Hello there

Luke has this cute habit of looking at me sideways and I was finally ready with my camera to get a picture of it.

He really enjoyed last weeks beautiful weather. He wasn't sure about sitting in the grass at first, especially in his summer clothes. He cried the second he felt the prickly grass under him, but once I got him interested in playing with the grass and other toys, he quickly forgot about it.

Cameryn was a very attentive big sister as well. She would talk to him and play with him and get him more toys. He loved all the attention and being outside in the fresh air.

He was so excited when he got to see his daddy driving up and coming up the walk. You can really see his cute little mohawk in the picture with his dad. I love his cute little smile and he is just so cuddly and happy. He's my cute chubby little man.

I can't wait for this summer when we get to go to the park and to the pool with my mom and brother and sister. Kathryn is so good with Cameryn at the pool and loves to play with her in the water. I am hoping that Luke with like the pool as much as Cameryn does though. He likes baths but pool water is much different so we'll have to wait and see.

Mike got out his little dirt bike and took Cameryn for a ride on it. She actually does enjoy being on there even though she doesn't look too thrilled in the picture. It is supposed to be warmer again towards the end of the week again and I'm looking forward to walks in a stroller and to the park.

Busy week

I have a lot to write about but so little time that I am going to try to make a few separate and small posts today.

I finally got some pictures of Cameryn kissing her Mr. Potato Head. She is so silly. I was just glad that I actually had my camera right next to me when she was doing it. I love seeing her little imagination come to life and watching her doing these adorable things.

We've had a very interesting week as far as weather goes. All last weekend it was beautiful weather; sunny and warm enough that all you needed was a light jacket to go outside. Then Monday and Tuesday it was so warm (in the 70's) that I needed to get out Cameryn's shorts and t-shirts and find some rompers for Luke to wear. Mike went to Toy's R Us and bought Cameryn and new tricycle to learn to ride. She was so funny. She would try to pedal herself but then would stop paying attention to where she was going, so we would have to remind her to steer which would then cause her to take her feet off the pedals. I never knew there was so much to teaching kids how to ride even a tricycle. She has been having a lot of fun with it though.

Well, Wednesday it started to cool down and got really windy and a little bit colder but not too bad. Then Thursday it just kept getting worse and by Friday it was snowing and sleeting. We got about 6 inches. Cameryn just loved it though. She went outside like 3 different times and was out there for at least an hour each time. She was eating the snow and jumping up and down making feet prints. I let her play on our deck out back so I could watch her and work on another blanket that I was making for someone. We also went out again on Saturday and made a small snowman together. I tried to make it bigger but there wasn't much snow on our deck left to make a big one. Mike also moved her playhouse outside (it was in our basement taking up a lot of room) and she played out there for a while, of course still trying to find as much clean snow as possible to eat. I early on instructed her to not eat any other color snow but white as we have a dog and that would just be really gross.

Today, it is much nicer outside again. Still windy and cold but sunny again and the snow is almost gone already. She is actually taking a nap right now which is a rare thing, but as she has been so incredibly grumpy the past few days in between her periods of fun and happiness, she definitely needs one.

I've had an interesting week. I decided on Saturday that I had had enough of Luke not sleeping in his room so I cleaned it out. I fixed the crib bumper (some of the tie things had gotten ripped off from a certain 2 year old playing in the crib), I washed the sheets again (cat hair), moved the monitor from Cameryn's room into his, and moved some stuff around. I was really nervous about how many times I was going to have to get up and if his crying was going to wake up Cameryn and other worries but it turned out very nicely. He only woke up twice!! Wonder of wonder, Miracle of miracles!!

He's not the soundest sleeper but has so far managed to stay asleep as I move him into his bed down the hall after nursing him in mine. Unfortunately that is THE ONLY way to get him to sleep and stay that way for now. Even when he was a newborn, if I nursed him sitting somewhere and then moved him into his bassinet or where ever, he would always wake up. So I have to nurse him laying down in my bed. For nap time I leave him there and at night, I of course move him to his own bed.

