Christmas Day-Finally!!

Yay!! Chase's first Christmas!! In the morning we woke up and Aunt Zandy held Chase while we had coffee and cookies and waited for Uncle Kyle. We were definitely starting to get spoiled not needing to juggle food and drinks while holding the little man! Zandy also graciously volunteered to hold the baby while we opened our presents first:) I didn't take very many pictures since Jas bought me a new HD video camera we were able to make sure Chase's first Christmas was well documented. Yet another thing for me to have to figure out how to load onto the computer, and hopefully post soon:) After having opened presents for a few days, Chase kind of got the hang of what to do. The wrapping paper of course was by far the most fascinating part. After a relaxing pajama morning we got ourselves together and put Chase in yet another adorable Christmas outfit to head to our last stop. We definitely felt like we were running for three days straight!

As you can see once I edit I can't undo the underlining. I'll figure this out eventually, let's continue...

We headed to my parents house for an early dinner. We Skyped with my brother and his wife in Wales, opened more presents, and had a nice quiet dinner with my parents and Chris and Julie. Since there was a threat of weather, and we wanted to beat traffic to get back home, we could only stay a little while.

Chase's First Christmas!

Present for Daddy-another lego car(hooray for little pieces)

It was a little chilly when we woke up

Snuggie buddies!

Time for a quick nap after opening presents.

Hanging with Uncle Kyle

As soon as we got to my parents house it was time to catch up with our family overseas. Here Chase is getting ready to Skype with Uncle Tim and Aunt Fay. Had to wear his hat from London for the occasion. Everyone was super excited to see how big Chase had gotten since it was October right before their wedding when we last video chatted. MomMom now also officially knows how to Skype and can't wait to do it again! I'm not sure who was more excited about the whole situation:)

Finally home in MD...again thank goodness for Daddy's car packing skills!

Here's a pic after the car was unloaded, and this wasn't even everything. Look at all those educational toys, Mommy was excited. It took us a few days to sort through things. BTW, did you ever notice that every year you accumulate a handful of stocking stuffers you never get around to using?

Now that our holiday adventure has come to an end, despite all of the traveling we had a wonderful time. Chase was surrounded with lots of friends and family for his first Christmas, and we are so thankful to have so many loved ones to celebrate with during the season. He couldn't be more loved or spoiled, but after everything he's been through we think he deserves every bit of it! Now its time to relax, figure out what needs batteries, and where to put all of his stuff!! Hope you all had as wonderful a holiday as we did.

Many Days of Christmas Part 3-Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is always the big day to celebrate for both sides of the family. This year we drove to Ocean City in the morning so my grandparents could meet Chase for the first time, then we headed back to Marlton to Jas' grandmother's house, and then back down to the shore for Christmas Eve party at my cousin's house. Chase is normally relatively good in the car, but after the third trip in the car that day he was pretty much finished with his car seat. Can you blame him? It was great to see everyone, and since quite a few of our family members still hadn't met Chase he was passed around a ton. Jas and I did get to eat together using both hands while other people were holding him though-this doesn't happen very often when its just the two of us at home! After yet another drive, we ended the evening at Jas' parents house to spend the night and prep for Christmas morning! I think over the course of that day alone we drove about 200 miles.

I have no idea why this first section is underlined-btw!! And I'm too tired to figure out how to turn it off.

Chase meets Great Grandpa for the first time. Since this is his first great grandchild, he was so excited. It was too cute.

Mommy, Great Grandma, and Chase

Christmas Eve at GiGi's house

Our first Christmas Eve family photo

Chase and Aunt Zandy-she wanted to hold him all night

Gage couldn't wait to give Chase a "vintage" Lindros beanie bear

Opening presents with Zandy and Michael

Chase loves his GiGi, and he loved the pattern on her shirt

A group shot before we ran to our next party

Christmas Eve Party #2

Great Grandmom couldn't stop giving him hugs and kisses

Trying to squeeze another shot in after opening gifts

Uncle Pat and Aunt Jenna

Chase meets Freckles

Many Days of Christmas Part 2

Traveling for the holidays has never been easy for us. Even though we are just driving to Jersey it ends up being a production every year. This year of course was even more of a challenge with the little one. Even though we have a wagon we still needed to borrow a roof top carrier from our friend Adam. Good thing we did because there was no way Summer and Chase would have fit in the car with all of our stuff, and the return trip was even more crammed. Jason however, is the most efficient car packer I know! As usual traffic in Delaware stunk, and it took us longer than expected to get to our destination on the 23rd. After dropping off Summer at Jas' best friend's house(hooray for doggie doors) we headed over to Adam and Cindy's for the first of many Christmas parties. This year's white elephant exchange definitely topped previous years' and since this is a family friendly blog I can't share details on quite a few of the gifts. Some of the more PG gifts were a shake weight, Charles in Charge box set of DVDs, a giant turkey decoy, a faux hair bump-it(that was one of our gifts), and some hideous manatee, dolphin and mermaid candle holder. Luckily Chase is still too young to understand some of the inappropriate gifts:) He didn't go to bed until super late that night-too much to see, and ended up waking up ready to play at 6am. Mommy and Daddy were less than thrilled since we knew we had a big day ahead of us.

