B.E.A.R.C.A.T.S.!!!

Chacey got to experience her first Bearcat homecoming this weekend. We made the trip to Maryville to see Sam (who had homecoming commitments all weekend) and got to go to the Variety Show, parade, and football game, all while hanging out with several of our friends while we were there.

Friday night, Sam, Andrew, Dan and Reed performed in the homecoming variety show with their quartet. Chacey kept yelling "Daddy!" and clapping while they were singing. Everyone around us just thought it was so cute! She was just thrilled when Sam waved at her from the stage. The Phi Mu Alpha guys got first for their skit at the show... again... this is like the fifteenth year in a row or something.



Saturday morning, we watched the parade, which Chacey really enjoyed. She loved all of the marching bands and giant floats that come with a college homecoming parade. She did NOT, however, love Bobby Bearcat. Apparently he is an intimidating creature... but I guess that is the point of a mascot???



The Phi Mu Alpha costume clowns in the parade (Sam is second from the right), for which they also got first place! Whoo hoo!



Saturday afternoon, of course, was the homecoming game... and also Chacey's first Bearcat game! Below is a picture of Chacey and Daddy standing at the endzone (the game was standing room only), watching the second quarter.



Chacey running around on the track, getting in some dance moves, while the BMB performed at halftime.



The guys with the Phi Mu Alpha banner... I think they got fourth???



And finally... we finished up Saturday by spending some time at the park, playing frisbee, climbing on/around the "horse" (which is a dinosaur unless you are an animal challenged one-year-old), and swinging.



Over the weekend, I realized that I am clearly not cut out to live the college life anymore. I was exhausted by 10:00 every night! It was great to see some good friends though... and any Bearcat exposure for Chacey is only promising for her future :)!

Pumpkin Patch!

Sam is very anti-Halloween, so I decided that this year I needed to find something for Chacey to do that was seasonal, but not necessarily Halloween. When I thought about it, I remembered looking at some adorable pictures last year of Jackson visiting a pumpkin patch (he was/is so cute!). I decided this year that I was going to take Chacey and planned an outing with Mom, Ronnie, Emily, and Audree to visit Papa Charlie's Pumpkin Patch.

What I didn't take into consideration when planning this... is how big of a chicken my daughter is! She didn't want to ride the rides, didn't want the animals to look at her, and didn't really even enjoy the hayride because a cow got too close to us as we passed. Ugh! But, I still consider it a hit because Audree loved it!

This is me... riding the "train" all by myself (Emily and Audree are in the one behind me). I had gotten in the cart and put Chacey on my lap when she started screaming bloody murder... so she got passed off and I went along on the ride. You might think that this was a pretty mellow ride, but let me tell you, this was a CRAZY driver! Emily was screaming her lungs out behind me! We were getting whipped in a million directions, doing donuts so tight that the driver could high-five the person in the last cart, and going over hills so fast that it was practically a ramp!



One of the few parts that Chacey did like was the hay maze. You had to crawl through it (which was stressful for her at the beginning because she didn't want the hay on her hand). Auntie went with her the first time (and learned that she needed to wear higher pants), but then Chacey got brave enough to do it by herself and she went several more times. The first picture is of all the stacked hay that made the maze. It was covered too, so you definitely had to crawl. The bottom picture I was able to lean down through a gap in the corner and get a shot of Chacey crawling through.




Next was the hayride... which was pretty relaxed (much less intense than the "train" ride from earlier). Audree seemed to like it okay... she didn't really show much emotion either way. Chacey liked to moo at the cows (from an extreme distance) and was not a fan when one of them approached us as we passed through!



We made a quick pass through the petting zoo... where Chacey proceeded to hang out as far away from the animals as she could get!



Audree, however, loved the animals and was made several times to quit climbing in with them!



There was a giant stack of hay that had ropes/slides coming out of it in random places. Chacey was really too short to get herself up, but she knew how to slide down!



The biggest hit of the day was definitely the slide set up on the side of a hill. Chacey absolutely loved it and ended up going down four or five times before we made her stop and move on to the next thing. Audree didn't really seem to care though... she didn't even smile coming down! In the pictures below, Audree and Emily are on the left, Chacey and Nana are on the right.



Chacey and Papa heading back up the hill carrying their burlap sacks. It was so cute. Everyone else was carrying one, so Chacey picked up a discarded one to carry around with her, too.



Next we decided to go through the corn maze, but after she tripped fifteen times, Chacey insisted on being carried. So, Emily was packing Audree, Mom was packing Chacey, and Ronnie and I were packing all the diaper bag and beverages that Emily thought we HAD to bring through the maze with us. Below is Audree coming out of the maze like a big girl!



After the corn maze, the girls picked out their pumpkins. We ended up taking home three big ones and two little ones. We are going to have a pumpkin carving party next weekend while we are in Trenton for Missouri Days.





Finally, just as we were getting ready to leave... with our two children, five pumpkins, and two diaper bags... Chacey ran over to the train and wanted to ride! So, we paused so that Chacey and Auntie could go for a quick ride and then go through the hay maze one more time.

Renaissance Festival, Bearcat Victory, and Royals Game!

We had a busy day yesterday! We started the day by watching Karen's choir performing at the Kansas City Renaissance Festival. Chacey enjoyed the freedom of roaming around, but she wasn't a fan of the Knight (dressed in full armor) coming up to talk to her! Below: Chacey, Uncle Nate, and Daddy sitting on a bench at the Renaissance Festival (there was WAY too much going on around us for her to look at the camera).


After the Renaissance Festival, Chacey went home to take a power nap while Sam and I cheered the Bearcats on to a beating of Missouri Western. Whoo hoo!