Before if he would wake up while I was moving him I would make him cry himself back to sleep. I hate doing that, it's so hard to lay there and listen to them cry and scream, but soooooooo worth it in the end. At least it was with Cameryn, I draw the line at letting them cry for more than an hour, which he does sometimes. With Cameryn, when she would wake up the first time during the night (mostly out of habit) I would make her cry herself back to sleep. It usually only lasted for 30 minutes then became less and less. Then the second time she woke up I would go get her. She pretty quickly started sleeping for a lot longer and it was really WONDERFUL.

With Luke, the whole crying himself to sleep isn't working so well this time. He just screams and screams, then just quietly sobs and you think he will fall asleep, but no he just keeps crying and crying. He is slowly getting back to sleeping for longer periods of time all by himself though so I guess I'll just wait and see how this goes.

Cameryn did the sweetest thing the other night. We were coming home when it had already gotten dark and Luke HATES to be in the car driving while its dark. He screams the whole time and no matter the time and distance traveling, will not fall asleep. So I decided to try something new, I turned on one of the car lights in the back. It didn't seem to be working, then suddenly he was quiet. So I'm sitting there thinking I'm so smart when I look in my rear view mirror and see that Cameryn had reached over and was holding his little hand in hers. It was the most precious little thing. I almost started crying it was so sweet. She looks up to see me watching her and she just said, "Luke was crying, so I'm holding his hand and he's not crying anymore." She held his little hand the whole way home. I felt so lucky to have such a sweet, thoughtful little girl. He even fell asleep until we got home and I was picking him up out of the car seat.

Lately, we have been having trouble with Cameryn going to bed and letting us leave the room. She is in a regular toddler bed so can get out whenever she wants. She usually doesn't but lately will sit up when we try to leave, after singing her every song we can think of and talking to her about what we are going to do tomorrow and what we did today and also holding her for awhile in the rocking chair, and scream for us to hold her again or that she needs water or to go potty or more songs, etc. We know she is just procrastinating but we also don't want her screaming to wake up her brother in the next room. So on Saturday, Mike, me and the kids went and ran some errands together. We went to Toys 'R Us and bought her these Disney Princess sheets for toddler beds. She was so excited!! Unfortunately it hasn't worked as well as we wanted but it helps a little. She's not always so bad but some nights she REALLY REALLY tries your patience. It's a work in progress with her all the time, but I guess it is with all children.

New Blanket

I decided to finally go to a fabric store and buy some material so that I could make Luke a blanket. He already has plenty of them, but I wanted to give him one from me. Plus, Cameryn has this blanket that my sister, Lindsey, made for her that she absolutely loves and takes with her everywhere. She calls it her "bay" because she didn't know how to say blanket when she was first starting to talk and bay was as close as she could get. Anyways, she loves her blanket and so I modeled Luke's after hers as far as the material and the binding on the edges.

Luke seemed really excited when I gave his new blanket to him. He loves to chew on the soft satiny binding and Cameryn is so excited for him to have a "bay" just like hers. I just love the cute clover pattern too. Someone asked me if he was Irish because of the blanket. I didn't want it to be blue because so many things that you receive from other people when you have a boy are blue and the clovers just popped out at me. It only took a few hours (spread out over 2 days of course) but I think my first baby blanket turned out really well.

Doesn't Luke have the most adorable smile!!

My busy little girl

I have been doing most of my entries in this blog about Luke so I thought I should do one just about Cameryn. Though since babies do more new things then 2 1/2 year olds do, I don't really feel to quilty. I still have a lot to say about my little princess.

Two is an interesting age. They do have their "terrible two" moments but then they also have some of the best moments too. Cameryn is mostly a sweet, funny, very talkative little girl. She loves her little brother so much and takes many minutes out of her busy schedule of playing to give him as many hugs and kisses and squeezes as he will permit before crying from being over loved.

