Uncle Art and Aunt Pam come to visit

My Aunt and Uncle are en route to Hershey, PA in their rockin' RV. Here are some photos from our evening with them and Leigh, Andrew and their kiddos at the local Smith Lake campsite.

Daddy says "Smile, Millie!"

and this is what she did...

Millie and her MagnaDoodle

Millie is starting to color now so I thought a magnadoodle would do her some good. She really enjoys it. This should be a good activity to travel with too.

Baby Shower and Anniversary Celebration

Yesterday morning my wonderful girlfriends, Heather and Lindsay, threw me a shower in honor of Baby Camden. Since our small group and MOP's has not met for a while, it felt good to get the girls together again to celebrate this fun occasion. My favorite part about the shower was the blessing and prayer over Camden and his entrance into the world. And, then there was this fabulous cake, Lindsay made! Yum! Thank you to all my friends who made this day so special!



Later Millie went to Leigh and Andrew's to spend the night while Matt and I traveled to Raleigh for shopping, dinner and movie for our 7 year anniversary. We just love dates especially when there's a reason to celebrate. That will probably be the last date night we get before Camden comes. Which is crazy to imagine! Funny things about last night: we bought nothing, watched a mediocre Julie & Julia, but chowed down on a delicious dinner at PF Chang's. I got a lot of stares as we "belly"ed up to the bar. No one said anything because really we were just there to eat dinner rather than wait 2.5 hours for a table. I got some high-fives from bar folks as we were leaving which were apparently for the baby. I didn't know quite how to respond other than return the high fives but still felt it was a little strange to say the least.

Wholly Moly! Week 35

Compare with Week 37 with Millie. He's still got a lot of growing to do, but I feel like I'm about to pop!

Millie's 17 months old now!

Another month has passed us by. Another month closer to meeting Millie's baby brother. Millie knows where baby Camden is too. She'll point and kiss my belly. She's such a sweetheart and a very loving addition to our family. This month she's been:

- pretending a lot... that she's asleep, making something in her kitchen, drinking from an empty cup, talking on the phone, hiding, or she'll get on all fours like a dog and crawl around the house.
- wearing necklaces, bracelets almost everywhere she goes.
- peeling pages in her board books and labels off her toy food.
- scribbling with crayons.
- obsessed with magnets on the refrigerator.
- saying new words like "eye" and pointing at her eye (or rather, poking out her eye), "go, go, go" which she learned when I tell her to get out of the bathroom because its not a play room, "bye" accompanied by a wave, "Bewa" meaning Bella.
- walking herself to her room for naps and bedtime. Especially for bedtime, either Matt or I will ask her if she's ready to go to sleep and she'll look at us and walk straight to her room. That's our cue to stop everything, grab her water, baby, whatever she needs for bedtime and haul ourselves to her room before the opportunity passes!
- Speaking of bedtime, every other day or so Matt will put Millie to bed solo. We've been doing it as a team but with this baby coming we want her to get used to just Daddy tucking her in at night.
- waking around 8am every morning which has been such a blessing because I don't have much energy these days and need all the sleep I can get.
- eating like a toddler: enjoys the sweet stuff, declines food if she's pre-occupied, doesn't want to sit to eat but she knows the rules, and has a keen ear for the word "snack."
- transitioning to one nap a day. She may go every other day without her second nap, but will sleep if we put her down in the morning so she's not quite ready yet for just one.
- loving Ice Pops-- you know, the kind that you buy warm and liquidy in the store and freeze for your enjoyment later. With all this heat, we share at least two a day.
- playing on the playground and going down swings all by herself! I still tend to stay real close to her because I'm scared she might fall and that's at least 5 feet. But, alas, she's Miss Independent and has no fear of her own to slide down and do it all over again. The climber/slide combo we got for her this month has helped her build up her courage.
- building towers with one-peg legos.
- sitting at the table instead of her highchair for mealtimes. We've put up the high chair (unless we have company and need the chair) until Camden can make use of it in about 5 months or so and brought out her booster seat.
- she's more aware of her diaper now and will grab it often but she's not indicating that it's dirty yet so I'm just considering this a preliminary sign to potty training.

That's about all I can think of, although I might be adding more later.

Love to all!


P.S. I forgot to mention... she says and points to her "eye" simultaneously. She popped out 3 more teeth for total of seven (one molar and the remaining two top front incisors). She's been sleeping on her pillow and not just a bare sheet for a week now. Most times, she's not using it but that's where we lay her and I'm hoping she realizes the benefits soon.

Bye, Bye Fly!

Summertime in Bragg comes with one big pesky fly problem. I've never seen anything like it before I came here. They love to be all in my house and everyone else's for that matter. I'm the worst at killing them with the fly swatter. My aim is horrible! Yesterday Millie and I went around the house with our matching swatters trying to "shoe" those flies away. There was one lingering in Millie's room for days, and I was determined to get it! While I'm saying "shoe fly," Millie's saying "bye, bye!" At that very instant I turned around to watch her and bam, she hit the fly with the swatter. Quite an aim! High-five, Millie!