23 months!

Next to last monthly update!  We have a crazy 23 month old running around our house, jumping from one piece of furniture to the other!

23 Month Stats:

Unofficial weight: approximately 32 lbs
Clothing size: Same as last month.
Shoe size: Same as last month.  We bought him much bigger socks though because his old ones looked like they were cutting off his circulation.  He's in 4T-5T socks now!
Diaper size: Same as last month.
Favorite toy: Buzz Lightyear.  Most favorite toy ever!  Never puts it down and has a tantrum if he separates from Buzz.  And it's been like this for a month now!
Favorite foods: Chicken nuggets, cheese, apple juice, animal crackers.  He's an official toddler now that he finally LOVES apple juice!
Least favorite foods: He hasn't been too picky.  His appetite has been huge lately!
Words: No huge change from last month.  I can see the wheels turning in his head though.  When I say something funny to him that he wants to repeat, he'll stop and think about it and almost whisper an attempt, but the words don't quite come out.  Obviously this is something that will be talked about with his doctor visit next month.  He's just so sweet though.  There is no frustration on his part with us because of a lack of communication or understanding.  I think he's just taking his own sweet time!
Teeth: No change since last month
Daily Routine: No change since last month

Latest happenings

Sometime over the course of the past few weeks, he started to develop a love for trains.  Or as he calls them "choo (long pause) choo"'s.  He also loves to point to the airplane in his picture book.  I don't think I've mentioned this before on the blog, but he loves the logos and emblems on cars.  He's always touching the trunks and fronts of people's cars trying to touch the Honda or Toyota logos.  I always get a little freaked out when he does that to any cars but our own!

He got promoted to the 2 year old room in Sunday School today.  Such a big little boy!  Apparently they learned about Noah today!

We've developed a little routine in the morning that helps my sanity and has reduced the amount of tears that I have to see every morning (although sometimes there are still a few).  First we have to hide Buzz Lightyear.  If he catches a glimpse of Buzz in the morning, the day is shot!  Chase's least favorite part of the morning is his diaper change and getting dressed.  I've helped that my grabbing a few animal crackers or goldfish and taking them with me when he gets changed.  He lays down in the floor on our designated "changing blanket" and I give him just enough goldfish or crackers to keep him happy while I change his diaper and get his pants, socks, and shoes on.  The tears usually start when I then try to put his shirt on.  I don't know why, but he hates that part!  Once we get to school, I sometimes let him try to walk into daycare, but he never walks past the second set of doors.  Instead he just wants to run from one side of the hallway to the other and point to the apple pictures, say apple, and then laugh at me trying to get him to move any further!  I pick him up and then walk him down to his classroom.  As soon as I get to his classroom, he puts his head on my neck and pretends that he's sad or shy.  His teacher, Ms. Melanie, then walks up to us, says Hi Chase, and then he quickly flings himself to her so she will take him in her arms.  He then waves bye to me and never looks back.  EVERY MORNING!!

He gives me the sweetest kisses one or two times a day straight on the lips.  Most of time he gives them to me in the morning after he gets done drinking his milk and we are watching Curious George together.  I just live for those kisses!!  I've been trying to get Drew to ask for them more often so he will get some too.  I think he finally got his first one yesterday! Poor Drew just isn't home when Chase is his most cuddly!

Speaking of Curious George, I've almost dumped Nick Jr all together.  Chase doesn't love, love Fresh Beat Band anymore (although the occasionally episode one a month makes him smile!) and they've changed their morning schedule up so only really boring cartoons are on from 6:30 to 7:30am when we might be possibly watching TV.  So PBS has come to the rescue!  It's our ritual now that we watch Curious George every morning at 7 (give me a few minutes to dry and straighten my hair!) and then we watch the very beginning of Cat in the Hat so he can listen to the Go, go, go song if we have time.

Picture of Baby

About a week and a half ago, we got a good long peek at Baby #2 when we went to the doctor for our NT scan.  One thing I remember vividly is that the very moment the lady put the ultrasound wand (??) on my belly, the picture of the baby moving all around just instantly popped on the screen.  There was no need to search for the baby, he/she was just there!  Baby was moving all around and rubbing its eyes and squirming all around!  He/she made the ultrasound technician work for her paycheck that day!  During the NT scan there are certain specific measurements that the technician needs to get and our little mover and shaker wasn't letting her get any of those easily.  I think the total scan took about 20 minutes or so, but she was finally able to get the measurements she needed.  Baby was measuring about a week ahead - measuring at 13w5d as opposed to the 12w5d my doctor told me I was based on my first ultrasound.  Next time I go to the doctor I'll figure out if that changes my due date any.  I'm expecting my due date will be anywhere from February 17th to February 24th.

