Happy Birthday Chaser!

Today our Chaser man is TWO!

We can't really believe it's been two whole years since

this little pile of energy and happiness came into our lives!

Our favorite things he's doing these days:

Talking up a storm, and saying the funniest things

Spends all of Sunday morning saying "I go to nursery! Nursery!" and then 

doesn't even look back when we drop him off

Likes to wear his black socks and shoes to church to be "just like daddy!"

Asks for "big trucks" all the time

Loves to play and is mostly just so happy

Loves to be tickled- he even asks us to "tickle please!"

Gives his baby brother kisses, high fives and then knuckles- in that order- several times a day

Loves being around other kids, and just generally loves people!
When he says his prayers mostly refuses to fold his arms and insists on pointing
his little finger in the sky with everything he says

This poor little boy marked his second birthday by getting the stomach flu
for the first time! It was so sad, he was so miserable.
Even while being miserable and sick he had the sweetest
disposition and mostly wanted to just snuggle with his daddy.
I felt really bad for him and almost started crying right along with him,
but my brother Will gave me a reminder of some much needed perspective:
last summer when I was in my first trimester and throwing up a lot
Chase thought it was funny and would laugh at me!
That just explains Chase- he's a happy kid- and he laughs a lot!

Happy Birthday Chase! We love you so much!

Chase's Birthday Party

We celebrated Chase's birthday a tad early this year because his actual birthday falls on the day of Will and Katie's wedding dinner with their wedding and reception the next day. So Sunday night we threw together a little birthday party with just our family for Chase. I had plans to have it a little more decorated and elaborate, which didn't really happen and of course, Chase didn't care a bit! We made a bunch of pizzas, salad and some cut up fruit- which minus the salad, is one of Chase's favorite meals. Ben made the pizzas and they turned out delicious! Then we had cake- oh Chase LOVES cake. We made him a chocolate cake with cookies and cream filling. When I asked him if he liked the chocolate he said, "Its not chocate! It's take!" Ben was responsible for the Lightning McQueen design as well, which Chase loved. 

 I couldn't even get him to smile for the camera- 

he just wanted cake so bad!

Notice the little finger print on the picture above,

someone let him get a little too close!

 He loved everyone singing to him and blowing out his candles!

He loved it so much that we did it twice!

When a two year old smiles and says "Again! Again!" you do it again!

 He was a little confused about presents and insisted that Santa must have come again.

Either way, he loved his gifts. He loves the alphabet learning extravaganza cube he got from his grandparents (a toy he fell in love with a few weeks ago at Babies R Us).

He was also really excited about this little remote control train 

that Ben and I got him. He keeps leaning down to look it in the eye and saying

"Hi Choo Choo Train!"

I need to remember to just keep his birthday's simple, because he really thought it was the greatest thing to get cake and presents. It was so fun to celebrate with our little boy and some of the people who care about him most. The little guy is so loved. And now he gets to spend his actual birthday at a nice restaurant dining with 150 of Will and Katie's closest family and friends!

Best Moments of 2012

What a year!

2012 has been full of adventure, stress, happiness, disappointment, and everything in between!

We've moved three times this year, met lots of new people, and grown a lot as a family.

Here are some of our favorite memories of the year:

Chase's First Birthday

 Chase learned to walk!

 Courtney and Chase's trip to Utah

 Lots of time enjoying our beautiful beach in Dominica

 Ben's dad's visit to Dominica

 Finding out that our little #2 was on his way!

 Saying good-bye to wonderful people and beautiful places-

 -and moving back to the USA! So happy to see family again!

 Kelly's beautiful wedding in August

 Having our whole family back in America again

 Moving to Florida and starting our fun little adventure there-

especially the week we spent when my parents came to visit

and we explored all the fun things to do in South Florida. 

 Halloween with our Chase Monster

 Disneyworld!

 Visiting Hugo grandparents in Virginia

 Christmas!

Snow, Cousins and Vietnam

I am so excited about the snow storm that hit this week!

Chase has had his first real exposure to snow, and although he's not

quite ready to make snow angels, he loved riding the four wheeler helping 

his Papa plow all the neighborhood driveways!

Chase's job is to change it from Drive to Reverse and back, a role which

he takes very seriously.

 After the snow was cleared we left Chase in the capable hands of Nana and Papa 

and headed out for a night on the town with the White cousins!

Since a few of my cousins weren't in town for our family party last week,

they arranged for us to meet up at Cafe Trang in Salt Lake City.

We braved the snow storm to go meet them and were SO GLAD we did!

Our parents used to take us to Cafe Trang (a really delicious Vietnamese restaurant)

when we were all little (imagine all of us ages 3-8 running around this place!).

We had a really fabulous time, but missed Will and a few other cousins who couldn't make it!

