Family pictures

While we were in Florida we all went in to have our pictures taken. We got lots of combinations since it is rare that we are all together in one place.


My Mom, Sister and I haven't sat for a professional picture in lots of years.



Chance is good at these kinds of photos. I always worry he won't cooperate but here he is with the cutesy little smile for the camera.



Here's another cute Chance smile. Scott and I look good too. I think this one is going on the wall.



This one is our sexy pose.



The main goal of this whole photo shoot was to capture these four generations.



Plus Kristy.



Everybody now.

He says Zoe's Name

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Originally uploaded by qemorio

Recently a friend of mine, Jen from Barnes and Noble got married, had a baby and moved back to NOLA. now she is a member of our Meetup Group. Chance really took a liking to her little girl, Zoe the first timew e saw her talking to her and patting her head. This time when we saw her he patted her head and talked to her a lot then he started saying her name. He said "Zoe, baby" and patted her head. It was soooooo cute. In this video we are all talking but if you listen you can hear Chance saying her name.

Let's Get Dirty Playdate.

On Saturday we had a playdate at nancy's house. She purchased a palate of plants and little pots for all the little kids so they could all plant their own to take home. Chance had a good time putting dirt in his pot and after it was planted he wanted it to sit right next to his chair. Nancy has a wonderful lawn for us all to play in, Chance loved taking his shoes and socks off and running through the grass. After a while we turned the hose on and let them run through it and you all already know how much Chance likes to run in the water.

Playing with Ashlyn

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Originally uploaded by qemorio

This is a video of Chance and Ashlyn playing in the sprinkler. They had a wonderful time playing together, you can really tell in this video.

playing in the sprinkler

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Originally uploaded by qemorio

This is a little video of Chance playing in the sprinkler at my Mom's house.

Pictures Pictures Pictures

I finally got all the pictures that we have taken over the last few weeks up on Flickr. I put them all in one set which you can reach by going here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/qemorio/sets/72157617313726956

Bye bye Mommy

Quickie post

Flying Home

I am on my way home frond the NAB convention or National Association of Broadcasters convention, where all the television, and radio professionals wander around and look at the new products from all the major broadcast companies. Companies like AVID and Adobe, and a thousand others. BitCentral had a booth there this year and I was there demoing our new products.


This is a photo of us setting up the booth, unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of the setup booth so sorry. This year instead of putting us in hotels they put us up in rental houses and I stayed with Greg, and John. We had a good time at the house, it was nice and well equipped (sp?) we all chipped in and cooked food at the house.


It turned out that my friend Dan just happened to be in town on vacation but we didn't manage to hook up (bummer).I hope he's having an awesome vacation with patrick.

Well that's about that I will post this as soon as I make it to Nashville.

Cheers

Sprinkler time

Today, Chris brought his niece, Ashlyn over to play. After playing with cars for a little while we decided to take them outside for some sprinkler fun.


They had a great time. I forgot to bring Chances swimming trunks so he had to wear his onesy but he didn't even notice. They ran after each other through the yard and the sprinkler. I took a few short videos with my camera which I will upload when we get home.

Cows

We were hanging out inside the house when we saw them. The house here sits on 5 acres with large plots of mostly empty land all around. On the land just behind our 5 acres always has cows grazing.




We had been waiting to see the cows close to the fence so Chance could get a look at a cow up close. Finally we saw them so we put on our shoes fast and went out back. The cows were not right up next to the fence but only about 30 feet away. They stopped to watch us and moo'd. There were lots of calves which Chance noticed and called "baby cows"

Manatee park

We went to manatee park, though we did not see any manatees we did have lots of fun walking on all of the trails. On one trail we found this alligator sculpture that Chance found very interesting. They rent kayaks there too, when we saw some people in there kayak Chance said "ship in" after I told him we couldn't get in today but we would go in a boat again soon, to that he said " Mommy, Daddy ship in." Get ready Daddy I think we are going canoeing soon.

