Out of Context

Lately Chase has been saying things that if taken out of context may sound really bad.

"Shoot Up Please"
No - we don't have a drug problem...
My mom showed Chase how to shoot a Nerf dart gun that we have and Chase LOVES it. Well Boris taught him that when we shoot we shoot at the ceiling so we don't hit anyone. So now Chase runs around saying "Shoot Up Please Shoot Up Please!"

"Naked Baby in Bed"
No - we don't have inappropriate naked time at our house...
Somehow Chase learned what the word "naked" means so every time we get undressed for PJs or take a bath he says "Naked Chase" or "Naked Baby". So after a bath the other night I was in bed and we put Chase in bed in just a diaper next to me to snuggle. So now we have "Naked Baby Bed".

That's all I can think of right now but I'm sure there are other things that would be embarressing if Chase said them in public.

Blizzard

Yesterday we got quite the snow storm - here are a few pictures of us from earlier this morning out in the snow.

Decline in Photos

I recently realized that I don't take nearly as many pictures of Chase as I used to.

Chase watching TV.

I thought the below picture was hilarious.

Chase and I tried PhotoBooth for the first time tonight!

If Only I Were That Clever

Capricious turned me on to the following Etsy site - I LOVE it and it is totally worth checking out. Everyone needs a little bit of snark in the their life!


www.neatthings.etsy.com

Terrible Twos - I hope I survive

Chase just recently hit full on terrible twos (I swear it happened over night). This age is exhausting and definitely tries my patience!!! Here are some of the things Chase has started doing that makes me realize I need a parenting book ASAP!

- Chase will look at us and say "No Chase!" and then he will proceed to do something he shouldn't be doing such as throwing food on the floor or playing with an outlet.
- Chase has started throwing things at both people and dogs and he is so good at throwing that it really hurts!
- The poor dogs are constantly getting attacked by our 18 month old, he always wants to give them hugs and kisses, but just recently he also started to fight with the dogs for toys which usually leads to screaming at the dogs "NO BUGGY, NO JAXX!"
- There has been a lot of screaming in general...
- Whenever Chase gets mad (like if he is trying to do something he just can't quite do yet such as stacking cups from largest to smallest) he gets really frustrated and will either chuck whatever he is mad at across the room or he will scream at it (again with the screaming).
- We unfortunately spoiled Chase while he had Pneumonia and now at times he will stand in front of the TV and want us to turn it on "TV ON TV ON TV ON", he will then stand in front of the couch and say "Couch Couch Couch" until he is seated on the couch next to mom.
- If I hear "STICKER STICKER STICKER" or "SNACKS SNACKS SNACKS" one more time I may lose my mind (I'm sure it will happen tomorrow).
- Chase had his first public tantrum while we were leaving Target the other day.

But for all that I realized that nature is pretty darn sneaky because for every annoying thing Chase does he does an absolutely adorable thing that makes my heart melt (hence the survival of our species)...

*Sigh*



Non-Terrible Two Chase Moments:
- I have a polar bear collection from when I was a kid and Chase found the largest of the bears and he decided that it was the daddy bear since it was so big - he has since named the bear "Boris Bear" instead of daddy bear since Boris is his daddy's name.
- Chase has started to learn his colors, his favorites used to be red and pink but green and purple are now making a move into first.
- We like to build a lot of towers in our house (out of blocks, out of dice, out of Legos, out of anything that is stackable) and recently Chase has started copying whatever tower Boris or I build. If we build one that is two blocks wide and 4 tall he does the same, if we build a wall of 6 blocks across and 2 high he does that. If he isn't mimicking our towers he is adding to them - very sweet.
- For some reason Chase loves the map and backpack song from Dora the Explorer.

Etsy Bling

In anticipation of my upcoming craft fair I finally got around to "branding" my Etsy shop! I made a new logo that actually has matching business cards and such. Now I just need to get around to actually making more product...I'm in the process of crocheting a yoga bag which I have had to start over about 5 times for various reasons - maybe I should just give up...

(I know the image looks tiny but if you click on it you can actually see it.)

