Chase turns 3!

The birthday boy blowing out the candles on his cupcake on his actual birthday on Sunday

Blowing out the candles on his "Rocket" cake during his Birthday Party!

The party food spread: pepper jelly-cream cheese ball, meatball music batons, drumsticks in a blanket, watermelon, pineapple, kiwi and Rocket's Red Slushie drink

The Rocket Cake. Chase loved this little creation, which made me feel pretty good. After I'd finished making it the night before he kept asking if he could get a chair so he could look at it. Then he'd stand on the chair and just look at it and poke it until we made him get down. He still gets excited when he sees it in pictures and just came into the room and said, "WOAH! Mommy, that's my Rocket cake!" I'm glad you liked it Chase.

This past weekend Chase turned 3 years old. We had a BIG Little Einsteins themed birthday party for him and all of his "besties" made it an all around SUCCESS! As our little partiers arrived they each got a cupcake or two to frost and decorate with gummy bears, mini m&m's, sour patch kids, etc. After all the guests had arrived and finished creating their cupcakes, all the "Little Einsteins" were invited to go outside for an Easter egg hunt-esque "Treasure Expedition". They each got a "loot" bag with their name on it and hunted for various "treausures" around the yard such as play dough, bubbles, and LOTS of candy. After the expedition was over we came inside and made music batons with styrofoam balls and colored pencils and the kids glued some glitter on them. Chase then opened all of his awesome presents and we sang Happy Birthday to him while he blew out the candles on his "Rocket" cake. We are so lucky to have such great friends in this area who are so supportive. We had 10 out of his 12 friends at his party! We couldn't have done it without them. Being able to have all his friends to play with at once was probably the biggest highlight for him. What can I say, he knows how to pick amazing friends.

Chase McKhendry,

You are such a pure joy to have in our lives. I can feel how much Heavenly Father loves me everyday when I look into your beautiful face because He sent you to our family. You've always made me work hard at being your mother but you are the best at showing your appreciation for it. I love when you say "I love you mommy" when I least expect it or I'm in a terrible mood and when you say in your sweet chirpy voice, "Mommy? You're my best friend!" You are truly one of my best friends also, Chase. You are so sweet and loving and try so hard to make your parents happy (most of the time). Thank you for coming into our family we are so blessed to have your extraordinary spirit in our home. We love you very much!

With Love,

Mom

Summer Lovin'

Landon being a great sport at big brother's swim lessons. Of course it helped that he could play on the splash pad during Chase's lesson.

Chase getting comfortable floating on his back during the first day of class

Getting out of the pool on his own. Part of passing his level was being able to enter and exit the pool independently:)

Doing the "Karate Kid" pose his teacher had the kids do right before they jumped to him in the pool.

I just love the summer. A good part of that lovin' is due to most of my favorite fruits and veggies being in season and cheap, but summer is so much more than that. I love all the time spent in the water swimming, flying kites, vacations, beach trips, etc. We put Chase in swim lessons this year and he LOVED it! He still talks about his teacher, Spencer, and all the fun things he learned in his class. He now knows how to kick in the water, float on his back and front (with a little support), hold his breath under water (for a little over 5 seconds), and dive for rings or sticks at the bottom of the shallow end. Here are some pictures of Chase in his swim lessons...

Idaho

I stole this picture like a thief in the night from my friend Katy's blog. I ran a 5k with my sister in law Niki (not pictured) and forgot to bring my camera so this is the only picture I have so far. Niki was in the car keeping warm at this time and I was trying to warm up my body which was IMPOSSIBLE to do that morning. It was freezing!

At the parade with Chase. I cannot even begin to tell you how much I dislike this picture of myself but I'm putting vanity aside and posting it anyway because I love Chase's sweet smile in it!

Landon looking very serious with that lollipop. Probably a warning look to anyone who thinks about taking it from his sticky fist of death!

Aunt Karissa in the parade! She was with her ballroom dance group and she hooked us up with lots of sugar!
Cutie fellow spectator Whitney Woo! Look at that sweet smile!

Chase, daddy, Payton and Chris in the background

Crazy boys!

Sweet brown eyes

Chase and Uncle Cam giving each other some noggin' DUDE!

We've had a lot going on lately and I'm WAY behind on posting all of it but I will start with the latest and greatest, our trip to Idaho!!! We had a blast and we were so sad that the time flew by all too fast. Before we knew it we were gassing up the Hyundai for our long sweaty drive home. Our trip was filled with family and fun fun fun. We went canoeing, four wheeling, swimming, parading, and let's not forget the eating. Oh the eating is so good at the White house (and I'm not talking about the one in D.C.) Chase is dying to go back and frolic with his cousins and his bffs Aunt Karissa and Uncle Cameron. He's been singing songs about Grandma and wondering when he'll get to relive it all again! I'll be perfectly honest though when I say there have been some tears (mine mostly) when he starts to really get sad and downright blue about not being able to visit his beloved family whenever he wants to. It's times like that, when your kids are feeling it, that we wish we lived just a little closer to family. We seriously love Arizona, the heat and all, we just wish we could transplant some of our family down here. My mom might be the only one that we could possibly talk into moving here, but not anytime soon. Maybe someday??? Right mom?? HINT H.I.N.T!

