Out of the Mouth of Chase

Me: Chase- go to BED!
Chase: (With a huge smile on his face) I can't go to bed. I'm being terrible! I'm being terrible mommy!
I'm 100% sure I've never called him terrible before, so I'm really not sure where this came from!

 While Chase was struggling to eat breakfast I was trying to make a game out of it and pretend his spoon was an excavator to encourage him to eat:
Chase: No, my excavator is broken.
Me: Here let me fill it up with gas!
Chase: No Mom! Excavators don't run on gas! They run on diesel!

Me: Daddy's home! Let's go give our hero a hug!
Chase: He's not a hero! He's just a boy. He's a boy Mom!

 We were downstairs at my parents house playing when I realized Hudson needed a new diaper...
Me: Chase- will you go upstairs and get the diaper bag for me?
Chase runs upstairs and after awhile I call up: Chase! Did you get the diaper bag?
Chase: No Mom, I didn't get the whole bag.
(and I start feeling frustrated that he didn't follow instructions when I see him walking down the stairs with just one diaper and the wipes)
Me: Chase! Way to go! Thank you so much for getting me exactly what I needed!
Chase: May I please have a high five?
And then we high-fived.

Disclaimer before I tell this next one- when Chase is struggling at dinner time we go get a belt to tie him into his chair. We put it on super loose, he could easily get out of it, but feeling confined makes him stay and eat, mostly. And Chase really really hates it, so when we go get the belt he cries and cries like we are going to get a belt to beat him. We don't actually spank our boy.

So at dinner one night at my parents house Chase could not stay in his chair to save him-
Papa: Chase, sit in your chair. If you don't sit in your chair I'm going to go get....
Chase (in the sweetest voice possible): Donuts?
Papa: No- the belt.
Chase: Oh, the belt.... 

Dressing Boys

One of my favorite aspects of being a mom is dressing my kids! It's just like playing with dolls :) I love shopping for their little clothes, washing and folding them and mostly seeing how cute everything looks on their little bodies! I spent awhile looking for Spring church outfits- trying to balance my small budget with all the cute shirt/tie/sweater combos I found. Ultimately, these were my favorite of the cost-effective options. And I love them so much! They wore them for the first time to church today and they looked so adorable! I had grand visions of getting beautiful pictures of them before church, which as you can see, was clearly not in the cards today (or most days...) But you get the idea...

St. Patricks Day

Our St. Patricks Day this year was pretty low key- I didn't even explain the holiday to Chase until that morning. He was confused and kept calling it St. George's day (Papa is currently on a business trip in St. George, hence the confusion). He was super excited about having rainbow pancakes for breakfast- as was Hudson. Hudson made quick work on his stack and both boys quickly demolished all 6 of their brightly colored pancakes! That was my only attempt at doing anything very festive all day, and Chase thought it was the greatest thing ever. He talked about those pancakes all day and even requested them for breakfast the next morning! Then we got dressed up in our green and attempted to take pictures, you can see how well that went! 

Out of the Mouth of Chase

Chase has been into "tattling" on his dad with an imaginary cell phone. One example: After Ben accidentally tipped over Chase's scooter before loading Chase in the car, a very incensed Chase whipped out his "cellphone" and called me with it: "Hi mommy? This is Chase. Yeah, daddy tipped over my scooter. He tipped over my scooter mom! Yeah I told him. Okay bye."

He called ahead to the zoo before we went on his imaginary cell phone
"Hey zoo? This is Chase. Can you wake up the elephants? I'm coming today. Okay, thanks! Bye!"
(It worked, they were awake when we got there)

While looking at his favorite tractor plate that has a picture of two little boys riding tractors,
"Look that's me! And that's my friend Papa."

When I ask him to drink water he says, "No, it will ruin my tummy. It will ruin my tummy mom!"

Went in to wake up Ben one morning:
Chase: Daddy! It's time to wake up! (As he turns on the light)
Ben: Okay buddy (while still laying in bed)
Chase: Daddy! Wake up!
Ben: Okay....(still in bed)
Chase: (softly with his head down while walking out the room) Daddy's driving me crazy...

While picking up a little toy car at the grocery store checkout:
Chase: Mom! Can I have this? Please?
Me: No Chase. Not today.
Chase: Okay, I will just come back with Nana.
Clearly he knows how this system works!

Chase: Aunt Heidi is going to Paris with Mickey-Mouse.
(This was after Heidi tried to explain to him that she's going to Euro Disney to learn about the unique marketing strategy of Disney in Europe)
Heidi: Chase, do you know where Paris is?
Chase: Yeah. (Runs to the window and points out west) It's right....there! Paris is right there Heidi.
10 minutes later
Heidi: Chase can you show Papa where Paris is?
Chase: (Runs to the window) Yeah! Oh....no....I lost it. It was over there but I can't see it anymore.

The zoo, the chair and the bug

I feel like life since early December has just stayed really busy with holidays, birthdays, traveling and the normal every day stuff. Now all those fun extras are over and we are just doing the normal every day stuff! The first few days I kind of didn't know what to do with myself! But I think we are back in the routine of simplicity and we are enjoying it. I feel like in this stage of life, I've been given the gift of time with my kids. Since I'm not working outside our home and I only have the two kids, we pretty much have time to get everything done and do whatever fun things we want! It's so great. So at the end of February we went to Hogle Zoo (the last free day this winter). Clearly about 1,000 other young moms had the same idea and the zoo was crazy packed- but it was free, and the weather was beautiful, and we had a great time! Ben came with us before work and Chase loved having him there! He was so excited that Ben came because that meant that Chase got to go see the snakes!

