Trucks

Cass likes to carry around matching toys . . . for example, if has a block in one hand, he likes to have a block in the other hand. Or if he has a ball in one hand he wants to have another ball the same size in the other hand, you get the picture. Well, he got the Little People Neighborhood Friends set for Christmas, which includes a blue mail truck and a red fire truck. He has been carrying these trucks around constantly for a couple days now. He brought them to dinner last night, and he loaded them with some of his spaghetti. Then, they took a bath with him. I was able to snag the fire truck away from him before he went to bed, but he would not give up the mail truck so he slept with it all night.

Christmas

Here are a few pictures from Christmas morning. Cass enjoyed Christmas much more this year than he did last year! He has been playing with all of his presents non-stop since he opened them. Fortunately, the weather here on Christmas day was beautiful (almost 70 degrees!), so he got to go outside and drive the Cozy Coupe that Santa brought him.

Balloons

Cass has now figured out that he gets a free balloon when he goes to the grocery store. He entertains himself for hours running around the house with the balloons. Fortunately for him, I went to the store twice last week . . . once on Tuesday when he got a blue balloon . . .

and again on Wednesday when he got an orange balloon!!!

We actually went AGAIN on Friday, and they were out of balloons!!! Oh no!! Instead, Cass eyed a little stuffed dog that they had for sale (seriously, they find any way to tempt kids), so instead of a free balloon, I had to spend $5.49 on the little dog.

Bathtime Fun

Christmas card picture attempts . . .

Christmas snuck up on me this year. Several days ago, I realized I hadn't even thought about our Christmas cards. Since then, I've learned that it is nearly impossible to get a good picture of a 16 month old for Christmas. After Cass freaked out after we tried to get a picture of him with Santa at the mall, I thought I had a really clever idea . . . dress Chris up as Santa!!! I happened across a super cheap Santa outfit, so I bought it, and thought if Cass could watch Chris put the outfit on, surely he would let "Santa" hold him for a picture. Wrong. Very, very, wrong. As you can see from the picture above, someone is missing. He wouldn't even get close to big, scary, red Dad. So, it was on to Plan B . . .

We had our holiday party for my work Friday night. I thought we'd take advantage of being dressed up and try to get a picture in front of the tree. This time, we were able to get all 3 of us in the picture, but as you can see Cass wasn't very happy. So, this didn't make the cut either.

A couple years ago, Chris and I dressed our dogs up and took their picture in front of the tree. That was easier than trying to get a picture of Cass this year. We finally got some "action shots" in front of a big tree in Chris's office that we're going to use. They will just have to do. And let's hope Cass doesn't remember that Santa isn't just Daddy dressed up in a big red suit. :)

New Coat

A few weeks ago, a friend of Chris's called and told him that Target.com had Britax carseats (which typically sell for $229) on sale for $45. So, of course we got on line and ordered one, and I emailed several of my "mom friends" to let them know about the great deal (some of you blog readers got that email). Well, the saying "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" certainly is true, because Target sent me an email a few days later and said that it was a pricing error and they couldn't sell it to me at that price. However, they offered to give me a $25 gift card, and by me accepting it I would agree to not bring any litigation against Target (as if I would sue over a mispriced carseat anyway). So, I put the gift card toward a winter coat, hat and gloves for Cass. It hasn't really been cold enough to bundle him up in it yet, but I did it anyway when Chris was putting our Christmas lights up outside so we could get a picture.

Christmas is coming

Christmas season snuck up on us this year - I guess it's because Thanksgiving was later than usual. Anyway, we're finally getting our decorations up. Here's a couple pictures of Cass "helping" me decorate the tree - as you can imagine, he took more OFF the tree than he put on.

Hat

Cass loves to wear Daddy's hat . . .

Practice photo . . . first of many . ..

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm playing with my new camera quite a bit. I figured out how to take monochrome (which apparently is the fancy term for "black and white") pics. And, I'm also working to perfect the art of blurring the background, and it seemed to work here - the dark color in the background is actually Chris sitting on the chair in his sweats with a computer on his lap . . . who would know, huh?

New camera

I know. This is not a picture of Cass, which is the purpose of this blog and the reason you all read it. However, I am SOOOO excited . . . I got my Christmas present early - a new camera!!! Cass was taking a nap when I got it and the dogs got tired of having the flash go off at them, so I resorted to taking pictures of my orchid which is just starting to bloom. The great close-ups that I can take with this camera are amazing. I took 133 pictures the first hour that I had the camera. :) I have a lot to learn about it, but will be practicing a lot, so expect to see a lot of posts with pictures of Cass on here in the coming days!