She also spends much of her time singing different primary or Disney songs. She likes to go into the bathroom and get up on her stool to look at herself in our big mirror and sing songs to herself. I've tried many times to capture it on camera but it is next to impossible with her. Oh well, I'll always have it in my memories. Here she is playing with her Winnie the Pooh blocks with Lucas. She has gotten very good at building little forts and places to put the swing and see-saw that came with the set and fit onto the blocks. She likes to share with Luke and tries to get him to build with her though right now he is only good at knocking down so they make a game of it.
Then she quickly moves to coloring in her Strawberry Shortcake coloring book or her Disney Princess book. I confess to getting out my own special box of 96 crayons and my markers and coloring with her. Hey, just because I'm older and her mom doesn't mean that I can't like coloring pretty pictures.

I actually thought that I should buy another Disney Princess coloring book for her and then color a really good picture of each of the princesses and frame them to put up in her room. Most of the pictures in her book now have been colored by her so I would need a new one. Not that they aren't wonderful though. She has become so good at coloring recently. Instead of scribbling all over it, she colors each individual thing and mostly stays in the lines. I'm working on putting her pictures up in her room as well.

Here she is with one of the best presents she got for Christmas, her Mr. Potato Head. She loves to play with him/her and spends lots of time putting it together in all different ways. The other day she was playing with Mr. Tato Head (as she calls him) and had put on these pink lips. She was carrying him around and talking to him and then she picked him up and planted a sweet little kiss right on those pink lips. It was so adorable I had to look away so she wouldn't see me giggling and smiling at her.

Now it's time for her to play with her Alladin and Jasmine dolls that you can dress up. She has really enjoyed these as well. We got them at the Disney Store for Christmas and they had many different sets for all the princesses. She also has all the little princess figurines that she plays with and has to take to bed with her every night.

This is only a fraction of the things that Cameryn does. I couldn't fit in more pictures and plus I think you all got that idea. She is such a joy to have around (most of the time) and though she can throw some pretty bad tantrums, she is mostly a sweet wonderful daughter and I am so lucky to have her.

Fun with a red balloon

On Saturday Luke had so much fun with this balloon at my parents house. He would try to eat it then smack it around until it would get away from him and float to the ceiling. Then he would look around for it and get very frustrated that it wasn't in his little hands.

He is concentrating very hard on this balloon to make sure it doesn't get away anymore. I need to buy some of these plastic balloons. I don't worry as much about these popping as I do the rubber ones.

Here he looks like he is giggling at a joke with the balloon and just having so much fun.

This is my absolute favorite picture of him. He looks so silly!! It really gives you a good idea of what he looked like the whole time while playing with this balloon. Unfortunately, I had to change his diaper and while I did that Kathryn and Devon thought it would be fun to suck the helium out of the balloon so that was the end of that play thing.

Nothing much happening

Doesn't Luke have the cutest little Mohawk. The first picture is how it looks every day all on its own. The second picture, I got his hair all wet and used a comb to make it a real skinny Mohawk. He looks even cuter in real life. The camera just doesn't capture how adorable his little Mohawk is.

He is just such a happy baby. He's still giving me trouble at night but it's starting to get better. I just wish he would sleep in his own room, but so far he won't. I'll get him there eventually but for now I'm so low on sleep I'm not willing to pick up anymore battles than I need to. It's hard enough to get him to stay asleep moving him from the top of my bed to his bassinet that he sleeps in at the foot of my bed.

Ride 'em cowgirl!!!!

I'm really not a dog person at all (we only have one because Mike thinks he can't live without a dog- unfortunately) but I am so thankful that the dog we have is so good with kids. She lets Cameryn pull her tail, chase her, sit on her, ride her, jump on her, use her as a step stool, etc. Cameryn only weighs about 26 pounds and the dog is a strong solid dog so I know it doesn't hurt her. Though just to make sure I'm not accused of animal cruelty, I do try to make sure Cameryn isn't too rough with her.

