Boys just wanna have fun

Chase and his Dad are pretty much best buds.  Even though I spend all day with him and have better jokes, he follows his dad around from the time he wakes up in the morning until Buddy leaves for school, then from the minute Buddy gets home until bedtime.  It's so cute to watch them together, and I'm glad they have a special bond.  One day I'll have a friend, too...just kidding, Chase does like being with me during the day (for the most part).  But there's nothing like the bond of a Dad and his mini-me :)  Consider yourself lucky if you get to see this post--I don't know if Buddy will be embarrassed by these videos or not...

This was an exhibit at the Children's Museum of Memphis.  You got to dance in front of a green screen as part of a music video.  They had a separate stage where you could be in a Justin Bieber music video, but there was this little 2 year old girl who just wouldn't get off the stage, and we couldn't wait--sorry, Chanel and Madison...

I call this one "Chase and Daddy Pants-Head".  I don't have any other explanation for this, it just happened.

This is typical male bonding, right?  And there's really nothing more I can say.

Homecoming and Buddy's birthday

It was our last year to attend SCO's Homecoming as students--and I'm proud to say that we've been faithful attendees for all 4 years!  Yay--go us!  They provided their classic pulled pork sandwiches, and it may have been our last opportunity to have pulled pork sandwiches with coleslaw on top-for free, anyway.  It was yummy :)

 This year Chase was able to enjoy more of the kids activities.  Last year he pretty much stayed in the stroller.  I wish we could have gotten a balloon animal from the balloon man, but the line took too long, and we're just not that patient!

 Buddy tried his hand at some mechanical surfing--he was staying on really well until I distracted him with my good looks.  I'm pretty sure that's what did it, anyway.

 Then Buddy and I battled it out in basketball.  Buddy held Chase and shot one-handed so he could have an excuse for losing.  Good thing he did, since I won.  It did take a while for me to win, though, so Buddy probably would have crushed me if he was using both hands...

We didn't do a whole lot for Buddy's birthday since it was mid-week.  All Buddy said he wanted was to pass his board exam, and he DID!  We found out the week before his birthday, and I bought him an entire ice cream cake that day to celebrate.  He shared a few pieces with me...  Ice cream  is about the only present Buddy gets really excited about, so on his actual birthday, we just celebrated with some regular Rocky Road ice cream.  Also, Chase made him a finger-painted birthday card.  It was the first time I made my own edible finger paints (thank you, Pinterest), and it was pretty fun to do (and messy, of course).

 The picture started out nice and pretty, and then...

 BAM!  That paint was everywhere.  Good thing we did it outside :)

 The end result.  You can't see it all too well, but isn't it beautiful?  Gotta love that tan-brown color.

End of Summer Fun

Labor Day is supposed to be the unofficial end of summer:  the pools and water parks close, and it's the last opportunity for families to go to the beach for the holiday.  However, since Memphis still has summer weather all through the month of September, I think anything we do here in September still counts as summer fun :).

Buddy had started school the week before Labor Day, so when the holiday came around we were already ready to do something fun together.  We had never been to the Children's Museum of Memphis, so we decided to try it out!  It had a lot of great stuff for kids to play with and explore, but it still would have been more fun if Chase were a couple years older.  We still spent a few hours there, though, and I think Chase enjoyed it. 

 Chase in the "mini Kroger" tasting the fruit before putting it in his mini-cart.  Too bad it wasn't real fruit!  I wish we could taste fruit at the regular grocery store, then I wouldn't have to knock on cantaloupes and watermelons like an idiot--I have no idea what I'm listening for when I knock, but I still do it...

 This extremely flattering picture of me and Chase is to show you how impressed Chase is with my dance moves, compared to Buddy's:

He looks entranced, doesn't he?  I'm surprised that it wasn't Buddy's dance moves that won my heart...

 

Chase's favorite thing to do lately is play in the car-avoiding his car seat at all costs.  He loved all of the exhibit areas where he could crawl free in the automobiles (and planes!) :)

With Buddy at the school all day, Chase and I like to spend a lot of time outside--especially at the parks. I only wish I didn't have to drive to the parks.  It was nice over the summer to be able to walk everywhere we wanted to go.

We had a chance to meet Chase's birthday-buddy Isaac and his mom (my previous coworker) at the Shelby Farms park, and it was crazy trying to keep the two boys together for even a few seconds.  Apparently there are too many other fun things to explore, but we still had fun :)  These two pics were the best we could do at getting both of their attention:

We also had a chance to go to the Collierville sprinkler park on its last weekend open, so we drove the 40 minutes to get there hoping that it would be worth it.  Over the summer Chase was in love with all of the sprinklers in Cardston (since they have to water their lawns there to keep 'em green...), so I thought the sprinkler park would be the best place for him to have fun.  He didn't love it as much as we'd hoped (maybe because the weather wasn't the best by the time we got there), but we all still got soaked and so declared it a successful trip :)

 Buddy coaxing Chase to play with the sprinklers...

 Chase's facial expression the whole time at the park :)  ok, ok, he smiled at times, and even squealed and ran around a bit, I was just expecting full-on excitement the whole time.

Oh, yeah.  To answer the questions from the last post:  yes, it means we're having another boy!  In December!  This is me at 26 weeks (6 months).  December will be a crazy month.  Not sure what exactly is going to happen with Christmas (and Thanksgiving) plans and moving, but that makes everything more exciting, right?