11/16 - Decorating for Christmas (Outdoors)

Yes, we start decorating outside around mid-November, or whenever we have a weekend with nice weather, preferably in the 60s, but since the last weekend of warm weather was around the first weekend that month, we missed it, and decided to do it before the temps dropped even lower. We didn't turn the lights on that early though, we waited until Thanksgiving.

I was getting a quick late breakfast together before we headed out to start decorating, and I turned around to find Camden taking a ride on our baby reindeer!

Jonmark hanging the lights. Yes, I see the missing piece of our ceiling, almost didn't post the picture because of that, but it's back up, AGAIN. That one piece keeps falling down. When we have some money, and time, in the Spring, we're hoping to replace the entire ceiling with better material.

Mykenzi and Camden playing with the clips for hanging lights from gutters.

Lord knows what she did with that handful of clips. She loves to hoard the strangest things in pockets/bags/trunks and compartments of any kind.

Camden watching Daddy hang lights! Probably wishing I wasn't just a few feet away watching him through the camera because otherwise he would have been up that ladder under Jonmark's feet. He loves to climb!

Camden's Growing Vocabulary

I had been worried for a while now that Camden wasn't saying much, so with his 18 month checkup coming up soon (he'll be 18 months on Nov. 24, the appointment is Dec. 2) I decided to write down the "few" words he says in order to discuss it with the pediatrician. After making the list and listening to him repeat a new word every day this week, I realize I probably shouldn't be concerned at all, at least not about the number of words he says so much as the words he's saying (or not saying). Mykenzi was a very talkative baby, and still loves to talk (don't all little girls?), but she would also look at a book and tell me what things are at this age, Camden does not. I did find one particular book on his shelf this week that he seems to like more than the other picture/word books, so we'll continue to look at that book each day until he's able or willing I guess to tell me what things are or at least point when I ask him where something is. He's not interested in doing any of that yet, unless it's a picture of a baby, but I consider that progress. Here is his list of words so far:

hello
bye bye
hi
hot
tee tee - tree, what he says when he sees Christmas trees in stores
dog dog
moobie - movie (when the dvd stops in the car, that drives him nuts, he'll point his finger, wiggling it, and say moobie, moobie, moobie....over and over until it's restarted)
dee doh - diggity dog, what they sing on the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse so he says it every time he sees something with Mickey Mouse on it
ball ball
hon we - hungry
coo coo - cookie
pat - they say pat pat repeatedly in Little Einsteins when trying to get Rocket to take off so Camden joins in
baaaa baw - blast off, when Rocket takes off in Little Einsteins, with hands up in the air
bah wal - bottle (yep, still on the bottle, it's the only way he will drink milk)
eye - pointing at your face, still not saying anything else but he knows where his nose and tongue are
done done - all gone (with hands out and empty)
pee boo - peek a boo, or just plain boo
doh way - go away, which doesn't sound so nice, but it's usually what he says when he wants something, like if Mykenzi is in a chair he wants he tells her that, or when we're standing at the counter in the kitchen and he wants us to pick him up (he'll try to pull our legs back away from the counter saying "doh way"), or if Jonmark and I hug each other he immediately has to break it up yelling "doh way" and then reaches for whichever one of us he wants.
tow - cow
baby
kay - fairly new, but he answers our "okay?" with kay every once in a while
football
me me - excuse me
pee pee - for when he has a wet diaper, and I ask him if he went pee pee
beep beep
go go go - to Jonmark going down the road
dude (Jonmark calls him that a lot)
diaper
dump truck
trash truck
ding dong - when he wants to ring the doorbell
hey hey hey
whoa whoa whoa

I forgot these new words: boon - spoon, tun - tongue, and taaaadow - touchdown (with arms in the air)

Newest phrase: my ball - when throwing balls with Mykenzi the other night, and she would run after her's saying to him (also running after her ball), "no, that's my ball" so he would throw his and say "my ball"

Names: Mama, Dada, Oey (Zoey, our dog), Nay Nay (Kenzi), and Pop (for my dad, but he only says it if I tell him to say Pop).