Canoeing

This morning Grammy, Aunt Kristy, Chris ( her boyfriend), Chance and myself all packed up and headed to the Estero River to rent canoes. On Friday we purchased Chance a life vest to wear today, I was concerned he wouldn't want to wear it and our canoeing adventure would end right there. At first he didn't want to put it on but after I explained our No Lifevest, No Ship ( his word for all boats) he decided he was willing to wear it. He was set up with two pads to make a seat in the middle of the canoe and his own little oar and off we went. The short and sweet story is Chance had a great time. He understood he couldn't stand up and so switched from sitting in his seat to leaning over the side helping us row. He liked letting his hand dangle in the water. We all had a great time watching Kristy and Chris run into trees and things, they got a bit better by the end. We saw birds and fish but no alligators on this trip. Like everything else that you do with a child for the first time I was worried Chance wouldn't like canoeing but he was smiling and very interested the whole time even laughing and waving at other canoes. He didn't mind his lifevest at all until the last ten minutes when we were almost back to the dock he saw a couple people up on the bank and asked to get out but I think that was more because we were pushing nap time than because he was tired of canoeing. I am so glad Chance liked canoeing because both Scott and I like to go, we already have a place picked out to go back home, we've just been waiting for him to be old enough to reliably follow direction and it was nice to go for the first time in a place that I knew really well. Now we are ready to go on more canoeing adventures. We took lots of pictures with my camera which I will upload when we get home for now I just have these two. Also, Scott is stuck doing lots of editing in Las Vegas for the next two days. It is a really big project and he has to work hard and long to finish it by Monday so I wanted to send some love and happy editing thoughts to him.

Thinking of you two

Hi Rayna & Chance!

I was here:


And I was thinking of the two of you:



Daddy loves you both very much:




Scott

Walking to the gate

Every morning here in Florida Chance and I and anyone else who feels up to it, walk down to the gate to get the newspaper. Chance really likes walking outside. Sometimes we walk around through the woods too. We all like the exploring through the woods adventures.

One more thing

Sorry I took this picture and thought you all would enjoy it.




Quickie post

Blogpost add

I am going to make a quick post for Rayna. Today we went to the library an there was a cattle car that was used to carry Jews to concentration camps set up as an exhibit. We went and checked it out here is a picture


Also chance and deedle are having an awesome time running around the yard so here is a picture I call "a boy and his dog"



Lastly, yesterday the family went to have photos done Rayna has them on her phone and I'm sure she will post the pictures but they do exist and you will see them soon

Cheers

Scott

Apology

Rayna thought I was being harsh and I
Just meant to be cute so I formally retract my previous itis post hear-ye hear-ye and yea verily


Quickie post

The "Itis"

Rayna has the "itis" (pronounced eye-tis). Sounds serious you say? Yes, yes it is, Rayna can't stop fooling around on her iPhone, she just sits there all day looking at her tweets and blog posts and playing zombieville USA. So yes Rayna has the iphoneitis hopefully she will recover soon into the lovely young lady we all remember.

Cheers
Scott

Easter in Florida

Happy Easter everyone. Yesterday we colored Eggs in preparation for Easter. Chance enjoyed it after he figured out what he was suppsed to be doing. He liked putting the same egg in multiple colors which actually turned out better than I thouht it would. By the time we were finished chance had streaks of clot on his chest and his eight hand was tinged blue, the signs of a truly good time.

There are a few more pictures on flickr that I also took with my phone, I will upload the better quality pictures I took with my camera when I get to a high speed Internet connection.

Playing with his bubble mower

When Swans Attack

So, today we went to City Park to spend some time letting Chance run around and generally have a good time. We stopped at an area with a lot of ducks and other water fowl. I had some crackers in the car so we walked over to the water and proceeded to feed the ducks. This was tons of fun for everyone, there were lots of ducks, some geese and seagull type birds. There were also two big black beautiful swans. They were eating our crackers and we were plesantly enjoying the day when one of the swans waddled out of the water and nipped Chance. It happened really fast, I grabbed Chance, Scott kicked the swan to make him let go and away we went. Chance cried for just a minute, I think he was more scared than hurt but he was ready to get in the car and go home. After we got home I was able to check Chance out more thorowly, he has a little mark that looks kind of like a hicky where the swan pinched him. Today we learned that swans have long necks and they can grab you even when you think you are far enough away, I jsut hope Chance isn't afraid of the ducks next time we go to the park because he enjoyed feeding them so much before, I will have to keep you all posted on that.
P.S. the swan was fine too for those of you who are interested. He walked away fine after the kick.

Making Laundry Detergent

We have been making our own laundry detergent for a while now. It is really easy and really inexpensive plus making it can be a lot of fun. The first time we made it Chance didn't help, I can't remember why maybe he just wasn't into it or maybe we did it when he was asleep since it does require using the stove and handling borax. Thinking about it, he probably wasn't able to follow direction well enough to help that time. One batch makes 5 gallons and that lasts a long time so now he is fully able to help and what a good little helper he was too. He helped pour in the ingrediants then he mixed and was really good at pouring the finished product into individual containers for storage.

