Silly boys

Cameron's friend Tyson came over to play today.  They have so much fun together and it's so cute to watch them interact and talk to each other.  So when Tyson's mom came to pick him up he didn't want to go home....the boys ran into  Cameron's room while we were talking.  Finally we started calling for them to come out because it was time for Tyson to leave.  After waiting for awhile we went to his room to see what they were up too....it was pretty quiet.  I immediately saw them when I walked in the room, but Tyson's mom didn't know where they were....the boys couldn't stay quiet much longer and started laughing.  Of course I had to go get my camera.  That was a pretty smart of them to think of hiding there because Tyson didn't want to leave!  Are these two going to give us a run for our money??

 

Shhhh...

I love this picture!  I love that she fell asleep in the swing.  I love that when I put her in there she had no toys with her.  I love that when peeked in the room to make sure she was okay Cameron was by her swing talking to her. I love that he calls her "honey" and "sweetheart".   I love that he put these toys in her swing "to make her happy".  I Love my kids!!

Cute Cameron

I got the kids ready for church on Sunday and put Kenzie in her crib so I could get ready.  In between drying my hair I would check on her and one of the times I came in her room to this Kodak moment!  How sweet is this...he is laying by his little sis holding her hand!  He wasn't jumping on her or poking out her eyes or making her cry.

He just wanted to be close to his sister.

A few funny things that Cameron has said lately or has been said about him:

Mommy: Cameron you were such a good boy, thank you for listening to me when I said it was time to go. 

Cameron:  And you were such a good girl too mommy, I'm so proud of you.

Lately Cameron has been telling me "you're a nice mommy"

Cameron and I were playing with some toys and doing a puzzle when out of the blue he says, "let's go upstairs and eat some chocolate!"  I think I've trained this kid a little too well :)

Cameron loves to watch  me cook dinner and lately has been wanting to  help.  So the other day I said Cameron do you want to stir the meat while I pour this in it?  Cameron responds "of course I do".  And another occasion which I forgot what he was responding to....I had asked him if he could do something and he said, "of course I can mommy."  I sometimes will say "of course I will" to him when he asks me to get him some chocolate milk or to hold him or something....so it's funny to hear him say that stuff back!

We were eating lunch the other day and Cameron was playing in the play area by himself, he was so excited when another kid came in to play.  The boy was about 8 years old and they were running around and going down the slides etc.  About 10 minutes later the boy says to his dad, "man this kid has a lot of energy!"

Another night I took the kids over to watch Jeremy's basketball game and my friend was there with her kids.  Cameron and her kids started playing and running in and out of the gym and paying tag and racing each other.  My friend's little girl (6 years old) came over to me out of breath and said, "who taught this kid how to run so fast!"

Party Time!

 Cameron went to his first friend birthday party.  He was so excited he ran out the door before I could get a picture, so we took it by the car :)

Quinn turned 3 and had a party at The Little Gym.  It was a perfect place for a party.  They had some fun games and then the kids just ran wild on all the gym equipment.  Several moms commented on how coordinated and agile Cameron was.  He just ran, climbed, jumped, hung, rolled, and slid on just about everything in the room.

How cute is this picture!  It seems so weird to me that I took Cameron to his friends birthday party!!  He is growing up soooo fast.  I love that he has cute friends and I am so excited to watch him grow up with his friends and get to know them as teenagers.  

 Cameron sat back and watched patiently as Quinn opened his gifts, but when he was ready to open the ones Cameron brought.....that was a different story....Cameron jumped right up and decided to help Quinn.  He said "you open this one and I will open this one." 

As we started to drive away Cameron said, "I had so much fun, Quinn is a  nice friend."  Then he talked about everything he did at the party.  5 minutes later he was out.  The party was a success and successfully wore him out :)

4 months of happiness :)

I can't believe this little girl is 4 months old already!  I can't believe how stinkin cute she is either!  She is always so happy.  She has brought 4 months of joy, smiles, laughs, sweetness, and tenderness to our family!  Cameron LOVES his little sister and is so much cuter and soft with her than I EVER imagined!  He is always  wanting to hold her hand and sit by her.  He shares her toys and tries to find things to make her happy.  Tonight at dinner he said out of the blue, "that's my sister" and then he says "she is so nice to me".

