27 Incredibly Fascinating Things About Chase

1. He loves his family more than anything


2. Even more than the UFC, which he loves A LOT!


3. He oft refers to the Denver Broncos and himself as “we.” For example, he says “We just scored” or “We are going to the Super Bowl this year” or “We get paid way too much money to prance around in tights on national television.” (I may have made the last thing up.)


4. He receives no paycheck from the Denver Broncos :( thus confusing his wife with above mentioned “we” comments.


5. He doesn’t use words like prance, dainty, civilized in his day to day conversations. He is more of an arm bar, jack hammer, tap out kind of guy.


6. He actually loves his job. Crazy and difficult to understand for most of us 40 hours a week because we have to kind of people. I actually believe him for two milliseconds when he says he would keep going even if he won the lottery. I believe the average person not at all when I hear something stupid like that come out of their mouth.


7. He has a little natural curl that pops through on the chest & back region. His oldest brother calls him Austin Powers, his sister-in-law calls him an ape, I call him hoootttttt.


8. His favorite TV show is True Blood. I have tried watching it, I don’t get it. He does his best to explain it to me but if hear one more thing about “V” I’m going veebop over there and v him. Whatever that means, I have no idea.


9. His most favoritest nickname is Kimmy which I lovingly coined for him. There is nothing like calling it out loud in a store and having him plus a few 17-21 year old females turn around. Cracks me up every time. Does anyone still name their kid Kimberly? I have no idea but I hope so. It's a solid name.


10. Chase paid as much last year in taxes as I took home all year. There is nothing funny about this, it is just plain annoying.


11. Chase and I met at a Dairy Queen. I still have a flash bulb memory of the first time I saw him. Naturally, it was love at first site for him. Or so I make him tell me.


12. His mother ruined him at a young age by tickling his back. I’m going to start sending her anonymous hate mail (just kidding Jana, love you:). Every night, he lies in bed and says “Tickle me, tickle me, tickle me.” Like a Tickle Me Elmo with wet batteries. Thank goodness I can’t grow nails or else I would be tempted to scratch very very HARD.


13. Chase and I dislike all the same people. You know who you are. He just does a much better job at pretending.


14. Chase’s favorite pie is pecan. So I made him one last week. He kept saying how proud of me he was but managed to avoid taking a bite. Until he found out that Sherri helped me. He dove right in after that.


15. This one is for Idaho Falls people. Do all of you know the Babe Ruth house across from Tautphaus Park? It kind of ugly because it’s a square with yellow and green siding. Chase’s dead dog, Mikey, is buried underneath it. I guess the word dead is assumed as a live puppy underneath it would surely cause a scene.


16. Chase really wants a boy. I’m sure he and his next wife will be very happy together, procreating until they get a boy.


17. Chase’s first wedding ring that I got him is at the bottom of the roundabout fountain at Taylor’s Crossing on the River. Happy looking to all you treasure hunters.


18. Chase & both of his brothers have a real sense of urgency about them. Whenever I travel with them, I have to up my anxiety medication because they make me so tense. They are always in a hurry to get to nowhere. And I get scolded when I try to ask questions.


19. Chase tells me everything. I always think its funny when he starts out the sentence, “I’m not supposed to tell you but.” Which sometimes leads to fights because I know too much especially when I start asking THOUGHT PROVOKING questions on why this was intended to be kept a secret.


20. Chase is like a small school girl. He has a fetish with small puppies and constantly tries to bring them home.


21. Chase can sit down and watch a movie halfway through. Even if he has never seen it. Even worse, when he has seen it a million times.


22. Chase cried at the birth of both of our daughters. Halfway through pushing Izzy out, I had to tell him to man up. But in retrospect, it is one of my favorite memories.


23. Chase doesn’t like snowcones very much. I hesitate to even jot this un-American statement down but I cannot tell a lie.


24. Chase used to live in Denver and still speaks of the city fondly. Trust me when I say the city was glad when he left.


25. Chase sleeps with his pillow vertical. And with a crimped neck like that, he starts to snore. That’s when I start pulling out his leg hairs while pretending to be asleep. I think I’m going to take a picture so I can show all of you how UNCOMFORTABLE he must be.


26. Chase has an electric tooth brush that he carefully disassembles after every use. It’s very metrosexual of him.


27. Chase deserves to have a great birthday because of the person that he is. He is honest, hardworking, admirable and the strongest person I know. He is truly my very best friend and I love him more each year.

I Think I Made A Blonde

I remember before I was even pregnant with Cambri that I was whining to my mom that I would probably never get a blond child. To which she readily agreed citing that genetics were not on mine and Chasey’s side. But I have noticed lately that my baby is getting much lighter.

