2 Years Old.....and counting

Chase's 2nd Birthday: February 23, 2011

*Loves to "Roar" like Rex and scare you....so fun to hear him giggle so much
*Beginning to come around with the dogs....gives them kisses, reads them books, but as long as they are on the blanket
*Still the cup police....making sure everyone has their "juice" including the dogs
*Bedtime routine improving dramatically, as well as drop off at daycare with no tears at either one. 
*Favorite foods include pizza, lasagna, spaghetti but starting to eat more chicken and other meat.  Maybe he has Italian in his blood.  Eating green beans again, finally. Loves fruit esp mandarin oranges, apples, pears, and bananas. Eats two cereal bars every morning; can't get him to eat anything else that early.
*Gives sweet hugs and kisses
*Favorite movie is still Toy Story.  I had to order another Toy Story one b/c the DVD is worn out.  Buzz is his favorite character. Also likes Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Dora the Explorer, Diego, Wonderpets.  I sure do get the Wonderpets song in my head a lot!

We had his party on Sunday, February 20th.  Of course, it had a Toy Story theme.  I made the invitations, candy bar wrappers, water bottle wrappers, and stuck to a blue, green, and white color scheme with decor and food.  His cake was three layers (2 chocolate/1 white) and was delicious.  He had lots of friends and family there.  I think there were about 11 kids in my small house! And their were no meltdowns!  I bought him a Buzz four wheeler for his big gift from us.

I had a funny story about that: you could buy it on Amazon for $30 MORE than Wal-mart so I went to check it out and Walmart only had ONE left.  I didn't bring a cart with me, and as I was looking around, two guys came up and I thought they were talking about another little boy that would like the same toy. Chase HAD to have that for HIS birthday!! They left and I thought they may be getting a cart, so I scooped up the HUGE box and rushed to the checkout, praying that they wouldn't see me.   (although a patient at the clinic did, and he had to make fun of me a little later) I got it and a nice family let me use their cart to get out of the store. 

Anyway, back to the party.  Chase was blessed with many good gifts and sat and played all night with his new toys.

His actual birthday is today and I took cupcakes to daycare and he had a little party there as well.  The teacher was kind enough to take pictures and email them to me.

 Happy Birthday, Chase!!!! We love you so much! You are such a joy and blessing each and every day!

It's Working!

Chase has always slept pretty good at night, usually around 11-12 hours.  He has gone through periods of taking a long time to fall asleep to just going down right away after putting him down awake.  Lately, though, it has been pretty rough.  It was taking around 35-45 minutes of rocking to get him to sleep before you could put him down.  It was always worse with me than with his daddy too.  So, outage started and Robert is working nights for three weeks so I thought I would revert back to the good ole "cry it out" method.  It worked when he moved to a crib at six weeks old, so I thought it was time to try it again.  We usually don't let him cry long, but if I could let him cry for three hours when he was six weeks old (hey, it worked,) then I could let him cry for 30 minutes.  My new plan included a kitchen timer set for 10 minutes and then putting him down.  The first night was interrupted with a few phone calls, so I got started a little later than i wanted to.  He cried, no screamed, for 35 minutes before falling asleep.  He slept all night though.  So we did it again on Tuesday night with only 12 minutes of crying/screaming.  Then tonight, only 1.5 minutes of light crying. Woohoo! It's working.  Hopefully tomorrow there will be no crying. I think it has helped him during the day too. He seems to have awoken happier the past two days.

Valentine's Day:
I got Chase a balloon and candy for V-day, and he just loves the frog balloon.  It rides in the car with us, and even takes a bath with Chase.  I hope it lasts a few more days. I don't know what he'll do when it's gone:)
I also got to sneak away from work for a few minutes to go to his Valentine's Party at school.  The kids seemed a little uneasy to see all the adults there too.  Chase had to keep his eye on me and make sure I was always in the right spot, looking at him.  He gave me a card, picture and balloon as well. 

Chase's Puppy Valentine Box and Valentines for School

Chase's valentine to Mommy

Mommy's Valentine to Chase

Flowers from Daddy & Chase (told him not to spend too much this year b/c I need to fix the house up a little

Robert and I got a couple of date nights before outage started on Valentine's Day. Saturday, we went to Oumami and ate way too much, including a Yummy Yummy Sushi roll, (it's pretty yummy) and habachi chicken and then we went to an ANO Operator social at the Country Club.  Not many were there; most had gone earlier in the week as they had it two nights.  We got to talk to a few people though and meet his bosses.  Maw-maw and Paw-paw Bradford got to watch Chase for the night.  Chase hadn't been around the much as they were out of town for an outage for a couple of months.
Sunday, our church sponsored a Babysitting fundraiser for the youth group.  We went out to Ruby Tuesday and then to see True Grit.  Rob loves westerns so I sacrificed and let him watch something that wasn't a chick flick.  I thought it was pretty good though, just a little graphic in some parts.

Eating at 10pm after Church Babysitting....he wouldn't eat before we left

Snow days:
We've had quite a few snow days last week.  I worked Wednesday morning and then couldn't even make it back up my driveway.  Robert stayed home with Chase Wednesday and Friday.  Luckily, they only needed essential personnel at ANO.  Rob worked Thursday and I stayed home, then I worked again on Friday.  Chase loved the snow this year, throwing snowballs, licking icicles, and eating snow ice cream. 

My Drive Home....Lanes anyone?

Trying to get Chase to wear his pants

Do these make my butt look big??

Awww...kisses