Pink Eye

Brian is battling his first ever case of pink eye....  And it is BAD.  I've had pink eye before, but nothing like what he is going through.  The poor guy can hardly see, he is super sensitive to light and he feels stabbing pain, not just annoying itchiness stuff.  We took him to an Urgent Care on Sunday and it's a viral infection, so there's nothing they can do to treat it.  He has a prescription to protect his eyes but nothing to cure it.

With his sensitivity to light and the fact that my stubborn husband still tried to work this week, I bought him a pair of sunglasses for the car.  Last night I walked around the corner to see him sporting his new style on the couch:

I had to BEG him to take this picture, but he was a sport... until the flash went off and he screamed out in pain, anyway!

Get better soon, honey (and don't you dare give it to me)!!

Conversations With a 3-Year-Old: Halloween

So Brian was talking to Chase about Easter this morning, asking him if he remembered hunting for eggs last year, etc. He said he remembered and even recalled specific details, which is amazing to me! He definitely got his memory from his dad. Anyway, somehow Chase got started on Halloween. So Brian asked Chase what he wanted to be for Halloween this year. His response:

"A butterfly."

My boy wants to be a butterfly. Ha ha! I love it. If he still wants to be a butterfly in 7 months, you know I'm going to have to make him a butterfly costume! I promise to make it as manly as possible. Tee hee!

Chase's Redecorating Skills

I guess all the redecorating we have done this week has inspired our son. Today he took the opportunity during nap time to decorate his room with stickers. Thank goodness he chose to redecorate his old toy box (which we just put in there to set his humidifier on since he's been sick) vs. his new bed! Check it out. Here's the top:

And here's the side:

And I want you to really zoom in and notice the fact that these are TINY stickers in MANY layers. It must have taken him forever to do this!

We don't think he actually slept at all in the 2 hours he was in there.

Big Brother Room

Over spring break we finally had the opportunity to convert Chase's room into a "big brother room." I have been wanting to redecorate his room for a long time, but we knew baby #2 was coming at some point and thought that would be the perfect time to do it (since the baby will get his old furniture). I painted for a few days this week and his new bed came in. We are still waiting on his dresser, but other than that, the room is DONE!

Here's a "before" picture for you. It isn't exactly how it looked before, but it's pretty close. This picture was taken right after we moved in over a year and a half ago, when Chase was still in his crib (and then, shortly after we converted his crib into a daybed, we had to take all the toys out or he wouldn't sleep)! But other than that, the room has pretty much stayed the same:

And here are the "afters." New bed:

Painted cabinet:

New window valance:

(And new paint job, of course.) Here's a closeup of one of the lions:

Before you ooh and ahh over my artistic masterpiece on the walls, I must confess it was all done by projecting images onto the wall with an LCD projector and tracing them. I found a clipart image for the grass...

...and for the lions I took an actual picture of the stuffed lion that you see on the bed:

And Brian helped! He painted a lot of the grass. After a day of painting all that detail on the floor (each lion took me an hour and a half!) I could barely walk. My back was killing me! But it was worth it. We love how it turned out and Chase likes it, too.

Not like Chase jumped up and down or anything. He has been home sick since Tuesday afternoon. He has some sort of a bug (fever/red eyes/runny nose/etc.) on top of some, well... digestive issues. Let's just say the sewer is backed up and we have had to do some system flushing.

It's been a fun week.

It's a Beautiful Day

It's a beautiful day today for several reasons. #1, I am officially on Spring Break! #2, my Drama Club's show is over and we won 1st place at our theatre festival competition yesterday! #3, it actually was a beautiful day here, weather-wise. So we went outside to play!

First, Chase showed off his mad kickball skills. Brian was proud of his powerful kicks, while I admired his form. I mean, look at this beautiful extension!

Then we attempted to get him back on his bike:

He tried it for a bit but still didn't get the hang of it, so he gave up and decided to push it around again (just like last time):

Chase got curious about the ugly black tubing that is always in the back of our "playing in the driveway" photos:

(I'm just grateful there wasn't a snake living in there or something!)

After a bit we decided to go hang out on the back porch. Chase took his camera (one of his new favorite things) and had some fun taking photos outside:

Here are a few of his masterpieces:

I set up a group room for Chase's photos: Chase's World. I will update it periodically as I download the very interesting and insightful photographs from his camera. You need a code to get in. If you want it, let me know. It's the same as our family photo album's code. Enjoy!

SNOW!

We have snow, people! And it actually STUCK! Chase was released from daycare at 10am and I was so jealous when Brian called to say they were making a snowman:

Then I got to come home at 2:00 to join in the fun. Snow is much more fun when you don't have to deal with it on a daily basis! We ate the snow...

...and put our heads in the snow (Don't ask me why, but Chase thought it would be fun. He had to show me the proper technique and everything):

We layed in the snow...

...and of course we had to have a snowball fight!

Here they are ganging up on me:

As you can probably guess, I used Chase's camera again for these photos. Of course after we came inside I found mine, which was a bittersweet moment. I was happy to find it, but bummed I didn't have it BEFORE I went outside to take pictures in the snow! Oh, well. At least I have it back!

Happy Snow Day!

Katie & Ashlyn Visit

Brian was presenting at a conference in New Orleans this weekend, so Katie and her daughter Ashlyn came for a visit! It was so much fun just hanging out with one of my best friends in the world. We ordered pizza, ate Ben & Jerry's ice cream out of the tub and BAWLED (like, literally sobbed) through "My Sister's Keeper." Omigod that movie was sad.

Anyway, I was bound and determined to get some pictures of Chase and Ashlyn playing together, but (are you ready for this?) I CAN'T FIND MY CAMERA. I think I'm going to die. But then this morning as we were all hanging out in the playroom upstairs I looked over and saw the camera my parents got Chase for Christmas, so I pulled that out and snapped a couple photos. The quality is not great, but at least I got SOMETHING!

After I took a couple shots Chase got really excited about the camera and decided to have some fun of his own snapping photos. Here's a small sample of his camerawork. He took pictures of Katie:

...and me:

...and Ashlyn:

What can I say? He's a leg man, apparently. He did get a couple decent ones after a little lesson in "point, THEN shoot:"

P.S. I should get major extra credit mom points for posting a pic of me in my PJ's with bedhead. Katie would shoot me if I posted the one of her. Love you, Katie!!