we made it to calgary.

barely.

chet took all the fun out of our road trip. ALL of it.

he decided it would be fun to skip both his nap and bedtime.. and cry for the first 7 hours instead.

poor chet.

and poor, poor us.

{advice?}

we are happy to be here though.

it has been a long time since our last visit.

something funny happened this morning.

a baby bird went down after flying into my parents back window.

(don't worry, that's not the funny part).matt rescued it.

and fed it.

then it pood on him. and flew away.

(that's the funny part).

here are way too many pictures of chet's first ice cream cone..

he doesn't get the whole 'licking' idea. his method was very messy.

this is what happened when we took it away so we could fix the mess he made.

in the end, he ate all the ice cream.

and then the cone.

chet thought we were the coolest parents ever after that.

(which we are).

chet is turning more and more into a little boy every day.

it is so fun to watch.

8 sleeps until we head to the homeland.

the justin beiber movie went to redbox yesterday, and MATT suggested we rent it!

i think i smiled through the entire thing.

mostly because i was embarrassed for all the awkward pre-teen girls gawking over him.

but also because he is such a little stud.

i wish i was talented like that. and famous. and rich.

dang.

it's a little late for me, but maybe perhaps i can live out my dreams through chet.

maybe not though. he's kind of a wierdo!

click here to see our silly boy being silly. and eventually walk...a little bit.

we have been loving the warmer weather lately. life is so much nicer when it's sunny.

i know i am still just an amatuer with this mom stuff,

but i feel like this past year i have finally gained a better appreciation for my mom.

and i owe that to chet.

he has given me an itty bitty taste of all that my mom has done for me.

and i am definitely humbled.

thanks mom.

my boys designed this ice cream cake from cold stone for me.

i was thrilled. it is full of all my favorites.

we got to eat that cake a day early because we had another celebration on sunday..

tanks 3rd birthday!

we throw him a party every year. and make people come and sing to him.

he doesn't care, but we have fun!

this year the party theme was tanks favorite thing...

poo!

matt had way too much fun creating these poops.

i'm sad the weekend is over, it has been really fun.

18 sleeps until we visit calgary!

chet's first word

(not counting mom and dad - ish things)

is

...drumroll please...

tanky!

haha. and that makes us so happy.

it doesn't always sound like he is saying tanky. but we know that is what he means.

and it is precious :)

we weighed and measured chet at home again.

as soon as we are in canada, and don't have to pay to see a doctor, we will have him checked out by a professional. but we are just too stubborn to pay to go to a clinic. so this will have to do:

height: 30 inches. 25-50 percentile.

weight: 23 pounds. 25-50 percentile.

head circumference: 17 inches. 75-90 percentile.

he's still got an oversized head, but the rest of him is growing very nicely.

the rexburg wind is back.

but we decided to brave the wind and make our way to the farmers market.

i came home from a run yesterday to see this:

my three favorite boys having a popcorn party.

chet was funny to watch.

first he looks for the perfect piece.. then he eats it. one piece at a time.

he must have got that from me.

matt always wants to know what i'm looking for when i take my time choosing a piece of popcorn.

he just eats it by the handful.

but chet and i know that some pieces are much more fun to eat then others!

chet loves sharing with tank.

a few weeks ago i posted that chet was getting really close to walking.

and nothing has changed since then!

he is still close.

the other day my sister pointed out that maybe chet prefers to crawl because tank 'crawls'.

and i think there might be some truth to that!

chet follows tank everywhere.

(poor tank).

so maybe if tank learned to walk on his hind legs then chet would want to do that too.

until then, chet will continue making his way around our home like this:

and this:

we went to fat cats with our friends for family night. it was so fun.

(andee, annalise, jaylee, jj, ashley {and belly!}, summer, dave, pam, matt, chet)

chet obvisously couldn't play the games, but he likes to people watch, so he was happy.

and he got to ride the carousel with his girl friends.

matt won the most tickets on a jumping game. which, i guess, is pretty neat..

but i won the basketball game. which is like ten times neater!

even when the boys cheated, and played together, they couldn't beat my high score.

we cashed in all our tickets for a ton of silly prizes.

like this wristband for chet:

and a chinese finger trap that almost got us in a car wreck:

i couldn't get the trap to work for me so i told matt it was broken.

but turns out it wasn't broken and matt ended up getting his fingers stuck while driving. not a good idea.

thankfully we survived, but the finger trap did not. five minutes after we got it, it was in the trash.

(i'm not sure why my initial reaction was to take a picture of matt struggling, instead of taking the wheel. oops.)

we finished off the night with treats and chit-chatting at mcdonalds.

it was a blast.

i can see matt and i wasting a lot of money at that arcade in the future.