Here's a picture of our little squirmy thing!  My scanner is apparently dusty, so please look past all of the crud on the picture!

Chase's Big Announcement!

Chase is going to be a big brother!!



He doesn't quite understand that fact yet, but he still has another 6 or so months to figure it out!

As of right now Baby is due February 24th.  I went in for my 8 week appointment and Baby was only measuring 6w6d, so apparently I had an irregular cycle, but our due date will be confirmed later this week when we go in for another ultrasound.  The big ultrasound to determine gender will be in about 7 weeks or so.  I'm predicting another boy!

So far this pregnancy has been similar to mine with Chase, except that my nausea hits at night with this one and with Chase it was in the morning time.  With Chase I craved Chick-fil-a and roast beef sandwiches.  With this one, I seem to want fruit and pizza more!  I started taking belly pictures with Chase around 15 weeks, but I was looking at them the other day.  I'm now a little over 12 weeks pregnant, but I appear to look the same as when I was 16 to 17 weeks pregnant with Chase!  I think that is part of the reason why I told work sooner this time around than last time!

Part of the reason why I couldn't update my blog much lately is because one of my strange aversions this pregnancy has been my camera and looking at pictures.  I can look over at my camera and see certain pictures on Facebook and I immediately start to feel sick to my stomach!  Strange, strange!!  Luckily, I'm almost out of my first trimester so I hope to return to normal soon!

Anyways, Drew and I could not be more excited and nervous for this new addition!  As soon as we are in a very easy groove with Chase, it's all about to change...but I'm so ready for it!  We can't wait to see Chase as a big brother.  He already loves the babies he sees at school, so it should be really interesting to see how he is when one comes home with us!

22 months!

This is late, but that's the way I do it now!

22 Month Stats:

Unofficial weight: approximately 31 lbs
Clothing size: Same as last month.
Shoe size: He's officially a 7M according to our visit to the shoe store.
Diaper size: Size 5
Favorite toy: His Bloks.  He's recently rediscovered his popcorn popper things and runs around the house with them. 
Favorite foods: Same as last month.  Also bananas, strawberries (although we have taken them away because of severe diaper rash!), and pretzels.
Least favorite foods: Hot dogs are back on the list!
Words: Again, there doesn't seem to be a significant change in his list of words each month.  A lot of his words kind of sound the same.  Auburn = Abuh; War Eagle = Gull; Ball = Aball; Book = Buh; Peek-a-boo = Aboo; Dog = Dog or Gog; TV = De; Bubble = Bubble; Bath = Bath; Banana = Nana; Cow = Mmm; Go; Bye; plus some others
Teeth: All his teeth have started finally coming in.  I think we are now just missing the last set of molars.
Daily Routine: He sleeps a ton now!  He routinely sleeps 12 hours (maybe an hour more if we'd let him!) at night, plus a 2 1/2 hour nap at school.  Milk is still a big part of his day!  I can't imagine breaking him of his morning and evening milk!

Recent happenings:

(Part of my post is going to be ever changing as I remember stuff that has happened over the past month!)

Chase has been getting over a virus this past week that started almost immediately after we came back from the Zoo last Saturday.  Toddler vomit is so much worse than baby vomit!

Chase was a real good waver for a while when saying goodbye to folks.  Now, he's big on blowing kisses instead!  When we visited the shoe store last week, he blew kisses to the store worker as we left.

He loves his Pixar movies and Dreamworks movies!  He's been a little burned out on Shrek since our beach trip, but now he loves the Toy Story movies (and can say Buzz!), Finding Nemo (and can say Nemo and try to say Anemone!), and Wall-e.  He especially loves the Pixar opening scene with the bouncing desklamp!

He's starting to love blankets at nap and bedtime.  This started shortly after the beach trip as well.  He would love a pillow too, but I think I've heard maybe they shouldn't have a pillow until they can ask for a pillow.  We currently keep about 3 to 4 fluffy blankets in his crib and he just gravitates to them when he lays his head down!