Now he's REALLY walking

You may remember from my previous posts that Cass took his official first steps on Halloween. Well, apparently he was just giving me a "sneak peek" at what he could do, because since then he would only take 3 or 4 steps, and then would revert to crawling. Until last night. All of a sudden he just started walking around the house! He was a little wobbly, but he sure did it! Dad was quick enough to grab the camera and get it on tape. And by the way, yes, I realize his outfit looks ridiculous. He had been wearing jeans earlier in the day and spilled water on them, so before his nap I put some pajama pants on him and didn't bother to change him once he woke up. Of course he decides to do something very video worthy when he's dressed like that. :)

Here he is on day 2 of walking. He's already showing some improvement, but as you can see he still wipes out. Fortunately, he usually just laughs when he falls and gets right up and tries again!!

Halloween

Here are a few pictures of Cass on Halloween. He was a little fuzzy bear.

Today was a big day for Cass . . . he finally officially walked!!! He's been taking a few staggering steps and then falling for a while, but I don't think that really counts as walking. However, today he took 13 steps toward me! He was so excited. He immediately did it again - 11 steps the second time. I was so glad that I was off work today and got to see his first steps. If only Chris had been here. He was hoping to get off early today, but got here about an hour after he did it. :( He didn't take anymore steps tonight after Chris got home, but in the pictures below he looks like he may have been thinking about it.

Here's Cass and his friend Noah that lives down the street. Noah is about 6 months older than Cass. He was cute - he had a little puffy Goofy costume.

And to reminisce, here's a picture of the little guy a year ago. He's changed so much - he's not a baby anymore!

Balloon Festival

We went to the Carolina Balloonfest yesterday, which is a hot air balloon festival that is held in Statesville, about 30 minutes north of where we live. I heard about 50 hot air balloons participate, and they all lift off together at 4:30 in the afternoon. We got there a little late, so we missed that, but we still got to see a few balloons lift off . . . apparently they were the ones that had trouble getting off the ground with all the others.

Here's one of them. It's kind of hard to see, but there are people in the basket and it's sitting on its side. Looks like this was definitely one of the balloons that had trouble lifting off. We were surprised at how close we could stand by a balloon - you can kind of tell from this picture that people were standing right next to it, and running away when it tipped over on its side.

Cass LOVED watching the balloons since they are so big and colorful. There were tons of families with kids there - it was some good family entertainment!

It got a little cool at the festival in the evening and I didn't have any gloves for Cass. But - I had socks in my diaper bag . . . I thought they may do the trick, but Cass obviously was not comfortable (or maybe embarrassed . . .hee hee), so it didn't last long.

At the end of the festival, they did a "balloon glow" where several of the balloons fired their propane to make the balloons light up - it was so neat! This picture doesn't really do it justice, but you can kind of get the idea.

Taste test

Here's Cass doing a taste test of milk v. water. I stopped recording after about a minute of him alternating sips from each cup . . . he kept on dong it for probably another minute. I'm not sure what the verdict was though - I think it may have been a tie.

Penquin

When we went to Kohl's a few weeks ago Cass found a penguin that he liked, so of course to try to keep him quiet in the store I bought it for him. It lives in his playpen now, and every time he gets in the playpen he immediately picks it up and hugs it.

Cass's First Chiefs Game

We took Cass to his first football game today. The Chiefs and Panthers played in Charlotte . . . it was a very bad day for the Chiefs, but Cass had a good time at the game. The stadium is in downtown Charlotte, so instead of tailgating in a big stadium parking lot, everyone tailgates along the streets and in parking lots near the stadium. Here's Chris and Cass walking toward the stadium - Cass smiled and waved at everyone during the entire walk.

Here's Cass and Daddy in front of the stadium before the game. Notice that they aren't in Chiefs gear - it's sad to admit that none of us own any Chiefs clothes, except for Chris's Chiefs sweatshirts and big heavy Chiefs coat. We figured it would be best to show up in "plain clothes" anyway, since we weren't sure if the Panther's fans would give us a hard time if we were decked out in our red.

Cass really took in all of the sights at the game. He was very good when we were sitting watching the game, except he didn't want to keep his hat on (which is why it is sitting on his head funny in this picture). The temperature was only supposed to be around 80 degrees today, but it was HOT in the stadium and the sun was beating down . . . I slathered Cass with sunscreen, but his little cheeks were getting pink mid-way through the first quarter (I think from the heat), so we left our seats and watched the game from the shaded tunnel of the stadium until half-time. The Chiefs played absolutely terribly, so we didn't really mind leaving at half-time when Cass got a little fussy.

