Pump It Up

In my search for fun things to do with Chance in the area I picked up a couple local parenting/family magazines. Just so happens the magazine itself was throwing a party for it's 20th anniversary at a local playspot the next week. So I went online to reserve our free tickets.

Chance climbing over in the Obstacle course.
I had never even heard of the place it was held, Pump It Up. It is an indoor inflatable play area. The party was the best way to experience it for the first time, with our tickets admission was free and they gave us pizza and cake in honor of the magazine's birthday.

Chance climbing up in the obstacle course
Chance had a wonderful time, They have two rooms of inflatables so we were able to play for 30 minutes in each room then moved on to the food. From the moment he entered the first room he was go go going. He ran and jumped and climbed till he was breathing heavy and his little face was hot. In the first room his favorite place to play was the obstacle course.

Chance going down the slide.
In the second room he played for a while in the basketball bounce house but I think his favorite was the slide. He went down that slide at least twenty times while we were in there and he drug me along once. It was pretty fun. Going down the slide made me realize just how much little kids learn from doing things like that, working with others, climbing, following direction, being careful, dealing with heights, overcoming fears, thinking under pressure and just having a good time.

Throwing the ball in the basketball bounce house
After all that playing Chance was ready to have a seat, some juice and some pizza. There was enough pizza for the grown ups to have some too so we all sat and ate together.


Sitting at the kids' table by himself.
After pizza came a little slice of cake and then we were on our way back to the house. We had tons of fun here and will difinitely be going back again soon.

Drinking juice getting ready to chow down on pizza.

Cooler on his head silly picture

This is just a picture of Chance being silly. He put his new Saints football that Daddy got him on his last work trip in this cooler to bring it with him in the car. Then when in the car he decided to put the cooler on his head and give me this fun face.


P.S. I have been keeping up with Chance's wishlist on Amazon, he's actually started mentioning things that he wants for his birthday and christmas, when he sees something he wants he tells me to put it on the list. The items on the list are the ones that have made it through the Mommy/Daddy filter. Follow this link to get to his wishlist. http://amzn.com/w/12KVYIUEB01G5

New Clothes from Nana

Recently we received a few packages from Nana and Grandpa Von full of wonderful clothes for Chance. We were all excited to see what was inside each package and Chance was super excited because he saw his name on the labels.

We let him pull everything out which turned out to be kind of funny. He would take a piece out look at it then nonchalantly toss it to the side till he had a pile of clothes where they all landed on top of each other.

After emptying the bag of all the good stuff he moved on to the fun stuff. Trying to get inside the bag, the bag was pretty small so it didn't work very well but he put in some good effort.

Even though he tossed everything to the side and tried to get in the bag the clothes came in he was more than happy to try on some of his new things to see how they fit. He liked them so much he modeled for me to take a picture and wouldn't take them off for the rest of the day.


The suspender shirt is so cute!

Grocery Store Tour

We are settling in here a bit and with that comes finding little ones for Chance to play with, since meetup.com has been such a great place for us to find playgroups in the past that is where I started my search. So far we have joined two groups one we joined for a little while last year when we were here so long and one is all new to us. Our first playdate with the new group was a tour of a grocery store. At first I was wondering how such little guys were going to be interested in touring a grocery store but it turned out great.

First the produce manager told us all about his department (bananas are the highest selling fruit) then we made our way to the bakery where they gave each child a cookie. Then we made our way over to the deli where they gave us each a piece of chicken finger.

After that we arrived at the meat department where they gave each of us hair nets so we could go behind the scenes. Due to an inspection being conducted we had to detour to the employee break room first but when we came back they took us all back in the freezer to show us how they grind the meat to make ground beef. It was pretty interesting and seemed easy enough but I don't know how they stay in that freezer to grind beef all day, it's seriously cold in there.

In the employee break room we each got some ice cream to enjoy. The grocery store we toured is called Sweetbay, I know they don't have them everywhere and I never really did a lot of shopping there, they are kind of new and I always got the impression they were more expensive but the tour did exactly what it was supposed to do because now when I think of doing grocery shopping I consider Sweetbay an option and that is the first step.

We wrapped up our tour with a walk down a few of the aisles and goodie bags and balloons for the kids. Like I said I was concerned about how this playdate would go but turns out taking little kids on a grocery store tour was really a brilliant idea. As you can see above it got two thumbs up from Chance and even when we were ready to go he didn't want to take his hair net off (below).

And this is what I found

Last week Scott and Chance were trying to find something in the pile of things in the living room. I heard them in there looking and when I walked into the room this is what I found...




Boys will be boys.

Hiking the Flooded Road

I am sorry I didn't get this posted sooner but a few weeks ago we had a lot of rain here so much rain that the dirt road to get into my Mom's house was flooded. So flooded we couldn't get the car through and had to walk out. We turned it into a grand adventure hiking down the road and around the huge puddles. It's crazy, in the second picture you can see the road looks like a lake as far as you can see.

Painted Pitcher

Recently I found an old Brita water pitcher in the closet, at first I was going to buy a new filter and use it for it's intended purpose but then I realized why it was in the closet instead of in the refrigerator. It had a crack in it. So I set it on the counter to throw away. When Chance saw it he asked why we were throwing it away, when I told him he said "don't throw it away, can I paint it?"
I was pleasantly surprised that he made the jump to turn an old pitcher into a piece of art. So we pulled out all our paints and brushes and Chance created an original work of art. I haven't figured out the perfect location just yet but soon it will be on display for everyone to see.

