Merry Christmas!

Good morning, Christmas!

I have never ever seen Millie and Camden so excited about anything else before. Millie didn't fall asleep on Christmas eve until nearly 10pm. I'm wondering what the future Christmases will be like with our bundles of joy bouncing off the walls for Santa. It's going to be awesome, I'm sure!

Well, Christmas exploded at our house. Santa brought lots of goodies for our good little children this year. A train table, a rocking horse, a fire truck, a race track, clothes and more toys came for Camden. Millie got her beloved Strawberry Shortcake, build-a-bears with princess clothes, a Dora big wheel, movies, dress up costumes, clothes and more toys came for Millie. Now don't go thinking that Santa and Mommy and Daddy gave all those presents away. Most were given by family members who feel it's their familial duty to spoil our precious children. I received some "spoiling" too. Didn't have to lift a finger for food preparations; Plus a pampering gift card and a date night gift card. We cannot wait to use them. Matt and I haven't had a date night in a while. Oops, we did get to go see Harry Potter on Christmas night, compliments of my Dad.

Us girls in our Christmas pj's.

Mia read a Christmas story about Santa and Jesus.

Cam was so anxious to open his gifts!


Needless to say, Millie was anxious, too!

The night before Christmas with Aunt Meg

My dad and me on Christmas morning. So happy he could be with us!






Millie in her new dress up and Cam playing with the big wheel


New Strawberry Shortcake

New shades!

Matt's dad with Christmas dinner on the grill. 3 tenderloins = 14 lbs of delicious meat!


Here are the children with their Aunts and Uncle. Goodnight, Christmas!

Millie(33 months) and Camden(15 months) update!

At what point do you stop counting the months? I think for Millie that time has passed but its just so easy when their "month-iversaries" fall exactly a week apart. Cam's on the 4th and Millie's on the 11th. Well they both have changed a ton so I figured now is as good a time as any to tell you about them.


For Millie: She pretend to have Mommy's milk with her babies (long after my breastfeeding ended with Camden). She's asking more and more questions. Her favorite question is "Where are we going today, Mommy?" Candy corn has been her favorite treat since Halloween. She is telling us periodically that she has to go potty. She has lots of pretend voices. She can get her own water from the refrigerator faucet and loves to fill up a couple of cups for her brother too.


For Camden: He likes to practice using a fork and spoon. Food flies everywhere! He twists bottle caps on and off. He's very good at building blocks already. Great dexterity. He stands up on his own without holding on to anything. He has taken a couple of steps at a time. He's got a singing voice. He has 7 teeth. In addition to yes, no, and eat, he signs dog, please and thank you. His first words include "Yes, stop and truck." And after 14 months, we finally realized he does have security blanket, thanks to the discovery from his Aunt Katie while babysitting them the weekend of Matt's Citadel reunion.



Just yesterday, I took Camden in for a check up. He weighs 23.5 lbs, is 32" tall and has two angry ear infections. I was especially pleased with his physician this time. She took a look at his feet because the subject of walking came up. His feet turn in severely which is the probable cause of his late development. It's called metatarsus adductus. They referred us to physical therapy for an evaluation. She said the waiting list is at least 2 months so it would be good to get on it now just in case he's not walking by then anyways. Does any one out there have any experience with this or physical therapy in general?

Santa!

I'm happy, I'm sad, I'm angry! I don't know what I am!

Giving Thanks!

God is good. He has given us family and friends with whom to share our holidays. I am so thankful for my little family. We took it easy this Thanksgiving. Spending Wednesday evening at Mellow Mushroom and chowing down our scrumptious pizza. Then Thanksgiving day in Columbia with the Morris family for an enjoyable dinner of fried turkey and all the fixin's.A couple of the highlights of the day were Millie and her Aunt Meg diligently and patiently building the gingerbread house (Millie could not stop talking about it all week) and watching the kids play in the abundance of leaves in the front yard. They had a blast! I love all the giggles!

