Sweet Little Boy

Family and Friends

My aunt Lori, uncle Dan, and their kids Courtney and Creighton drove all of the way from Norman on Sunday just to see Casen! Other than grandparents, they officially win the award for the farthest traveled. Of course, it's easy to understand why someone would be so excited to go anywhere out of Norman, Oklahoma!

Some more friends from church, Tim and Casey Bozeman, came by Saturday night to see Casen. They were naturals with the baby!

Friday Friends

Shalene, a good friend from church, and her 5 month old son, Trey, came by Friday afternoon for a visit. I was beginning to think that I could really see Casen starting to grow and fill out until I saw Casen next to Trey. Granted, Trey's dad was the offensive blocker responsible for Ladanian Tomlinson's Heisman Trophy, but still my little man looked well...so little!

James and Laura stopped by. They are a couple from Eikon, the young singles group at McKinney. Chris is going to marry them this Spring. They romantically got engaged this past summer in Italy after the young adults mission trip to Florence!

Chad and Samantha McNeal first met Chris in Stillwater and made their way to Fort Worth long before we landed here. They were great at introducing us to all of the fun places Fort Worth has to offer and they have a ton of good stories on Chris from his college days. We always have a ton of fun hanging out with them!

Visitors and New PJ's

Drew, Dawn and Ethan Leaver are really great friends who drove all of the way from Plano this morning to see our little man. Since they were over this way, they made a day of it and went to the Fort Worth Zoo. I can't wait to hear their report on the zoo. Besides making homemade play dough, taking Casen to the zoo is one of things I am most looking forward to.

Grandma Freeland headed back to Stillwater today. Casen had a great time playing and cuddling with her. However, since Casen didn't have any grandma's or Millie's around this evening to cook dinner, Kathy Horton, our senior pastor's wife brought over a chicken pot pie. It was good to see her again and great to not have to cook dinner!

This is Casen in his new and much smaller pj's. They are working much better and he now stays fully dressed all night long!

Grandma Time

We ended up having a lot of sonograms throughout our pregnancy and it seemed like almost every time the sonographer tried to get a shot of Casen's face he would have an arm in the way. We now see why. He loves to have his arms by his face. No matter how well we swaddle Casen at night his arms always end up finding a way out and stay by his face all night long. I guess he's pretty stubborn like his daddy!







Grandma Freeland has been in town since Monday. She has made some great meals and Casen loves to cuddle with her!

Bowels Fully Functioning

These are all pictures taken today. Yep, as you can see, we went through a lot of outfits! Either Casen didn't like what he was wearing or Pampers Swaddlers aren't all they are made out to be because Casen peed on two outfits and spit up on the other. We are now on the fourth onesie.

Normally, this would be okay but since Casen is so small he only has about five outfits that somewhat fit right now. Poor kid keeps getting tangled in his pj's at night. I felt so sorry for him that I ran to Babie's R Us today and bought him two preemie pj outfits. Now I won't wake up and find his arm sticking straight up out of the neck of his pj's!

I'm hoping he'll be so comfy that he'll decide to sleep through the night, but I'm not getting my hopes up just yet!

Changing of the Guard

Chris told me today that it's time to turn my blog back over to me. If you know either of us, you know that one of us is a person of many words and one of us is not. But Casen is too cute not to share. So forgive me if the blog is a little picture heavy and word light. If you want to read Chris's musings read his blog. His blog may be more wordy, but mine will be hands down more cute!



We had a changing of the guard today. My mom (Millie) left this morning and Chris's mom (Grandma for now) showed up about two hours later. She loves her first grand baby!


Isn't this such an adorable baby?

Carpal Tunnel Relief

The good news is, I go back to the office tomorrow morning, so those of you who have developed carpal tunnel syndrome from clicking refresh will have a little relief. Kari is going to start maintaining her blog, so you can expect a few less updates.

The bad news is, Kari takes a billion more pictures than I, so the updates may be much more substantive. Good luck.

Deren and Amy came by earlier to see Kari and Casen. Amy is incubating one of Casen's good friends Harrison who should be here in November. They're a part of the group who plays Bunco every month on a Thursday night. Kari missed Bunco last Thursday because she was having a baby,

We had some "tummy time" this afternoon, which was fun. He's usually pretty wide awake during tummy time, so we got a couple of good pictures.

How could anyone resist that face?

One more funny story: We picked the name Casen because we had never heard of another person named Casen (I have been Chris F. my entire life). I saw it in a baby name book and was hooked. After I talked Kari out of Clive, she was hooked too.

Yesterday we went into the lactation nurse for Casen's first checkup (he passed with flying colors). When she got in the room, the nurse acted really confused while she was looking at her paperwork. She said, "You guys have been discharged, right?"

"Yeah, we went home on Thursday."

"That's really strange. There's another family in 2237 right now (our postpartum room) with a baby named Casen... and that's the fourth one I've seen this week."

I told her to go tell them to change it.

And dadgum if we didn't just logon the computer to finish the baby announcement and see that the example was for a boy named "Cason."

So if you're out there stealing our name, we're not at all happy with you. I knew we should have gone with T. Boone...

More Visitors!

These are our friends Emily and Erick. Emily is Kari's friend from college who is back after serving a year in Italy. Erick is one of Chris's really good friends at church. Right now they're "our friends Emily and Erick." Whodathunk?



These are our friends Josh and Robin from church. They stopped by to say hello to Casen. Robin and Casen had a great time together. I think Josh was a little afraid Casen would break or spit up. They drove down from Saginaw to see Casen, which was really sweet.