Fall is here

Saturday morning we headed out to hit a neighborhood garage sale. It was a crisp, fall morning, so Cass and I finally got to break out our sweatshirts! I just love this little outfit of his - it's a one piece sweatshirt outfit that zips up the front . . . it's so cozy!!

Lunch at the Lake

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, my sister came to Charlotte to visit this weekend. We've told her about the great weather we have here, but what do you know . . .once she got here a storm blew in and it was rainy and windy most of the weekend! :( However, it cleared up for a while Sunday, so we were able to go have lunch at one of the restaurants on Lake Norman. There were ducks in the water . . . when Cass saw them he said "Doch". Not sure if he was saying dog or duck, the only duck he has ever seen is the plastic one in his bathtub, and he tends to call all animals "dog", so I'm not sure really what he was saying.

Daddy's Little Helper

Chris and my step dad have been building a screened in porch for our house. It isn't quite done (it's still missing the screen, the door, gutters, etc.), but we have enough done that we were finally able to put furniture in it this weekend. Cass was "helping" Chris put the furniture together. By the way, we obviously weren't planning on taking Cass's picture that day . . . notice his outfit? It was cool in the morning and got warm in the afternoon, so we'd taken his pants off to keep him cool. He usually dresses better than this. :)

Victory Lane

My sister came to Charlotte to visit this past weekend. She is a big NASCAR fan and we are in the heart of race country here, so we took her to see several of the race shops. We also took a tour of Lowe's Motor Speedway. The tour ended with a trip to Victory Circle . . . here's Cass with Daddy in Victory Circle celebrating winning his first race!! Never mind that the "race" consisted of riding around the race track with a tour guide in a 15 passenger van. :)

Festival in the Park

This afternoon we went to the Festival in the Park, and Cass got to ride his first carnival ride! Here we are riding in a helicopter - thank goodness I'm not an inch taller, or I don't think I would have fit! He wasn't quite as impressed as I thought he would be, but I think he liked it. He stared at the colorful lights in the middle of the ride (which you can see above) most of the time.

Train

We have been very busy recently, so I have not had a chance to add any new posts . . . sorry!! Unfortunately, since we've been busy we haven't gone anywhere that would result in any fun, new, exciting pictures to post. So here's one from today when we were just hanging out at home. This is Cass with his new train - when we went to Kansas City, his friend Kyler had one, so we figured we should buy him his own. I'm not sure if this was exactly what Kyler had, but Cass LOVED it when we were there and seems to love this one equally as well. He pushes it all over the house, then stops at his sippy cup and takes a drink to get a rest.

Where did he come from???

Well, like I said in my previous post, we haven't been too exciting recently, so I don't have a lot to post about. So, here are just a couple pics of Cass eating his dinner tonight. Look at those hazel eyes!! With my dark brown hair, Chris's black hair, and our brown eyes, we are perplexed about Cass's coloring. One of my friends calls his hair hazel as well - it's gone from brown, to reddish blonde, to kind of a light golden brown.

Here he is showing off his pearly whites, as well as the ravioli that he had for dinner. :) His 4th top and 4th bottom teeth are just starting to poke through, so he has a total of 8 now.

Doctor Appointments

Cass has had quite a week. He has absolutely no immune system because he is rarely exposed to anything or anyone outside of our house (he hasn't even had a cold!!). So, I expected that he would get sick after our trip to Kansas City, and I was right. He had a runny nose the first week after we returned home, then on Labor Day he came down with a 103 degree fever. He went to the doctor Tuesday, who checked his ears and throat and concluded he just had some kind of bug. On Thursday his fever broke, and he then broke out in a rash. We went back to the doctor today for his one year check-up, and the doctor said the rash is evidence that he had Roseola. Apparently it's a common virus little ones get. I know this is the first of many - I guess it's good that we're starting to strengthen his immune system.

The highlight of today's doctor's appointment was the weigh-in. We have a little beanpole, here are his measurements . . .

Height: 31 Inches = 90th percentile (daddy was happy!!)

Weight: 19 lbs 8.5 ozs = 10th percentile

I can tell he is starting to feel better. We are babysitting my mom's dog this weekend - here he is playing with the dog cage . . . I caught him crawling in it earlier!