Chance's First Swimming Class

Chance just before class started
Today was Chance's first swimming class. Chance has been looking forward to it for days and I've been pretty excited for him because I took the exact same swimming classes when I was little. We arrived a few minutes early to have time to change into swimming trunks and check the place out. It is an outdoor heated pool with plenty of space and three slides that we didn't go down this time but Chance remembers the awesome slide at the community center in Portland so he really wanted to go but Scott and I didn't have our suits so we will have to save that for another time.


Chance in his red trunks learning the sidestroke
Chance is a headstrong little guy and I often worry about how he will do in classes. Will he listen to the instructor? Will he be patient with the other students? Well he did a wonderful job listening to the instructor and was the most advanced of the 4 students. He had a little trouble being patient with the other kids but after I explained that they were all at different levels and he had to give each of them the time they need to learn how to swim he did a much better.


Chance on the left practicing his kicking
They began work on kicking and sidestroke which are mostly new to Chance and jumping into the pool and blowing bubbles under water which Chance has been doing for a while. By the end of the class he was starting to use his new skills while swimming around the pool. The instructor did a very good job modifying the exercises for each students skill level giving Chance extra help on the things he doesn't quite have yet (like floating) and challenging him a little more with things he can do well like putting the ring on the bottom of the pool for him to retrieve rather than on the stairs where it would be too easy.


Chance swimming to the stairs after jumping in
He loved the class and can't wait for next week. The class lasts 8 weeks, so he will be learning lots of new swimming skills for quite a few Saturdays to come plus if he does well and wants to continue I'll sign him up for the next level of classes after he completes this level.

New Board Games!!

You may not know this but Chance Loves Board Games! He asks to play a board game at least twice a day and that is a slow day. Usually we will finish a game and as soon as someone crosses the finish line no matter who wins he says "can we play again?" So when this box of games and puzzles arrived yesterday from Nana and Grandpa Von we were all overjoyed.



We started playing games almost immediately after removing them from the box they were shipped in. The games are perfect for him he can do them but they are just a bit of a challenge which is exactly were they need to be, he loves to learn and is already getting better at both board games. He likes it when we make up stories with the dice, though Daddy is best at this Chance jumps in adding to the stories too. And of course puzzles are fun on their own but the fact that these puzzles were all about things with wheels made them even a bigger hit.


Chance with his new puzzles constructed all on his own.

Motorcycle Helmet

Scott ordered a new motorcycle helmet recently and it came in the mail yesterday. Of course Chance wanted to try it on immediately. It's big but cute of course and he kind of looked like Dark Helmet from Spaceballs.

Hurricane Wind Machine

We were at the mall the other day when we came upon this Hurricane Force Wind Machine. It's a tube that you stand inside and are then surrounded by 75 mph winds. Well, Scott and Chance were ready to jump right in so I inserted the money and took the pictures while the wind whipped around them. Their hair is short but it was flying all around. It looked like fun and of course dare devil that he is Chance had a huge smile on his face the whole time.

Video In Which He Jumps In and Swims!

So Chance has put together two of his skills, jumping in and swimming. He did it all by himself without any prompting from us. At the beginning he jumps and swims then at the end he puts his face under the water and swims all the way back to the other side of the pool. I'm so proud of him!

Swimming With Daddy

So as I am sure you have noticed Chance has been doing a lot of swimming lately and now that Daddy is here they have been doing a lot of swimming together. He has learned a new skill actually that isn't true he has put two skills he already knows together to make one new pretty awesome skill. You can't see it here but there is a video I will post soon in which you will be able to see his new skill in all it's glory. That new skill led to this fun game with Daddy. Scott throws him in the air and Chance splashes into the water then swims away. Chance loves it!

Found a new hat

I don't know where Chance found this hat but he has been wearing it off and on all the time for the last few days. It's too big for him and he likes to wear it backwards which just adds to the cuteness. I had to talk him into letting me take these pictures because he seems to know that it looks a little silly even though he likes it. When I told him I wanted to put it on the blog so Nana and Grandpa Von could see how cute he was he said "ok just two pictures" and so that is what I got. Which is ok because they are pretty good ones. Scott flies in tonight late so Chance won't see him till the morning but that is ok, we have lots of fun things planned with the little guy over the next few days I hope the weather cooperates so we can get out of the house as much as possible, Chance needs to get out, get active and maybe even worn out? That hasn't happened in a while, I wonder if it is still possible.

New Library Card

As you know we frequent the library a lot no matter where we are, in my opinion the library is one of the most underused resources we have available to us. I am always reading and watching and listening to things I get from the library and I am doing everything I can to raise Chance to appreciate books and libraries. It's paying off so far as his current favorite book is A Light In the Attic and he just picked out Double Fudge on audio because he wanted something to listen to in the car, you know he's only 4 years old right? I'm not bragging, I'm just checking.
Anyway, today while at the library we got Chance his own library card for the Lee County Library which he was very excited about and can't wait to use it next week when we go back to the library.
This picture is Chance in front of the library showing off his new card and his smile.

Chance Swimming

Chance has been so close to swimming for a while and now that we are living at Grammy's house he is in the pool nearly every single day sometimes multiple times per day. Like today he just showed up in his swimming trunks asking to go in the pool then after we ran some errands he went back in the pool which is where he is while I sit on the patio watching him and typing this. Well , just a few days ago Chance took a big step putting all the little pieces together and swam across the pool. He has done it multiple times since then and keeps getting better. Living in a house with a pool means it's very important for him to know how to swim so I signed him up for swimming lessons that start on the 10th so Mr. Chance will be a swimming pro in no time at all.