Isn't she so pretty. Her hair is getting so long and is really fine just like mine (a curse I assure you)(though it looks nice when you're young). I have only ever cut her bangs which I was forced into doing. Not really forced but it took a couple of weeks (maybe months) for me to be talked into doing it. They were always in her eyes and because her hair is so fine I couldn't get them to stay back even with hair clips so I trimmed them finally and will probably have to do it again soon.

We had some more snow this week but this time it was covered in a sheet of ice so it was definitely not as fun as last time. Plus it has been so super cold lately that it isn't melting and I have been trapped in the house for what feels like weeks. I went out on Monday and that was the last time I was out of the house except to get the mail. I hate having to take two kids out into the windy cold outdoors. Oh well, I asked for snow didn't I.

Be careful what you wish for

Wednesday we all woke up to snow. It was all powdery and looked like someone had thrown glitter everywhere. It was so pretty. Mike slept in for a bit and then got up to shovel and left for work. After breakfast, I found out that schools were closed (which happens here anytime we have even a tiny bit of snow) which meant that Kathryn and Devon would be home. I called up my mom and we all decided to go sledding. I had snow stuff for Cameryn, but nothing for Luke. So I decided to just get him dressed in regular clothes and then over top of that I put on his Bee halloween costume which shockingly still fit him. He wasn't really going to play in the snow so he didn't need anything waterproof, just really warm. For his head, I had a little frog hat that one of Mike's Aunt's had given him for Christmas. He looked so cute!!
Anyways, we had an okay time. We had to leave the first place we tried to sled at because we weren't really supposed to be there. Too bad it's the best hill around here though. It's in the stadium at my old high school so we had to climb over a fence to get in there. Luke wasn't too happy anyways so we went back to my mom's and Cameryn slid down the tiny hill next to my mom's house a few times and made snow angels with Kathryn, Devon and their friend Christine. I was only able to take a few quick pictures because Luke by that time was so tired and hungry. So I went into my mom's to feed him and put him down for a nap and my mom took the rest of the kids back to Christine's house and they had hot chocolate and some lunch over there. They got back to the house at around 4:00 and I left to go home.
Cameryn had so much fun and was so busy that she feel asleep almost right away in the car. I brought her into the house, took off her shoes, hat and coat and she was STILL asleep. That is one busy girl.

It was a really fun day. Too bad almost all the snow was gone by the end of the day already. Oh well, we're supposed to get more but we'll just have to wait and see. I just thought it was really funny that one night I'm complaining about no snow and the very next morning... there it is!! Maybe I should complain more often.

Long cold days

Sometimes I really don't like winter. Maybe if there was snow on the ground and I could take Cameryn outside during Luke's nap and sled next to our house. Or we could build snowmen in the yard. You know, fun stuff like that. But no... it's freezing cold here and there is no snow. It has snowed twice all winter and we got maybe a total of an inch or something like that. If it's going to be cold I WANT SNOW!!!! I hope we at least get one good snow fall before spring comes so Cameryn, me and Mike can play in the snow together at least once. Sorry Luke, you're still too little.

I'm really starting to get excited cause Luke is starting to try to push himself onto his knees. Which means that soon he might be crawling. I'm hoping that at least by March he will crawl. I know most people say "oh but then you have to watch out to make sure they don't get into this or that." All I know is that it hopefully means that he won't want me to hold him ALL DAY LONG!!! It must be the constant teething with no break for him cause he doesn't want to be put down EVER!! I just need a break sometimes.

I have a back pack that I put him in sometimes during the day when I'm trying to clean or whatever but his is so HEAVY that I can only do it for 15-20 minutes or else I will have a horrible back ache. Sometimes I have to let him cry while rolling around in the floor but I can't do it for long cause he can scream VERY LOUD. Plus I feel like a really mean mom if I let him go too long. I'm such a wuss. You'd think with too kids I'd be tougher but I'm a softy.

