's also in a naked phase. She doesn't keep her clothes on - mainly her shirt. She ALWAYS takes her shirts off. She loves going to her nursery class at church and she asks for it throughout the week. The last few days I've noticed that she's kinda turning into a bossy big sister. (I was never like that...right?) :) It does come in handy at times...except for when she grabs Chase by the neck and throws him on the floor just because he was playing with the stereo. He's turning into one tough cookie. We are also in a bit of a power struggle at the moment. Her once limited diet has now gotten down to about 5 things that she'll actually eat. So, we are cracking down. We're currently on day 3 of her refusing to eat her dinner. Sigh....

Little miss attitude. I think I must stand with my hands on my hips a lot because she does this quite often. Notice the no shirt....

Once again....no clothes. But she would wear a hat and sunglasses. Go figure.

I put this pic in because it shows sibling love....It looks like she's choking him. And she probably is. But he loves it! Kate's new thing is to lay on top of him and give him a "hug." It looks like she's smashing him. And she is. But he laughs and laughs. Maybe he'll be a masochist...

Chrissy has been busy keeping up with the above two individuals. She got to see New Moon and LOVED it. She also has been bargain shopping this holiday season and has probably gotten herself in over her head by attempting to hand-make a few gifts. Only time will tell.

Chris has been busy with work and school....oh, and don't forget hunting. It's his new obsession. He has been soooo obsessed with it. He really, really, really wanted to get a deer and he kept getting up at 4am to go out and seeing deer but coming home empty handed. He's had a few close ones, but won't take the shot unless he's sure he'll get it. Finally, on Thanksgiving morning he sent me a text telling me he got a 2 year old doe! WARNING: don't look at the following pics if you have a weak stomach. I tried to pick the least graphic.

Oh man, he was so stoked. It was like a kid on Christmas morning. He spent the whole morning and part of the afternoon taking as much meat off as he could and then a whole Saturday processing the meat himself (with a ton of help from his mom. Thanks Pennie! I really wasn't too thrilled to be involved with that.) So now we have venison coming out our ears and guess what he's dying to do as soon as finals are over? Yup, more hunting. He's got his heart set on a buck now. And he heard on the news that you can hunt deer and donate it to a certain place to process it and they'll feed the homeless with it. So now it's charity work. :)

This is Kate's face when she saw the deer.

Isn't that precious! At first she was excited. "Deer!!!" Then she realized that the deer was laying down. "Shhh. Deer sleeping." Then she looked at the deer and said "Deer owies. Oh, poor deer." That's when I took this pic. And, this might be too much information for you, but the deer's tongue was sticking out a bit and she kept saying "Deer eating a leaf."

Well, that about wraps up what we've been up to lately. Next up is Christmas!! Only 3 weeks!!!

PS ~ Sorry about all the "really, really"s in this post. I guess I really, really want to emphasize some things...:)

Family Pics

Punkins and other randomness

Happy Halloween!! This month has flown by! Ok, so Kate is refusing to take a nap today so this is gonna be short.

Here's the "punkins!" Kate would have nothing to do with carving them. I think she was a little freaked out by the slimy gunk that came out of the inside.


And here's another little punkin. He's pulling himself up on the couch now. Only a matter of time!

I just couldn't resist putting this picture up. Isn't he adorable?

Playing with sister (who refuses to wear her clothes anymore - if you look closely you will notice she only has tights and a shirt on).

Further proof of the no-clothes stage we are going through. Also the "I get to wear Mommy's makeup" stage as well.

Chris meticulously carving his pumpkin. Focus.

Here's the pic of the in-progress mode. Kate kept her distance, Chase fussed in his high chair and Mommy and Daddy had a fun time carving them.

I was inspired by a friend to make this tutu for Kate. Isn't it adorable? You like how she rides her bike? She can pedal but she prefers to sit on the back step and walk herself around on it. What a goof ball.

That's about all I've got for now. We'll see if Kate cooperates enough for me to post some pictures from the park today.