His least favorite part of the day is diaper changing time.  I've noticed when he has a dirty diaper, he'll move away from me and act really playful with his toys.  I think he's trying to delay the inevitable as long as possible!

When he wants to watch TV, he'll smile and put one finger on each cheek and say "De!".  We have no clue where he learned that from!!

Here are some pictures from our visits last week to the Children's Museum and the Zoo.

Beach Week

About a little under a week ago, we came back from a relaxing week at Rosemary Beach in Florida.  We went with my sister and her family and my mom.  In the mornings we went to the beach.  At noon, it was naptime.  And the afternoons were pool time!  It was such a nice change of pace from the norm!

The nine hour drive to the beach went pretty well.  On the Sunday drive down, the first 5 or 6 hours were relatively peaceful, but Chase got real antsy the last 3 hours.  I have to say I was pretty antsy too.  I definitely had "beach fever"!  Our can of Gerber veggie puffs and cooler of milk definitely saved the day for Chase during those last few hours.  The nine hour drive back was uneventful and Chase behaved perfectly the entire way back.

I believe we already knew Chase was a little water baby, but that was just confirmed in Rosemary!  He was never happier than when he was in the swimming pool or the ocean.  He even learned to kick his legs a little in the pool by the end of the week and could move a little on his own.  He was fearless by "jumping" (more like falling forward) into the pool into Daddy's arms (he also did this off the coffee table!).  The sand on the beach was not his favorite.  Just getting the grains of sand on his hands made him fuss.

Chase surprised us and slept on his little toddler air mattress really well during the week.  We even settled into a great bedtime routine that has come home with us.  He no longer requires rocking at night.  We can put him in bed with his little cup of milk.  He'll drink all he wants.  He'll give us the cup back and then turn over and go to sleep!  Amazing!  I can even manage to put him to bed now!

On to the pictures....

I could bet serious money that the boys here are watching either Shrek or Spongebob.  We watched A LOT of that during the week.

Since Chase has eartubes, we tried to be careful and keep his ears dry.  He's wearing his "Earband-it" here.  It makes his face a little squooshy!

Here he is "diving" to Daddy!

The ONLY time he liked the sand.  We should have given him the shovel earlier!

I'm imagining him saying here, "Can we please stay here forever??"

Chase's cousins who kept him thoroughly entertained all week!  Gray refused to smile for the camera!

This pool made me seriously reconsider getting one!  If only I got huge bonuses at work!

Swimming on his own!

The highlight of Chase's 4th

The Super Duper Slip-n-Slide.  Thanks Vinsons for dreaming up such a thing!

 At first, Drew forgot the principle that you must get wet BEFORE getting on the slip-n-slide.  It ended awkwardly.

It wasn't all clean fun though!  There was a mishap that ended up with Chase being halfway covered in mud!

Happy 4th!

Salsa

We took Chase to our favorite mexican restaurant last week.  This was going to be the first time that we ordered something from the menu for him.  It was also the first time we let him eat chips at the restaurant since he can now eat them without choking like he used to.  I thought it would be funny to let him try just a tiny little bit of salsa.  He kind of acted surprised when he tried it, but you could tell he liked it.  I still thought it was a little strong for him, so I tried to move him on to the cheese dip instead.  He wasn't a fan of that though.  This video was taken shortly after we let him try the cheese dip.

Also, at the beginning of the video, he's laughing at a little girl who poked her head over the wall to stare at him!

21 months!

It's been about 12 days since I've really written anything on this blog.  That might be a record or something.  Honestly, it's laziness and me not wanting to go upstairs.  I'm much happier lying in bed with my iphone checking Twitter and Facebook or sitting on the couch watching Shrek for the 50th time this month. 

I was out of town for work on Chase's actual 21 month birthday, so I made sure to delegate the task of monthly pictures to Drew before I left.

