May

I feel like I blinked and May was gone. I have no idea what we did. I had to flip through all my pictures to jog my memory. Here's a few highlights.

Chris finally bought his dream bow. It's the Bowtech Admiral, if you care to know. ;) He's gotten pretty good at it. This is a picture just after he shot from 50 yards (which is pretty far in bow hunting standards). There's three arrows in the block but you can only really see two. That's because he almost got a "robin hood." Which means he almost shot so perfectly that he split one in two. I'm glad he didn't cause that means we would have had to buy another arrow. He's a happy camper though and he's already plotting for next hunting season. Be thankful you're not a deer living in Oklahoma.

We started a new tradition: Family Cookie Night! Well, we liked it so much we're gonna make it a tradition. It was way too late but the kids (and Mommy and Daddy) had fun.

We spent a ton of time at the park. Not so much anymore since it's so stinking hot outside. But we had a pretty good run of it for a while.

I love this picture of Chase. He always wrinkles up his nose and it's so cute!

What is it with men and anything with moters or wheels? Chase LOVED this truck at a park in Norman.

I love Kate's cheesy grin and dirty feet in this one. What a mess!

A friend and I went to the rose gardens to take some pictures. It had been raining for like a week straight but we decided to go anyway. It was a lot of fun. Here's my favorite from the trip.

We also went to Washington!! Yeah!!

I'm sorting through pics from that trip and I'll be posting them soon so stay tuned!

April Pictures

Ok, so I'm way behind on this blog so I'll just post some pics from the past month...well, April that is (I guess it is June now). We celebrated Easter and my birthday and took some good pics along the way. No pics of my birthday though (because I'm always the one behind the camera). There's not even good pics of Easter either because I got a new fancy camera for Christmas and all the pics I took turned out bad. Bummer. I'm getting better though. I'll get around to posting about May someday soon....hopefully :)

I love these two faces. Even if they're not always smiling and happy.

I wonder what she's thinking right now.

Can you say obsessed with shoes? That would be Chase now. He walks around in Mom and Dad's shoes all the time. I'm sure this picture is of Kate teaching him how its done.

Notice the bump on his forehead (remnants of the bump from the previous post). The mark is still there to this day. Maybe it'd be gone if he didn't bump it every single day. He now has two bumps on each side of his head so at least he's symmetrical.

Don't do it!!

And he did. Sigh...

Chase's first real haircut. I love these two guys!

After Easter dinner we headed to the park and took these pics.

Random stuff

Here's some random pictures from March. I've got tons of pics from April to sort through and I'll try to post them soon. No guarantees though! :)

The kids LOVE being outside. Especially Chase. They both love the rocks and will play out there for hours.

What'cha cooking Chase?                                            Little feet. I could just eat them up!!

Kate found a red marker and colored her nose. We actually ran a bunch of errands around town like this. She was rudolf for a day.

Kate's first ponytail. Now that's all she wants me to do to her hair. "Pull back up, Mommy."

Grrrr!!

Chase's first ride down the swirly slide.

He fell and hit his head on the corner of our entertainment center. He still has a bump. He bonks the same spot almost every day. Some days several times. I think it'll be permanently there. Tip to parents: if you need to keep ice on a head wound, stick the ice in a knee high nylon and wrap it on their head. Then you have two hands free to distract the kid. After a few minutes Chase forgot about it and started playing. Worked for Kate too.

Soooo tired!

Kate is a little nurturer. She pretends almost anything is a baby and almost anything that resembles a blanket is something to wrap the "baby" up in. Every time I walk past the nursery at Church I peak in and she pretty much always has a baby doll in her arms.

Come to think of it, almost anything that is rectangle and small is a phone too.

Chase's vocabulary

Chase has started jabbering a ton lately and he can actually say a few "words." Well, not all of them are words, but we know what he means.
Da Da
Hi
Ba Ba (for bye bye)
Da da (for dog)
Ma Ma (said after I was gone for a few hours. He actually does know who I am)
Ma (along with the "more" sign whenever he wants anything)

Happy Birthday Chase!!

Wow, I've been majorly slacking lately. Sorry folks...if any of you still read this blog. This past month, well, last month, :) we celebrated Chase's birthday. Yep, he's a big boy now and he's running and chasing after Kate. Just trying to keep up with her. Here's some pics to document his big day.

He loved his new monkey backpack...until he figured out he couldn't get it off whenever he wants. He kept trying to see it. It was like a cat with tin foil on its tail. He kept turning around and around...very entertaining!

