Happy New Year!!

From our baby new year to you all, best wishes for a safe and happy 2009!!

love,

mama panda

"Chase" Family Pictures

Here are my siblings and I in 1984 (I'm the little one, my brother Dustin is, well the boy one, Jen has blonde hair, Shannon has glasses)
and here we are in our recent family portraits
As one of my aunt's infamously said once, "there is not an ugly one in the bunch"

As I blogged before my Dad turned 60 this year. We got family portraits taken to celebrate the event. There are also some adorable ones of Harrison.
My mom is next me and Harrison, my dad behind her. My brother-in-law Matt is in the back row left, he's married to my sister Shannon. I am not sure who the guy in the argyle sweater is. He just wandered into the picture.

Here is my new family!!

Here is Harrison

Thanks for letting me brag about my family!! Don't worry Grandparents, we can get copies of Harrison's pictures for you. They are scanned into our computer.

love,

mama panda

That scene in "A Christmas Story" still terrifies me

You know the scene where they see that horrifying Santa at the mall. The elf is all mean and they throw the kids down the slide? it is one of the reasons I hate that movie. Another one is when the kid gets his tongue stuck to the pole. Yuck.

Well, we didn't send Harrison to see Santa this year (unlike someone that will remain nameless who brought his dog to see Santa, dork) but I did get pictures of him on Derek's lap.

Happy times.
I think he was mad because the reindeer shoes accentuated his big feet. I am getting ahead of myself though.

We spent the 23rd at Derek's family's house. It was Harrison's one month birthday (Happy birthday darling!!) and the day we celebrated Christmas with the Schille's.

We brought him over in this outfit. Then he peed on Grandpa Schille.We changed him into his spare outfit.

I thought it was pretty funny that Grandpa got peed on until I got pooped on about a half hour later. We only had one spare outfit with us so we had to put him in a t-shirt.
So from now on we have learned to bring multiple outfits when leaving the house. Christmas eve we dressed Harrison up to take the pictures above and Derek made a pot roast. We spent the day at home because we had plans with family the next two days. I'll blog more pictures later of my side of the family.

Harrison is slowly discovering his thumb and fingers. He has sucked on them briefly but still can't figure out they belong to him and he has control over them. When I saw him sucking his thumb for the first time I got tears in my eyes. Surprisingly I have only cried twice since he has come home. Once when I tried to read him the story "On the day you were born" and again when I saw him sucking on his thumb. Well, I have cried a few more times than that but only bc of sleep deprivation so that doesn't count.

he has also held on to a rattle and tried to suck on that.
Any day now he'll be solving the mortgage crisis. Oh they grow up so fast!

Here is one last picture of him being an airplane. This one goes out to Uncle Conrad.
Love,

mama panda

Happy 60th Birthday Grandpa Chase!!

Grandpa Chase turned 60 on the 21st! Here are some highlights,

My parents sharing a special moment (Grandpa and Grandma Chase)
Harrison, of course, with his Great-Aunt Sandra

Derek is home this whole week. It is really great! I have gotten to take naps and stuff. I miss Harrison so much after I wake up from a nap though. I have to go to immediately to him when I wake up to check in on him. He has me wrapped around his finger and he doesn't even know it. If Derek gives him a bottle feeding twice I also start to miss feeding him myself. As frustrating as breastfeeding can be it is also very emotional and I miss it if I don't feed him myself.

Harrison is about ten pounds now and really starting to look like a little fella. He is holding his head up really well and can push himself up. It is incredible how strong even young babies are! We are working on getting a night schedule down so that in a few weeks he may be able to sleep through the night. He sleeps about four hours now, which is AWESOME!

I had my first freaked out parent dream last night. I dreamt that I went to the grocery store and at some point realized I didn't have Harrison with me anymore. I couldn't remember if I had left him in the car or if I had set him down in the store somewhere and forgotten him. I was freaking out convinced someone was going to call the police on me. When I woke up I had to laugh. I felt more like a parent!

