Ceci is Close to Crawling (in a new house)

This will be very short tonight for two reasons: Chris is leaving for Florida tomorrow morning and we have to leave here by 2:30 a.m.; and he need to take the laptop with him (he's patiently waiting for me to finish typing.) I'll be unable to blog for a few days until I get up to Dad's in WA. Probably Wednesday will be the next installment.

Anyway, Ceci gets better at "creeping" everyday. She almost made it up onto her hands and knees today, plus she traveled from the living room carpet to the kitchen tile. She's everywhere (lucky for us, she doesn't have much speed yet). She also loves to hold my hands and pull herself up, either from a sitting position or from her belly. Here are today's favorites:

Still chewing on the duck

I found both feet today!

Simon says, put your feet in the air (check out the bears, LOL)

Excitement for the day, we did the walkthrough of the new house! Below are some interior and exterior pics. Enjoy!

View from the front door

Front hall from the living room

Den/Third bedroom

Cecilia's room

Living room

Kitchen

Kitchen

Backyard

Front yard

Housing Update

No pictures tonight - but Ceci had a pretty good day. We dropped her off at daycare at 9:00, then drove to Albany to take care of some more paperwork for the house. We're planning a walkthrough sometime tomorrow or Friday, with signing next Tuesday and possibly getting the keys on July 30th. Yay!!!!

One slight glitch - Chris will be attending the Kappa Kappa Psi National Conference in Orlando, FL July 21-29. He won't be here to sign, so one of the tasks today was to get limited Power of Attorney for me.

It's amazing how much Cecilia wants to go from creeping to cruising. She's attempting to pull herself up on everything. She also tried peas for the first time tonight. I think she liked them, but she was so tired, that she melted down halfway through dinner. Chris took her up to put her to bed, fully expecting meltdown #2, but she laid her head on his shoulder and fell asleep. No cries, nothing. She's been sleeping through the night fairly regularly - 12 hours straight.

I had to do this - here's Ceci on Christmas Day, and a picture from a few days ago. What a difference!

So Sorry!

I didn't realize it had been so long since our last posting. There is much going on in the Chapman household. First, I have to share these pictures. Here, Ceci is wearing an outfit from her Aunt Lissa, but she wouldn't sit still to model for me. She was way more interested in the camera:
Dad is taking his turn at feeding Cecilia. I think it's the food (squash) she's not pleased with:
This is her first bath in the big tub. She was splashing so much in her infant tub that we thought we'd give this a try. As you can see, she loves it! We're training her to be a good Beavers fan already:
I thought this was so sweet. She sometimes sticks hands or feet outside the crib:

Cecilia is officially "creeping" or what I call her "Army crawl". She pulls herself forward and uses her toes as well. She really likes to go under the coffee table:


Last Friday, we played a "surprise" show for the OSU marching band's Operations Manager, Todd. He got married on Saturday, and the band snuck in to play for him and Cori.

Ceci wanted to join in on the fun:
What a happy baby Beaver:

She was not happy waking up from her nap! She looks like she's been wrongfully imprisoned or something:
Now for more news: the house stuff is progressing, We'll be doing a walk-through soon, and signing papers next week. I'll get pictures up as soon as I can.

A Fun-Filled Weekend

We had some good times this weekend. Friday was a pretty normal day until we went to Ruby Tuesday for dinner. Ceci was intrigued by the lemon in my lemonade, so we let her pick it up. We expected a strong response when she put it in her mouth, but she seemed to really like it. Go figure!

Saturday we headed to Newport on the Oregon coast. They have an aquarium there, and we thought Ceci might like the fish. Boy, were we right. We had to wait in line because we picked the day that Spongebob Squarepants was visiting. We didn't see him, but I don't think Cecilia minded much. One of the main exhibits is "Claws", focusing on crabs, lobsters, shrimp, etc.

That's a LOBSTER?

