Happy Birthday Chase!

To think that 3 years ago (as of last night) I was still wondering where my first baby was. 6 days late, and still no sign of him. Then, as I was watching "Survivor" I felt something that felt different than Braxton Hicks...hmm, maybe Chase was going to grace us with his presence? A call to the hospital and they said we should come in (I wasn't sure if my water had broke or not), and after being told that my contractions weren't serious enough, that my water hadn't broke, and that it could be days before he came, we were sent home at 11:30 pm, with a 40 min. drive back home. As soon as we walked in the door, I layed down, and "Pop!" my water broke. This time there was no mistaking it, and the contractions really started coming. Back in the car, in more pain now, checked in after 1am, Chase decided to be born at 5:50 am, 7lbs 6oz (I think :D). Anyway, now we are celebrating his third birthday...pretty crazy!
Here is our cute boy on his 1st birthday, excited about his presents.
And just last Saturday, we had a birthday party for Chase with all of his/our friends. Here he is hanging with his buddies eating pizza.
Chase and his "cheese" face, which is pretty goofy, showing off his present that he got from "Nammy Janie and Cuppy Craig." Thank you to all of you that sent him presents, he loves all of them.
I know there should be 3 candles, but I made little gluten-free lava cakes (so Nathan could eat them too), and put ice cream on top (the only dessert Chase really likes), so there wasn't a whole lot of room for numerous candles. He had 3 candles to blow out for his party, so I think he got his fill. Happy Birthday Chase, we love you soooo much and are grateful to have you part of our family!

Easter

I have noticed that everyone's blogs have wonderful pictures of their Easter celebrations; unfortunately I don't have any pictures to post for this special holiday. Both of our boys looked really cute in their Easter outfits, and had a lot of fun learning about what Easter is really about, and of course seeing what the Easter bunny brought them, but I only videotaped everything, and didn't take any pictures. I know I can upload videos to here, but with the camera I taped everything with, I don't have the stuff to use to put them here on the computer. So I am sad that I was too lazy Easter day to record the happenings on both of our cameras.

But we did have a great time Easter weekend. Nathan got the Friday before off, so we left for Spokane Thursday night to visit his sister Noelle and her family. Chase had a lot of fun playing with his younger cousin Peter, and I had a lot of fun holding their little baby, Eva, most of Friday. It was a lot of fun seeing Spencer and Noelle, and we wish we lived closer.

We then drove 20 minutes to Hayden, ID, where my sister Kelli and her family lives. We really liked the area they live (Coeur D'Alene, which is a resort town), and would love to move up there since it is so pretty and so cheap to live. Unfortunately with the economy being horrible, and their area having no jobs to begin with, it wouldn't be the smartest move. However we loved visiting with them, and it was wonderful for Chase since he had constant playmates: Taylee and Lexi kept him occupied the whole time we were there, and thankfully we weren't there too long or he would have been hooked on Polly Pocket :).

We had a great time with family and hope to be able to visit both families again since 5 hours isn't too long of a drive.

Enjoying the Outdoors

Now that we are starting to get some Spring weather we can't get enough of being outside. I can't wait until it gets really nice and then maybe we will attempt camping. Anyway, Kai loves playing outside with all of us, but he isn't a huge fan of grass :).

This is the nice new lawn that we now have in the front of our place, but instead of the boys wanting to run and play on it, they would rather play...

...here in the rocks and dirt. As soon as we go outside they immediately go to this one spot and dig in the dirt, throw the rocks, and Kai occasionally likes to rile me up by putting one his mouth only to spit it back out and smile at me.

This is before the new grass was put in, but we have this crazy swing out in the front, and Kai likes to lazily swing around in it.

Here is the view we can see when the day is clear and there aren't any clouds blocking it. It is of Mount Rainier, the volcano that could blow who knows when. Thankfully we are a ways away from it, and are up on a hill, but there are signs around all the roads and freeways that say "Evacuation Route"...kinda scary. Anyway, at least it is pretty to look at.

We can't wait for it to get even warmer and stay out all day long, and do all sorts of fun things!