A new milestone. . .

This funny little boy...

...IS WALKING!

Chase is walking everywhere these days! He seems so proud of himself. He walks around, falls, and turns and flashes me the biggest smile. It's pretty much one of the cutest things I've ever seen.

Mr. Fix-It

When I was little, I loved Richard Scarry's "Busy Town", in which there is a character named Mr. Fix-it. My memory is a little hazy, but I'm pretty sure he actually usually broke things instead of fixing them, which is hilarious to a four year old.

Today I live with a real, live, and fully-competent Mr. Fix-it. One thing I love about Ben is his amazing ability to solve problems. Somehow he can look at a situation and figure out how to fix things. I realized this about him after about 8 months of dating. It was the end of the summer during which my dad, and subsequently sometimes the rest of the family, had spent quite a bit of time working on the water feature in our backyard- a waterfall that cascades through the top two tiers of the yard. All summer long we could not get the second tier to work correctly. Ben came to look at it, spent some time walking around and studying it and told me he was pretty sure he knew what the problem was and he could fix it. I was skeptical and a little offended. Didn't he know how much time had already been put into that dang thing? If there was a solution don't you think we would have figured it out by now? However, my persistent Ben insisted that he could fix it, and fix it he did. He spent a morning out there with my dad and brothers and soon the waterfall was beautifully cascading down the rock wall. Will came inside, happy and relieved that it was finally working properly and said to me, "He's a genius! Can we keep him?" Long story short- I kept him:)

Living down here in Dominica with our limited resources has made me even more grateful for Ben's problem solving skills. I got the flu this past weekend and I was so achy and tired. I just really really wanted a hot bath.

Problem: Our bathtub can only fill with luke-warm water.

Ben's solution: Fill the tub with the luke-warm water and then boil pots of water on the stove to pour into water. Get another pot of water boiling so when that water starts to cool he can top it off.

Did that sound like we stepped back into 1920 to anyone else? We already make all our bread, spin our laundry and hang it up to dry, and don't have a car. Now we heat our tub with boiled water from the stove. However, it worked! And I felt so much better after a nice hot bath.

Another example of Ben's handiwork can be seen below in his version of a child lock on our kitchen cupboards:
How great is that? Some twine and a carabiner, and it works great. It keeps our little munchkin away from the propane tank and cleaning chemicals. This is especially handy because our baby can commonly be seen doing the following:
At least some things are off limits! He can't do much damage with tupperware and towels:)

Anyway, I just love Ben and I'm so thankful for his ability to solve problems. I think it will be an excellent quality in a doctor, I know it is sure handy in a husband. Chase and I are sure lucky to have him. I think these pictures will show you that although Chase isn't old enough to voice it yet, he agrees.

3rd Semester

After a wonderfully relaxing Christmas break, Ben headed back to school (ten days ago) and started his third semester of medical school. It's crazy to think he's a 2nd year med student now- I am just so proud of him. This journey has been harder and more stressful than we imagined, but he's persevered and made it through so far.

Life is a little different for us this time around. We are loving living in our new place, even though it's way better than our old place, it is still in Dominica- which means our internet goes out frequently, about half our drawers don't really slide in and out unless you use a great deal of force, we can only get hot water for a few minutes before it turns cold, stuff like that :) Sharing our room with Chase has been okay- that sweet little boy has recently stopped sleeping through the night which has made it a little harder, but I think we are all adjusting. I've been thinking a lot lately about how different our life is hear from anything we've done before in so many ways- here are just a few examples.

