Tribute to Dee Dee

I was very grateful when we were given this blanket by Dalen and Tiffany because we didn't have many blankets for little Chaser. I just didn't realize at the time how much more it was going to mean to us.

Meet Dee Dee. Chase named it himself and it was one of the first words he said. (Can I call it a word?) Sometimes I think he loves this little blanket more than me.

Chase knows the difference between his Dee Dee and other blankets (even red ones that look similar.) He starts saying Dee Dee immediately when he sees it and continues to say it over and over for a couple minutes. It can calm him down faster than anything when he is upset, even more than Mom or Dad holding him.

If your offended that you gave him a blanket and it didn't become "Dee Dee" don't be. I made him a blanket too.

He's back,....

I might have an angry mother for posting these pictures before she gets back and has a chance to post them, but oh well.

We picked up Brennan at the airport today. His plane wasn't supposed to arrive until 2:00, but Mom called me and 1:10 and told me that his flight was supposed to come in at 1:25. The she called about 5 min. later and said that his plane had arrived. We were still on the other side of town, but thankfully it took a while for them to get through everything and we made it on time.

In fact we made it in enough time for Chase to walk Grandpa around and around and around the terminal.He's pretty much the same ole' Brennan. Still afraid of hugging. He offered mom and I his hand for a handshake .!?!?! Then reluctantly gave into a hug. Check out that awkward face :) Except now he looks eerily like Kyle. Don't you think?

My mom is going to kill me again, but she didn't recognize him when he came out. He walked out and as I picked my camera up, she put hers down and said "nope, not him."


He did come home with some good stories for us, and Chase got to finally meet his uncle Brennan.


For those who are wondering why my pictures look like weird after enlarging: I bet none of you have done anything as stupid as this with your camera. I've done it several times before, changed the setting on my camera and then forgot to change them back when the situation is no longer appropriate for those settings. For instance: Alynn (Daniel's sister) asked me to take their family picture and I took all their pictures on ISO 1600 :{ IN THE BRIGHT SUNLIGHT!!! I realized after we were finished and all the kids were tired and we had to go back and retake all the pictures. I bet she never asks me to do that again! Well I am in another photography class and our homework was to take different file sizes of pictures. I had just finished my small size before we headed out to the airport and forgot to change it back. Just so you know small file size on my camera is 2 MP!!! I shot all those pictures on 2 MP!!! AHHHHHHH! Done ranting!

Pictures

I found this cute place to take pictures and took Chase out there the other day. Unfortunately you can't really see much of the cute place because the pictures that I liked the best didn't show much of the background. This first one you can see a corner of an old wooden door with rusted metal accents, and the whole building is made out of that red rock you can see off the the side there.


It's not really a building because it is open on one side, but it has window openings that were fun to play with.


And it certainly helps having a cute little model to play with. He just doesn't like to cooperate.

Ready for school

I couldn't resist the urge to post these pictures. Chase got this cute backpack and lots of great books from the Cahoon's for Christmas and looks so grown up when he wears it around.


I love this one of him running towards me, which is something he often does when he sees me pull out the camera.

(I can also see I have some work to do when focusing with my f/1.8 lens, especially on this active little guy)

Guilt induced blogging.

Edit: First off, please let me know if you have a hard time reading the text on my blog. I started off with the large text, but hated that it made me feel like a grandma when I logged on, so I have tried making the background darker. Does that help?





I'm struggling a little with the whole blogging thing. Lately I have felt too guilt to waste my time blogging, and then late at night I start feeling really guilty for not blogging. My blog is my form of journaling as is with many of you. I do it for me and my family more than anything else, and sometimes it is hard to justify spending the time on myself. I'm grateful to have such a great husband who understands that women need some time for themselves and encourages me to take up hobbies that allow me do things I like even when it takes me away from the home more. In fact this same great husband gave me the greatest Christmas present this year. We were very limited in the amount we spent on each other, but he bought me goggles, a jersey bag (to carry wet swim suit and towel), water bottle etc. His whole purpose in purchasing these seeminly odd gifts was that he knows how much I love to lap swim and he knows that I don't do it. He wrote me a letter explaining that his gift was to watch Chase on some evenings so I could have some time to enjoy something that I love to do. I cried. And to think I only got him a silly watch that had to be returned because it didn't fit anyways. I suck at this Christmas stuff.

These pictures are several weeks old, but they are cute anyways, so here they are. We spent a day out playing in the snow with Chase. He is so funny with the snow. He loves to play outside no matter the weather or temperature, but doesn't even seem to notice the snow is even there. He will just walk back and forth on the sidewalks as if there isn't snow covered grass all over.Here's the goofy snowman we built. A could days later we noticed that someone added better facial features and a scarf that we didn't want to spare.


I can't help but love this picture. Check out those buck teeth! Love em.