Mackenzie is cooing and babbling like crazy.  She has started to spit little bubbles and make funny noises with her lips. She smiles non-stop and has the cutest dimple in her left cheek.  She is teething and constantly sucks on her fist or anything she can.  She discovered her feet and loves to grab onto her cute little toes. Mackenzie isn't the best sleeper, but she gives good effort.  She has regulated her sleep patterns pretty well and naps consistently at the same times during the day and wakes up about 2 to 3 times a night to eat still.  She is strong and loves to stand.  Her grip is amazing and she usually pulls out globs of my hair!  She is starting to try to roll over on her own.  If she can see you or something on the TV (anything that is interactive) she will be fine to sit in her swing, her Bumbo, or lay under her mat for awhile.  She reaches for things and can hold toys.  The only thing that she HATES is riding in the car....she is fine in her car seat, but once you put her in the car she starts crying (usually the whole ride).  The only thing I can figure out is she hates to stare at nothing and if she can't see anybody or something interesting she gets mad.

So at Mackenzie's 4 month check up her Dr. said basically she is a tiny little girl.  She moved up the charts to the 8th % in weight however, weighing in at 11 lbs 2 oz.  She is in the 56th% for length measuring at 24 in 64 cm.  Her head is looking great...as you can guess we were a little concerned that she might have to have a helmet since Cameron did.  But apparently her head looks fine!

 Since she is so tiny and doesn't eat more than 2 to 3 oz of milk at a feeding (she should be at 4 to 6 oz every 2 hours). The Dr. mentioned that if we wanted we could try her on solid foods early.  So we decided to try some sweet potatoes to see if she liked solid food better than bottles or if she really wasn't interested in eating.  Here are some pictures of her first attempt at eating solids.

Reaching for the food, that's a good sign :)

Smiling with anticipation and excitement to eat sweet potatoes....OR....smiling because she looks so innocent but there again she is giving her signature birdie finger??!!

The first spoonful...her face is a little unsure, but she tried to swallow it.

It was finger lickin' good

Who wants some more?

she was pretty proud of herself and the mess she made

overall it was a success.  We will just keep introducing a little bit here and there.  Hopefully she will start eating more so she can grow a little more.  She is 4 months old, but really looks like she could be 2 months.  Everyone that sees her always says "oh she is soooo tiny".   We love you Kenzie and are so happy you joined our family.  It amazes me how much love and joy a little child can bring!  

Happy New Year!

The last few New Year's Eve(s) we have gone to dinner with most of the family and come back to our house to play games and eat more!  I thought Cameron would really like watching the chefs at a Japanese Steak House....so that's where we went for dinner.  It was nice because we had enough people that we got the whole table to ourselves.  Sometimes you go and end up sitting with people you don't know at the table.

Jeremy's grandpa and grandma (Paw Paw & Maw Maw)

My parents (Grammy & Grampy), Michele, Spencer, Barry, and Janessa (she was there, but didn't make it in the picture apparently...sorry :)

Cameron thought it was fun to watch them cook the food and kept saying "fire".  It did keep his attention pretty well though

His favorite part was playing with the chopsticks, my favorite part was catching the shrimp the guy throws in the air at you, Jeremy's favorite part was the sushi and the food....he would eat there every night if he could. After an entertaining dinner we headed back to our casa.  Jeremy's brother Garry and his family met us at our house.  We had a lot of yummy snacks to munch on as we talked and played balderdash, the best game ever....especially playing with my family.  Every year all we do is LAUGH.  That's what I love about my family (especially my dad) is we sure have fun and laugh a lot.  It was a great way to ring in the new year.  However, it was the first year everyone pooped out and rang in the new year around 10:30.  Ha Ha!

Merry Christmas!

 Cameron woke up once in the middle of the night so I went in his room to see what he needed and to cover him back up.  It was so cute, the first thing he said is "let's go see if Santa ate the cookies and the reindeer at the carrots."  I said, "it's the middle of the night still Santa hasn't come yet so we can check in the morning when you wake up."  So sure enough when he woke up he ran right out of his room into the family room and said "mom lets see if the cookies are gone!"