She could care less about the white jellyfish, but she really enjoyed the colorful ones.

This is inside "Passages of the Deep"

We wanted to keep the sun out of her eyes as we left. I think she had a good time.

Today we had another preview show for "Puttin' On the Bitz". Cecilia fell asleep halfway through the first act, and stayed asleep until the end of Intermission. The pictures below are of her nap.

That's her, taking a nap, even with the bell of my horn pointed right at her. She's such a band baby!

Have a great week everyone!

What a July (so far)!

OK, big news first. On Tuesday, Chris and I put an offer on a home in Albany. We received the acceptance today. By this time next month, we should be in our first house. Yay!!!! The house has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a 2-car garage, and a fenced-in backyard. We would be about 20 minutes from OSU. If you're interested in seeing the house or the floorplan, I've included links to the site.

Cecilia celebrated her first Independence Day yesterday. We spent a leisurely morning together, then loaded up the car and headed to Eugene (about an hour south of us) to spend the day with our friends Ann, Eric, and Emily Wiltshire. They moved to Oregon last summer when Eric was hired at Oregon as the director of the Athletic Bands. Basically, they are Ducks and we are Beavers.

Ceci played in the grass with Emily and many of Emily's old toys. The girls seemed to have a good time together, although I think they'll have even more fun as Ceci gets older. When we first arrived, Emily gave Cecilia a doll that had been her favorite when she was younger. She really wanted her to have it. It was one of the sweetest things I've seen. Emily also introduced us to her hamsters Left and Right (those are really their names). Ceci petted Left once, but we stopped her before she could grab him instead:



We stayed for quite a long time, way past Ceci's bedtime. She fell asleep in the car and stayed asleep until 5:30 am. This was a welcome change, as she's been waking up 2-3 time a night lately. She ate and went back down until almost 9 o'clock. She woke up so happy, it was awesome!

Chris went to school and Ceci and I played together until 11:30. She woke up from her nap at one with the hairdo you see below:

Again, she was such a happy girl! We took Toby for a walk, played in the Exersaucer, then started dinner.

Tonight was our Preview Show of "Puttin' on the Bitz". Ceci came along, but we had Sarah watch her while we played. She made it through most of the First Act, then had to go take a walk in her stroller. She fell asleep while strolling.

We turn in our paperwork tomorrow for the house. We'll keep you posted!

Chapman Week-In-Review 6/25 to 7/1

You would think that during summer break it would be easier to keep up on the blog, but I keep finding other things to do. I'll keep it brief, but some cool things did happen this last week.

Monday, Corvallis welcomed home the OSU Baseball team (two-time National Champions!) The whole family went to the rally at Parker Plaza, outside of Reser Stadium. There were a reported 6,000 fans there. Pretty cool, except the team was a little late getting in and it was WARM. Not Vegas warm, but enough to be toasty.

Tuesday was routine. Ceci went to daycare, Chris went to work, and I ran some errands. Below is a picture from Ceci's evening meal. She likes to be comfortable when she eats:
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday must have been uneventful, because I remember nothing of those days.

Saturday was an awesome day! We drove up to Albany to look at some neighborhoods in which we might be interested to find a house. Some good prospects for sure. Also, Cecilia took her first swim in a pool. She wasn't very happy about it at first, mainly because the water was cool and in the shadows, but she warmed up to the experience (oops, didn't mean the pun) after a bit. The first picture is Cecilia in her float - she has a hat on, sorry! Next is a family pic that a neighbor was kind enough to take.

Sunday, we went to our first "Puttin' On the Bitz" rehearsal. It's a musical revue of Broadway tunes done by a small troupe of performers. It's their second year, but the first year of horn parts. We thought that Ceci would be OK, except that she didn't take her afternoon nap. She was a little trooper, especially when Chris would hold her and play at the same time. Of course, she wanted in on the act:
I'm tired, and my brain just shut off. More neat stuff to tell you tomorrow!