Tuesday, July 21, 2009

17 months old

Aaarrrgghhh....I'm a pirate!
Can you say cheese?
Mad and wanting the camera!
Can you believe this? Chase turned 17 months old on Saturday. We almost have a 1 1/2 year old....seems like just yesterday that I started this blog and was posting ultrasound pictures. He is just getting so grown up, showing us things I never imagined and is just smart as a whip. Now, I know that I am (just a little) biased, but he just amazes me everyday. I guess being a first time mom, you just don't realize how they pick up and learn the things they do. And being an only child, I never really had the opportunity to witness the day by day growth of a child before Chase came along.

Congratulations to Andrew & Stephanie on their wedding on Saturday. It was beautiful and such a gorgeous day for a wedding too. Chase and Gavin had fun together in church and the reception. Chase did really well for spending 7 hours out and about. He completely wore us out though! Our backs were killing us by the end of the day, we don't usually hold him as much as we did on Saturday! He is one solid kid for sure!

His vocabulary continues to grow every day and he is just repeating more and more words. He is saying (in his own way) words like Cardinals, yellow, hot dog, cookie, diaper. I got him a set of alphabet flash cards and he just loves going through them. He loves playing with bags, taking things out and putting them back in. Sunday morning, he unpacked his diaper bag and was trying to put everything on that was inside. He had a bib slung on his back and his pajama bottoms on his head....hence the pirate picture above!

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Fourth of July

Rolling around at Riverfest!
Daddy and Chase after swimming
Entertaining the crowd at Riverfest!

Love this one from breakfast at Steak N Shake
Look Mama!

On a whim last week, we decided to head to St Louis for the Fourth of July. We stayed in the Westport area and planned to get some R&R and go to the St Charles Riverfest for the celebrations. We headed up on Friday around noon. We got up there and decided to do some swimming. The pool was indoors and supposedly heated. We got in and it felt pretty good, but little man had his teeth chattering before long, so we got out and headed up to the room. Tried to get him to take a nap, which he eventually fell asleep for about an hour. We then headed out to do a little shopping and for dinner.

Afterwards, we decided to check out the riverfront in St Charles. We planned to go down there on Saturday, but decided we could just see what they had to offer beforehand. It is really a nice celebration, similar to JC but a little larger. They had about 10 rides, lots of food vendors, craft vendors and bands. Chase and I got some very good homemade ice cream (yum!). Because it was so nice and cool, we decided to stick around for the fireworks. We had a couple of hours to go before they started, so we spread out a blanket and let Chase go to town. He, of course, did his share of running around, flirting with the ladies, giving high fives to everyone, pretty much entertaining the crowd around us! He is such a ham! It sprinkled off and on, but we only had to get out the umbrella once. The fireworks were awesome. I bet they lasted 25 minutes and they were bigger than JC ever has been....plus those were just Friday night, they had another display on Saturday night too. Chase was a little startled by the fireworks in the beginning, but seemed okay after a while. We caught him flirting and waving with a girl standing behind him, so I guess they weren't all that interesting to him!! We were able to sit right down on the riverfront, so it was an awesome view. They were almost directly above us.

After a long wait in the parking lot and witnessing a crazy altercation, we didn't get back to the hotel til 11pm. Chase didn't sleep very well (which means neither did we!). And although he didn't go to bed till way past normal bedtime, he was still up at 7....we really could have used 9 instead! We woke up to pouring down rain and were immediately disappointed. We had planned to go downtown during the day since we went to St Charles the night before. Did not look like it was going to happen...they called for rain all day. We decided to pack up and head back early. We ate breakfast, did some shopping and were home around 2. Seems like every time we try and go out of town, something happens to screw it up (remember the ER visit in KC?). Oh well, we enjoyed the time down there and we came home and still had time to recoup before going back to work on Monday.