 Kelly, Heidi and Erin

 Katie, Tommy (Kelly's new husband!) and Kell

 Ben, me and Ella

 Nate and Donny-

we made a lot of jokes about how they looked like twins-

beards, shaggy hair, black shirts... the resemblance mostly ends there.

Thanks for the wonderful night!

Christmas Day

We had a wonderful, magical Christmas morning! Chase woke up at 6:30, so he got the honor of waking up his aunt and uncle which went something like this:

"Heidi! I want to open presents!"

He was so excited to get upstairs and see his presents! He loved this car track that Santa left and spent a good amount of time playing with it before he would look through the rest of his little stocking.

 Chase loved "helping" everyone open their presents. With each one he'd exclaim

"A box!" But really, to this almost 2 year old a box is just about as exciting as anything else! My favorite was when we opened a gift from my parents, a swing for the new baby, and as he was helping me upwrap it he saw the picture of the swing on the box with a baby in it. Chase exclaimed, "A baby!" Getting baby brother here will be a little harder than just unwrapping a present!

He loved this Mack truck from Nana and Papa. Mack is his favorite Cars character. He was probably just as excited as Ben was to open his ipad!

 Chase was thrilled (as were the rest of us) to have Unky Will and Katie (or Tatie as Chase calls her) with us for part of the day. Chase loves them so much!

 Our Christmas dinner

 Yes, we put Chase's high chair on beach towels-

the carpet was just barely cleaned okay?

 It was so great to have our whole family together for Christmas! We are even more 

thrilled that it's only a matter of days before Katie becomes an official Smith!

Merry Christmas from the Hugo family! I didn't get around to sending out Christmas cards this year, but if you read this blog I'm sure we love you and that your friendship means the world to us! We feel very blessed to have so many wonderful people in our lives and hope you all had a wonderful holiday.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is one of my most favorite days of the year! It's my mom's birthday, so we started out with present and a birthday breakfast for her. Ben and Chase made pumpkin pancakes, which were delicious and we celebrated 53 years of this wonderful lady! The rest of our day was fairly calm, a few last minute errands, and enjoying the snow!

We took Chase down to see the lights at Layton Park, which he really loved! Then we came home and had our traditional candlelight dinner of soup in bread bowls. Chase opened his new Christmas jammies and we did the Nativity story using Chase's finger puppets. He still doesn't really get it, but he thought it was fairly entertaining. Even though he didn't really get what was going on this year with Santa and Christmas, he was picking up on all the excitement and was pretty wired! Here are a few darling pictures of our wild little one with the birthday gal!

He went to bed fairly easily and we enjoyed time with just the adults in the family while Ben and I set up the rest of Chase's Christmas. Having a child has made Christmas so magical again! I could hardly wait for Chase to wake up the next morning!

December Merriment

We've had a pretty wonderful and pretty busy December.

Chase is absolutely loving having so many people around who adore him and want to play with him! Here he is making faces in the office doors with Nana one morning before work.

 He's been taking piano lessons from "Unky Wheel"- the name Chase gave him

 I put a tie on him for church for the first time and it was so cute I could hardly stand it.

 We've had a few fun family parties and I failed miserably at taking pictures at them!

Here is Heidi with our little cheeser before the Smith family party a few weeks ago.

 Chase still loves to help cook- 

here he is helping Ben make almond cake for our White family party last weekend!

 Chase with his Uncle Nate doing one of his favorite things-

watching youtube clips of "big trucks"

 Heidi with the aforementioned almond cake that she decorated so beautifully for the party.

We made one almond cake and one red velvet cake- Chase was a huge fan of the red velvet cake.

The leftovers were sitting near the edge of the counter the next morning and Ben

came upstairs to find Chase hastily shoving cake in his mouth with tiny fingerprints in the cake!

I came upstairs to find Ben washing Chase's hands and face at the sink and Chase adamantly demanding "I want more CAKE!" (Only he pronounces it "take")

 Chase and my cousin's little boy Ian at the White family party- this was the best picture I could get of them! At least they are hugging! We didn't even plan the matching jammies!

 The moment I'm pretty sure Ben has been looking forward to since we found out Chase was a boy- taking him for a ride on the four-wheelers! Chase really really loved it!

 Saturday night we did a family outing to Christmas village in Ogden, which was wonderful!

Chase pressed his little nose up to every window and loved looking at the "pretty lights!"

Afterwards we went to dinner at Union Grill where Chase loved seeing the big trains. It was a wonderful evening!

This month has been full of contrasting feelings for me- while we definitely have our own problems and disappointments in our lives, recent events in the world are a constant reminder to me that others have it much worse. My heart aches for all those families that lost loved ones in Connecticut. I know there are many others around the world who are suffering similar heartache and whose worries are much greater than mine. This time of year to reflect on our Savior and his life and sacrifice has brought me great solace and perspective. Amid the sadness, December is a magical month for me and I'm grateful for all the wonderful people I have in my life to share it with!