Happy Birthday Kate

Yesterday was Kate's birthday. I think she had a very good day. We started with singing to her and we ended with singing to her. By the end of the day she was requesting the song. It was cute. She thought we were nuts when we first sang it to her in the morning. You should have seen her face. I wish I would have had a camera. She always wakes us up and we're always slow to get out of bed but yesterday when she woke us up we were singing and she wasn't so sure what to think of that.

After the present opening. We're all exhausted and sunburnt from the triathalon. Did I forget to mention that we celebrated on Saturday? Yeah, it was a long day with the triathlon in the am, no naps for the kiddos and lots of presents. It was fun though!

The number one, all time cutest costume EVER and I'm so excited she got it!

Look at the big girl on her trike! Chris lowered the seat so she can reach the pedals after this picture was taken. She loves it. She puts her stuffed animals on the seat behind her and asks to be pushed everywhere. Yesterday she had her friend Hannah over and Hannah was playing on the trike. So, I put Kate on the step just behind the seat and pushed them around for a bit. Then later in the day Kate went and sat on the step and said "Hannah! Come here Hannah!" She wanted Hannah to sit on the seat. Then today I caught her sitting behind Elmo and scooting around on it. So cute. Hours of fun entertainment.

Ok, so the suprise hit of the birthday presents was this little stuffed Nemo I found at a consignment sale. She is OBESESSED with Nemo. Now she can take Nemo everywhere...and she does!

Here's her reaction to her cake. I think this picture may need to be framed someday. We combined the celebration of Kate's birthday with Grandpa Carson's so I made them two cakes. We put two candles on Kate's and several on Grandpa's but they were on the same tray so when we brought them to her I think she just saw this ball of flames sitting in front of her. She wasn't too happy. Classic though.

Then today I took Kate to her 2 year well check. 75th percentile in both height and weight. She's a happy, healthy little girl. She didn't even cry that much when she got her shots. I love that girl. When I took Chase a couple of weeks ago they asked if I wanted Kate to have a flu shot and I told them I would just wait for her appointment. Well, on the door this morning I noticed a sign saying that they were all out of flu shots. Great. So I was chatting with the nurse and I mentioned that I wished I would have gotten her one a few weeks ago. Then the nurse said that they thought they were all out but then this morning she found one more vial in the back of their fridge! Yeah! So, Kate got her flu shot today. I was so happy.

Oh, one more side note. Noodles are "loodloos" and pictures are "tipurs." There's one more but I can't think of it right now. I just love hearing her say them. I'm gonna be sad when she starts saying them correctly.

Also, yesterday Chase started doing a little army crawl thing! Watch out Kate, Bubba's gonna be chasing after you soon!

Chase updates

I feel like it's been a long time since I blogged about Chase. So, here's a bunch if pictures from the last few weeks. He really is such a happy, content little boy. He definitely is a Momma's boy - if he's even remotely uncomfortable for any reason he wants his Mommy. He even says "ma ma." (only when he's really whiney though.) I took him in to the Dr. a couple of weeks ago for his six month checkup. He's 18lbs 6oz!

See what I mean? Isn't that just the most adorable smile? Oooh, I could just eat it up! He's soooo close to crawling. He can get up on his hands and knees and rock back and forth. He's been doing that for a few weeks now so I know its just any day he's gonna take off on me and I'll never be able to catch him again.

They adore each other. It's so great to see them getting along. Now, I if I could just get the two of them to smile at the same time...

Hey there's one! We're just enjoying the beautiful weather after it finally stopped raining. Good for the grass though. I totally got covered in tiny little spiders when I took this picture. It was pretty gross.

Oh my, he loves his bath time. I've never seen a kid splash as much as he does. This was his first bath with sister. I was a little scared to just put him in the tub with her so I put his tub inside the big tub and they played together that way. They loved it. It was bathtime chaos for a while. I mean chaos! Wow, I don't know how you moms handle more than two kids! Whew...

Oh goodness, isn't he a charmer? He really is a ladies man. I'm gonna have to watch out for him when he gets older. I love his hair in this picture. It's so fuzzy and cute. This is his first tie too. I found it at a consignment sale of all places. (5 ties for $10!)

