Saturday, November 29, 2008

Getting Ready!

We started getting ready for Christmas this weekend. We bought our Christmas tree and set up our new train set to get things started!

Yes, Brian is in shorts. I can honestly say we've never shopped for a Christmas tree in shorts before now. Anyway, back to the train.... Chase helped:

When we were looking for trains there were others that were more "Christmassy," but this train had BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe) on the cars, which made us think of Chicago (I rode the Metra's BNSF line to work downtown every day for a couple years). It's a little taste of home... and now that it's up and running, Chase loves it, too!

Chase finally started feeling better today, but after almost a week of getting whatever his little heart desired he wasn't too thrilled to be back in the "real world" where the world doesn't revolve around him.... So we spent a good part of today like this:

Brian's dad leaves early in the morning and we feel so terrible that he spent his entire Thanksgiving vacation cooped up inside, either being thrown up on or screamed at. Here's to hoping that our next Grandpa visit is a healthy one so he can really spend some quality time with his grandson!

And please wish us luck as we work on re-introducing Chase to the real world this week! This should be fun....

P.S. Photos of Grandpa W's time in Texas are now in our Photo Album. He took every single one of them (Thanks for letting me steal them, Elmer)!

P.P.S. 26 days til Christmas!

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving!

Are you stuffed? We are! Brian's dad has been in town since Thursday night so here's a little recap of what we have done leading up to our Thanksgiving.

Grandpa brought a lot of Brian's old books with him, so Chase is in book heaven!

On Saturday Brian had to teach all day so Grandpa, Chase and I went to the park for a bit... and it was a little chilly!

Sunday we did a little shopping so Grandpa could buy Chase's birthday and Christmas gifts while he was down here. Then on Monday Chase woke up sick and we spent the next few days like this:

It's Deja Vous! Remember how our last Thanksgiving went? It is tough to see him like this (do you see that caved in tummy?)! He has another bad ear infection so we have decided to go ahead and put the tubes in. In addition to that he has been throwing up and, well... I'll spare you the details but now we're working out of the other end. Today he acted much more alive but he is still not at 100%. Poor baby! He is hanging in there, though. What a trooper!

We had an excellent Thanksgiving dinner. Brian made ham, Texas potatoes and corn bread. Elmer made green beans and I made my famous "top-secret" pumpkin cheesecake (found here). It was our first meal in our dining room, which we just furnished about a week and a half ago. Good timing, huh? We have lots of leftovers so we are going to be eating well for quite awhile!

This Thanksgiving I am thankful for a lot of things.... Family, friends, our health.... I am also thankful for our new careers, which seem to fit both of us so well. I am thankful for Chase every day. It's amazing to watch him grow and change, and he is constantly pulling little comedy bits out of his back pocket to keep us entertained. Our life has definitely been hectic this year, but only because it is jam-packed full of wonderful things. Who can complain about that?

Oh, and I'm sure you have noticed my lazy way of counting down til Christmas this year (above). 28 more days!

Monday, November 17, 2008

New Haircut and New Smiles!

Chase got his hair cut yesterday (he was way overdue)! Well, they cut off more hair than we had anticipated but it's a lot easier to style now!

Chase also knows now to smile for the camera... and wouldn't you know it? He's a ham! Here he is, posing for the camera:

I know.... YIKES, right?!?

P.S. I just added an update to my previous post. Check it out!

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Scorpions?!?

I just saw my first Texas scorpion...

...in my house.

It was hiding under one of Chase's puzzles! I picked it up to put a puzzle piece away and it scurried out. It could have killed my baby!!!!

OK, OK.... I'm being dramatic (which is so unlike me, I know). It was very small and we were told by our builder that the small ones are not uncommon around here and that they are too little to do damage to us. STILL....

There was a scorpion in my house!!!! Brian killed it and now I owe him a back scratch.

Update 11/17: I just found this information about Texas scorpions online:
It makes me feel a little better but I still don't want Chase to get stung by one! And next time I guess I won't let Brian kill it with a kleenex, either....

