Last weekend, Chase helped Pace vacuum our cars. Chase was really excited to help Daddy, as always, and he took his job very seriously. He vigorously vacuumed the back seat of the car for at least five minutes, stopping only to make sure the hose suction was adequate. When I asked him what he was doing, he said, "I’m helping Daddy vacuum the car because it’s too dirty." Well said, Chase. We’re more than happy to put our energetic boy to work!!!
I am very happy to report that Chase is sleeping great these days! It’s quite helpful seeing as how we all need our sleep! For a while (recently) it was hard to get him to stay in his bed at nap time and bedtime, and we would have to take him back to his bed dozens of times before he would go to sleep. Sometimes I would take him back so many times at nap time, that I would just start to ignore him and then I would find him sleeping on the wood floor in our room, or in the hallway, like this:
Now he is doing much better, though. We didn’t change anything about our approach, but somehow he snapped out of it. Next step: We started working on getting him to not cry about nap times and bedtimes. Pace made this amazingly cute little chart because we wanted to get him a train table, but not just for no reason…
Chase got to put a cardboard smiley face on the chart at bedtime, but we took it off and put a sad face in its place if he would cry. He really didn’t like getting sad faces. One night he was bawling, and he brought his freshly-earned sad face to me, and cried, "I donnnnn’t waaaaaaaaant thissssss!" At the next sleep time he was able to replace the sad face with a happy one because he didn’t cry that time.
He started to get a little frustrated after a few days of this and not getting his train table, and I realized that the reward was probably too far from the work for a kid his age to feel motivated. So we changed the goal from seven days to five days, and he did it! Haha are we softies or what?!? He loves his train table, almost as much as Pace does!
On a side note, he picked out some monster "jammas" at Old Navy that were super cheap, so I got them for him (since he usually just wears a t-shirt to bed anyway).
Here are a couple other photos of our little "angel" sleeping– which we NEVER take for granted!!!!
Pace and I just had the best Monday and Tuesday ever! I have been "bugging" Pace for a long time about going to a bed and breakfast for a night together, just to get away from everyday life– for a price far lower than taking a regular vacation. Plus, our baby will likely be born right after Christmas, which is when our anniversary is, and then who knows when we will be able to get away….
So for our early anniversary present to ourselves, we escaped for a night to Johnson Mill in Midway (check out the website). Holy amazingness! Pace picked it out himself, and I was so impressed. Johnson Mill is so beautiful and picturesque, it completely exceeded any expectations I may have had about a bed and breakfast (and the price wasn’t bad, either)! We stayed in the Mt. Timpanogos Room, which was beautifully rustic. We cranked up the a/c so we could have a nice, cozy fire going all the time! Here are a few little snapshots of our room:
And the views from our balcony:
We went out to dinner at a little grill nearby, "hiked" around the property to see several small waterfalls and a fun swing they had, went on an evening paddleboat ride on the lake (complete with swans), and had some tasty hot chocolate and treats later in the evening.
Then we had a leisurely morning, including delicious biscuits and gravy for breakfast on the deck above the big waterfall. Thanks to Rachel for watching Chase for us while we were gone. I couldn’t believe how relaxing and picturesque the whole experience was! I highly recommend this place.
I love my family. They are so good to me. Chase is so honest and open. He is willing to tell me all sorts of things, like how it’s not dark enough for bed time; and how the food I make him isn’t as goo das mommy’s; and how I’m not allowed to sing a goodnight song b/c mommy does it better. Today we were sitting in the chapel at church and something I ate yesterday wasn’t agreeing with me. So I secretly tried to relieve the gaseous pressure into the cushioned seat I was on. Ahhh success, I felt much better and no one nearby heard anything that would lead back to me. One second later, Chase who was on my lap, said at normal Chase volume. "Smells like someone went poo poo." I’m positive that my uncontrollable giggle tipped some people off that it was me that smelled like I went poo poo. Ah my blessed boy.
My wife is equally a blessing. She always says I love you and does nice things for me. I hardly ever say I love you to her first. Not b/c I don’t want to, it just never crosses my mind to say it first. She makes me cookies almost every week (this week she made those awesome hersey kiss in the middle ones), and she doesn’t care that I get fat b/c of them. She thinks I’m sexy even if I’m not, and she likes just watching tv with me. What a wonderful companion I have. She laughs at my not funny jokes and really laughs at my funny ones. She makes me spend money on her, and she spends lots of money for me. (but not as much as other women).