Then we headed off to the Royals game. The first 20,000 fans got free Royals snuggies! Chacey loved being able to watch the fountains! During innings (when they turned the fountains back down), she would stick out her bottom lip "where water, where water?" and then become greatly excited when the inning was over and they turned the water back up. Daddy took Chacey over to get an up close look, since she was so excited about them! (They are in the bottom left, see her pink jacket?)


Chacey loves ballpark food, especially frozen lemonade. So, even though it was upper 30s, lower 40s temperature wise, Chacey and Daddy had frozen lemonade anyway. Then I made her wear her blanket/poncho and watch the game. She danced and danced... and did a lot of cheering!


A video of Chacey cheering... at the beginning she is saying "catch, catch" and then, obviously, "go, go, go!".



At the end of the game, we had a very exhausted little girl. She had a busy day (with only about an hour of nap), but is always such a trooper and so well behaved! Walking to the car with Daddy, dragging her foam finger along with her!

Weekend at the Lake!!!

We had a mini-getaway last weekend to hang out with my Iowa family and spend some time at the lake. Since half of Iowa is under water, when we first got there the lake was "no wake." The lack of business on the water caused us to be able to have a great weekend of fishing though!!!

 

We did some cruising around the lake in Dad's new Polaris (until Sam and I were driving around and we got a warning that we were out of gas... bummer!). We mainly used it to make trips up to the marina when we needed more worms or catfish bait!


Chacey got to do plenty of swimming in her turtle pool/sandbox on the deck. I couldn't believe how nice and enjoyable the weather was, since we had just been enduring a week of 100+ degrees in Kansas City!


Chacey loved the nice, slow boat rides that we went on (we had to go slow so that we didn't make a wake). The radio in the boat kept her entertained; we just cruised around the lake while she danced and danced!



On Sunday afternoon, right before we were getting ready to leave, they lifted the no-wake and we were able to do some tubing. The picture below is of Katie and Rebecca tubing. I didn't realize how difficult it was to do it with two people! Trying to hang on sideways made my neck and shoulders sore for a week!

Finally, just a sample of Iowa's floods...
If you look at the picture below, you can see the top of a big passenger van. This was on Sunday afternoon. When we went through on Friday, all you could see was the roof panel, so the water had actually gone down quite a bit by this point!

Where Sam Can Be a Kid...

Today we decided to take Chacey to spend a couple of hours at Chuck E. Cheese. She had such a good time! We wouldn't have even had to spend any money, she just wanted to sit in all the seats, push the buttons, and run around! We did end up getting some tokens though (more for Sam than for Chacey) and Chacey and Daddy played a few games.

They both became Skee Ball experts. Chacey started by throwing the balls as far as she could toward the targets. When that didn't work, she just climbed onto the ramp and walked the ball up there. In the bottom right picture, she is looking in the hole where she was getting the balls from, confused because they were all gone!

 

We have taken Chacey to the play area at Independence Center several times, but she usually just plays in all of the toys, sitting in them and moving the steering wheel/pushing buttons. Today she got in the Clifford toy and I put in a token, turning it on. She was AMAZED. She hung on for dear life, but smiled and laughed the whole time! I have a feeling she isn't going to enjoy just "sitting" in them anymore!

Chacey and Daddy got to spend the day playing a whole bunch of games, and they were able to get a "sketched" picture of themselves... which would have probably turned out better if someone had willingly sat still. While I am sure that Chacey had a great time, I think Sam enjoyed it more than she did!!! I think he almost shed a tear when I told him that there were only three tokens left! I guess that they both got to be kids today.

 

Introducing... Our New "Pish"!!!

So... I REALLY want a dog. Obviously a dog isn't ideal for us right now, so we settled for... a fish? Chacey loves Elmo and Dorothy, and has recently gotten very excited about identifying the "pish" in all of her books/Sesame Street shows, etc. So, today when we met Amy at Target, Petco called my name! We stopped in and started investigating the fish. After the very nice, helpful Petco employee flat out told us "you will kill them" to our first choice of fish... we decided that a Beta would be easiest.

We bought a Beta Kit... which comes with the enclosure, food, a little cage decor, and wall mountings! Yes, apparently it is very serene to decorate with Beta fish, mounting them to your wall. Then we bought a bottle of "Beta water," which is probably tap water in a bottle with a pretty label on it, but whatever, anything for Chacey's fish. We selected the most beautiful $8 fish we could find and headed for home!


On the way home, we were talking about the fish and Chacey randomly yelled "Pablo!" So I guess that we now have a Beta fish named Pablo. :) Chacey and Sam got Pablo's new home all assembled and filled with water, then dropped him in! We are going to have to continue to keep him far out of reach... someone thinks she can carry him around, but other than that she enjoys him! She runs into the dining room, stands on her tiptoes and peeks over the edge hollering "pish! pish! pish!". Pablo is definitely the perfect pet for us!

Girls and Their Shoes...

Chacey got a box in the mail yesterday full of excellent goodies. She got a few new outfits, a book, some toys, and a pair of shoes. Her favorite thing, of course, was the shoes.
















Even after bath, when we was all clean and in her pajamas, she had to have the shoes on. She kept walking around the apartment, stopping every few minutes to pull her pant legs up and show me her shoes. She stopped several times to get the piano music going and did a little dancing, too... guess she had to make sure that she still had her moves!

















We even caught her one time balancing on her head, using her hands to lift her pants, looking at her shoes. I guess she thought that she needed to see them from eye level!





She was very proud of her new shoes (she almost got put to bed in them). People always talk about "women and their shoes"... I guess that we just got started a little early. I have a feeling she is going to need a big closet!