This is Kate's "popcorn." It was the only way I could get her to smile. So, I started singing "I looked out the window and what did I see?" and she started doing the popcorn movement. So cute.

Well, that's Chase's last month or so in a nutshell. He's such a cute little boy and a great blessing to our family. We love both our children so much and we can't imagine our lives without them.

What's going on here??

I don't know what's happened to my sweet little girl, but something has come over her. Today she got up at about 6 am (so not cool). At about 11 I went for a run with both kiddos in the stroller. We always stop at a park and play for a little while and then run back home. Well, when we stopped at the park she was sleeping, so we turned around and went home. (I figured Chase isn't quite old enough to know I passed up the playground). Kate NEVER falls asleep in the stroller. She hasn't done that for ages.

So we get home and she's still sleeping. I pick her up and she's still sleeping. I lay her down in her bed still sleeping. I turn around to walk out and she starts crying. I kept walking though thinking maybe she'd fall back asleep (after all, she did wake up an hour and a half earlier than usual).

So then she comes out into the living room and I'm like, alright, let's do lunch, watch Clifford and then go take a nap. I explained this plan to her multiple times - after Clifford we're going to take a nap. Over and over and over. So after Clifford I picked her up, carried her to her room and laid her down. The second I turn to walk away she starts crying. Now, I'm thinking I explained this to her so she knows it's nap time. I know she's tired. I'm gonna let her cry while I go shower and hopefully she'll fall asleep. (Chase is sound asleep in his room, by the way).

I can still hear her crying (well, screaming actually) when I get out of the shower. Plus, I hear Chase starting to stir in his room because of all the screaming. So, I go to Kate's room and tell her it's nap time and try to lay her back down. She's clinging to me so I think maybe she needs some cuddle time. So, I lay down in bed with her which usually helps her to fall asleep pretty quickly. Well, twenty minutes later, she's sitting up playing with her baby doll. So, I take the baby doll away. Not cool. She starts crying and crying and crying. So, I get her the baby doll back and I leave the room.

Screaming, screaming, screaming. I'm gonna lose it so I head outside for some fresh air. A few minutes later I come back into the house and it's all quiet. It took a whole hour to get the kid to sleep. At least I got her to sleep today. She hasn't taken a nap for three days now. I wonder how long she'll sleep? Now Chase is awake. Sigh...I do need to post on his 6 month checkup so hopefully I'll get to that soon. Maybe tomorrow during naptime? :)

I learned something new today. Apparently naps are overrated and two year olds do not need them. Thanks for teaching me that Kate.

Vacation!!

Ok, ok, I've been guilt tripped by my mom to update the blog so here it goes! :) (actually, I've been working on this post for a few weeks now but I keep getting errors with my pictures so I've procrastinated)

We had a happy little vacation at the end of July/beginning of August. First we went to Washington to visit my family and then we went to Montana with Chris' family for a few days. This post will be in reverse order because that's just how I uploaded the pictures and frankly I don't want to fix it. So there. :)

We had a blast in Montana. It was so cool and refreshing!! It had been so hot in OK that we were totally excited for the cool mountain breeze. We got our fill of it on one evening though! We took a trip to Ajax Lake. It's about an hour or hour and a half from the cabin and it was a bumpy ride the whole way up. When we got up there it was a beautiful lake. The weather, however was not so beautiful...unless you like to be soaking wet and cold. It did stop raining and we managed to get some good pictures, however, I keep getting errors when I upload them so this one will have to satisfy you. Isn't she lovely?

Chris' dad has a new hobby....flying, therefore, Chris and our brother-in-law, Andy, have a new hobby too! :) Chris' dad rented an airplane for a morning and we all took turns flying around the Big Hole Valley. It was incredibly beautiful. I took lots of pictures but since you won't know what any of the landmarks are, I'm putting one of me to prove that I was there. It was gorgeous and I totally loved it. We flew over the cabin so close that we could see Chris' grandparents waving from the porch and they could see us inside the plane too! It was crazy.