Poem

My mom emailed me this little poem . . . you may have seen it already. I have it posted on my fridge - it definitely helps keep things in perspective, especially when my "Type A" tendancies kick in and I stress about not having time to keep my house clean, read my work emails, etc. . . Thought some of my fellow "mom" blog readers would like it. :)

*Just for this morning, I am going to step over the laundry, and pick you up and take you to the park to play.
*Just for this morning, I will leave the dishes in the sink, and let you teach me how to put that puzzle of yours together.
*Just for this afternoon, I will unplug the telephone and keep the computer off, and sit with you in the backyard and blow bubbles.
*Just for this afternoon, I will not yell once, not even a tiny grumble when you scream and whine for the ice cream truck and I will buy you one if he comes by.
*Just for this afternoon, I won't worry about what you are going to be when you grow up, or second guess every decision I have made where you are concerned.
*Just for this afternoon, I will let you help me bake cookies, and I won't stand over you trying to fix them.
*Just for this afternoon, I will take us to McDonald's and buy us both a Happy Meal so you can have both toys.
*Just for this evening, I will hold you in my arms and tell you a story about how you were born and how much I love you.
*Just for this evening, I will let you splash in the tub and not get angry.
*Just for this evening, I will let you stay up late while we sit on the porch and count all the stars.
*Just for this evening, I will snuggle beside you for hours, and miss my favorite TV shows.
*Just for this evening when I run my finger through your hair as you pray, I will simply be grateful that God has given me the greatest gift ever given.
*I will think about the mothers and fathers who are searching for their missing children, the mothers and fathers who are visiting their children's graves instead of their bedrooms, and mothers and fathers who are in hospital rooms watching their children suffer senselessly, and screaming inside that they can't handle it anymore.
*And when I kiss you good night I will hold you a little tighter, a little longer. It is then, that I will thank God for you, and ask Him for nothing, except one more day. . .

All dressed up and no place to go :(

It's game day!!! We are dressed in our purple to support our K-State Wildcats today. Unfortunately, it's about a 17 hour drive to Manhattan, KS, so we aren't able to make it to the game. ha ha. We just have to watch the score periodically scroll across the bottom of the TV screen. :( However, we usually get to see a few games a year on TV here at home. And, there is a KSU almuni group in Charlotte that gets together for the games . . . one of the members manages a bar in downtown Charlotte and is going to show any K-State games that are broadcast there, so hopefully we can make it to watch a couple games with the group and get acquainted with some of the almuni. Oh, and here's something random . . . the guy that lives across the street from us went to K-State, and his mom used to own the American Restaurant at Crown Center in Kansas City. Small world, huh?

High maintenance baby

Here are some pictures of our little buddy today. While we have child-proofed our cabinets, there is one cabinet that Cass can still get into. He loves to make the biggest mess that he can out of what is in there. Fortunately, it's just ziploc bags, so he can't cause too much damage. :)

This it the typical view I have of Cass. It is the view looking straight down. He pulls himself up on my legs and grabs on to my shirt until I pick him up. He is quite the mama's boy . . . he always wants to be held!

See? He got what he wanted (after I changed the shirt that he had soaked with water, as you can see from the previous picture). I don't mind holding him all the time. I know that a year from now he'll be too busy to let his mama hold him, so I take advantage of the time I have now!

Kansas City

Cass took his first airplane ride last week when we went to Kansas City. Our friends Jacob and Mandi always rate their son Mitchell's behavior on a scale of 1-10 on airplane rides (10 being the best). If we were to do the same thing, Cass would have received a 4 on the trip to Kansas City. He actually did very well during most of the flight (because he was sleeping), but then screamed bloody murder for the last 30 minutes during the landing. I'm sure it was because of the pressure change hurting his ears . . . I kept nursing him and trying to get him to drink juice from a sippy cup, as I've heard this helps. He got to the point where he had drank so much that he wouldn't drink anymore. Then, when Chris picked him up to carry him off the plane, Cass peed through his shorts and all over Chris!!!! Needless to say, Chris vowed that we would never fly with him again. The trip back was a little better, but still not great - I rated him a 6. We'll definitely be driving next time!!!

Cass got to meet his cousin Gabriella ("Gigi") when we got to Kansas City - she is 2 months and one day older than Cass. Here's a picture of them playing.

Here's a good picture of Gigi - look at those beautiful eyes!!!

We spent a couple nights at the home of our friends Jeremy and Stephanie Genrich. They have a son named Kyler that is a couple months older than Cass. Jeremy and Chris thought it would be cute if the boys bathed together. I'm sure the kids will appreciate this in about 15 years.

By the way, I'm joking about this being Jeremy and Chris's idea . . . I just wanted to get a rise out of them if they read the blog. Of course this was all Stephanie and I - the daddys did not approve! :)

My friend Lindsay Henry came from Manhattan to Kansas City with her twins, Tess and Max, who are a few months younger than Cass. Here's a picture of Tess - she is a little pudge and is sooo adorable! I just wanted to keep holding and squeezing her!!

And here is Tess's brother Max. He is equally adorable - I love those pouty little lips!!!