Harrison was four weeks old on sunday, he turns a month old on tuesday the 23rd. I was looking back at pictures from the hospital when he was born and I got all teary eyed. It seems like so long ago now. That hormone that makes women forget about the pain of child birth must have kicked in cuz I found myself thinking about having another! Isn't that insane?

Don't get all excited, it ain't gonna happen anytime soon. TRUST ME on that one!! We have enough to handle right now.

Love,

mama panda

Happy Christmas!

Harrison met his first baby this weekend! We spent Sunday afternoon with Auriana and her parents Dan and Robyn. He looks upset in this picture but I think Harrison and Auriana got along very well. There is a picture that Robyn has of Auriana holding Harrison's hand. She is about 6 months older than he is so it may take some time for the two of them to become friends but hopefully they will get to grow up together!

I think he is about to hit a growth spurt bc he has been eating a lot lately. I used to worry about him not waking up to eat but now he won't sleep cuz he wants to eat all the time! I read that babies have a growth spurt around three weeks so he must be right on target. It is a lot of work for me though!

Jen came over last week and helped me clean my house. Thanks Jen! She did all the work I was too tired to do at the end of pregnancy and haven't had time to do since we brought him home. I really appreciate her help A LOT! We ordered some birth announcements/Christmas cards and hope to send them out by the end of this week. I keep forgetting Christmas is coming so soon! I am getting excited to see my cousins that will be coming to town and celebrating my favorite holiday! My brother will be coming into town on Friday, he hasn't met his nephew yet and Harrison is so excited to meet his Uncle Dustin! Derek's mom is also coming into town this weekend and will get to meet her grandson finally!

It is going to be busy, busy , busy for Harrison. We have to limit the activity that he has bc if we do too much in one day he gets REALLY fussy. It is too much for him. I also realized that if I drink cow's milk it upsets Harrison's tummy so I have cut that from my diet. Boo. Oh well, if it's good for my son it's what I have to do.
Here is preview of the pictures we took for the card. It was the last one we took bc he started fussing and rolled of the pillow we laid him on. You can see my hand catching him on the side. It was too much fun dressing him up! I can't wait for him to fit into the other cute clothes we have for him so I can be THAT mother, you know what I am talking about, tee hee!

Love,

Mama Panda

All the Greats

Hi everyone! Harrison has had a GREAT week!
This is Harrison's great-great aunt Susannah
Here is great-grandma mertes
and great-grandma schille

Okay okay I am sorry for the GREAT pun earlier... your right, that was uncalled for. Won't happen again.
Here is a picture with another important family member, my sister Jen's cat Bing
Look behind the hippo, BEHIND the hippo. Bing is a very cool cat and so important that my sister thanked him first in her acceptance speech for a big award she won for her dissertation. I think I may ask him to babysit when Harrison gets old enough. Anyway, everyone say congrats to Jen for officially getting her PhD a few weeks ago. Congrats Jen!

Derek's mom made us some outfits out of Derek's old t-shirts. They are all adorable but this one is my favorite
Yes that is a metallica and guns 'n' roses t-shirt, hell ya!! When I first saw him in this I really felt that he was our son. There is also a funny story behind this t-shirt. A few years ago I was at Hot Topic and I saw a guns 'n' roses onesie. I was really tempted to buy it just in case we ever had a kid but I didn't bc I thought Derek would be freaked out. I ended up telling him about it when we did decide to have a baby and he was all excited and said I should have bought it! i still say he would have been freaked out if I had bought it when I saw it BUT it doesn't matter bc this t-shirt is WAY cooler!!
This is just a picture that I love.

Thanks for looking at our blog!

Love,

Mama Panda

More pictures

Here are some pictures that Grammie sent.

pictures from melissa mom

I took Harrison to his newborn checkup on monday. I had noticed that morning that he seemed bigger, it turn out he had gained a pound since we brought him home!! He has also grown 3/4 of an inch! We plan on seeing the grandparents later this week and this weekend. I want them to see all of his adorable facial expressions and spend as much time with him as possible. I can tell he will grow up so fast!!

Love,

Mama Panda