Wake Up Call

Last night I was woken up in the middle of the night for the millionth time in the last year but this happened to involve being woken up in the WORST possible way - which is what inspired this blog entry.


The top 4 worst ways to be woken up:


4) Waking up to a crying kiddo is so exhausting - not that it is really such a terrible way to wake up it's just that if you wake up once to a crying kid most likely the scenario will repeat itself numerous times that night. Also once I've been woken up in this method I tend to lay in a half sleep with my mommy senses somewhat listening for more crying all night long. The other bummer about waking up in this fashion is that it requires the long walk down the hall to kiddo's room... which is the worst part when you are groggy.


3) I recently found that one of the most irritating ways to be woken up is to the hacking of your own cough or to the hacking of a spouses cough.


2) I HATE waking up to a wrong number phone call... whenever the phone rings in the middle of the night I jerk awake and my heart starts racing and I run through all the bad things that may have happened that would require someone to call at 2 am. It always takes me FOREVER to fall back asleep after a middle of the night call.


1) The number 1 worst way to be woken up in the middle of the night is to sound of a dog dry heaving in preparation to barf. For all you dog owners out there I'm sure you can relate to that ever so pleasant sound that sends you flying out of bed in hopes of catching the vomit in some kind of towel before it ends up all over the carpet.


Sometimes I forget what a good night's sleep feels like...

Trouble!!!

This morning Chase managed to get in all sorts of trouble...


The most disturbing thing is that he learned how to open doors. He can now escape any room we shut him into! Time for child locks...we are in fact going to go purchase more of them this afternoon.


Funny things Chase said in the last few days:
- Yesterday Chase was throwing goldfish on the floor and watching the dogs eat them and I said "Oh shoot!!!" and Chase looked at me and said "Oh shoot! Buggy eat it!"
- This morning I woke up to Chase saying "Tiptoe Tiptoe Tiptoe" (which is what they say in the bear hunt book when they are in the cave looking for the bear)




Here is Chase after dumping an entire box of Corn Pops onto he couch - he thought it was a brilliant idea.






Here is Chase practicing escaping with his newly discovered door opening skills...

Finished Jewelry Pieces

I finally got around to taking a few pictures of my recent jewelry pieces.  I don't LOVE any of them because most of them are practice pieces but I am overall happy with how the PMC turned out.

Here is my favorite bracelet - the picture quality sucks but I really like this piece.  It says "LIVE".

This is the other one of my favorites...it reminds me of the moon for some reason...

This is just a stamped metal necklace but I really liked how the beads looked on this one.

Small PMC charms

Not Exactly a Shinning Motherhood Moment

If Cheetos are good, and chocolate is good, what can be better than chocolate on Cheetos???

Poor Chase caught whatever horrible illness Boris and I are still recovering from - only he also got the vomiting variation.  I felt so bad for him with his little baby fever that I decide (in one of my weak mommy moments) that Chase having juice, apple, bread, Cheetos, and cake with chocolate frosting for dinner was some how acceptable.  I know I know, like I said, not my best moment...

Anyways, about half way through enjoying his meal, while Boris was doing the dishes, we turned around to catch Chase dipping his Cheetos in the left over chocolate frosting on his high chair tray - EWWWW.  He then sighed a huge sigh looked at us and said "YUMMY!!!" (see, being sick isn't ALL bad when you're 17 months old).  Boris later pointed out that if Chase throws up again it will be rather spectacular considering his dinner.

Shrug

So here it is - the first article of adult clothing that I finished. I think it turned out pretty well. I had to make a TON of alterations to the pattern because the original pattern ended up making a teeny tiny shrug that maybe a 10 year old would fit into - it also had a weird seam that I decided to get rid of (I guess that is what you get with free patterns). Overall I think if I did another one I would make a few changes but I am pretty happy with it. There were also suppose to be ruffles (like around the sleeves) at the neck and back but I decided to skip that because Boris and I both thought it looked fine without the extra ruffles.

