7 months

(taken 04/05/12)

chase, you're 7 months and you're still trying to get that coordinated crawl down. you are however, managing to get around in your own way. you do what we call an inchworm. it's very cute. i'm pretty sure that you will be crawling any day now. you say hi at the cutest most random moments. happy seven months little guy.

half a year

that's right, chase. you are six months! i know it's cliche, but it's going too fast. you have been trying your hardest to crawl. you get up on all fours and rock back and forth. when that doesn't work, you rock harder and faster and it still doesn't work. it's very frustrating for you. your two bottom teeth started sprouting on 02/27 and you are so cute with those two little teeth, but man are they sharp! oh, and i still love that you say hi.

(taken 03/08/12)

and i can't help but stare at you when you look like this...

(taken 03/05/12)

afFLICtion or conFLICtion

so, in a very brief, weak moment i somehow ended up a cat owner.

i don't want a cat. for so many reasons. if you really want the run down call me.

on the way home we started talking about what this cat's name should be. i told ben that we needed to come up with a single word that means to be forced into something and that should be his name because that is how i felt. i quickly got on the thesaurus on my i-phone and one of the words was affliction. ben thinks it is an awesome name. so his name is affliction but we call him flic.

i didn't touch the cat for almost 48 hours. i really want him to go back. my kids are getting more and more bonded and the cat is getting more and more bonded to us. ben finally says he'll take the cat back if that's what i want. i told him that is what i want, but i don't want my kids to turn out like me when it comes to animals. (again, call me if you really wanna know.) ben laughed and said maybe his name should be confliction instead of affliction.

either way, we still call him flic. and we are still cat owners.

the end.

Noelle's #1 fan

(taken 03/14/12)

is it wishful thinking or is she predicting the future? time will tell! she really means to say that she is taylor swift's #1 fan, but this is how it all came out and it still remains taped to her wall. too funny not to document. love that girl!

broken

ben's broken. it's just temporary. as a matter of fact today, 04/15/12 is his first day back to work. he broke his shoulder on 02/27/12 at work on a fire. he didn't know it at the time. he came home from work hurting. i went to work the next day and that night he was hurting bad enough to go get it checked out. poor guy NEVER complains about anything.

it was bad enough to get surgery...or so they thought. they got inside and were surprised that no repairs were necessary and that everything was healing quite nicely. we were glad that the surgery was not as extensive as they thought was needed.

my mom came to our rescue AGAIN. i say again because she came out the end of january and beginning of february to help us out when i had to attend some classes for my job in phoenix. anyways, as soon as we found out that ben was going to be out of work for awhile and that he needed to rest his arm i started making phone calls to see if anyone was able to help. i wasn't expecting anything from anyone, but knew that if i was going to make my training for my job work and get ben's shoulder better we were going to need to get some kind of help so that he didn't have to lift baby and what not. i really did not expect that she was going to be able to work it all out and within 10 minutes she called me back and her and john had worked it all out. let me tell you, there was a lot that she had to work out!! people would not think it because she is, by all technicalities, retired. The label "retired" does not fit her in any sense of the word, but she came...for a whole month! i know, i am spoiled.

i felt so guilty and blessed at the same time that she had just been here and she was coming back for a whole month. but she said that i needed it and so did john. he was so gracious to let her come. last minute john was able to come too. he came and stayed for the last week and a half of her stay. i will be forever grateful for their willingness to drop everything that is important to them in their lives to come take care of my family despite their responsibilities in their own home. they made such a stressful situation to my family seem like no big deal...and despite the circumstances we had so much fun having grandma & grandpa kelley here. i could go on and on and on about what they did for us and the gratitude that both ben and i feel at this whole situation. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

5 months old

(taken 02/05/12)

chase, you're still a delight. chunkier and cuter. i'm sorry you had to go through rsv this past month. thanks for taking it like a champ. thanks for still letting me cuddle you pretty much whenever i want. oh, and you're saying hi now and it is about the cutest thing ever. it takes people off guard, because let's face it, it is a little funny that a 5 month old is saying hi!

RSV

i had to attend some classes down in phoenix as part of my labor & delivery training. my poor little guy caught rsv. he was fine while we were down there where the oxygen is a little thicker. within an hour and a half of returning to the mountain we were in the er with him.

poor little guy. he was a trooper though. he really wasn't very fussy and slept good through it all. the only reason we felt we needed to get him some help was because of how fast he was breathing and, of course, this made eating a challenge. i think that the er staff also wondered how sick he really was because he was still so happy and "talkative" with them. so we came home with the nebulizer. he really did not it. the important thing is that he's okay now.

taken 02/02/12