Napping during the party

Adam demonstrating the "air cannon". Its amazing what people are amused by.

Another Christmas outfit, this time in front of Adam and Cindy's perfect tree!!

Many Days of Christmas

We exchanged gifts before heading up to Jersey, and Pat and Jenna joined us for our pre-holiday celebration. It ends up being much easier than lugging all the gifts up with us. We did take a few for the little man, however. As you can see he wasn't too sure of what to do with the gifts. You'll see that as the festivities progress over the course of 3 days he gets much more proficient with opening his presents.

Not quite so sure what to do

Playing with one of my gifts from Mommy and Daddy

Wiped out

Stretch!! Thanks for my cute outfit "Aunt" Francesca:)

Mommy was too busy trying to get me to smile to realize the camera had shifted. Oh Well.

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas everyone!! We have had a busy,busy week getting prepped for Chase's first Christmas and have spent the past few days traveling hundreds of miles to visit lots of friends and family. He just woke up and we're about to have him open presents, but we wanted to wish everyone a wonderful day! Check back soon for lots and lots of holiday pictures:)

A Few Firsts

First time for sweet potatoes

Not so sure about them...mommy also wasn't doing a very good job cleaning my face after I squirmed. She was too busy laughing at my response.

First time in my exersaucer! Thanks MomMom and Grandpop K.!! Mommy and Daddy also appreciate that you shipped this Christmas present to the house. The box was huge, and would have filled up the back of the car quickly.

So much to look at, and so much to slobber on! I still haven't quite figure out how to spin yet.

It was a busy week for Chase. Besides the sweet potatoes and exersaucer, he also got a few more shots:(, discovered that he likes to feel different kinds of fabrics, tried new flow nipples on his bottles(not so successful), and experienced his first "snow" in MD!!

The snow part didn't really pan out to be that much, but it did hit late morning on Thursday, causing chaos down here. 1 1/2 inches of snow resulted in early dismissal for schools, accidents all of the place, and a slightly stressful first drive for mommy with Chase in the car. Gotta love Maryland! Thank goodness for all-wheel drive. Since the city likes to not salt our side of the road, and we live at the top of a hill it makes for an adventure getting to and from our house.

Chase didn't really spend much time out in the snow, it was wicked cold and windy, and honestly didn't amount to enough for a photo op. Hopefully this week's bone chilling temps are not an indicator of the months to come. Last year I found out I was pregnant during the first December storm, and over the course of the winter we amassed more than 60 inches of snow. This also means we didn't see a plow for nearly two weeks! Thank goodness for neighbors. We'll have to stock up with all the baby essentials if there is even a threat in the forecast this year.

Enough ranting about the weather. Chase is finally growing out of more of his 3 mos. outfits and into his cold weather clothes, because I am happy to report he's now a whopping 13 lbs. He also is 25 inches long. Although he's still not on the 6 mos. chart for weight, he is at the very bottom for head circumference and length. Woohoo! After our pulmonary appointment this week, with the exception of his Synagis shots, he won't need to go back for any checkups for 3 months!

One shot down

Chase finally got his second dose of Synagis today. He also weighs a whopping 12lb. 10oz.!! On Wednesday at his 6 mos. checkup he's due to get a few more and he is finally old enough for his flu shot. Poor buddy:( We'll also be starting sweet potatoes soon, wish us luck!

Here are a few pics from this weekend, I still have more friends and family pics to post but they are in various folders that I have to go through. Sorry for any visitors who haven't made the blog recently!

Hmm..what can I try to put in my mouth now?

Come on, this doesn't work

Smirking at Daddy for injuring himself

Nights Away

At the end of the night after lots of wine and food:) This was take #3 with the self-timer on the camera!

