BIG Update

So after much harassment from people about not updating my blog, especially my Mom, I'm giving you a huge update to catch up on the last six weeks.  When we left off we were just heading into Chase's 2nd birthday.  His birthday was October 9th, I had great plans for his birthday, including a fancy cake with chocolate lollipops made by hand.  I also made him a fantastic bean bag chair that we thought he would love for sure.  The only problem was I worked the night before, so I came home, slept, got up to make the cake, made the cake and it stuck to the nicely greased and floured cake pans.  Then I spent the next half hour trying to call bakeries in town to get a cake made, no such luck.  Then the stupid bean bag wasn't working out, I hadn't showered, Chase was trying to sew on my sewing machine, it was pretty much a nightmare.  We ended up buying a cheap pre made cake from Albertsons, I finished the bean bag and we had our party.  Chase cried through the birthday song, come to find out he was scared of the candles.  If anyone knows how to upload a video on a mac, I have a hilarious video of it.  And to top it all off, he wasn't really interested in his gifts, and he hated his bean bag chair, he called it "owiees" and cried when he got near it.  Great!!!

We took him to his 2 year check up, he weighed 38lb and was 39 inches tall.  I found a height predictor on babycenter.com and they said he should be about 6 foot 6 inches at 18, give or take 2 inches!  I told Jared that he me said that we needed to make sure we got him into basketball.  That way when he's rich and famous in the NBA he can pay us back for all the pain and suffering we went through!

Here's birthday pictures:

The Headless parachute man.  At one time he did have a head and a parachute, the Chase got to him.

So mid October Jared started working at Artco.  He does this every year, works temp work there during the holiday season.  It's nice because it brings in extra money for Christmas, but it also stinks because then I don't get to sleep as much as I want after I work.  So I joined all of the other girls I work with in becoming a sleep deprived mother who works the night shift.  The first day after I worked I got up with Chase, put a movie in and made a bed on the couch.  Chase watched the movie, kind of, and I woke up every few minutes to make sure he wasn't dead, hadn't escaped and didn't have a knife in his hand.  After I finally peeled myself off the couch, and about 3 movies later, this is what my house looked like.  Nice huh.  My awesome neighbors are now helping me out after I work and watching him for a few hour chunks so I can sleep, it works out a little bit better.

Halloween was a blast, Chase did so well, he love going from house to house and getting candy.  His costume turned out really cute as well, though being the procrastinator that I am, I was making at 5pm on Halloween.  He especially loved knocking on the doors and picking out the candy, he loves suckers for some reason and would always pick those.  One place they left a bucket of candy (which if you ever did that in Seattle it would be all gone with the first trick-or-treater) so he sat down and started helping himself to it.  We went trick or treating with our friends and their daughter and had a really great time.  We still have Halloween candy though, but at least Chase doesn't know about it any more!

We started a gymnastics class with Chase, it's a toddler and Mom class, Chase does pretty well in it, except for last week which was an absolute nightmare!  But it's great because he gets to run around and get energy out and then takes a three hour nap!  I'm excited for him to have an outlet during the cold Rexburg winters.  I'll get pictures and post them later.

The first weekend in November we headed down to Utah for my Nephew's blessing.  Tom and Elise's fourth child, Peter.  We had a great time and all of my family was there.  It was a short trip, but nice to get away.  The one bad thing was that we had to sleep in a room with a toddler bed....yeah, didn't happen.  Chase freaked out when I laid him in it.  So we set up the pack and play which he promplty climbed out of, much to our dismay--it was the first time.  So we held him till he fell asleep, laid him in bed and about a couple hours woke up to him wandering the room and crying.  It was a REALLY long night, and Chase is not ready for a toddler bed.

I got to see my awesome friend Marren while we were there, I love her to death and it was so great to see her.  We're going to spend Thanksgiving with her and her family in Pocatello, it will be so nice.

My Mom came to visit last week while Jared was out of town in Utah.  I had to work while Jared was gone and I didn't have anyone to stay with Chase.  So she immediately bought a plane ticket and came and stayed with us for five days.  It was fantastic, Chase loved having her there almost as much as I did.  His new favorite game is sitting in the clothes basket and getting pulled around the living room.  Grandma got worn out doing that I think.  It was so great to have my Mom here, she cooked, cleaned, watched Chase, made my bed, did my laundry and packed my snack for work.  Why can't we always have Moms living with us?  I love you Mom, you're the best and I don't know what I would do without you!!!!

Chase is now our little drag queen, as Jared so kindly called him on Sunday.  I took off my shoes after church and Chase just put them on and started walking around in them, I was laughing so hard!  It's a classic cute picture for little girls, but not one you see to often with little boys!

Last but not least, it's a sad day at the Call house.  Many of you know the kind of child my son is: mischevious, wild, active, devious, destructive.....etc.  And many of you know the amount of childproofing we've had to do since Chase could crawl.  Well, the other day Chase figured out how to climb the gate.   Whenever I go in the back, Chase just comes right after me, with this proud smile on his face!  It's actually not a huge deal right now, but we'll see how things work out.  We though about lifting it up, but I know him and he'll just climb under, the little stinker!!!

Well that's it for the update, we're all good, just plugging along with work and keeping up with a toddler.  You all know how it is, good days and bad days--really bad days.  We're looking forward to the holidays, and I'll make sure I post more--MOM.

On another note, I'm the enrichment group leader for my ward's quiet time activities group.  I started a blog for it, I'm going to post ideas and thoughts.  After we have our activities I'll post instructions on everything we do.  Check it out and let me know what you think.  I should be updating it in the next couple days!

www.sacramentactivities.blogspot.com