Picture Day Results!

Remember the post about Chase's picture day? Well we got them back today. Not bad!

You can barely see the gash! You can click on the photo to enlarge it (it's on the left side of his forehead)!

Zoo! Zoo! Zoo!

This past Sunday we met our friends Don and Julie (and their little boy DJ) at the zoo in Waco! Don is a college friend of mine and he now lives in Austin. I am SO embarrassed it has taken us this long to get together, now that he and his beautiful family are only an hour away!

Anyway, we had so much fun. While we were getting ready that morning we said to Chase, "Do you want to go to the zoo?" His eyes completely LIT UP and he just started running around saying, "Zoo! Zoo! Zoo!" We were shocked he remembered what the zoo was! It had been months since we had been to one. At any rate, he was totally excited. Then he met DJ, who is about 6 months older, and they were instant buds. At one point DJ grabbed Chase's hand to walk with him, and another time he was encouraging Chase to come inside a teepee with him (he didn't win that one)! In the photo above they are checking out the leopards, I believe (a.k.a. the "big kitty cats").

Don and Julie, thanks for the great outing idea. We can't wait to get together again!

It's a Beautiful Day

Chase has another ear infection. But that's obviously not what makes today a beautiful day. What makes it beautiful is...

He told me so.

Yes, the day has finally come.... Our son can communicate well enough to let us know what hurts when he's crying. HALLELUIAH. We noticed him messing with his ear yesterday and whimpering a little bit. I asked him if it hurt but he just stared at me. This morning he woke up really early crying, so I went upstairs to get him and when I opened the door he was just up on all fours crying. I said, "Oh, honey.... What's wrong?" He stood up, grabbed his ear and said, "Ear hurts."

What a wonderful moment. Brian called the pediatrician the minute they opened and got him right in. Sure enough, he has another ear infection. Because he has had so many and Brian had a hard time with his ears when he was little, we have an appointment with the Ear, Nose and Throat Specialist next Friday. We'll let you know what they say!

In the meantime, I am just walking on air that my baby can tell me what's wrong when he's hurting now. I love this milestone!!

Football Game!

I picked Chase up earlier than usual from daycare yesterday. His teachers were shocked when I got there so I told them we were going to a football game. Chase's response: "Football game! Football game! Football game!" All the way to the car.

We went to my middle school's 7th grade football game last night, just the two of us (Brian had to teach). It was a lot of fun! While we were there my "classroom neighbor" got this shot of some of us teachers in the stands.

I think Chase got into the cheerleaders more than the game, but that's OK. As one of my students said in response to that today, "Well, the cheerleaders are hotter!" Oh, lord.

Sprinkler Park

We made it to the sprinkler park today and Chase had a blast! He loves to try to "trick" us these days. Here is a video of him trying to amaze us with his "disappearing sprinkler" bit. If you listen closely you can hear him ask us, "What happened?" every time he makes the water disappear with his foot.

He got SOAKED and loved every minute of it!

More photos are posted in our Photo Album if you want to check them out!

Mizzou Fan

Just a couple photos for you today.... Brian ordered Chase a Mizzou jersey for the game we're going to in Waco next month. Since Mizzou is playing today we busted it out early and went outside to play some ball!

More photos of our fun outside have been posted to our Photo Album if you want to check them out!

School Picture Day

Today was "Picture Day" at Chase's daycare. We picked out a cute little outfit and Brian even did his hair before he took him this morning. When I picked him up this afternoon I stopped at the "folder signing" station to check him out and inside was an accident report. It read:

"Chase was running to get in line for pictures and he tripped off the carpet and bumped his forehead on the edge of the cubby."

I walked into his room and he has this big scratch/gash-looking thing across his forehead and into his eyebrow. It's at least an inch long, maybe an inch and a half.

Being the sensitive mother I am, I said, "Why couldn't you fall AFTER pictures?!?" Should be interesting to see how they turn out. I'm sure he wasn't in the best mood for the photographer after that incident, either.

Big gash + teary eyes + pouty lips + messed up hair from ice pack = who knows??

Should be good.

Fun in the Sun

It was such a beautiful day today we decided to check out a nearby sprinkler park that is supposed to be great for little kids to run around in. So we geared Chase up in his swim trunks and drove there, only to find out it was closed for the weekend due to the hurricane. So we drove back to our OWN sprinkler park... right in the front yard.

We closed out our fun in the front yard with Chase's first dirt taste test. He learned the word "yucky" shortly thereafter. After a trip to the kitchen to clean out the mouth we went out back, where I got some really sweet photos of Chase through the iron bars on our patio. The photo at the top of this post is one of my favorites. Here's another:

I just posted all the photos I took today in our Photo Album if you want to check them out! I also posted a couple more albums of recent fun outside. Remember, you can contact us if you need the room code to get in.

Unscathed

Well, the hurricane has passed and we got through it all unscathed. It was a little windy and drizzly here this morning but then beautiful the rest of the day. Thanks again for all your concern!

We're Fine!

Thanks for all the calls and emails of concern for our safety with Hurricane Ike on the warpath, but we should be fine. We are a good 4 hours inland from Houston so all we will likely see is a lot of rain. We'll keep you updated if there are any changes.

Thanks again!

More Sprinkler Fun!

OK, so this post is a little late but I'm running behind in the camera download department (please forgive me)! I figured it had been awhile since I posted anything about Chase, and those of you who stalk our blog purely for Chase photos are probably getting stir crazy! So here are a couple photos for you of when he was keeping Daddy company while he watered the yard August 31st.

This first one shows off that great big belly of his!

And this one makes me laugh.... He's such a man:

And right before we decided to go inside he had a major #2 explosion in his too-small Lil' Swimmer diaper. Unsure of how to handle getting him inside in his sad state of affairs, we looked around to make sure no one was looking and just hosed him down in our front yard.

If that isn't class, I don't know what is!

Do You Believe In Me?

My principal played this video at our staff meeting today and I just had to share it. It is of a 5th grade keynote speaker at the Dallas ISD kickoff meeting. It is absolutely wonderful!