 I've always avoided the reptile house in the past, but there were seriously cool animals in there! And yes, I stayed very far away from the snake cages. Chase was super thrilled about the crocodiles (which we missed last time and he was sad about it) and the huge tortoise. We still didn't get to see a zebra, much to his dismay, because I'm fairly certain our zoo doesn't have one. Hudson loved being out of the stroller and seeing all the fun animals- he was totally entranced!

We only stayed a little less than 2 hours, but as you can see, both boys were so tired afterwards! This is what happens when you enthusiastically RUN all over the zoo for the first hour. 

 This little firetruck chair has been quite the exciting thing at our house! A friend of mine had originally bought it and her little girls never used it, so she decided it need a home of boys! We were happy to give it a home and my boys are so excited about it! Hudson loves to crawl up in it and then just smile proudly at anyone who sees him!

 Clearly we are still working on sharing the chair... (and Dad, don't freak out about how unsafe these pictures look, I brought Hudson back down to safety as soon as I snapped the pictures).

 After a good month of ignoring his once-beloved rocking bug, Hudson has rediscovered it and loves it again. He was so excited about wearing this little hat and had that wrench in his hand the whole time as he giggled away!

 We made cookies on Ben's day off and both boys were so excited. It's amazing what these boys will do for a cookie! Hudson now says "please" while he signs it, only it sounds like "bees". You can bet he was pulling that trick out constantly to try to finagle more cookies out of us!

 Ben and I have been on a bunch of fun dinner and movie dates lately, which have hardly cost us anything when we combined gift cards, the dollar theater, and free babysitting! Last night we went out to dinner and then to see Saving Mr. Banks (which we both loved) and left our boys with my parents for the night. It is so wonderful to be able to leave without worrying at all about the boys and they both love their grandparents so much! We came home to find our boys not only safe and sound, but also in brand new jammies thanks to Nana!

Someday I will be able to capture both boys smiling at the camera at the SAME TIME. Someday. I hope. 

Dinnertime

I grew up in a home where we had a delicious, homemade family dinner every single night. We all loved it. I have fond memories of all sitting around the table and reconnecting at the end of the day and bonding as a family. I know there lots of research out there supporting this as well, that kids generally stay away from drugs, do better in school and are emotionally more healthy who have family dinner every night. Ben and I have always felt strongly in making this a must for our family. Most nights Ben isn't home in time for dinner, but I still set the table and sit down and eat with the boys.

I am realizing, however, that those fond memories I have of growing up with family dinner are of my teenage years. Doing family dinner with a baby (who demands food and fast and then is done in 11 minutes) and a 3 year old (who seriously takes one whole hour to eat 12 bites of food at dinner while his bored baby brother screams and mom frantically tries to keep one eating and the other entertained) isn't the same as 4 fairly well behaved kids/teenagers. My mom keeps reminding me that this is a process- this is what kids this age do- and if we keep trying one day we'll have the idealistic family dinners full of loving and stimulating conversation I'm envisioning.

Carly Thornock captured our dinnertime so well:

Update on Chase

All photos in this post are courtesy of Carly Thornock

• Chase is the friendliest kid I've ever met. He'll see a new kid and immediately run up to them with a huge smile on his face and ask their name! It kind of freaks out most little kids, but it doesn't even phase Chase. He's eager to join in a game with anyone! 
• Chase has always loved the temple, so when we were hanging pictures in our new house I put this huge temple picture in his room. Then for Primary this year they gave all the kids a smaller picture of the Bountiful temple so he talks about his "two temples" all the time. Last week he told me he was excited to go to the temple someday because "they have really good toys in there." He couldn't be convinced otherwise.

•  Story time has always been my favorite time of the day with him. He's always loved it. If Ben's around he'd always rather have Ben read to him instead of me.

•  Last fall he started insisting that you "count" (meaning point to the words while you read them) every. single. time. we read together. I could tell he was trying to figure it all out. He'd ask frequently what a certain word said. He knew all his alphabet sounds so I decided to start teaching him to read. He picked it up so fast! My just-barely-3 year old is reading! We were going to surprise Ben and show him for his birthday, so in the meantime Chase and I kept practicing while he was at work. Then one night Chase surprised Ben by reading a random flyer from the mail that day! So Ben got his birthday present a little early, but he was totally thrilled and surprised anyway. He's doing really well and is learning new words and rules all the time! (I didn't realize how many words in the English language break the rules until I started teaching them to someone else!) We are so proud of our smart little guy!

•  Chase has always had a great sense of humor and loves to laugh. And he loves to make us laugh. His latest thing is that he whips out this imaginary cell phone he has (it's just his hand) and makes phone calls on it all the time! He usually uses it as a way to tattle on his dad or to try to justify something he wants.

•  He's getting so much better at imaginative play! For awhile when he was younger we worried that he'd have no imagination because he could never entertain himself. Now he can play with his toys (or other random objects like kitchen spoons) for hours! He will make roads and tunnels and cars out of whatever is available.