So I guess he's not doing too bad, and he's obviously learning because he tries to repeat what we say a lot, plus he understands us when we ask him to do something. I just wish he'd be more interested in learning about things in books, but he is a boy and he has an older sister to play with all the time, so that's pretty much all he thinks about doing, playing.

Halloween

Every Halloween Nana and Paw Paw (Jonmark's parents) come by to bring Halloween treats, and then we head down to Colonial Beach to trick-or-treat. This year we were able to ride on a golf cart, which meant we could go more places and faster, and had my neice and nephews along for the ride as well (they took turns with us, the other part of the time riding with my mom and their mom). It was really cold out, so they got cold quick and wanted to ride in the car, but Mykenzi and Camden seemed to be fine. Camden was warm and toasty in his costume, he even fell asleep on me before Jonmark took the kids and me back to my parents house (he kept driving around my nephews to "one more house"). Jonmark and I were so proud of Mykenzi though. She's very shy, and in previous years has had a hard time walking up to the houses or holding out her bag for treats, but this year I talked about it a lot with her in the weeks prior to Halloween. I told her that she goes up to the door, says "trick or treat", then she should say thank you and wish them a happy halloween. She did just that. We couldn't believe it when she would walk right up to the door, knock loudly, sweetly say trick or treat, and say, "thank you, happy halloween." She would even yell it out to people walking down the street, and they always said happy halloween back to her. We were very proud of her!

Pictures below are from the beginning of the evening at our house when Nana and Paw Paw came by.

Daddy checking out Camden's bag from Nana.

Camden stole some Sixlets from Kenzi's bag.

Trying to figure out how to get it open.

Stealing more treats!

Checking out their goodies!

Check out Kenzi's shoes! Her Minnie Mouse costume came from the Disney Store, where she saw red dress shoes with little heels for the Minnie Mouse costume with the red dress, but she insisted on the pink dress and they didn't have any shoes to go with it. So we went shopping in search of something with heels. We found this little pair of summer sandals with that thick chunky heel at Sears for $4.00 and they just barely fit, and they couldn't match any better, pink with white polka dots and a little bow. She was thrilled!

Sweethearts from Nana, one of her favorite candies! She doesn't like much candy, although this year she's tried a lot of different stuff from Halloween.

Camden wanting a piece of candy.

Jonmark actually gave him a tootsie roll.

Photo with Nana before heading out for the night!

10/31 - Carving Pumpkins

I'm a few weeks behind on posts again, but I'll admit I also haven't really taken many pictures of the kids this month since I've been so busy taking other families photos. I have had any where from 2-4 sessions a month, but not all of them can be seen on my blog because not everyone wants to sign a release. I have some orders I should be getting ready right now, but I only have 2 sessions later this week and those are the last for this month, hopefully for the year, so I'm taking a break to catch up on here! We carved pumpkins the day before Halloween, all 5 of them (one for each of us, plus an extra one from Mykenzi's field trip), but Camden's bedtime came up during the carving so I had to get him to sleep and forgot to take a picture of all the carved pumpkins. I was too busy on Halloween and never thought about it. I'm really disappointed about this!

Jonmark carved the lids...

Mykenzi and I cleaned out the pumpkin gunk...Camden watched eagerly, but refused to touch it. He loves to play outside, play with trucks, do all things boy, but he hates to get his hands dirty, unless it's with cookie crumbs. I tried to get him to put his hands inside the pumpkin to touch all the stuff, and he didn't like that. Then Mykenzi put a piece on him, and he flipped out! He wouldn't even try to knock it off his hand, he just sat there screaming and staring at his hand. Weird boy! However, I'm told "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree" - my dad and I don't like to eat food with our hands or get them sticky.

Mykenzi clearly doesn't mind.

Camden enjoyed watching everyone and ripping up the newspaper, dropping it on the floor, and saying, "uh oh."

My model

Nice face!

Sassy pants!

A lot of Mykenzi's poses are rather mature, and we have no idea where she gets this from.

Preschool Field Trip

Earlier this week we went with Mykenzi's preschool class to another local pumpkin patch.