And it’s kind of crazy.

While I would not call her a perfect towhead, she is definitely sliding into the dishwater category. Don't you think?

Dreams can come true. Or genes can mutate. I'm not sure what happened here. But Cambri is a dream come true in more ways than just her hair color. I’m still super excited for my beautiful blond baby. Now I can return the bleach.

Sunday School Lesson Gone Awry

“Don’t worry Cam Cam. Jesus Christ will save you.”

When I heard this, I was debating in my head whether or not I should be concerned. I was lying in bed, trying to enjoy a little Sunday nap and I was really hoping that the girls, who were also supposed to be napping, would at least be quiet enough to let me pretend that I was getting a break.

But there was something in Izzy’s tone of voice. She said it in a “I’m your leader now come drink the KoolAid” kind of way. And it was followed by little Cambri squeals.

So I got out of bed. As I was walking across the hall, I head Izzy say “This will only hurt a little.”

You can imagine my concern.

You see when I put the girls down for a nap, Izzy single handedly moved Cambri’s crib over right to her bed so they could sleep together (the crib is on wheels so this is not an overly magnificent feat). It was pretty cute so naïve mother thought it would work out. At some point during said nap, Izzy decided beds next to each other was not good enough, thus crawled into Cam Cam’s crib and attempted to boost baby up and drop her over the edge onto the twin bed. When Cambri put up a struggle, Izzy applied earlier learned Sunday school lesson of Jesus to try and make baby relax enough so she could be lifted and dropped.

Does any of this make sense to those of you who weren’t there?

I would take a picture but I fear that any encouraged reenactment would be seen as a seal of approval on bad behavior. My description will have to suffice. Here is a picture of the beds together though.

Next week Izzy’s Sunday school class will be going over Ruth as a faithful servant. Anyone else out there fearing for Cambri yet?

Swim Mania

In a shocking twist, Isabelle has been a star pupil in her swimming lesson class. I haven’t actually spoken to the teacher but it appears to me that she is paying attention and listening well to instruction. Of course it helps that her instructor is a cute 16 year old boy named Logan. The mention of his name makes my three year old blush and giggle. Logan seems to be really nice and patient which is a really good thing because he kind of has a stressful job. Watching 5 little 3 year olds who can’t really swim bebop around in the pool like a bunch of maniacs would cause me to have a nervous break down so I’m happy there are other people out there that can provide this service.

Soccer Makes Me A BAD Parent

Have I mentioned in this forum yet that Izzy joined a soccer league with Natasha and Jhanna?

Probably not as she doesn’t not have enough focus to actually participate.

She made me feel like a super awesome parent yesterday when I showed up. She said, “Wow Mom, you actually came to watch me play soccer.” I kind of felt bad that this was the 4th practice and the 1st one I have been at. I could roll through my list of reasons (mainly our Tuesday evening Farmer’s Market at Pine Ridge Mall, check it out ;) but to a three year old, none of it would matter. Thankfully she was just glad that I came.

Natasha also made me feel really good when she pointed out “Katie you have no idea what you are doing.” She then proceeded to correct my kick and actually gave me some good pointers.

Needless to say, I am not a natural born athlete. But Paula is.

Yes, that is Izzy sitting in the Goal. I tried to get her out but she wouldn’t budge. Izzy did kind of get into at the end. It would have probably helped if I had put her in appropriate clothing but I kind of forgot. She wasn't the only girl in a dress though!

I asked her what her favorite part was. She said, "When I was a cheerleader at the end."

Guess what else happened? Lightening struck a tree at Tautphaus Park and a branch came tumbling done. I just knew it had hit my car as my luck is crappy.

But it didn't. The branch crashed into the windshield of the silver truck. I still felt really bad for that guy though.

And now I will close in a Sex & The Cityesque fashion.

Is this what being a soccer mom is all about?

Ashton

The girls and I went to visit Grandma Great this weekend. Naturally we had a good time. My Grandma only has a shower in her house so she improvised. Izzy came running out to tell me that Grandma Great had created her her own "hot tub" with such excitement that I thought she had invented something that rivaled the light bulb. Grandma Great put a rubbermaid container in the shower. Not quite sliced bread but still very cool for a three year old.

The next morning, she rode her scooter.

This photo was taken just a few minutes before a tragic accident that claimed Barbie's head. Now we know why Schwinn thinks it prudent to mount Barbie on the front of their scooters. She is the little indicator for when you may be decapitated by risky scooter maneuvering. We obviously can't count on a huge wire fence to do the trick, as Izzy tried to ride right through it.

Grandma Great's house is necessarily kid friendly. So Gma got this convenient little baby straight stool so we could make breakfast.

