Fun at the Park

We had a playdate at the park with Chase's friend Ryan today! The kids had tons of fun kicking a soccer ball around and playing on the swings:

I also took Chloe over to the little playset just to see how she would do and the girl was fearless... climbing all over the thing on her own and even trying to walk down the slide (we had a couple close calls)! I snapped some cute photos of her playing:

There are more photos in our Photo Album if you're interested!

Kickball!

Chase started kickball, and he LOVES it!  I am so impressed the game is able to hold his attention.  He works so hard and listens so well.  When I picked him up from daycare for his second practice he screamed out, "YAY!!!!  I LOVE KICKBALL!"  The next day when I picked him up he said he was excited for another kickball practice.  When I told him we don't practice every day he burst into tears.  Here are some photos from his first practice.  There are more in our Photo Album if you're interested:

Chloe just runs around looking cute and making people laugh the whole time (and she's super good at that, too):

Sprinkler Park

OK, OK.... I need to be better about updating the blog, I know. I have a few posts to catch up on, so I'll take baby steps!

"Today" (I'm cheating... I'm backdating this post about 3 weeks) we went to the sprinkler park with our friends Erin (my friend) and Nathan (Chase's friend).  That's the beautiful thing about living in Texas... you can still run around in sprinklers in mid-September.  Anyway, the kids had a lot of fun.  Erin took all the pictures and she has had technical difficulties getting them all to me, but I'll go ahead and post the couple I have and hopefully I can update with more later.

I totally don't know what the boys are doing in this photo, but it's pretty cute!  Click on the photo to get a better look:

Fall in Texas is fabulous!

San Antonio Visit

I just got this picture from my aunt, so I had to post it! I went to San Antonio a week and a half ago to help my friend Katie move, and to visit with my aunt and uncle! We had a lot of fun. They took me to dinner on the river walk and we did a lot of catching up. We hadn't seen each other in 8 years! Crazy. We had a great time and will definitely see each other more often now that they live closer.

The rest of my weekend was spent helping Katie move. Now, usually moving isn't a fun process, but we had a really good time! I friend who can make moving fun is a true friend indeed!

Look Who's Walking!

Go, Chloe!!

Random Update Time!

It's been awhile since I've posted, so it's time for some random updating!

I'll start with Chloe. She is now eating "people food" and LOVES it. She rarely turns anything away.  Her favorite foods are yogurt and Cheerios (if they are anywhere around her she will beg for them), but she loves just about everything else I give her, too. We experiment with the spoon sometimes and she has lots of fun with that, too:

Chase also LOVES to feed her. He wants to share all his food with her (and she doesn't mind)! It's so cute:

She took her first steps a couple weeks ago, on her 13 month "birthday" (July 30th). She hasn't done a lot of venturing out on her own since then, but she'll take a couple steps here and there if you prompt her. She says "Uh, oh," "Night Night" (occasionally), "Mama" and "Dada," and she's working on "All done." "Uh oh" is by far my favorite!

Chase has been enjoying daycare and had lots of fun during "Pirate Week!"

Today he got a wonderful surprise. Grandma made him an amazing quilt and pillowcase set. I cried when I got it, and Chase loved it, too!

Both kids took swim lessons this summer.  I had a video to show you but for some reason it doesn't play all the way through.  It must be corrupt or something.  Bummer!  Chloe LOVES the water.  Chase took awhile to get comfortable, but by the end he was almost swimming on his own!

I feel like I've been all over the place this summer.  Besides the trips to New York and Idaho I blogged about, I spent several weekends in Houston visiting my dear friend Katie (before she moved to San Antonio), saw friends Don and Julie in Austin, went to a Theatre Educators conference in Waco, and saw my aunt and uncle in San Antonio (while I was there helping Katie move)!  When I wasn't traveling I spent quality time with new friends and took up running (well, training to become a runner... we'll see how that goes)!  It's been a great summer, but now it's time to get back to the "real world."  I go back to school Monday!  I'm ready.

Idaho Family Visit

This post is long overdue, but I was waiting to get photos from my mom and then I had to organize them all (over 200)! So, to make up for my lateness, you'll be getting lots of pictures! Ready? Here goes!

The week of the 4th of July Chase, Chloe and I flew to Idaho, where my brother and his family live, and my parents drove over from Michigan so we could all visit together! It was a heck of a week. Here are some highlights.

First of all, Chloe fell in LOVE with her Uncle Jeff, right off the bat.  She is normally not great with strangers, and takes awhile to warm up to them.  We were there for maybe an hour and I was holding her because she wouldn't go to anyone else, when all of a sudden she lunged herself out of my arms and into Jeff's!  She was all about her Uncle Jeff from that moment on, still taking the majority of the week to warm up to the rest of the family:

She was NOT, however, a fan of the grass:

Every time I bent down to put her in the grass she threw her legs up like that.  I find this hilarious. When I was little I HATED the grass. My mom said if I started to fall I would throw my hands up in the air instead of catching myself because I didn't want to touch the grass. I still don't like the feel of grass today. Who knew something like that could be hereditary? Ha ha!

We started celebrating the 4th of July with some fun little fireworks in the yard:

Here we are with Aunt Julia (Jeff's wife) and all the cousins! I love this picture... the moms and all their kids!

After that we went down to the river to see the fireworks, up close and personal:

We were so close that ash actually fell into my hair, and we had a couple close calls with falling sparks. I looked over at Chase after one particular close call and he was about to cry. I said, "Don't worry, I won't let anything happen to you," and he said a worried, "Mom, will you save me?" and made me keep my hand on him the rest of the show.

While at Jeff and Julia's the big kids also spent time in the pool...

...while the babies watched!

After a couple days we went to Julia's family cabin, which was beautiful and full of adventure!

Chase got to ride with Uncle Jeff on a dirt bike and a 4-wheeler. I was too terrified to watch, so my mom took photos for me:

We also had a couple campfires and roasted marshmallows.  Chase was fascinated with the fire.  He loved to watch the sparks fly out of it.  My mom snapped this picture right after he told me to watch for the sparks, and very seriously informed to "be patient, Mommy:"

We drove to Yellowstone one day. Rhianna rode with us and shared her iPod with Chase. I love this picture of them sharing headphones on the drive:

We went to the Bear and Wolf Museum, and the grandparents ended up adopting Chase for awhile, because, well.... I needed a break!  (The Yellowstone trip was not Chase's shining moment.)

We had some amazing thunderstorms at the cabin, which Chase and Grandma and I all share a deep love for. Chase and Alex had fun sticking their feet outside into the pouring rain:

Then we took the kids fishing...

...but it didn't last long, because apparently Chase had forgotten that virtue of patience he preached to me earlier in the week while watching the fire! He had fun playing by the water, though:

It was a week full of adventure, for sure! The flight home was an adventure in itself, but I think I'll save that for another post. At the end of the day, family is family. You gotta love 'em!

Lots more photos are in our Photo Album if you're interested!