A 1 Year Old's Mess

So in the mornings when Boris and I are trying to sneak another 30 minutes of sleep out of the day we often put some dry cereal in Chase's toy garage so that he can feed himself and play in our room while we steal a few more moments of rest. Well earlier today while I was in the shower apparently Chase ran out of cereal and decided it was a good idea to fill the garage himself. He took the cereal bag, unclipped it, and dumped the entire thing into his garage...


When Boris and I asked him what happened he looked at us and said something like "Uh Oh, No Chase, Mess".



He later tried to help clean up by eating up his mess from the floor.

Here is Chase trying on my socks...he does love pink!

Inspired by Capricious Again

I was inspired by Capricious again - she recently bought some of the cutest tags on Etsy and today (while I should have been resting) I decided to be a bad bad sick person and craft for a little bit. There is only so much laying in bed one can do. Besides I have been seriously neglecting preparing for a craft fair I intend to do in April and I thought these would be perfect small items to sell!


The "With All My Heart" tags are definitely my favorite, Boris liked the tree ones the best. Sorry about the owls and shoes being sideways but I can't figure out how to make the blog rotate them.







Also I promise to post some of the pictures of my fired and finished jewelry soon - when I get around to taking pictures of them...oh yeah and I finished the shrug too - pictures of that coming soon also!

The Ranting of a Sick Person

Being that I am sick yet again, I have had plenty of time to surf the web from bed today - which has made me realize quite a few things...


- While surfing today I actually got around to looking at my favorite blogs lists of favorite blogs (if that makes any sense) and that alone brought on a few conclusions...
1) There is NO way I can compete with a stay at home mom when it comes to crafting and baking - I kept looking at blog after blog and thinking to myself - wow I wish I had time to bake those amazing treats - or wow check out that quilt and sweater so and so made - or wow I wish I had time to take Chase to do those amazing activities - and then it dawned on me... I don't have time to do those things not because I'm lazy, or because I'm sick (granted that may have a little to do with it), or because there are a ton of better moms out there, but the main reason I can't do all those things is that I work 40 hours a week! I need to find some "working mom" blogs to check out so I can ease my mom guilt - then again do most full time working moms even blog - or is that also something they rarely have time to do?

2) I realized that although I am a modern urban loving chic, recently some of my friends (mainly suburbanbrunette and capricious) have started to wear off on me and I am starting to dig more country, shabby chic, retro, vintage stuff. Dang before you know it I'll be wearing floral dresses...
3) I realized that I should be really grateful that I have a helpful husband, and easy kiddo, lots of babysitting help from family, and uncle Griff (which is what we call Boris's best friend who is always helping us out) because without all of those above things I would never have time to even get to the hobbies that I do manage to get to. So thanks to everyone above for making my life a lot better than it could be!
4) The one thing that I realized that made me a little sad is that most blogs have TONS of blog followers - I can only think of maybe 10 - 15 people that regularly check my blog - all of whom which know me personally. So that started to make me wonder - how does one get a blog following - and do I even want one?
5) How do people stumble across these really fun blogs of people they don't know???
6) Maybe I should combine this blog and my crafting blog - everyone else has combined theirs....hrmmmmm...


- Moving on to other web surfing realizations...in my boredom I logged on to DeviantArt.com - which I have been neglecting for a long time...only to be reminded of how much I love that site! It is like Etsy for artwork - people can post their art and comment and each others stuff and even sell prints. If you have never checked it out it is worth doing.


- Lastly I realized, there are way too many good things to buy on Etsy. I could shop there all day!


PS. In other random news I think I have dog fever and new house fever.

A Shrug, A Sweater, Jewelry - I just can't stick to one project

So I have been busy starting crafting projects and not finishing them.


The list of my half finished projects includes:
- A crocheted sweater (about 50% done)
- A crocheted shrug - which I hope to wear this Saturday (about 75% done)
- Two crocheted bags that just need linings
- A bunch of silver pieces that need to be sanded and finished (I did finish three pendants and bracelet already but I have a few other pieces left - plus I want to make more)
- I found a dress I want to sew
- I need to finish Chase's scrapbook
- Oh yah and I am suppose to be getting ready for a craft fair that I have done nothing for because I've been busy making stuff for myself - whoops...