Thursday, November 13, 2008

"Art"

Chase brings home art projects from his daycare a couple times a week. Many times they are super cute artsy-fartsy projects that could not possibly have been done by a 23-month-old. And then there are the times we wonder if the teacher just said, "Oh, crap.... I have to do art with the kids today. What do I have laying around?" Today's art project takes the cake:

It's a pile of pasta and shells soaked in glitter and glue... on a sheet of wax paper.

I know as a mother I'm supposed to keep all this stuff... but I just can't do it.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Blast from the Past

One big perk of being a middle school teacher is that I get to do spirit weeks all over again... but this time I can go ALL out, because it's expected of the drama teacher to go a little nuts. And I don't have to worry if I don't look cool because, hey.... I'm a middle school teacher! That alone makes me a dork no matter what I do!

The week of Halloween was our spirit week. We had "twin day," where I twinned up with a student of mine. We had "college jersey day," where I suited up Mizzou-style (of course!). Then we then had "role reversal" day (teacher/student)... and I went all out. I observed my students closely, took notes of "must-have's" and headed to Wal-Mart. I showed up that day with black nails, a black and red "goth" shirt, a black hoodie that had light-up "do-hickeys" that glowed red when I moved. I wore big earrings, rope bracelets, and spray painted streaks of red in my hair. As a finishing touch I wrote all over my hands and arms. Brian got top billing with "CW+BW" in a big heart, followed by his phone number (867-5309). I was, to quote my students, the "bomb diggidy." Waddup. I had planned on taking pictures, but (shame on me) I never got to it. I know, I know. I'm kicking myself in the butt for that, too.

But my favorite day was Flashback Friday. Of course I flashed back to the '80s/early '90s. Here is a photo of me in front of my classroom:

If you can't see it all in the picture I'll give you the gory details: I crimped my entire head of hair, put a half-pony tail on the top of my head, curled and sprayed my bangs like crazy (though I never did get them to go half as high as I used to be able to!), wore lots of blue eyeshadow and big red hoop earrings and bangle bracelets, tight rolled my jeans, scrunched my socks (though you can't see that in the picture, unfortunately) and... did you see my shirt?? Here, let me help you take a closer look:

Yes, that is a New Kids on the Block T-shirt. This is THE concert T-shirt my "friends" Holly and Carrie bought me at the New Kids concert they went to without me (but I'm not bitter... ha!) in the 8TH GRADE. It smelled a little musty but I was just thrilled it fit! What made it extra hilarious was that my kids actually knew who the New Kids were (because of their comeback) and I had to point out how YOUNG they looked on my shirt before they realized how old it was.

My students could not believe we actually used to dress like this. And they all thought I was from the '70s. *sigh* When I said I dressed like this in the '80s they said, "You were ALIVE in the '80s?!?"

This job is so funny.

Oh, I must also point out that this was on Friday.... Halloween. I took Chase Trick-or-Treating dressed like this. It was funny carrying on conversations with neighbors I hadn't met before and watching them try to figure out if I REALLY dressed like that or if I was just dressed up for Halloween. They didn't want to say anything... just in case. Ha ha!

Sunday, November 9, 2008

"Wilderness" Living

Mom and Dad, this post is for you.

We are introducing Chase to wildlife down here. Here are a couple photos Brian took (from inside the house) while he and Chase were having breakfast yesterday morning (it was my day to sleep in so I missed it). The iron bars you see on the bottom of the photos are our back porch.


Monday, November 3, 2008

Our Little Monster

I know, I know.... It has taken me longer than I would have liked to post Chase's Halloween costume photos. Chase LOVED his costume. After we bought it he wanted to wear it all the time! We finally hid it so he wouldn't wear it out it before Halloween. Here is a decent full-body shot:

We went trick-or-treating to a few houses and it turns out it was a good way for Mom to meet the neighbors! We stopped and chatted at every house we stopped at, which explains why it took us over an hour to go to 3 houses! At the last house Chase just popped a squat on the curb while I chatted away. What a sport!

Chase did say "Trick or Treat" a couple times and loved waiting for people to come to the door after we rang the bell. And he was such a polite boy.... After each person gave him candy he said, "Thank you! Bye Bye!" (with prompting, of course). That's our sweet little monster!

More photos have been posted in our Photo Album if you're interested!

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