• Laundry- our first two semesters we had to send our laundry out to be cleaned. It cost an arm and a leg. When we moved to our new place we were able to buy a washing machine. It's a tiny little thing that sits in our bathroom. Doing a load of wash consists of filling the machine with water using a bucket and my bathtub water spout (it takes about three buckets full, and they are HEAVY), put in clothes and soap. It runs a 15 minute wash cycle, then I drain it, also into the bathtub. Fill it again with the bucket and let it run another 15 minute rinse cycle. Then I drain the water into the bathtub and spin the clothes in the attached spinner. The spin cycle is only 5 minutes, but I usually have to do it in two batches. After that I take the clothes to the lovely clotheslines on our sweet little balcony and hang everything up to dry. I try to do laundry early in the morning so it has the heat of the day to dry- in our humid climate sometimes it takes it all day. Once it's dry I can fold it and put it away. (If Chase is around the folding part takes forever. He likes to "help" which means quickly and purposefully grabbing all folded clothes and either throwing them on the floor or back into the laundry basket. It's actually darling, unless I'm in a hurry.)
• Grocery Shopping- We now live just around the corner from our lovely IGA, which has been very nice and convenient. IGA opened one month before we got the island and I've heard has made all the difference in the world. However, it's not perfect. They carry MOST things SOME of the time. I go to the store with a few menu ideas in mind and see what they have. Sometimes they don't have any of the things I need and I walk around trying to figure something else out for dinner. For example, I went yesterday and they had both broccoli and real milk (at $18.22 a gallon). I was so happy and bought both. Neither one has been available for over a month. Yesterday we went on a shopping trip to Roseau, the capitol city, which tends to have more things at slightly cheaper prices. I stocked us up on things that our IGA never seems to carry like black beans, mandarin oranges, canned chicken for soup, Nutrigrain bars for snacks, a few jars of baby food for Chase for our upcoming traveling, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, chocolate chips and some of Ben's favorite crackers. I was also able to find whole wheat flour, which IGA usually has but has been out of since mid-December.
• Cooking- Cooking here has been an adventure. I've learned to make so many things from scratch. I make all my own bread here and tortillas. I do this weekly and I have the recipes memorized. Since powdered sugar is hard to find, Ben and I actually figured out how to make our own powdered sugar for frosting at Christmas time.
• Exercise- I've had a membership to a gym since I was 14 and pretty much always gone 3-5 times a week. Although am I allowed to use Ross's gym here on campus I rarely do because of Chase. Instead, every morning except Sunday, as soon as Chase is up and dressed I put him in the stroller and take him on an hour long walk up some pretty intense hills into the jungle. The views along this walk are amazing! At the very end we walk by the ocean for a good 15 minutes and it's just breathtaking. It's still nice and cool that early in the morning. I love living here in Dominica during those times. It's relaxing and calming to me and I know I'll miss this when we leave. This island is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Throughout the day we walk everywhere we go, to campus, the pool, the grocery store, any friends houses. . . (I don't think we actually ever go anywhere else) I've clocked it before, I walk between 4 and 8 miles on your average day. I've completely worn out both pairs of sandals I brought with me. (Like completely, straps broken and holes all the way through the soles) I'm down to just my Nike's and my church shoes, I'm hoping I can make it another month until I go to Utah!
• Ben's School- Medical School here is more than a full time job. Ben studies 15-16 hours a day, 6 days a week. He takes a short break to eat dinner with Chase and I, and then it's back to the books for a few more hours before bed. We love Sundays and the chance to see Ben and spend a little family time together. This semester Ben is learning the disease processes, diagnosing and treatment for the immune system, musculoskeletal system, cardiac and respiratory systems. He's actually loving what he's learning, even though it's really intense and requires a lot of work on his part. My husband has an amazing work ethic!
• Church- Our little branch here is so different from the big wards I'm used to in Utah. Ben has been serving as branch clerk and I've been the 1st counselor in the Primary Presidency, which means I also teach the Valiants class and do Singing Time. Our branch is made up of around 30 Americans (students and their families) and 15 locals. With this tiny branch, everyone has to do more to fill all the callings we need to function. Last year I spoke in sacrament 4 times, Ben spoke 3 times. There is a group in Roseau who are technically under the jurisdiction of our branch, but meet separately because of the distance involved. We walk to church, it takes us about 25 minutes and most of the walk is right along the beach. Every meeting and talk is started with "Good Morning Church!"- which is apparently a local tradition. It's definitely been an experience!

And just because Chase is cute, here are a few recent pictures of the little guy recently.