I think everyone with pets wonders how their pets will do with the addition of a new baby. Our beagle Sutton is about as great a dog as they come, and she loves Casen. She's not sure what to do with him when he cries, but as long as he's quiet, she is definitely his buddy. This morning, Casen was laying on the bed (Kari was watching) when Sutton jumped up there and layed down next to him. She put her paw over him and went to sleep. That was all really cute until...

Casen decided it would be fun to suck Sutton's paw instead of his fingers. Poor sweet Sutton had to move.

This is what happens when Casen doesn't sleep at night. Last night was the first night he had a rough time of it. Kari fed him about 11, but he was still wide awake and fussy until about 2am. Chris got to walk laps around the house for a few hours before he finally went to sleep. He's all yawns this morning, and so are Mom, Dad, and Millie.

More Visits

This is Casen's buddy Jaye. Jaye is going to help Daddy teach Casen how to pitch right-handed and left-handed so Casen can make Daddy lots of money. Jaye's comfort level with baby-holding is at about the same level as Kari's comfort-level with public speaking. But he did a great job.



This are some of our good friends from Plano. They're not our only good friends from Plano, but they're a few of our good friends Jason and Joy with their son Carsten. They made the long haul from Plano to see their new buddy, and Carsten's new buddy Casen.



Carsten was fairly impressed with Casen. Not as impressed as he was with Sutton and her tennis ball, but it was clear that Carsten and Casen will have lots of fun times together.



Millie was not impressed with our picture from yesterday. She won't be impressed with this picture of her either, but you need to know how hard she has worked since she's been here. Kari and I could not have done this thing without her help. The above picture is her and Kari's sister Sara last night cooking dinner. Millie may not break a hip taking pictures of Casen, but she might break her back working so hard while she's here. She has cooked, cleaned, and run errands the whole time she's been here. She even took Sutton for a 4-mile walk yesterday morning. She's a very good mother, mother-in-law, and Millie.




Gratuitous cute photograph for Big Mama's brag book.

I actually got halfway through posting this entry when some other friends showed up. I'll have pictures of them in the morning sometime.

It's a shame I (Chris) am going to have to go back to work tomorrow. It's too bad I can't make any money just taking cute pictures of my kid.

Casen Pics

Here are a few more pictures for those of you who have told me you sit at your computer obsessively-compulsively clicking "refresh" until we upload new pictures (Grandma). Casen's got some friends coming over this afternoon, so we should have some new ones tonight. We don't mind uploading them - we're happy to be proud of our kid.

John Michael, Sutton, and Millie's Hip

Casen's cousin and aunt Sara came to visit from Edmond today. John Michael really thought Casen's name should be Methuselah, but thinks Casen's pretty cute despite a poor name choice by Aunt Kari and Uncle Chris.

John Michael did have a hard time figuring out the whole "eating" thing. Sara recently had twins, and had to bottle feed them for sanity's sake. So, John Michael has been very interested in watching the feeding. The following is a conversation that happened earlier:

John Michael: What's he doing?

Kari: I'm feeding him.

John Michael: That's not how my mommy does it. Are you sure you know what you're doing?

Of course, holding babies and watching them eat isn't a ton of fun for a 4-year-old. So, John Michael thought it would be fun to re-enact the Olympics. Chris and John Michael played imaginary baseball for a while, wrestled for a while, and then did some synchronized floor exercise. This was the grand finale.

Sutton and Casen are already good buddies. Sutton laid down with Kari while she was feeding Casen, and then she laid him down next to her. Don't worry Memaw - they were closely supervised!

How closely supervised? Here's a rare behind-the-scenes look at at how we've shot some of the pictures we've taken today. Sutton and Casen are about ready for the new to wear off so the paparazzi will let them sleep in peace. Pray we won't be back in the hospital this week replacing Millie's hip.

Casen Meets Sutton, and more

Several of you have asked how Sutton did with the new addition. She was pretty excited when she got home. She spent a couple of nights with Paul and his wife-who-remains-unnamed, and had a great time. But, she was pretty excited to be home, and it took her a while to sniff out Casen. When she finally found him, she licked his feet a little, and then went on to sniffing out the rest of the house.


This is where Sutton sat throughout dinner. She didn't bother Casen, but guarded him pretty well while we were eating. It was pretty cute.



Here's one for Grandma Freeland's brag book.




This morning, Casen was resting while Chris was telling him all about his Uncle Blake and Aunt Katie. Casen is now caught up on the Charleston Southern University football team, and can't wait to see how they do this year. Casen was very impressed with Uncle Blake's stellar Sports Information work, and can't wait to meet his aunt and uncle.




This is Casen asleep in the cradle Grandpa Freeland made for Chris before he was born. He looks pretty tiny in there, but slept really well. Thanks Grandpa!

Home again, Home Again

We busted out of the hospital around 3pm today. Unfortunately, Daddy hasn't mastered the ability to hold the carrier in such a way that you can tell there's a baby inside. But yes, Casen came home too.



Brenda and Benjamin came by the hospital. Brenda is a fellow OSU cowgirl that Chris got to baptize several months ago at church, so we have a really special relationship with their family. Benjamin's going to be a good buddy.



Chris caught this one before we left the hospital. I guess pooping feels good.



This one's for Chris's friend Ben. Casen can't wait to go flying when Ben's a fighter pilot.




This is Chris's favorite picture so far. Millie took it right after we got home.