Cameryn is almost all the way potty trained and I love it. I use so many less diapers which saves money of course. It's awesome!! She hasn't had an accident in like 5 days. WOHOOO!!! She is so cute with her big girl underwear and I'm so proud when she goes to the potty without my help and sometimes without even telling me she has to go. I have such a wonderful smart little girl. The terrible two's can be terrible but they are also some of the best times as well.

Pirate Boy

I'll have to start this post by back tracking to Luke's 4 month checkup. Our family doctor, Dr. Jones, recommended that I take him to a Pediatric Opthamologist because she was concerned that his right eye turned in a bit occasionally. So I took him in to see Dr. Jensen a week later and she found that both of his eyes would turn in but mainly it was the right eye. She said that it is actually better that he has the problem in both eyes rather then it only being the right eye that turns in. I don't remember and cannot say the technical term for it but my little baby is a tad bit cross eyed. The only way to correct it is with surgery.

Yes, surgery. My little baby boy has to have surgery to move the muscles behind his eyes so that they point straight all the time. He had another appointment this past Thursday with Dr. Jensen and she said that he is looking great. He is not cross eyed constantly but without the surgery he probably would be eventually. Dr. Jensen said it is much better to get it done before he turns a year otherwise when he got old enough it could effect him playing most sports and maybe his driving. He is still too young to have the surgery so I'm have to bring him in again in April and hopefully then we will set the date for it sometime in June.

I have talked to so many people about it and everyone says the surgery isn't a big deal and is actually quite common. It only takes about an hour and is outpatient surgery. I'm not as upset and nervous about the actual surgery as I was back in November but I still wish that he didn't have to have it. Dr. Jensen said that the recovery for a baby is actually only a day or two which is encouraging. I don't have too many details yet about the actual surgery but I'll be finding all that out in April when I take him back in and we set the date.

So back to the picture... he has to (or is supposed to) wear an eye patch on his left eye (his dominant eye) for 30-45 minutes every day in order to give his right eye a chance to be the dominant eye. Since he is so young when his eyes do cross his brain just gets rid of one of the images he sees so he won't see double. Which means that if his left eye gets too strong then he could completely lose vision in his right eye because the image won't be as strong as the one coming from his left eye. Since we don't want that to happen (duh) we have to put the eye patch on him and as you can see from the super fast picture I took, he HATES it. That was like the only 3 seconds he was not trying to rub the eye patch off. So every time he wears it I have to hold both his hands down plus entertain him to keep him from crying the whole time and so he will actually look around with his one eye. The whole problem is actually a brain thing not an eye thing but since they can't operate on his brain, they just fix the mechanics of it by moving the muscles behind his eyes. One of my friends just recently graduated from Optometry school so she has been such a help to me as far as information goes.

Cameryn has been a super punk this week. She was good on Monday when she had a play date with her cousin Katelyn (technically my cousins daughter) but every day after that she was definatly acting the part of the terrible two's. I have really had to work on my patience this week just so I won't completely freak out and yell at her constantly. Though I have to say that it is not a normal thing for Cameryn to behave badly. She is mostly a very nice, happy and helpful girl.

I do have an adorable story about her that happened last Sunday on our drive into church. I have burned a couple of CD's for her with songs from Disney movies or Sesame Street to listen to in the car but just so I don't go crazy listening to them constantly, I also burned a few CD's with songs from musicals like, Sound of Music, Oklahoma, and West Side Story (to name a few). Well on the way to church I had the radio tuned to classical music (since it was Sunday) and all the sudden I heard her singing (which she does alot- yes I know she adorable). Usually when she sings it's BahBah Black Sheep or Twinkle Little Star, songs like that, but today she was singing Maria from West Side Story. She was singing "Maria, Maria, I just met a girl named Maria and suddenly I found Maria, Maria I just kissed a girl named Maria and suddenly I found Maria..." It was so cute but I couldn't let her know that I was watching/listening so I stared straight ahead. Oh I love my little girl, she is so smart and silly.

Having two kids is definatly very interesting.