Funny and cute

This is Chase's new favorite thing to do. This was taken a couple of days before his birthday, and now he has a new little truck that he climbs onto and off of over and again. He also now likes to push it and practice walking. Hopefully he'll take his first unassisted steps in the next few days or weeks!

Chase's First Birthday!

Party time for Chase!

We took him to the park for the first time on Monday, his first birthday. He loved the swings, enjoyed the slide, but was a little wary of grass (we don't have any at the house.) Ross and I played catch on the grass and he loved watching us. We even gave him the baseball and had him throw it a couple of times.

Later, when the family gathered for a little birthday party, we gave him a chocolate cupcake and expected him to make a mess all over.. you know, like babies are supposed to on their birthdays.(See picture of Gina, Chase's cousin, below, for an example.) Instead, he would only eat it if we broke pieces off for him, and when he accidentally got his hand stuck in the frosting, flipped out and showed us his hand, motioning for us to clean it off NOW! He apparently doesn't like to have sticky hands. He got some fun toys, and especially loves his new little Disney truck that he can climb onto and off again endlessly. Overall it was a pretty fun day. If only babies understood what birthdays are....

Swinging at the park

Figuring out the grass

Notice Gina's versus Chase's reactions to the cupcakes:

Having fun with some birthday gifts

I promise, I am not a blog abandon-er. It's been a LONG while though, so I apologize to everyone who has been wondering what happened to us.

The answer is not much. We've just been working so much and stressing about life that we haven't been keeping in touch with people like we should.

Chase is growing so much. He started to crawl at about 8 months, and he has been pulling himself up to stand all the time lately. We recently had to baby-proof the living room to allow more play room and to ensure he does not have many cords to tug. We're just waiting until he lets go of the couch or coffee table and starts running away! He babbles all the time, and says words like (what we think are:) "block," "book," and "dog." He also LOVES to immitate his blow-up rubber duck tub that quacks when you squeak his beak. (Thanks Jen!) But his immitation comes out as, "da da da da da" instead of "quack, quack." It's pretty funny.

I recently quit my job as assistant manager at the Buckle so that I could go back to Chili's. I'm excited to be back. I also found out that I was accepted to the Master's of Public Policy program at the University of Utah for the fall, and I've decided that I'm going to attend. Ross is still going to school at Universal Helicopters, steadily making progress toward his final licenses.

We celebrated our birthdays last week (Ross' 29th and my 30th) by taking a full day off from everything, and although it doesn't seem like a lot, it was to us! It's been a long time since we had the entire day to ourselves. Thanks to everyone for all of the birthday messages. It's nice to know people are thinking of us. We'll try to post again soon!

Chase and mommy, 5/13/09

Riding on daddy's shoulders, 5/13/09

Rooting for the Chargers! 4/3/09

Lovin' the ducky tub! 3/27/09