On Friday I went to my annual girls' Christmas party and stayed out for the evening! I missed Chase terribly and woke up a few times during the night, but it was nice to get together with the girls. Although some of the faces have changed, a few of us have managed to get together for the past 7 or 8? years. I have to look back at old pics for the exact date:) Daddy and Chase had a nice boys night and I got to bring home a boatload of cookies from our swap.

Then on Sunday Chase and I got to stay in a hotel!! The gas and electric company was doing planned outages and there was no way we were going to spend a cold night in the dark. Jas came to help us get settled in, but then ended up coming back to the house to stay with Summer. Luckily since Jas spent roughly 211 days during 2009(crazy right?) in a Marriott he is a platinum elite member, and we could use some points and stay in a little suite at a brand new Residence Inn. Chase ended up doing great, but couldn't fall asleep because there was so much to look at. I'm pretty sure we paced and dance for about an hour and a half! I've learned you have to be super organized to spend the night somewhere with a baby, but juggling getting ready for work not in the comforts of your home is even more of a challenge.

Lots of stuff for just one night!

Looking all around, so many colors

Tree Decorating

What am I supposed to do with this?

Love the lights

One of my new 1st Christmas ornaments

Combination of a little windburn and just waking up gives me rosy cheeks. Can you guess which side I was sleeping on? I also look very serious because I'm concentrating on sitting up straight. I can do it on my own, put I have to lean forward a little. It is hard work!!

Ridiculous

Since the end of last week I've been battling with a new prescription company about Chase's Synagis dosage. If life worked out perfectly he would have received his dose last week on the 28 day schedule, and all would be peachy. Since I didn't hear from the pediatrician's office by the end of last week, I thought I'd call the script company directly to see what was causing the delay. Apparently because our insurance co. uses a specific prescription company(not where his first dose came from), they decided to switch. Mind you, no one called us...

So after calling and speaking to someone who asked me to spell the name of the vaccination, and then asking me whether it was a specialty drug, she realized I needed to speak to someone in a different division. The next person then told me they were waiting on pre-authorization from the insurance company, and that they would try to expedite the request. I'm generally a very patient person, and not one to get irate with customer service people, but this was getting ridiculous. Pre-auth was already given before the first dosage! Flash forward to me calling our insurance case manager, filling her in, and asking her to light a fire somewhere.

Here we are nearly a week out of the dosage window and now the hold up is somewhere between referrals, authorizations, a "busy" representative, and a pharmacist. Once everything gets worked out the dose still needs to be shipped, so its not like that part of the process is even fast! Not once have I spoken to the same person, even after requesting a contact person. This might have something to do with my needing to go through the stupid automated system every time I call. Each time I say something to the fact that my son was born at 27 wks, weakened immune system etc. etc. The response is, "I understand" or today someone told me "the process doesn't work that quickly". Needless to say my patience is wearing extremely thin.

Thank goodness for our case manager, she is wonderful and working hard to get this matter resolved. I didn't think I'd need her assistance that much, and even initially thought things would slow down since his discharge, but just in the past week I think we've talked at least 4 times. Nothing more I can do now, maybe tomorrow I'll get some good news. Heading to bed, exhausted already and its only Tuesday!!

Tree Time

We always get a real tree, and over the years we go back and forth between cutting them down and just buying a precut one. We figured that since it is going to be Chase's first Christmas we would bundle him up and go to a Christmas tree farm. The one I picked was a hike from our house, and the tree selection wasn't fantastic, but we still had fun.
I was more excited about the old tractor than he was, but you can see his whole outfit. He couldn't really move, but at least he was toasty.
They had a little petting zoo set up in the barn, and the miniature horse was pretty interested in Chase.


Daddy cutting down the tree, and mommy and Chase pretending to help:) We had a bum saw which was taking forever, so we borrowed someone else's to finish the job. It was pretty cold waiting for it to be cut down, but Chase didn't seem to mind. He fell asleep in the bjorn while we trekked all over the farm to find a good one.
The tree selection consisted of either gigantic trees or short fat ones. Neither of which would work for our house. So we ended up getting one that was a little shorter than we'd have liked-oh well.

Can You Believe It's Been 6 months?

Today Chase is 6 months old! He's grown so much, and I wanted to get some pics on his half-year birthday. Here he is before we got him bundled to go cut down our tree.

Doesn't he look like he's standing on his own? I know soon we won't want to see him standing in his crib, and we don't want to teach him bad habits, but he loves standing up:)

I was telling him what a big boy he was and he was squealing with joy. He squirms all over the crib and this is where he ended up before waking up this morning.

Just a little hungry before it was cereal time. He likes to try to get his fist in his mouth in addition to whatever he's eating.

Hmmm. messy goodness