We forgot that Cam Cam is a baby genius. Not smart enough to keep her bottle from leaking all over her leg but smart enough to figure out some precarious crawling techniques.

I told Cambri that know we all know what she would look like with a bubble butt. Cam Cam laughed with me but somehow I doubt she really understood the serious ramifications of said booty.

The Nikon S3000 is CRAPPY!

Back to my camera predicament. I got myself a new camera. I wanted to keep it around $150 because I just need something that I can throw in my purse and not be overly concerned about. So I went to Best Buy. Where I found this for $149.99.

(You can imagine my disdain when I googled this picture and found someone selling the same camera for $118. Such is my life.)

I thought this would work but after two days, I seriously think this is the worst camera I have ever owned. The delay is horrible which causes me to get pictures like this.

And I was spending so much time messing with my STUPID camera, that my baby got very grouchy. And my three year old got impatient. I know it doesn't take much to aggravate a three year old and make a baby cry, but still!



Here is the creme de la creme of the evening. I guess this is a valuable lesson for me to start paying more attention to the background of my photos.

(No I Gordy isn't really using her as toliet paper. It's an "optical illusion" folks.)

I guess I will just have to turn this into my picture perfect moment.

WTH?

What a month!

First my purse got stolen out of my car. So good bye Louis “Vitton.” You were a wonderful knock off that got compliments wherever I went. Probably because you were illegally made, but you always were mistaken for the real thing.



Next, my DAD, stressed me completely out. My camera was in above mentioned purse and alas has gone the way of my LV. Forever in my heart but never in my hand. When I asked to borrow his camera for a couple days, he couldn’t locate it. The next day when he did find it, he left it on my friend Paula's front step (which goes virtually unused) early in the morning and left me an abstract voicemail saying it was there. Being that we have had the conversation that I don’t check my voicemail coming up on A MILLION TIMES, I have no idea what he was thinking. Of course when he did actually call me later the night, Paula could not locate the camera, leaving me extremely stressed out.

Later it comes out that he stopped by and picked up camera on his way home from work and wanted to “scare” me into checking my voicemail. This prompted me to ask a few questions:

1. Did I ask you to leave the camera? NO
2. Did you mention the night before that if you camera turned up, you would bring it to me? NO
3. Have you ever left ANYTHING for me on PAULA’s front porch before? NO
4. Are you capable of what they call a “text message”? YES
5. WTH were you thinking?

The FUNNIEST part of the conversation was when I still thought the camera was missing, I tried to remind my Dad that I have a lot going on. His response was that HE has a lot going on.

Let me tell you, those NBA Finals aren’t going to watch themselves. Oh wait, my 22 year old brother (who can use the bathroom on his own initiative and theoretically could feed himself if push came to shove) is staying with him. This is some how the same as me currently single motherhooding it three weeks out of the month for TWO babies while keeping up with my 40 hour a week job and replacing ALL THE CONTENTS OF MY STOLEN PURSE. Again I ask, WTH was he thinking?

And last, but certainly not least, my baby is turning one at the end of this month.

Where has the time gone? I don’t have it in me to do any kind of party, so I hope she doesn’t compare baby books with Izzy anytime before she is mature enough to understand. I am going to get her a cake and let her go to town. I was going to ask my Dad over to watch but considering that he has turned to using mental torture games, I may have to reconsider.

Do I sound disgruntled yet?

WOW!

Wow, Chase and I have been married for five years. I can’t believe it. In some ways it feels like we have been together since before time really began. But we still have so much fun that most things continue to feel new and exciting. It may have been that our anniversary was last Friday or the fact that I went to a wedding over the weekend, but I spent a lot of time reflecting on what makes Chase and I do well together. I came up with this wonderful list for your viewing pleasure.

1. He’s the youngest child i.e. he is used to being bossed around and lets me continue to do so. All of you other oldest children out there know that we need someone to boss around like a fish needs water. Chasey, at the very least, lets me pretend that I in charge most of the time.

2. He’s a hard worker. Anyone who has seen his pay stub knows that 80 work weeks are common place when the rest of us slackers (me) start moaning and threatening mutiny when our work weeks starts broaching 40.25 hours.

3. He is madly in love with me. I’m not sure why but he is. Even when I’m annoying.

4. We are best friends. I don’t think there is a living soul out there that no knows me better than him. He can recognize my “Wow, this person is an idiot” expression, my “I really DON’T like you, I’m just being fake” face and best yet my “I’m so tired I may just pass out but I’m trying my best to seem engaged” look.

5. He’s a good dad. He is good at things I’m not, which works out for our kids because I’m not overly maternal.

Naturally I could go into more details but I don’t need to. I think that all of you understand my point…