Party in the kitchen!

I've almost given up on our Christmas card photo. This may just be it! You vote.

The Kids' New Playset Completed

Halloween 2010

This year Millie picked out her costume as Tinkerbell. Sticking with the theme, Camden was Captain Hook, and Matt was Peter Pan. We made skeleton faced pizza for dinner and apple "mouths" for fun. We did not carve our pumpkin surprisingly. The pumpkin stayed outside with the rest of our Halloween decorations, and we must have just forgotten about it. The kids enjoyed trick or treating around the block and tasting some of the candy along the way. After trick or treating, Millie helped Mia hand out candy to the neighborhood kids. I think she liked that more because she got to see all the kids in different costumes. Camden slept well that night even after two lollipops.

What's Millie doing these days?

Millie is now 2 1/2 years old. These last few months have been quite a ride with our preschooler. She has grown by leaps and bounds. She is almost fully potty trained. Bedtime is the only time she tells us she has to "go." Maybe it's a stall tactic. So, we're waiting for the day when she tells us she has to "go" all other times of the day. Other than that, she stays dry while she's awake. I have to admit though that I remain anxious every time we go out (which has not been a lot), afraid she might pee her pants.

As many of you know, I bought two books recently on parenting a strong-willed child because Millie's behavior had been textbook "terrible twos." Disobedience everywhere. No matter what I asked/told her to do, she decided to do the opposite. This was especially hard to deal with when I was out alone with both children (one on my hip) and Millie screaming/kicking/wailing in the aisle. Her behavior made me wish I could just walk away and pretend she wasn't my child. It's hard not to feel embarrassed. So far, one of the suggestions from one of the books that has worked for me is giving Millie two choices: I say nonchalantly "do this or time out/no movies/no dinner (just kidding)". Works like a charm. I've found my wonderful child and it's a beautiful thing.

She's learning so much I hardly know where to begin. It hasn't been real structured though- I need to get better at that. Specifically, Millie loves discovering and acting out opposites like open and close, in and out, that sort of thing. She's tracing letters with chalk which I am amazed by! She purposefully hides toys and books either from us or Camden. She can count pass 10 and she usually does it in a playful way. When we say "me too," she says "me three," then we say "me four," and back and forth until about 14 or 15. It's pretty comical. She jokes around a lot (wonder where she got that from). She likes to ask silly questions. When potty training, I would ask her "Where do we peepee?" She answers correctly "in the potty," and then goes on to ask "Do we peepee go in the sky? in the tree, in the toy," and on and on.

She is more opinionated now about what to wear, eat and play with. She is all about dress up and dressing up her baby brother too. He's such a sport about it. They play so well together- praying it stays that way.

Last weekend, Matt and his Dad started constructing the kids' new backyard playset. I snapped that photo to capture her efforts towards the building project.

Our visit to Steed Dairy Farm

Fall is in the air! We celebrated the cool weather today by going to our local Steed Dairy Farm. It was the best family fun experience I've had all year! Let me tell you this farm had things I've never seen all in one place before. Matt said they should have season passes. So here goes the list of fun:

a jump pillow, a corn kernel "sandbox", horse swings made out of tires, a baby calf born just minutes ago, a preschool only playground with a pipe slide, loads of sand everywhere for Camden's enjoyment, shaded picnic tables throughout, Chick-Fil-A!, adult pipe slides three-stories high, rubber duck races using manual water pumps, big hayride and toddler hayrides, a clean petting zoo, a milking cow, photo opp displays, pumpkins, corn maze, and cows galore!

Oh man, have I worn you out yet? It was AWESOME! We even got our hands-stamped to go back tonight but we didn't. Instead, we went out for ice cream at Brusters! To top it all off, I have my husband back and the kids slept in this morning until 8am! Maybe they're training themselves for the time change??

Needless to say, today was a perfect day!