Christmas

This was Camerons 2nd Christmas and he was so cute! Everytime he saw a snowman he would say "noman" and he loved to say "HO HO HO Merry Messmas" In fact he would just walk around the house saying that. It made me laugh.The whole month of December Cameron was so good about not opening the packages under the tree, I wasn't sure what to expect with him. He just had fun carrying them around the house and re-arranging them under the tree. Every now and then he would take a ribbon or bow off and then say "nooo" and shake his head.

I wasn't sure he would know what to do with the presents once we handed them to him, since he didn't try to open them before. But he is a smart kid and went to town!

Of course we (I) never forget to give Tica a few gifts. Grammy and Grampy always show Tica some love and bring gifts too.

I love these pictures! Here is Cam trying to get the lap top out of the box (which is adult proof with screws and barb wire, so of course he couldn't get it out).



Once it was out of the box he got comfy and went to work pushing every button he could as many times as he could! Thanks cousin Lydia, this was a PERFECT gift for him!

Cameron is fascinated with buses. He looks for them when we are driving and yells "BUS" usually before I even spot them. I caputred this cute video of him after he opened his bus.

And I captured this cute picture of Jer after he opened the Wii Mario Kart game. He was really excited :)

Love, love, love this sequence of pictures!! Here Cameron is opening the shopping cart Grammy T gave him....

Next he picks up the heavy box and carries it to daddy all by himself....


Daddy opens it and puts the shopping cart together and Cameron gets a closer look in the box to make sure he got everything out!

After we opened all our gifts Grammy and Grampy came over to give Cameron his gifts and open the ones from us. He definitely got spoiled.

This is the real reason Grammy and Grampy like to come over Christmas morning though :) Jeremy has "twisted my arm" making me promise to carry on the traditional Christmas breakfast wreath my mom made EVERY year when I grew up. It is a total labor of love! I takes the entire day before to make it....I curse a few times that day, but then when I am eating it Christmas morning it is all worth it!

In the afternoon Jeremy's dad and his wife flew in from Texas to visit for a few days. Cameron opened up his gifts from them. His favorite was this vacuum. I don't know what I was thinking when I said to get this...except that it makes Cameron happy and that makes me happy! He literally wouldn't let this thing out of his sight the rest of that day. After they left to go to Jeremy's brother's house, I took Cam on a drive so he would take a nap (our little ritual for him to fall asleep) and he insisted he take the vacuum with him and hold it in his car seat and it had to be ON. So when I thought he was sleeping I reached back and turned it off and he immediately woke up crying. So back on it went and back to sleep he went, but every time he would be almost asleep he would loosen his grip on the thing and it would wake him up causing issues! Finally after driving around for 15 minutes with this scinero happening every 3 seconds I aborted the mission and returned home! Still to this day he has to have the vacuum on even if he isn't playing with it, and he notices when I turn it off even if he is in the other room and will run to turn it back on. I can't quite get myself to take the battries out....yet anyway!

Then he got a fun basket ball play set. He will get a lot use out of this. Cameron shows a big interest in sports and has a pretty good arm!

Then at 4:00 we went down to Margo & Rick's for dinner and more gift exchanges. I thought for sure Cam would fall asleep on the drive there, but nope! Good thing he is a super easy going and not moody kid because I don't know many kids that can go all day without a nap, be overly stimulated, and still be happy, funny, & in a good mood never crying once!!

Rick had all his kids jumping off the fridge and various ledges when they could balance. I wanted to see what Cameron would think of it....so Rick willingly particpated. Of course Camero LOVED it and couldn't get enough of it...after several times of it Rick was worn out. I think Cameron bonded with Uncle Rick this day.

Cute cousins....

Mallory drew Cameron's name this year and he scored with this ginormous Mr. Potato Head that had 4 other potato heads and a million pieces inside of it! Cameron loves to play with this and it is so cute to see the creations he makes. He knows all the names of the parts and will say them so cute....he just doesn't know where they all go yet. Sometimes Mr. Potato head ends up with an arm protruding out of his head and his eyes where his nose should go. He does know where the shoes go and the purse...he always gets my purse for me when I say we are going to go somewhere. He even calls Jeremy's computer bag "daddy's purse"....I keep trying to tell him it is a "man bag" but he insists on calling it a purse LOL.

Cam found some cool shades and fun things to play with while we were there. Lindsie had a lot of fun playing with him.

They played with Mallory's DJ piano thing she got. Cam had fun pounding on the piano and recording a song.



Then while a few of us were tearing it up playing Rock Band to ACDC....Margo & Michele watched Cameron take a shower in her waterfall. They said he was having the time of his life and they have never seen him laugh soooo hard. He played in the water for about 30 minutes. Needless to say he was SOAKED from head to toe and had to borrow clothes to wear home.

Christmas Eve we always go to my parent's house for dinner and the traditional gift opening. Paw Paw Herb and Cam read a book. He loves Paw Paw & gets excited everytime he sees Paw Paw and Maw Maw. He gives them high fives and laughs.