Make your own:
1 cup borax
1/2 baking soda
1 bar of soap.

Cut or grate bar of soap into pot, add some water and simmer until melted.
Add melted soap water to other ingredients in 5 gallon bucket. Add water to fill bucket, stir till blended.
I also added a few drops of Lavender essential oil and a couple scoops of oxy clean as a booster this time but the first time we just used the recipe as is and it worked great. So, I wouldn't have put the extra ingrediats in if I didn't already have them laying around the house.

With this recipe it costs the same money as one bottle of regular store bought detergent to make about 15 gallons of homemade detergent so it is totally worth it.

Sick

The little guy took two sick days this weekend. He ran a fever and was just rather under the weather for a day and a half. I took this picture of him when he was laying on the couch watching TV not feeling well. The second morning when he woke up he was good as new. Running into the room saying, Mommy and Daddy with a smile on his face and now he is good as new. The bad news is now I have caught his illness but I think I will pull through.

my new iPhone

I just got an iPhone! Scott has had one for a few months now and since I have had the same cell phone for three years it was time for an upgrade. All I can say is it is so cool. I am typing this from my cell phone with a pretty neat application, the only problem I have so far is I can't figure out how to upload pictures to blogger but I can upload them to flickr plus when we are on the road I can still keep everyone updated and just add the pictures later.

Mobile Blogging from here.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Update: Photo added at my laptop. That is pretty cool.

Skinned Knee

This is Chance's first skinned knee. He wasn't hurt bad just a scrape and he was off and running again but it's his first official skinned knee none-the-less. I'm going to have to start carrying band-aids in my bag instead of diaper cream.

Picture form Last weekend

I don't think I posted this one, but last weekend when Scott's Mom was here there was a little concert over at the art school near the house. We all walked over to watch for a while. Chance liked it, he sat on my lap for a long time listening to the music. While we were sitting there I happened to snap this picture that includes all four of us, Me, Chance, Gaynelle and Scott.

Two, Ten

Chance is learning to count, he is actually doing pretty good for a two year old (I think) he can repeat nearly all the numbers 1 - 10 and he can count to two and recognize when there are two objects completely on his own without any prompting from an adult. When he tries to count higher than two on his own he gets a little mixed up though. Usually it goes one, two, ten. Then he will chant two, ten, two, ten for a while they must be fun words to say. This is a video of him at the top of the slide counting and swinging.

Videos

I love being able to take videos now that I figured out how. I remember having home movies of me and my sister when we were little and I was sad that we didn't have any of Chance but now we do and I am going crazy taking lots of videos. So here are a few and there are a couple more on Flickr for those of you die hard Chance fans. On Monday we went to a park that we had only been to once before, it is so big it has multiple play areas, we had never been to this one before. Chance had a good time, he made a little friend right away, actually she started following him around, he thought that was fun. They talked to each other though in toddler speak, which was really cute but I didn't get that on video. While we were at the park Chance did have a fall, they didn't have baby swings only two regular swings, well Chance wasn't going to let that stop him so he wanted to swing anyway, he was doing really good holding on as I pushed him just a little when the swing would slow down he would say "more, more" then he went down. It didn't look good but he was a trouper, I picked him up and he cried a little then after I checked him out to make sure he was really ok he started to calm down and then was pointing to the swing, he wanted to get right back on and although I appreciate his resolve Grandma and I talked him out of more swing time. Video 1 : Chance being a dare devil. the little girl when up these steps and so Chance wanted to do it too and he didn't want help, he made it all by himself. Video 2: Sideways video, I didn't think that when I turn my camera to the side I wouldn't be able to turn the video around easily like I do a still picture so I am sorry you will have to turn your monitor sideways fro this one. He is so funny, you can hear him grunting as he climbs back up the slide.

Choo-Choo

Over the weekend we went to the park actually we went to a few parks and there are more posts coming but one of the parks we went to is just full of exciting things to look at. It is right on the Mississippi River so on one side there are ships going by and on the other side there is a railroad track where trains go by. We were lucky enough to see both on this trip. A tugboat pulled up just as we arrived, Chance ran over to the water pointing and saying "ship" after a while we were able to pull him away from the water's edge and as we were walking in the grassy area we heard the choo-choo of a train whistle so we sat down and waiting for the train to go by, it was just an engine this time but Chance enjoyed watching as it came and went. The engineer even blew his whistle for him when he passed us and waved out the window at Chance.