It's been a while...

It's been quite a while since I posted. There's way too many past activities to catch up on, so hopefully I'll be better about posting in the future. The fun we've been having since December include Christmas in Fresno with all the cousins, first time to the snow withe Cameron, Valentine's Day, my mom and I took Chase to see Disney on Ice, fun activities with Chase's preschool, Cameron turning two, Easter, etc! At the end of May we're heading off on our three week vacation visiting lots of family and one very famous mouse. I'll definitely post pictures from our trip!

All the cousins being silly.

Can you believe my mom made this cake?! Awesome!

The new playhouse!

And new barbecue!

My handsome baby turns two!

Nutcracker

Today my mom took us to San Francisco to see the Nutcracker. It's a tradition we've had for many years and are enjoying including Chase in it and in the future, Cameron. We had fun dressing up, going to lunch and seeing the ballet.

Advent Calendars!

On December 1st the boys were able to start their Advent Calendars. Chase has been very excited about this for a couple of weeks. Cameron, of course, had no idea what was going on while we were taking this picture...then came the chocolate. hallelujah! Cam was so excited about it and didn't understand why he couldn't have more. He cried, "Chocolate! Chocolate!" that that guy in Streetcar Named Desire called for Stella. Now that we're three days into the calendar he's getting the hang of it. He still persists, though, and asks for more every time.

Chase turns 4!

On November 4th Chase turned four! Where did those last four years go? I vividly remember lying in the hospital bed with him when he was born, now my bouncing baby boy is a bouncing big boy! And bounce he did! We had his birthday party at a place called Pump It Up, basically an indoor warehouse filled with jump houses and jump slides. It's a four year old's dream! It was two hours of complete chaos, but totally fun. We also started the day with music class, Doug was able to join us for class and they sang him a special birthday song. Also, notice in the pictures below the awesome Buzz Lightyear cake that my mom made!

Chase is a wonderful little boy. Sweet and charming and very sensitive. He still loves music and has recently started taking gymnastics, which he has taken to amazingly well. You know how some things just click for some kids? Seems like gymnastics is one of those things for Chase. He's naturally flexible and just picks up on the activities like he's always done them. Chase loves school, too. He only goes two days a week, but now goes for longer periods of time since he's not really napping anymore (bummer for mommy!). Enjoy the photos from his special day.

October 09

October is a really fun month when you're a kid in Sonoma County! We're surrounded by beauty, including several beautiful pumpkin patches! We also have a wonderful annual Harvest Fair at our local fairgrounds with kid rides, giant pumpkins and good fair food. Yum! Of course, you can't mention October without including Halloween. Chase declared early on that he wanted to be Buzz Lightyear and I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to have a little Buzz and Woody running around my house! They looked so cute in their costumes. Other activities included "Trunk or Treat" at our church and Chase's school has a Halloween parade with all the kids and we had fun attending that as well. The night of Halloween Chase decided he had had enough of the Buzz costume and decided to wear a fireman costume for trick or treating, then after hitting only a few houses he declared that he wanted to go home. He was so focused on the candy that since he had some in his bag he wanted to go home and eat it instead of going to more houses and getting even more candy. Silly kid! Doug and I also were invited to a costume party and decided to dress up as Peter Pan and Wendy...after they left Neverland, it was pretty funny.

Disneyland Vacation 09

In September we drove down to Southern California for a family vacation. We spent four days in Disneyland. The first day we were there Doug's parents and brother David and his family were there celebrating our nephew, Jack's, fifth birthday. It was fun to be there with a lot of family! We had so much fun seeing the magic in our boys' eyes as they took in the wonders of Disneyland. They loved the Playhouse Disney show and some favorite rides were Buzz Lightyear, Pirates of the Caribbean, Dumbo, Small World and the carousel. The parades were fun, too. We had a special "Breakfast With Goofy" morning where we got to meet a lot of the characters and even dance with them! Chase especially liked meeting the princesses, he got all shy and blushed. It was really cute.

One night that we were there we escaped Disneyland and visited our friends Mark & Cherie and their daughter Cienna, who live in Long Beach. Cienna is only a couple months older than Cameron, so it was fun to watch them play together and Doug and I enjoyed visiting with our old friends that we don't get to see often enough.

After Disneyland we drove up to Idyllwild, where Doug's sister, Emily and her family live. They own the Idyllwild Inn and we stayed in one of their cozy cabins for a couple nights, then spent a night at their house. We got a couple babysitters for all our kids and were able to go out to a nice dinner with Emily and Josh (and complete a whole sentence without being interrupted!).

Overall it was a great vacation filled with lots of fun, family, friends and good memories! I took tons of pictures, but here are just a few.

July Update

Hi family and friends! I can't find the cord for my camera at the moment, but people have been asking me about Cameron, so I thought I would write a quick post. Cameron is FINE! Hooray! The lactose-free diet is working and he's putting on weight. He's a happy, healthy little boy that is quiet firey. I call him a brute because he will fall and get right back up. He has a high tolerance for pain and a low tolerance for coddling. He can also be quite the monster - when he gets mad he throws things, spits and bites. This is all new to me, Chase is such a sensitive child and never did such things. More proof of how diferent siblings are! He definitely has a sweet side, though, and loves to pick up his lamb or elephant and give him hugs and kisses. I'm so glad all these tests have turned out for the easiest posible sollution. Living with lactose intolerance is much easier than living with CF. I hate that the doctors scared us like that, but am glad we finally got it figured out. We go back for a GI follow up in August, but expect to hear all good things. Thanks for checking in on us, we appreciate it!