This is pretty much a daily occurrence. He was kind of stuck when I took this,

but he got out pretty fast. He loves crawling through the chairs.

He has really loved this little push toy Santa brought!

Playing with the tupperware-

one of his favorite games

I'm pretty sure they took these while I was making dinner.

Chase loves his dad- I think the feeling is pretty mutual.

Until I pulled the camera out, Chase was very very interested

in the basketball game they were watching.

Chase's Birthday Party

This sweet baby boy turned ONE YEAR OLD last week! So, of course, we had a party!

I had mentioned to my friend Crystal that I wanted her to teach me to decorate cakes, because she's pretty amazing at it. She immediately jumped into party planning mode and using some of her leftover supplies from her baby's birthday party last summer, we put together a beach birthday party for Chase. I made these french vanilla cupcakes, frosted with blue frosting for water, crushed up cookies for sand, and these darling umbrellas for beach themed cupcakes.

The Cake

This cake seriously took me all day, but I loved the way it turned out so it was worth it. It's a four layer butter fudge cake with cookies and cream filling and chocolate cream cheese frosting under the fondant. Crystal gave me a recipe for frosting made without powdered sugar (which is hard to come by here) and it was amazing, my new favorite frosting recipe, even though it was a little time intensive. Crystal came over the night before and we spent three and a half hours putting it all together. It really didn't seem like that long at the time because we were having so much fun, but before I knew it it was 10:30 and we had a finished cake!

The Party set-up

And the sweet birthday boy with his cake

That little birthday hat stayed on about 30 seconds,

but it was really cute while it lasted.

We had three families in our branch come over, all of which conveniently have all little boys.

We had 9 little boys running around our place and Chase LOVED it! He was actually pretty grumpy the morning of his party, but once the kids showed up he was all smiles. We had a yummy lunch of chicken salad sandwiches, pineapple and chips, and then it was time to sing to the birthday boy!

This is Chase's thing now, he points at what he wants.

"I want THAT Dad!"

And then we let the little guy dig in. . .

Chase semi-remembered how to open presents from Christmas a few weeks earlier and has had a blast playing with his new little toys ever since then. These little sunglasses are especially cute on the little guy!

The whole party turned out perfect and it was fun to put something together to celebrate this amazing little boy. A gigantic thanks goes out to Crystal, for not only helping me with the whole party, but also took all of the pictures. Thank you so so much!

Night at the North Pole

I just got this picture from right before Christmas and I wanted to post it. Our friend Crystal hosted the cutest Christmas party at her house on the 23rd. She turned her little island apartment into the North Pole and had activities for the kids like making reindeer food and writing letters to Santa. Since our kid was a little young for those activities he mostly enjoyed people watching and eating as many cookies as he could talk his dad into (which was a lot, this boy is just so cute and determined when he sees a cookie). She had the most delicious hot chocolate bar for the adults. We had a great time visiting and enjoying a little Christmas spirit!

Pictures of Chase's adorable Beach Birthday Party coming soon!

ONE YEAR OF CHASE

My sweet little boy is one year old today! In some ways I felt like this year has flown, in other ways it feels like Chase has been part of our family forever. We sure love this little guy. He's brought us more joy and happiness than we could ever imagine. Ben and I came up with a list this morning of some of the things we love about Chase:

His "touchdown" hands - he throws his hands in the air

and smiles big whenever someone says "Touchdown!"

His belly laugh

His high fives

The way he straightens his arms, crosses them and then shivers when he gets really excited

The way he shovels food in his mouth with both hands as fast as he can

The way he tries to "fix" my cell phone after he's dropped it and it falls apart

His "loves" - meaning a huge grin and then he tries to bite my nose

The way he comes crawling with a big smile on his face when he hears skype calling

How he splashes and squeals in the water

The way he looks at us and points at what he wants and then nods "YES" when we figure out what he's wanting

The way he crawls in our bed and pounds both hands on our chests while giggling

His sweet smile

I posted a few of my favorite pictures over the last year of this handsome little one-

there were way too many to choose from, but here are the highlights.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHASER!

WE SURE LOVE YOU!