We were all given stickers to wear so they the staff would know which group we were in as they shuffled us to different stations/activities. Camden does not like stickers at all, so we put his on his hood so that he wouldn't know it was there and would leave it alone!

Scanning the patch for a perfect pumpkin! -- This weeks letter at school was P.

Camden was excited and bouncing up and down.

He would pick up a pumpkin, make a straining noise as if it was too heavy, then walk over to another pumpkin, set it down, pick up another, and repeat the whole process. It was as if he didn't know which one to get because there were so many!

I love this one!

Back on the hayride.

Mykenzi and her new friend, Anna.

Waiting to learn all about pumpkins!

Camden sat down on the bench with the rest of the preschoolers for a few seconds, but they took too long to start so he wandered off and Jonmark followed.

Then I found them wandering down this path. I love my two boys!

It was freezing out that day. This farm is on the river so it was a bit windy, to the point of making your ears ache. So, Jonmark remembered that we had a blanket in the car that we took for a parade a few weeks go, so he wrapped up Mykenzi and her friend to keep them warm while they listened to a lady sing songs about pumpkins.

Camden loves the playground, so that's where they went during the educational stuff!

10/5 - Pumpkin Patch

I love this time of year, full of traditions. Every October we go to Belvedere Plantation to take the hayride out the pumpkin patch, which this year was wired with speakers playing kids farm music, very cute. Afterwards we tried the maize maze, but it was too stressful. We ended up following another couple around to find our way out. There isn't a map unless you start with the easy route and uncover sections of it at a time, but we were advised to do the intermediate route since it's more stroller friendly and we would not have to cross any bridges. Well, something went wrong because we did not cross through the corn, and we somehow ended up having to cross a bridge with a baby in a stroller and a 4 year old who was hot, thirsty, and tired of walking (not sure why, she rode on Daddy's shoulders most of the way through, but basically she's just not old enough for the maize maze yet). There aren't any pictures of that part of the day because I was either pushing the stroller or carrying the 8 foot tall flag pole (for admitting defeat and begging for help....I tried a few times as we were walking through, it didn't work). So we headed down to do the more fun things for Mykenzi and Camden. This was his first year taking part in the activities there, and he really enjoyed it!

The Scarecrow Family

Camden was taking a nap when we first arrived, but he woke up shortly after the hayride started.

Searching for pupmkins.

Love that smile!!!

Mykenzi couldn't find the right pumpkin.

Camden tried and tried to get over to them, but he had a hard time walking in that stuff.

Daddy found a huge pumpkin. We've never found pumpkins that big in previous years, but we usually go mid-October. There are so many to choose from in early October that we hope to go at that time from now on.

The first 3 pumpkins that were picked, but not the 3 we brought home.

Inspecting the pumpkins.

I always got a picture of Mykenzi surrounded by the pumpkins on the hayride, but Camden didn't want to cooperate.

Mykenzi was afraid her pigtails were going to fly off with all the bumping along.

Man that looks like fun! It's a swing on a zip line.

This is the small slide. They have a 100 foot slide that goes through/down a hill called Pumpkin Mountain, and technically Mykenzi was not supposed to go on it, nor were we supposed to go with her (a sign at the bottom of the hill says you must be 5 to ride and no double riders). They had someone at the top working there, but they were letting parents go down with their children so we decided to do it. I went only once because that was a slick slide (you ride down on a sack), and I must have ridden down with a rock under my butt because I hurt so bad when I got up and I had a bruise for a week. If it hadn't been for that I would have enjoyed it! Mykenzi and Jonmark enjoyed it though, and Camden tried to go up the hill after them one time because he wanted to ride to. So we strolled away and watched some other things, which made him happy, but it must be so hard to not be big enough to do things with his big sister. Every where we go he can do half to most of the activities with her, so when he can't, it doesn't go over too well.

I actually think this was Camden's favorite part of the day, playing in rocks.

We thought Camden would like riding these, Mykenzi always does, but it's right next to the rock box so he just wanted to go play in the rocks.