Anyways, we had a great time in Idaho. Here are some pictures to recap our adventures!

The Boyz

Landon taking some steps!

Chase's favorite new gesture! He does this with his hands all the time.

Chase finger painting

At the jump zone. This slide was HUGE and scary for me. We went down together the first couple times until I felt like he would be okay going on his own.

Landon and myself. He was pretty tired by this point and I was disheveled!

Coming down the slide sideways

Chase and I right before we went down together

Landon after his first "real" haircut!

Splash park fun

Landon going to explore the water

Enjoying some time in the grass. I love that little lollipop head of his!

Time for some updates on the boys!

We’ll start with Chase. This boy melts my heart. He is just an incredible little creature and I love how sweet his is. He loves his friends in nursery and gets so excited for church because he knows nursery is involved. He loves playing with his friend Gage and they have such a cute little camaraderie. Chase has started to take up a love for puzzles and art. We have a couple boxes of the 24 piece charater puzzles and he loves to work on those a lot during the day. He's talking and understanding more and more each day and I love the way he describes things to me. We went to Costco a few weeks ago and I got him a fruit smoothie when we finished shopping. The straw cracked so I broke it the rest of the way and stuck the broken side in so he wasn’t sucking on the sharded side. The straw fell into the cup as he was drinking and he said, “Oh no! Mommy my straw is swimming!” I thought it was so cute. Today he told me, “you’re my best friend” I just about bawled my eyes out and said, “Chase, you’re one of my best friends too! Thank you for telling mommy that.” To which he replied, “You Betcha!” He’s a gem! We’re hoping to sign him up for swim lessons this year. We missed it last year and he would totally love it. He is ready for the “shrimp” level which is a step up from “tadpole” because he already knows how to hold his breath under water for a good amount of time and blow bubbles. The 8 week sessions are only $25 and they are 4 days a week for 30 minutes. Depending on how our time looks we may even sign him up for 2 sessions this year at that rate. We’ll have to see. He’s an awesome brother to Landon and usually a great help to me around the house. He just finished the summer reading program and got a bunch of beach toys and a free book. I can’t remember which one it was, but it was an Olivia book. We think that little pink pig is hilarious around these parts.

Landon has started walking and he walks more and more everyday. He loves it! He claps for himself when he makes it to his destination. I have realized with him starting to walk that I have finally discovered my favorite “stage” I LOVE the walking stage! It’s so exciting seeing my kids discover this whole knew world, and go from baby to toddler all in a short time. So fun! He talks more and is definitely more vocal when something is offensive to him. He says “Dada” whenever he’s asked to or just whenever he sees him, and he says “Mama” only when he’s in trouble and needs help or is sad. He says,”No no no no no!” whenever someone does something he doesn’t like. He still snuggles and NEEDS that time at some point during each day, totally cute. He has started patting me on the back when I’m snuggling with him which I cannot get enough of. He squeezes our necks tight too, which is a change from Chase’s “limp noodle” hugs. He loves to have books read to him and he gets a better attention span daily. Chase still has a great LOVE for books and will stop whatever he’s doing to come listen to whatever new adventure we’re dishing out for his brother. Coming soon...doctor appointments and 1 year old pictures.

I may be extremely out numbered in this house but I love the boys under this roof like nothing else! Here are some pictures of our little rascals.

Catching up

Chase at the fish hatchery on he way back from the Father Son's

In the tent with Daddy, getting read for bed

He wanted the camera, and badly by the looks of it. I made sure he packed his angry eyes, good thing too, because he definitely used them!


My cute little mom after graduation holding baby Ty

Mom saying hi to Landon while I (standing, black long sleeved shirt) feed him cake
Receiving her lamp after getting pinned

Walking up to the stage

Waiting before the start of the graduation.

One of my goals is to get ths blog caught up a bit. We’ll see how it goes considering my days lately are chock-full of “to dos” and “daily essentials” as I like to call them. So I’m just going to jump right into what we’ve been up to.

Last month I had the privilege of flying to Arkansas with Landon to go to my sweet mom’s graduation from nursing school. These past two years have been so extremely difficult for her and she has worked SO extremely hard sometimes I thought she might go insane if she pushed herself any further. Her days were packed with reading and studying and classes (except for Sundays) a rule she diligently kept for herself and stood by during the entire duration of her program no studying or homework or anything school related on Sundays. Whatever she did truly paid off, because she graduated at the top of her class with honors and even received a prestigious award at her graduation. She’s received offers from every place that she’s interviewed with, and wherever she ends up, they will be very lucky to have her! She is such an amazing example to all of us and I think she’s just the most amazing lady I know.

While Landon and I were in Arkansas Kyle and Chase spent the weekend at the Father Son’s campout Chase’s first one! He had so much fun with his daddy and still asks to go camping every weekend! He got very dirty and Kyle lost him not once, but twice in the woods! One time was even at night! Needless to say we had some words over that one. Thank goodness we bought two mini maglites (sp) before they went and Chase always had his on him and on. That was how Kyle found him at night. Regardless they had a wonderful time. I made Kyle document the entire weekend so he had our camera meaning that I was camera less. So I stole pictures from my sister’s blog for my mom’s graduation.