We also attempted to find Upper Miner Lake while we were there. The cabin is at the beginning of the trailhead to the Upper and Lower Miner Lakes. I've seen the lower one several times...every time we go to Montana we make a trip up there but I had never seen the upper one. So, we set off to find it one morning. Long story short, we got confused with the sign at the beginning of the trail and took the wrong trail. We ran into some hikers that said it wasn't worth it. Apparently it was incredibly steep and took them about 3 hours to get up. So we turned around...I wasn't up for it with a baby in tow. Kate stayed with Grandma Bakker at the cabin so we just had Chase with us. Here's the happy hiker himself!

So, we attempted to entertain ourselves around the cabin. Kate experienced her first four wheeler ride and loved it.

She also entertained us with some dress up in Aunt Stacey's rainboots. They were as high as her legs were long. So funny!

Here's the grand old cabin herself. Chris and his family built it a few years ago. Like, acutally built it...plumbing and all. They are pretty proud, as they should be. It's a wonderful place to escape the cares of the world.

Kate's not the only one who had some fun on four wheelers! Chris took my sister and I on a tour of the mountainside. Kim was an excellent driver.

We also found a frog pond that has literally thousands of frogs. Kate got to hold one. She wasn't too sure what to think of it but it sure was cool. Kate spent plenty of time on the swingset and trampoline and Chris was busy fixing the stain on the cabin and re-finishing a canoe. My time was mainly spent chasing after the two kids and attempting to make up for the lack of sleep I was getting. And, as is becoming a tradition with our trips to the cabin, we pulled out the old puzzles and did a couple of those. Another tradition we have is that we bring WAY TOO MUCH FOOD and we probably gained about 5 pounds each in the few days we were there.

On the way to the cabin, we didn't have so much fun. One of the cars we were driving broke down and Chris had to drive it 100 miles without brakes. Scary!! So, this is how we spent a good chunk of two days in Missoula, Montana...in the repair shop.

The kids were EXCELLENT, I must say. It would have been downright miserable if they would have been fussy but they weren't. I think Kate secretly was happy to be out of the car for a day. So, we spent a night in Missoula and went swimming and after a lot of swimming this is how our day ended. Note: the baby doll with the crazy hair. It's a doll my mom has that looks just like Kate! She loved the thing and wouldn't leave my mom's house without it so it made the trip to Montana with us.

The next day we went back to the repair shop only to find out the car wouldn't be ready for a few days. At that point we opted to rent a car and get to the cabin. Good choice. Kate got pretty attached to her aunt Kimmi while we were there. She'd always have to sit down right next to her. Even now she'll ask me "Where'd Kimmi go?" and I have to explain that she's with Grandma Bakker in Washington. I sure wish we lived closer to you guys!

Rewind with me again to when we were actually in Washington. I got to see an old roommate and friend from college. She has two boys about the same age as Kate and Chase. It was good to catch up with her. We also spent lots of time with my sister's family. One day we went to the Aquatic Center and we had a great time! Kate found a toy octopus slide in the kiddie section and spent about an hour just going up and down the slide. Definately her favorite part of the whole trip I would say. (I had a really cute picture to go here, but Chase just deleted it. Sigh.)

Here's my Mom and two sisters holding Chase and my niece Cayla.

And here's where Chris spent his whole time...learning to surf! It really looked like a ton of fun. I wasn't up for making a fool of myself in front of all the people standing in line but Chris absolutely loved it. He got pretty good too! I did ride the lazy river with Kate. It was pretty fun. The whole family went on the tubes together and we all had a great time.

I tell you, the Moses Lake Family Aquatic Center (well, I think it's called Surf 'n Slide now...old habits die hard) has just about everything you can think of. High dive, water slides, lap pool, shallow beach end with lots of kid toys, surfing, a lazy river, and a spray ground. They even sell swim diapers in case you're like me and don't pack enough. Here's Cayla and Kate enjoying the spray grounds.

And here's the whole crew Mom, Kim, Chad, Hayden, Hayleigh, Cayla, Cindy, Chase, Chris, Kate and me.

All in all we had a fabulous time. I was completely exhausted when we got home and I felt like I needed a vacation from my vacation. It was so great to see family. I wish we could do it more often. Love you guys!