Category: Chase

I don’t watch Oprah more than 3 times/year, but this story caught my eye about a mom who accidentally left her baby in the car all day, and you can guess what happened. I feel bad for the mom, and I feel really bad for the baby who had to go in such a way! It’s one of the worst things I can imagine happening to a family.  What I take from the story, though, is a good piece of advice for us all to keep in mind: Slow down and remember the big picture.

Brenda says the lesson she learned that she wants to pass on to other moms is to slow down — don’t become overwhelmed with perfection. “I’ve learned to say a lot, ‘It just doesn’t matter,'” she says. “The house doesn’t matter, the perfect dinner doesn’t matter — the kids matter.”

There are houses available in our neighborhood… I mean come on, how can you resist?

Most parents are constantly entertained by the funny things their kids say all day, and we are no different! Here are some of Chase’s recent quotes.

–He was taste-testing some cookie dough we made, and I asked him how the cookies tasted. His response: "They taste perfect."

–Referring to a crane we saw near a construction site: "If that fall down that would be awful."

–I was tilting his head back in the bath water to rinse his hair, and he suddenly yelled, "No, Mommy, don’t baptize me!" I guess he wants to wait until he can make that decision himself!

–When Chase saw me wearing a necklace one day, he said, matter-of-factly:   "Good necklace, Mom."  

–In a store, I told him we were looking for the "store lady" to ask her where the bathroom was. He stopped right there in the middle of the store and yelled: "LAAAAADDYYYYY! Where’s the bathroom!?!?" Of course, why didn’t I think of that?

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!!!

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.)

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!

I like playing hide and seek, my aunts and uncles aren’t very good at it. Want to watch me play with Rachel?

I wanted to tell you about how much fun I’ve been having with my family. I have been blessed with the best family ever, and that includes most of you reading this. Today we went bowling for Family Night. I had so much fun! But at my age it’s hard to stay focused and wait for my turn. I scored pretty good, at one point I was beating Rachel and Mommy. Daddy won this time, soon I’ll be able to keep up with him. Watch this video of me bowling!
What should I do with the family next week?

This morning seemed like it would be a regular Saturday morning… Pace left early to help a neighbor move in, and Chase and I went outside to do a little yard work. Chase was doing a good job of entertaining himself with his tricycle, digging, etc. as I pulled weeds. Suddenly I heard him screaming, and when I looked up, I saw him swatting at a few yellow jackets that were swarming around him! (For a quick second, it reminded me of the bee attack scene from the movie My Girl!) I grabbed him, ran inside, and noticed that he had been stung multiple times. He usually gets over injuries in about 5 seconds, but he was definitely very tense and upset even a few minutes later! I was a little upset, too… I counted the slightly swollen red marks, and he had been stung 8 times! Poor guy.

I tried to ice the sore spots, but he’s never been a fan of that, plus there were too many of them to ice! So I put him in the bathtub and washed him off, gave him some ibuprofen, called my mom for moral support, and then later put some baking soda/water paste on the wounds (supposedly helpful). Soon, Pace got home, and when I told him what had happened, he said, “He’ll be fine.” When I looked more closely, I noticed that Pace had some wounds of his own on his face… He told me that while they were moving the neighbors’ stuff, someone had accidentally whacked him in the nose/face with a bed frame. Yikes! So then we all just laid on the bed, attempting to avoid any further travesties (at least for a few minutes)… we’d had enough for the morning. My poor guys! Everyone’s doing better now, though. 🙂

What’s weird is that Chase woke up 3 times last night, each time asking very concernedly if Daddy had killed the bees and sprayed the bees. So I don’t know if he had some premonition-type dreams last night, but it’s really strange that he woke up so much asking about bees…

Dear adoring fans, I have released my latest video, please view it now, or in the McVideos section. Comment on it here. Oh and there is supposed to be a download link…. I’m not very good with computers yet