So this picture was me opening my gift....that night....my mom cut out the most important part (the gift) but obviously I was excited! She gave each of us daughters these sterling silver goblet things that we have all coveted forever. They are heavy, sturdy, goblets that remind me of something a knight would drink out of in the midevil period. They are awesome! It makes me want to have a party so I can use them!

Margo still can't ride in a car since she broke her neck, so they weren't able to come this year. We missed their family, it wasn't the same without them! Good thing Spencer and Janessa were there to play with Cameron :)

AWWHHHH....Cameron loves Grampy! Cam gives the BEST hugs ever. He is such a tender, loving little boy. He is my sweet heart.

Cameron opening up his gift....

He saw it and yelled "Mouse"! He is still obsessed with Mickey Mouse and knows all the characters names and even has most of the shows memorized.

We went to Thanksgiving Point one night to drive around and see the lights. It is so neat because there are amazing lights and sceens created from lights that you get to view from the warmth of your cozy car. You pay $8 per car and drive around with your radio tuned to a certain station that plays Christmas music. Cameron sat on my lap in the from seat and got soooooo excited, pointing out every light and calling out "moose" and "ho ho ho" and "LIGHTS!" and "noman". After the lights we were headed home and I noticed a bunch of people standing around so I looked and saw some reindeer. I told Jeremy to stop and we could let Cameron go look at them. Jeremy had to go to the bathroom so we went inside the building. While they went to the bathroom I decided to get a hot fudge sunday :) So I was sitting there enjoying my dessert and I saw them walking down the stairs.....then right behind them came Mr. and Mrs. Clause!! I tried to get Jeremy's attention to tell him to turn around, but he couldn't hear me. I ran over there with my camera (leaving my dessert and purse unattended) so I could snap a picture. Mr. and Mrs. Clause were coming from a party upstairs and headed home. I ended up getting a few pictures. Cameron wasn't sure what was going on and wouldn't talk until Santa walked out the door....then he got all excited and squeeled "ho ho ho Merry Messmas!"

Then we went outside and saw Santa's reindeer.

Another annual tradition is the ornament hanging at my Grandma Murdoch's Mortuary. My parents' treat us to dinner and then we go hand the ornament on the tree in rememberance of cute Granny. Again we were small in numbers without Margo's family!

Merry Christmas!

NYC in December

Jeremy and I went to New York to celebrate our 4 year anniversary (which was in November)....I wanted to go to NY, but wanted to go in December so we could see what "the city that never sleeps" was like at Christmastime! It was festive, cold, fun and magical....

Here we are at the Rockefellar Center Christmas Tree. It is really HUGE and pretty. I think they said it is 30 years old and somewhere around 72 feet tall. We were going to go ice skating, but it was raining. We ended up talking to these guys and asked one of them to take our picture. We talked to them for about 30 minutes (where are you from, what brought you to NY, do you like it, blah blah....etc.) We were talking about the show Wicked and the guy told us to go see a particular one, he got out his phone to check where it was playing and there was Robert Dineros picture under his phone number. I said something like, "oh your friends with Robert Dinero?" and he said no, I am cousins with him. The funny thing is I was thinking he looked like him. This guy lives in Lond Island and just came to look at the tree and go to dinner. When I found out he was from Long Island, I asked him if he ever sees Billy Joel and if he still lived there and he told me he sees him often and that he is "crazy rich" and "a real nice guy". Then they asked what we were doing for the evening, inviting us to dinner and Jeremy quickly said we had plans before I could say "we would love to hang out with you guys, how about we drive to Billy's house and see if he wants to join us for dinner!!"

Trump Towers

In front of Trump Towers

This building was cool, it had lights on it to look like a present all wrapped up...

Another festive building...

There were about 8 of these nut-crackers in front of this building. They were huge!

One of the main reasons I wanted to go to NY is because I wanted to see Wicked! It was soooooo awesome, I would have gone to it again the next night! The theater it was in was pretty (the picture is a little too dark to tell) and the props were amazing!

We didn't plan on seeing another broadway show since they are kinda pricey, and neither of us are that into musicals, but since Wicked was so good and we were in NY, we decided to see Mary Poppins. This was another terrific musical. I was surprised at how much I liked it.

This was the theater Marry Poppins was in, there were these fun little private seat things (forgot the name), but Jeremy and I talked about how that was a little too Abe Lincolnish.

We took a feri boat over to Staten Island and got a close view of the Statue of Liberty.

Jer and I in Time Square. It really is the city that never sleeps, I think this picture was at midnight after one of the shows we saw. We never went to bed before 2 am, by the time we were done having fun, we had to take the subway back to our hotel.

We went to a museum next to Ground Zero and saw the drawing and plans for what they are building there in place of the Twin Towers. This statue was covered in flags and notes and all kinds of memories from 9-11.

We took a long walk across the Brooklyn Bridge with all the other tourists :)


I think the temple there is really neat, it's just one of the building surrounded by a million other buildings, but it stands out in it's own way.