21 Month Stats:


Unofficial weight: On Friday at the Dr, he was 30 1/2 lbs fully clothed
Clothing size: Varies.  Mostly 2T.
Shoe size: Same as last month.
Diaper size: Size 5
Favorite toy: All his little vehicles...police car, fire truck, plasma car.  He zooms in those across the house very quickly!  Also, Mega Bloks.  He's a firm believer in having as tall a structure as possible.  He also loves to destroy what he creates.
Favorite foods: Chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes, corn dogs, ice cream cones, cereal bars, pretzels, Doritos...chip off the old blocks.
Least favorite foods: We haven't discovered anything new.
Words: We haven't had a huge change this month.  He says Dog all the time now...even for cats.  He also says Door and "Ana" (Banana).  I heard him say "Daddy" today as well.
Teeth: His upper canines are just starting to pop through.  I'm sure the bottoms will follow any day now.
Daily Routine: Two weeks ago, he started transitioning to the "Bouncing Bears" class at school.  Last week was his first full week in that class.  He's done really well with the transition.  There isn't a big difference from the Turtles to the Bears, except just being around kids that are 2 instead of 1.  He came home that day picking up stuff off the ground and throwing it.  So that begins!  I'm really excited for the change though.  I like him being around the older kids so he can learn from them.
Tricks:  Drew and I love when we stumble across something day to day that Chase has been taught in school.  The other day in the car, I was singing the various verses of Wheels on the Bus.  I get to the part where I sing, "the mommas on the bus go shh, shh, shh" and Chase then puts his finger to his mouth and goes shh!  It was adorable!  We've also stumbled across his knowledge of the movements for "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes".
 
Other things going on:
 
Yesterday, Chase has his first big "boo boo" in school.  Apparently he was climbing the wrong way up an indoor toy slide (totally sounds like something he would do!) and then fell, bumping the back of his head on the way down.  He was bleeding a little from his head, but they couldn't get a good look at the wound because of his hair.  Drew and I were together nearby when we got the call since I had the day off work, so we got there probably within 20 minutes of it happening.  All we could see when we got there was a boy who was happy until you tried to touch his head to get a closer look.  That's not surprising though because he hates it even when you try to get frosting out of his hair.  All we could see was some blood that was caked in his hair, but it had obviously quit bleeding.  I called the pediatrician just to be safe and they squeezed us into an appointment that they scheduled at 4:20.  It was 4:10 when we left the daycare, so we rushed through traffic to get to one of the locations that had an opening.  We were only about 3 minutes late!  The doctor and Drew held Chase down on his stomach to get a better look at the wound (Chase was screaming and thrashing around!).  It took a little bit of digging to figure out what we were working with.  It turns out there was no actual cut at all!  It was just a little hematoma.  Almost like a little blood blister under the skin.  He must have pinched that skin during his fall.  The bleeding was just from some pressure building in the blister.  Drew and I were so relieved!  I was so sad for little man having to get hurt, but it could have been so much worse. We spoiled him on the way home though with a corn dog and an ice cream cone.

This month he's been trying to jump.  He tries to jump by just moving up to his tippy toes.  He hasn't actually left the ground yet, but he is getting more bouncy when he tries.

A-Boo

Chase wants to play "a-boo" with you!

One of the many perks of having a son

Back on the Web!

We have been without internet for a little over a week in this house which explains the lack of updates.  Surprisely we didn't get a lot more done around the house without internet because most of the time was spent on the phone explaining to Comcast our issues 4 times a day! 

I'm a little behind so I'm going to try to get caught up.  I'm going to be backdating my posts to the proper day so I can remember the chronological order of various events!

Trip to the Botanic Gardens

Drew and I made our first trip back to the Botanic Gardens since our wedding.  We went for the sole purpose of visiting My Big Backyard to help entertain Chase for a few hours.  We went at 9 in the morning since the heat index was supposed to go up to 110 that day!  We strolled along the little path visiting as many things as we could.  Even that early in the morning though, it was really hot!  Thankfully we rounded our way to the water sprinkler area right at the time Chase's face was a red as a tomato!  He had a ball!

Now I'm about to overload you with pictures! :)

A little commentary about these pictures - We heard the "thunder" when we were in the Wizard garden and we rushed over to catch the rain.  I didn't really know what to expect here.  I figured it would be a light misting.  When we got there, it had just started misting and one other boy about a year older than Chase was hanging around there and another family just sitting around.  Chase enjoyed the misting and then the heavy "thunder" started and the water just started pouring.  The other kid ran to his mom and Chase started squealing and running around in circles.  The family on the bench started cheering him on and he was loving it!  If there is one thing he loves more than water, it's attention!  He was the only one that played in the water and he left drenched!