Ready for Take Off

I am sure some of you have been wondering how our little guy is doing in the area of crawling and you will be pleased to know he is making good progress. We started putting him on all fours a few weeks ago and he was building up his strength and stamina- although we had no real movement. Over the Thanksgiving vacation, my family really encouraged Chase and even though we still had no movement he was able to stay up on all fours for a lot longer. And then finally last Sunday, when we got home he was on the floor practicing when we saw him start to push himself backwards. He went across the carpet, under a chair and around to the back of our dining room table. He desperately wants to move forward because he sees something he wants and the more he tries the further away the object gets (because he moves backwards). We did see him move his knee forward but he hasn't gotten the idea of moving his hands forward. We expect him to be crawling in no time though.

Scooting Video- http://www.dropshots.com/day.php?userid=130613&cdate=20061201&ctime=065521

Christmas- Take One

We have returned safely from a wonderful week in the Rigby home. There were presents, hunting (although no killing- thank goodness), shopping trips, and lots and lots of ping pong games (my father treated himself to a ping-pong table for his birthday).
Chase did really well! I think he enjoys all of the activity at my mom's, always a new face to stare at and new toys to play with. If you saw all of my mom's baby supplies you would think she had an infant herself, but it makes visiting so easy and relaxing. Before Thanksgiving dinner we had our Christmas celebration. Chase fell in love with each gift and was reluctant to move on to the next one. And of course his favorite toy was a clump of ribbon my mom had tied to one of his gifts.
The biggest hit of the trip was Ping-Pong. I have never seen grown men act so serious and competitive over ping-pong before. Ryan was eager to show off his skills and my Dad was just as excited to meet the challenge. All day and night, wherever you were in their 3,000 sq ft house you could hear- bdunk, bunk, bdunk, bunk, bunk, bunk, bdunk- Oh man! My brother and Luke are also strong competitors. Luke even developed a Ping-Pong tournament, where sadly I was eliminated by my heartless sister.

Mommy, Music, and Me

My saving grace- music class. Not that the class is so amazing, it is fun and I know Chase enjoys it, but because we have a scheduled activity every week to look forward to and because I have made some new mommy friends. During the class we dance, play with instruments (including big drums), twirl scarves and even bounce big colorful balls to the rhythm. Our teacher is very boisterous (and can even be a bit bossy- I got yelled at last week for shaking both of my egg shakers instead of just one- oops!) Chase loves looking at the other kids mostly he tries to touch their hands but I have to watch him carefully because he also has a fascination with touching eye balls. More importantly we have met lots of kids Chase's age with nice Mommies. We have been out to lunch several times, had playdates and been shopping. Our class is almost over so I have been researching some new options for the winter.
We are really looking forward to Thanksgiving next week. We will be traveling up to my parents house for the weekend. After Thanksgiving dinner we are also going to "celebrate Christmas" since we will not see them Christmas day. Ryan will probably do some hunting with Jason. And the girls will be going on our annual shopping trip :)