Jeremy in front of the temple

One of my FAVORTE things about being in NY is the musical numbers on the streets and especially in the subway stations!! One night we stopped and listened to "The Meetles" at about midnight. They were really good and actually sounded like The Beatles. The best part about it is, they were a bunch of old men who were missing teeth and probabaly homeless or addicted to alcohol/drugs and they reminded me of several of my clients, but they were doing something pro-active and actually working for money. Of couse we dropped some in their bucket because we would much rather give to them than to the drunk, homeless men in McDonalds that were begging for money and then go outside to swig on their Jack Daniels.

We saw pleanty of Santa Clause wanna be's, but this one was the best. I had to laugh that he was on one of these things! No wonder Santa is FAT :)

So I told Jeremy I wanted a picture with the Minnie Mouse imposter to show Cameron and I said I bet I will have to pay her. Jeremy said, "duh why would you have to pay?" I told him that pretty much people would do anything to make a buck and they expect you to "donate" to them. So sure enough after the picture, he/she pointed to her Christmas stocking and I gave here some money.

These guys are amazing. I saw them last time I was in NY. They were drawing crowds of spectators and made tons of money. We put in a few bucks, and the guy next to me dropped a $20 in the hat, apparently he really liked these guys! We guessed them make about $600 or more a day.

I was on the front row cheering and dancing....I tell ya, I get into this kind of stuff. I LOVE the atmosphere of NYC, it reminds me a little of my other favorite place....San Francisco!

We walked around Central Park (well around the outside of the inside...LOL) and Jeremy climbed onto some rocks so we could see the building behind him.

There were carriage rides going through Central Park, that would have bee fun to do but it was raining and we were headed to one of the Broadway Shows

The famous piano from the movie "BIG" in FAO Swartz. Some workers played a musical number on it and then they let anyone who wanted to jump around on it.

Jer standing by some Starwars guy (I don't know who it is because I have never see it!), but it was pretty neat all made out of Legos.

Lego land had some neat creations, this was a giant Lego Santa. Although FAO was impressive, we thought Toys R Us was much more exciting, and a lot bigger of a place!

This buidling was across from the ginormous tree in Rockefellar Square and every 30 minutes or so it played music and had these snowflakes and bubbles projected onto the building. I only got a few seconds of the show and wished I had filmed more, but I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out. We had a great time in NYC and I can't wait to go back!!

Thanks to Michele and my mom and dad for watching Cameron. We couldn't have gone if it wasn't for you guys. Although I missed Cam a ton, I knew he was being very well taken care of. He loves his Aunt Michele and his Grammy and Grampy and I know he had fun with them. These pictures say it all...Grampy put a rope on the laundry basket and pulled him around the house. He laughed the whole time. It was nice to come home to a clean house and a happy, healthy boy. We thought about Cam the whole time we were there and I laughed because we actually spent most of our time shopping for him in stores like FAO, Toys R Us, and other toy stores.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a lot different this year. It was Margo's year for her family to eat with all of us (they switch everyother year with her in-laws), but since her accident she isn't able to ride in a car for 3 months. So we missed having her family with us for dinner, but we went to her house after for dessert. I think my family reflected more on our blessings this year and we are all so thankful that Margo, Rick, Lindsie, Troy, and Mallory are all still here with us and that their accident wasn't worse! I know it made me more grateful for my family and the gift of life.

Daddy, Cam, and Mommy before the big feast

It's so fun to see how excited Cameron gets when he sees Grampy and Grammy!



Jeremy's grandparent's Paw Paw and Maw Maw are always there on Thanksgiving. Paw Paw always brings the sweet potatoe casserole, it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without it!

Grammy taught Cameron a fun trick....what kid (and some adults still do) doesn't put olives on their fingers at Thanksgiving??

What you talkin' about willis??

Hanging out on the bean bag watching the cousins play Wii

Janessa and Spencer playing a mean game of bowling. By the look on Janessa's face, I would wager she is losing :)

Dessert time!! We all went to Margo and Ricks for the good stuff. Cameron is sharing with daddy because mommy doesn't share her dessert!

Lindsie, Cam, and Mallory. Troy and Spencer weren't interested in dessert, they wanted to play.

The fam, including Jeremy's mom Theresa aka "Grammy T", she came to visit for a few days! We always love having her come.

It's hard to get a good pictue of the 3 of us! This one was cute though, Cameron was laughing and trying to jump off my lap.

We all went down to the theater room to watch a little video. Janessa and Lindsie played pool and Spencer and Troy were playing Wii so I didn't get any pictures of them :(

Grammy T always takes the grandkids to Build A Bear when she sees them. I think that is such a cute tradition/idea!! I helped Cameron step on the peddal to fill up his moose. He loves Moose (or is it Meese or Mooses??) anyway, he says it soooo cute!

It was taking awhile for Grammy T to stand in line and pay etc. so Cameron had fun looking around. I didn't know where he was and went around the corner looking for him and this is what I saw. He had climbed up the stairs and was just sitting there blabbing to himself. He is so good at entertaining himself...and the things he thinks to do crack me up!


I am thankful for this adorable, smart, funny, loving, cute, happy, good, creative, active, wonderful boy!! I am thankful I get to be his mom! I am thankful for families and for the gospel, to know that I get to live with my family for eternity is a comforting thing. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!