After he saw that there were only crumbs from the cookie and the carrots and milk were gone, he was off to open presents.  It was such a fun Christmas this year.  He was so excited and cute.  He had a hard time understanding if a present was from "mom and dad" or someone else, he would say "no, it's from Santa".

I was sleeping on the couch with Kenzie when Cameron woke up so I got up and carefully placed her on the couch surrounded by pillows, not really expecting her to sleep since she can tell once you put her down!  But she slept through the first 20 minutes of present opening and excitement!

Cameron asked Santa to bring him a camera.  He even wrote Santa a letter and sent it to him asking for a camera.  Santa wrote him back and said he would bring him one if he continued to be a good boy and a nice big brother.  He was excited to open this gift!  Apparently he told Santa in the letter he wanted a bear too....because for days after when anyone would ask what Santa brought him he would say "He brought me a camera but he didn't bring me a bear".  Santa didn't get the memo on that one :)

I love this picture, it captures the excitement and the 'can't open a present fast enough' Christmas feeling of a kid.  The blur of the wrapping paper says it all.  I also love that Mackenzie is just sitting there watching Cameron open gifts with reckless abandon.

Mommy & Daddy gave Cameron a kitchen set, but of course he kept saying it came from Santa.  Sheesh, let's give a little credit where credit is due :)  

He LOVES this and plays with it several hours a day.  We turned the downstairs office room into his playroom and had it set up in there.  Cameron loves to cook and is totally in the stage of pretend, imaginative play.  He always wants to help me cook breakfast and dinner, so I knew this would be the perfect thing for him!

Cameron helped Mackenzie open her gifts and he opened one and I said "what is it?" Cameron said, "oh it's a thing that makes Kenzie happy" and went over to show her.  He pushed the buttons and made the music go.  It is the cutest thing to watch him with her.

She enjoyed her first Christmas and was happy as always!

We went over to Jeremy's brothers later in the afternoon for the gift exchange of cousins.  

Then we came back to our house and Grammy & Grampy came over to give Cameron his presents.

He was excited with the drawing board.....he is so artistic and loves to draw.

He said this picture was of a giraffe.

He had to test out the other side with the dry erase markers too.

Cameron actually took a nap after Grammy & Grampy left.  When he woke up we headed to Margo & Ricks for dinner and more presents :)

Santa brought us this microphone that turns your voice into an elf voice when you sing.  He wanted to take it to show everyone.  Cameron LOVES to sing & dance more than anything I think.  He sings all day long, either real songs or making songs up.  Then he says "remember that song mom" or "do you like that song?"  

Cameron told Aunt Margo that he wanted a truck so he was excited to open a big fire truck.  Uncle Rick helped him get it out of the box and put batteries in it.

I think Christmas wore Mackenzie out.  She couldn't stay awake any longer.  What a great Christmas it was and it will just get better and better as the kids get older!

Christmas Eve

We had our traditional Christmas Eve dinner at Grammy and Grampy's and as always we all got stuffed with the delicious food.

Janessa, Lindsie & Mackenzie

I used to always get so excited to open one gift on Christmas Eve clear up until last year.  This year though the excitement for me has changed....I couldn't wait for Cameron to open his gift and wanted to get home to bed so we could see how excited he would be when Santa came!  Kids make Christmas so much more fun!

Grammy & Kenzie

Cameron is the biggest crack up.  He is always putting hats on and even putting things on his head that aren't hats.  Everyone was just talking and the kids were playing when someone said to look at Cameron.  He had taken this hat off of a bear that my mom had out as a decoration.  He wore it for a long time that night :)

We got home from Grammy & Grampy's, took a bath and got ready for bed.  Cameron was so excited to leave cookies for Santa and carrots for Ruldolph the red nosed reindeer and "Ruldoph the black nosed reindeer"  (he would see other reindeer in books, movies, etc and call them black nosed Ruldolph...I guess he figured all reindeer were named Ruldolph and some had red noses and some black.