He never did quite catch on the whole snowman thing, maybe we should have built it a little smaller so he could get the idea.
And sledding.... Chase didn't seem to really mind, or enjoy the sledding. Just kinda sat there patiently until they got to the bottom of the hill so he could get up and walk around.

Best of 2008

Things change year to year so I tried to remember the best of 2008. These are all my personal opinion of course! I tried to pick things that were new to me in 2008 not just my favorite over all.

Favorite Restaurant- Tucanos
A new one showed up at the Gateway and with a free entree coupon we had to try it out. It is by far my favorite even though we have not eaten there since. It is a bit on the pricey side and we just don't eat out a lot any more, but if money didn't matter I would eat there every day.

Favorite Movie- Twilight.
Love the books and after only watching it once, I loved the movie. I watched it with my mom and sisters over Thanksgiving and I have been waiting for it to come to the dollar movie ever since so I could justify going again.

Favorite Hobby- Learning Photography and Photoshop (elements for now)

Favorite Picture I took- Chase in Daniel's hat.
Blogger won't let me upload it for some reason so see it here. Liked it a lot in black and white as well, but once again blogger won't let me upload it.

Favorite Music- Wicked and The Christmas Box by Paul Cardall
My mom gave me a copy of the wicked C.D after she had been to see the play. I still havn't seen the play but know almost every word of every song on the C.D. ( and have to be very protective of the C.D. to stop Daniel from throwing it away.) Coming in second is the Christmas Box. Our stake Relief Society president is Sister Cardall, the mother of Paul Cardall, and gave us his C.D. for Christmas. It is my new favorite Christmas C.D.

Favorite Food- Grilled brown sugar pinapple
Of course, from tucanos. I almost could have forgone all the meat and just eaten this!


Favorite Memory- Chase laughing in the wind.
Remeber this?? I love the second picture. You can see by Daniel's face how funny we thought this was and how much we laughed about it. He was just 3 1/2 months.
I do reserve the right to change my mind about this one though, as just about any memory with a Chase is a favorite, but this one sticks out to me right now. All the time at the cabin this summer comes as a close second, along with sledding down the sand hill at Easter. See Here

Favorite Song- Come on get higher - Mathew Nathanson
Catchy little tune. Listen here.

Favorite T.V. show- Big Bang Theory
Reminds me too much of my husband. (shhhhh don't tell him I said that :)

Favorite Board game- Ticket to ride
Thanks to Kyle and Michelle we were entertained as we played over Christmas again, and again, and again, and again.

Favorite time waster- Computer
Email, Blogging, Facebook, Look for photographs and photoshop tricks, playing on photoshop. Some of these things aren't always time wasters, but sometimes I do a little to much (blogging and photoshop).

Favorite Drink- Martinelli's
Doesn't matter which flavor. It's our weak spot at this household. Thankfully it's expensive enough that we don't allow ourselves to splurge except for special occasions.

Favorite Exercise- Walking
I used the "just had a baby" excuse a little too long and enjoyed family walks in the evening as a primary source of exercise. Besides this little flop of an endeavor.

Worst Heart Stopping moment of Fear- Loseing Chase
That's right, I lost Chase. We had a combined chruch meeting with other wards in the stake the Sunday before Christmas and we put Chase down to stand on his own. I guess I thought Daniel was watching and he thought I was as we were both talking to people. Tyson noticed him walking out the door so I ran the direction he pointed and went out the wrong door. I looked up and down the hall and didn't see him. I got really panicky because the more time I couldn't find him, the more time he had to get lost. Thank goodness it was in a church if anywhere.

Worst memory of 2008- Christmas break sickness.
Daniel and Chase both got really sick over Christmas break and I didn't catch it as bad. I didn't feel well, and was physically and mentally challanged with waking up in the middle of the night and Chase not letting me go back to sleep, cleaning up puke after puke, and driving home with two sick guys. Daniel is still coughing all night long keeping both of us up and waking Chase up now and then.

Favorite quote- I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. -Bill Cosby
A little problem of mine.... The Pioneer Woman blames it on being a middle child, can I use that excuse as well?

New tradition

Since I was lame and didn't get any Moab pictures, I thought I would share one of my favorite Christmas traditions yet (that is assuming it will become a new tradition.) This year in my family we opted to do something a little simpler and less expensive to replace sibling gifts. We have played white elephant games on Christmas Eve for some time now, but this year we replaced the gifts that my mom has to buy every year with our own homemade, or good deals gifts. The goal was to spend a little amount of money as possible on the gift and there was a prize. The best part about the whole thing was there wasn't a single gift that I didn't want. There was a cute apron, a box of 42 homemade cards, this recipe box (full of Michelle's recipes I might add) and I made a couple of camera strap covers (since all the girls in my family now have "fancy pants cameras" and some digital scrapbooking stuff. I forgot to take a picture of the ones that I made, so the one in the picture below is one of the practice ones in trying to get the sizing right on it.


We always joke in my family that our Christmas tradition is to do something different every year, but I hope this one sticks.