I just love Kate's face in this picture. This depicts the story of the evening. Kate finally "gets" birthdays. She was so excited for the presents and totally took over every present after it was opened. Poor Chase didn't even get to play with his presents until the next day.

Chase was so sick. I took him to the dr for his check up the next day and apparently he had RSV and a double ear infection. :(

Playing with his bike from Grandma  B. He loves it. It's still a source of fighting almost every day because the kids love it so much. I've got all the songs memorized too...

Look at the cute table!! I love it! We've used it for so many things already. Thanks G & G C! Now, Chase has figured out how to climb onto the chairs and onto the table. He points to the pictures and says "Da da!" (because there's pictures of Chris up there). Then he knocks them off the walls and dings the table. Sigh...

So here's some cake action for you. I couldn't decide if I wanted to make a #1 cake or a car cake so I made both. Then with the extra cake I made blocks with his name on it. It didn't really turn out all the cute but it was worth a shot and I really don't think Chase minded.

Taking his pick. I believed he picked the "A" block.

He didn't like his hands dirty.

So, maybe he didn't like that cake either. Hmmm, this isn't going so well.

Yeah, really not going so well.

Finally! He takes his first bite!

"Hmmm, this isn't so bad."

"Yeah, I really like this stuff. What's it called again? Sugar? Yum!"

After the first bite or two he really got into it.

"Ok, now I'm not so happy anymore."

Cleaning up.

Happy birthday Chase! We love you so much! You bring so much joy into our home and we really couldn't imagine life without you. Love you!

One of my favorites

A few new things

I'm losing my mind. I'm blaming it on my children though. That makes me not feel so bad. This weekend I gave Chris a McDonalds recipt to return something to Walmart. I'm glad I wasn't there when it happened. I did laugh pretty hard when he told me though. Really hard, actually. And, on another related note, I learned today that this year I will have aged two years (thanks to lack of sleep). That's great.

I love this shirt. Can you read it?

Chris is doing great. He works really, really hard. It's been a rough semester for him, and the kids and I miss having him home so often. Good thing it's only temporary! Only about 2 months left!! He takes the MCAT on April 23rd. I've got countdown chains going already. I hope he does well. He deserves to. He's also super excited that he saw a Ford GT in Edmond the other day. Don't ask me what that is, but apparently it's awesome and he never thought he'd see one in person. I just so happened to have my camera so we snapped a few pictures to capture the moment. Too bad I don't have the time/patience to post them right now. Maybe later.

So, it's cut off but it's the best picture. How do you like that fancy car?

Kate is really growing so fast. She is talking so much better now. I can actually have clear conversations with her. She loves to talk on the phone. Every day I hear "Call Stacey? Call Grandma Bakker? Call Cindy?" Over and over. She's like a little sponge. Just taking in everything she hears and sees. The other day we were having some friends come over and I was trying to get the house picked up. She was not having that. It was only 9am and she had already: taken out the contents of my camera box, gotten into a pack of gum on Chris' nightstand, climbed onto my desk and dumped out a bunch of mechanical pencil refills, poured cinnamon and sugar all over Chase's high chair (Chase loved that), dumped her crayons all over the table and started flinging them on the floor. At this point I lost it and I started yelling. To which she said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down! That's enough! It's ok, it's ok. Calm down baby girl." I was like, "why are you calling me baby girl?" Then I realized that's what I say to her when she starts to throw a tantrum. I laughed so hard. My name is Christine. I'm 28 and I still throw tantrums.

Proof of the cinnamon and sugar experience!

Chase is getting sooo big! I can't believe it's almost been a year since he came into our family. Since I last posted he has taken his first steps. He actually walks quite well. He just knows that crawling is faster so he never walks unless we make him. He is also learning to climb. The other day I was getting some recipes out of the cupboard and I turned around to see Chase's little head poking up over the counter. (My counters are about 4 feet high). It freaked me out! He had climbed up onto the fireplace (which he's been doing for a while now) and then onto a nearby recliner and was scaling the back of the recliner. I think I'm gonna find him on top of the counter any day now. NOTHING is safe anymore. I keep telling Chris we don't have enough high places to hide things. Now not even the high things are going to be safe.

Our little climber figured how to get on sister's bed today. (3-8-10)

Well, that's what we're up to. Today was so nice we spent the whole day outside. Bring it on, Spring! We're ready!