Keeping Up....

When I picked Callie up from preschool, I think it was last Friday, she had a loose tooth and was so excited. We couldn't pull it so it just kept wiggling in there. Last night we had tuna noodle casserole and she lost her tooth while eating it - that shows you how loose it was. The one next to it will soon follow. The tooth fairy brought a dollar last night :-) For some reason this has really hit me hard - what a big girl thing to lose a tooth - wow!

Chase is a full fledged walker - going everywhere now. He walks all around the house, wherever he wants to go. Unless he is in a hurry then he tries to run but he isn't that good yet so his body gets ahead of his feet and he falls.... and crawls from there! He must not have gotten completely over his ear infection cause it flared back up this week, so a sleepless night Monday and another round of antibiotics. He also has some rash on his leg but the Dr thought it was just irritated, so just cortisol ointment.

Mom and I took the kids with us to Joplin to get a few Christmas gifts on Saturday. It was busy but we had a good outing. Callie made a reindeer at the build a bear type place in the mall. She loves doing this and especially dressing it. She made a reindeer with a red nose dressed in a beautiful Christmas dress and named her Claire.

Then on Sunday evening Mom and I went back to Joplin to a SIDS memorial candle lighting service. It was the first one that they had tried in Joplin. Kansas has one in Wichita but this time of year it is hard to get to. The service was so nice but the turn out was very small. I hope she does it again next year to try to build it up cause it was such a nice service.

photo update

Dancing to music...




Hanging out with Grandpa.....


Doing a little Christmas shopping????


Watch week at dance class...


Aren't they cute???

Lighting the Advent Candles

Or maybe just the morning entertainment?
We were to light the advent candles last Sunday but we were running late, as is normal these days. So they had just put up the slide that said we were lighting the advent candles and my mother in law said that were hadn't made it there yet but we were actually walking thru the doors behind her. So everyone enjoyed the timing, we thru our stuff down and headed up there, Shannon starts reading (we had remembered that sheet at least) and I can't find anything to light the first candle, someone kindly gets me a lighter and we are set, Callie is holding the candle and waving to Grandma and Grandpa, Chase sees her waving and gets in on the action too, well he can't wave without clapping for himself when he is done, then Shannon hands me the paper and microphone to read the second part and I hand him Chase, Chase immediately starts screaming to come back to me, so we switch back (thanks Chase I was nervous to read it anyway)........I doubt anyone heard a thing that was read with all that going on.

Also, we have a walker, kinda

I forgot that on Wednesday Chase got up while Callie and I were still decorating. He was playing and Callie and I both saw him take about 4 steps! He has continued to take 2-6 steps all the time. It is so cute and Callie was so excited.
Then on Thursday I noticed that both the top side teeth were completely thru - 6 teeth now!

Thanksgiving

I haven't been good at taking pictures lately and don't have my camera cord right now to connect but since it has been so long, I am going to go ahead and update without photos. We went to Dadeville, MO on the Saturday before Thanksgiving to Shannon's uncle's house (dad's brother) to have Thanksgiving with that side of the family. We hadn't seen most of them since last year at this time so they had never met Chase. It was a good day - Callie drew her great aunts several pictures.
On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Callie waited not so patiently, until Chase went down for his morning nap and we put up the tree and Christmas decorations. She was so excited and said that she remembered how fun it was last year. Then when we were getting the tree up and stuff out she said that it wasn't as much fun as she remembered. Once we got going though she was happy :-) And so far Chase hasn't really bothered the tree much at all.
On Thanksgiving we went to my parents with my younger brothers family and my grandparents. It was a nice relaxing day. At bedtime, Shannon and the kids headed home and I stayed so that mom and i could get up at 3:30 to go to Olathe for some Black Friday shopping. We have always gone, not always that early, but it is just a fun time for us. We didn't get anything big. Some good bargains on toys, etc. and a lot of fun. We shopped, and ate, all day.
Saturday we went to Shannon's grandmas (mom's mom) and had Thanksgiving with them. Callie and Daddy went on a "safari hunt" after lunch down to the bridge and around. Callie thought that was great and has wanted to go out again this week. I went to the cemetery to decorate and when I got back Chase had just fallen asleep and got woken up. He was so cranky. We came home and he continued to be very upset. He started running a fever. He ran it all Sunday but we for better or worse we held out to take him to the doctor until Monday. Monday he was very uncomfortable in addition to the fever. Linda watched him while Callie was at preschool and I worked in the AM. The I took him to the doctor - double ear infection. Once we switched to motrin and got the ear drops in him he started feeling better. 10 days of antibiotics to fight with him to take! Linda stayed with him on Tuesday also but by Wednesday he went back to daycare.
We have been watching all kinds of Christmas cartoon specials and counting down the days. We went to the mall to eat after dance on Thursday but Callie wasn't sure about sitting on Santa's lap.........Chase just wanted to tear down all the fencing around him:-)