Thanks for being so amazing family.
“Heavenly Father loves me so much that he gave me the restaurant of McDonald’s.”
–spoken enthusiastically by a little Sunbeam boy in my class
Here’s a smattering of stuff Chase has been up to! I have tons of Chase pictures, and I think I need to assert myself more and have others take pictures so I can be part of the memories! Especially before I become too prego-looking to want to be in the photos! But anyway.
Here is Chase with a couple of neighbor kids. He absolutely loves playing with any kid, any time! I like to call Chase and this little girl "the twins" because they look similar, and they were born 3 days apart!
I forgot to blog about this a couple weeks ago, but Rach was watching some kids and I had Chase and another kid with me. We took them to a fun jumpy place, then had lunch at Wendy’s. We had fun and everyone was quite well-behaved! I just thought this little scene was just too funny to pass up the photo opportunity!
Another day, Chase smeared jello on his head at Rachel’s house, then posed for this picture!
He really likes to build and arrange things. Here’s one of his creations that I came across: a lineup of golf balls on the garage door, so they would all fall down when daddy got home and opened the garage door. It really worked! 🙂
Another thing he decided to do was grab some sandwich bags and put two of them on each of his feet, so he could have shoes for inside the house. It made me laugh!
Grandpa T. is here for Education Week, and we’ve enjoyed hanging out with him and Rachel a lot (Rachel has a life at the moment because she’s not back in school quite yet)!
And for those who are curious, here is a photo of me right now, at 21 weeks along (just past the halfway mark!). This is the first "belly photo" I have taken; I figured it was about time! (I don’t know how to crop photos on here, so excuse all the extra white space on the sides.)
For everyone involved, this is your reminder that the draft is on Saturday! I know most emails I send out thru the yahoo service just end up in your junk filters sooooo I wanted to officially alert you all that if you cant attend the LIVE draft on saturday you can pre-rank your players at any time….otherwise the computer will just give you the “best” available player each turn….best could mean a lot of different things so I can not stress how important actually being there is, we can chat during the draft so it will be a beginning to all this seasons smack talking, or bringing up past victories ie. the entire Keck household (except Kyle.)
Are you reading this and wishing you could be involved? There is still time to join before Saturdays draft party….
Click the link and enter the following info:
League ID#: 6225
Password: chase
I am now 21 weeks along, and I had the exciting ultrasound today! Great news: The baby looks healthy as far as we/the doctor can tell!
I’ve been trying to think of something creative to do to reveal whether our baby is a boy or girl… the internet hasn’t offered any fun ideas… and Chase keeps climbing all over me and the keyboard. SO just look at the words below, and since I am 21 weeks along, the 21st word will tell you what our baby is, a girl or a boy! Haha fun!
boygirlboygirlgirlgirlboyboyboygirlgirlgirlboygirlboygirlboygirlboyboygirlgirlboyboyboygirlgirlboygirlgirlboyboy
Make sure you counted right! Haha corny, I know!
{Pace}
For those of you who can’t count.. I’ve remade Joy’s game
girlgirlgirlgirlgirlgirlgirlgirlgirlgirlgirlgirlgirlgirlgirlgirlgirlgirlgirlgirlgirlgirlgirlgirlgirlgirl
Today Chase and I went to the local County Fair with Becky and her three cute girls. It was much cheaper than the fair I remember growing up, although definitely not as much to see and do… but it was just great! The kids were amazingly well-behaved even though we had to wait until noon to go on the rides, and even then we only let them go on one ride because all they were all $3-$4! But we shared some kettlecorn and got a couple free things, so overall it was all good!
We saw some animals; here they’re petting a soft baby alpaca:
The kids did some "tile art" (Chase colored his for like 10 seconds so that’s why he isn’t in the photo):
But he held Becky’s sweet baby while the girls colored! He was kissing her and hugging her– he loves babies.
Here is the ONE ride Chase went on, a motorcycle ride:
But they also got to sit on some real tractors, which was great!