I would include pictures of all these projects but I broke my camera =(

Chase Moments

So just recently it occurred to me that I am NEVER going to finish Chase's scrapbook - I just don't seem to find the time (or may I just don't seem to find the motivation).  The sad thing is that if I wait too long to get around to it I will forget all of the adorable stories that I want to journal about.  I think I am going to do a set of electronic scrapbooks for Chase and have them printed up in bound books for now because that is a lot faster.  Then if I ever get around to finishing the actual paper scrapbook that will be nice but at least then I can stop worrying about it.  With being sick there just isn't enough time to get to everything so I think this is one of those things I am going to cut myself slack on and go the easy way out... so here I come Apple store - printed baby books it is!

Since I am worrying about forgetting my cute Chase stories I thought I would add a few here - that way when I am trying to finish my books I can use my blog as a reminder.

Chase's Favorite Things:

- Stuffed Animals (Pinkie, Foo Foo, and Puppy are the current favorites)

- Fruit Snacks

- Chocolate (including milk, dark, chocolate milk, or anything that in fact resembles chocolate)

- The Bumble Bee Song

- The Bear Hunt Book

- Elephants, Monkeys, and Hippos (and I guess just animals in general)

- Trains and cars

- Stickers!  Stickers! Stickers!

- Shoes (the boy LOVES shoes - his own, other people's, it doesn't matter - a shoe is a shoe)

- The color pink

- Chase really loves the men in his life:  Uncle, Daddy, Pops, Papa, Jeff (or Beff as Chase calls him), Pouch

- Being outside / the park / walks / slides

Cute Things Chase Says:

- Thank you mama / Thank you daddy

- Any time you sing the "I've been working on the railroad song" when you get to the part where "Someone's in the kitchen" Chase always shouts "Pops" - apparently my dad (Pops) is in the kitchen

- Whenever he wakes up in the morning he says "All Done"

- He likes to sing the dinosaur song so he runs around saying "Here he comes" which is the first line of the song and then he wants us to name all the dinosaurs when we sing the song - Uncle dinosaur, mama dinosaur, daddy dinosaur, Chase dinosaur, Ah Ah dinosaur, Mammy dinosaur, Pops dinosaur, etc etc (and we usually have to to go through all of the family, his friends and teachers at daycare, our friends, and anyone else Chase can think of at the moment)

- Sometimes when I get him in the middle of the night when he wakes up he says "mama's bed"

- Chase calls graham crackers "Uncle Crackers"

Other Random Cute Things:

- Chase is very big on spinning and jumping (or trying to) right now

- In one of Chase's books the frog sticks out his tongue and says "Blah" so Chase always says "Blah" and waits for you to stick out your tongue so he can touch it

- Chase has been trying to count lately but he really only gets 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 right

- Chase is big on animal noises and he knows just about all of them now

- Chase playing the drums - need I say more

- Chase doing the "Wheels on the Bus" song  - again need I say more?  The best part is that now when you ask him what Chase says he says "Wha Wha Wha" and if you ask him what any adult says the answer is "Shhh Shhh Shhh"

- Chase loves to hug to dogs right now - Jaxx is okay with it but it is kind of freaking out Bugsy - he is also big on giving me kisses which I love

- Chase likes to talk to himself in the mirror

- The other day in the car a song came on and Chase started waving his fist in the air like a white man dance - it was freaking hilarious - Boris and I got him to do it again last night at home - I will try to get a video of it!

...I would have put up new pictures of Chase except that, oh yeah, I'm a clutz and I broke the lens on our nice camera so there are no new pictures....

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

After endless tests I think the doctors have finally settled on a diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for me. The good news is that hopefully in a year or two I will get better - the bad news is that there isn't really much they can do for me... so off to acupuncture I go to try to get some relief from my symptoms... it is apparently to best option left since I don't seem to respond to medications (and the only ones left to try sound pretty scary). There is only so much time a day for sleeping so I need to figure out something that will help!