Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Trick-or-Treat 2012!

Ok, yes, I am crazy... It's 10pm Halloween night and I am already posting about the festivities earlier this evening.  But we leave for vacation tomorrow night and I know when we return this will be yesterday's news!  So, here is a brief recap of Emerson's 2nd time to go Trick-or-Treat and I guess we will say Cameron's first since he tagged along.  :)

Earlier this afternoon Kristen brought the kids up to work for me.  I love when other little people come to visit so I was glad to be able to take my kids around and get together briefly with some other coworkers who brought their kids up.  Plus I got my exercise carrying Emerson all over campus.  :)

After getting home we tried to quickly eat so we would be ready to go out in the neighborhood before it was dark.  I am glad the time change hasn't happened yet because that would have been especially challenging!  So we ate dinner and hustled out to get some pictures and trick-or-treat.  Emerson is still young to really grasp the concept, but she was having fun saying "Trick-or-Treat" and she would go get candy when we told her to go get some...  And we of course went to see our favorite neighbors, Ron and Francis!  They had some special treats for Emerson and Cameron.  After that Cam started to get hungry so we cut it short and headed home.

But on the way in to the house Emerson's foot caught on the stroller and she tripped... I would say it is my fault because I was behind the stroller, but I thought she was moving.  :(  So she fell on her left hand and pinky finger and was crying because it was sore.  I sure hope it was just tender from the fall since nothing seemed off about it...I watched it for a while and didn't see that it was puffy or anything. Hopefully when she wakes up tomorrow it isn't swollen!

We left candy on the step while we were out!

Kristen braided her hair and it looked so pretty!

Here is our jockey!

My sweet kiddos

Emerson giving Cam a kiss

Frank and Cam, our little Aggie!

Cam's first time sitting in this stroller like a "big kid"  :)

Emerson trick-or-treating!

It's fun being pulled in the wagon!

Francis playing with Cameron  

And flashback- our little cupcake last Halloween... she has grown so much!!

Monday, October 29, 2012

Cameron's Half Birthday!

Today Cameron is 6 months old!!  The end of October has arrived much faster than I feel it should!  It has been a fun month for little man.  I have posted updates on his cranial stuff, but we are hoping that he will be finished with that in a couple of weeks... fingers crossed!  We had a lot of fun this month with the activities I posted about before.  Cameron has been practicing sitting up and is getting stronger and better balanced.

His appointment this morning with the pediatrician went well.  He got several shots, which upset him, but he calmed down pretty quickly.  It is always hard watching your kids get shots since you know they hurt, but you can't explain to them why they are getting them.  Here are his measurements from his appointment:

Weight: 19lbs 6oz (75-90%)  --> He has gained 10 pounds since birth.  :)
Height:  28 inches (90%)
Head: 45 cm (75%)

These measurements are more like a 9 month old.  Here are some other fun updates:

  • Cam got his first tooth yesterday!  It is a sharp little thing!
  • He is getting stronger and stronger... if he gets a hold of your hair you better watch it!
  • We can give him baby food now, but I think we will start this after our vacation.  I am excited to do this with him and think I will try carrots first!  
  • He is still drinking 4 bottles a day with just over 8 ounces in each ( 1 TBSP of Oatmeal cereal now).  
  • He is starting to hold his own bottle when you feed him!
  • He naps 3 times a day: 9:30-11, 1:30-3, and 5:30-6:30 usually.  Bedtime is 8:30 and now he sleeps until 5:30 or 6 and needs a diaper change and then sleeps until 7:30-8.  For a while he was sleeping straight to 7...
  • Cam wears size 3 diapers and is wearing 6-12 month clothes or 9 month clothes.  I am glad the weather is cooler now because he has lots of long sleeved things and lots of pants!
  • He sleeps on his stomach now pretty much all the time...sometimes on his side.  
  • He reaches for you now too and actually reaches for anything he think he can get a hold of.  He just wants to explore everything.  
  • Lots of babbling sounds... recently there has been the "babababa" sound.  
  • He still doesn't rely on a pacifier too much... just for naptime or bedtime.  And then he doesn't keep it in a good chunk of the time.  
  • His skin rash continues to pop up in different places.  I guess I will take my mom's advice and see a dermatologist.  :)  Maybe they will give us something to clear it up. It doesn't seem to bother him, which is so surprising since it looks like it would.  
We have a few videos from earlier this month:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-l8wh_iMYc  --->  Emerson tickling Cameron and giving him a hug.  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ysk48zsdilE ---> Cameron was gabbing... probably telling us his teeth were hurting!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUT5UoevKIU --->Cameron laughing... he was laughing a lot before we got the video camera out, but I got him to giggle some more.  :)  I sound like a real goober making the silly sounds... the things you do with babies! 

Here are some pictures!
Very early in the month!

A couple of weeks ago... happy baby!

It's a bird... it's a plane... it's Super Cam!

Out nighttime routine... washing his hair so it is clean before bed.

Always so happy!

He is Daddy's little football!

There is his tooth!!

Earlier today at his appointment.

Sitting up with help from the boppy!

Our big 6 month old!  Poor little guy wasn't feeling good tonight so no smile!

The Mini Mom

I have been meaning to post about our little Emerson being a mini mom.  Its fun watching Emerson take care of Violet, the purple puppy dog plush that sings and talks to her.  Violet is Emerson's best friend and goes everywhere with her.  We gave her a different baby doll in the stroller we got her, but she prefers to push Violet around the house and says things like "Come on Violet" and "Where did Violet go?" when she can't find her.  We don't let her take her in bed because she would want to stay up and play with her but she is used to this and before going upstairs will tell Violet goodnight.  She has also recently been putting Violet in time out.  In a pretty serious voice she will tell Violet that she is in timeout... usually the conversation is something like "Violet in time out, okay? Timeout Violet.  Stay there Violet" as she makes sure she is sitting up on the step.  It is pretty funny and cute.  She has a really good imagination it seems and is always telling us something.  We don't always catch the whole bit, but try to play along.  She is growing up very fast it seems... I can't slow time down and it seems to go by faster every day!  Here are some more pictures of the mini-mom.

Giving one of her dolls a bottle.

It was cute how she copied Daddy.  :)

Emerson always wants me to take pictures of Violet when she sees that I have the camera.  The flash is so bright though that she is squinting in all of them.  :)

This is unrelated, but I liked this picture of her with her pumpkin from the Arboretum.  :)

Here she is with Violet walking in our backyard.  Such a pretty girl... she loves being outside.


Earlier tonight she used a sticker as a bandaid for Violet.  I noticed she put it in the same place the nurse did for her earlier today when she got her 1st flu shot.  I was a little worried she would be really upset, but she calmed down right away after the shot... I was proud of her for not getting too upset.  I guess she was really paying attention to the bandaid though since she was putting one on Violet.  :)

At some point I may post about this whole "Terrible Twos" situation... I don't like that phrase though... I think it is more appropriate to say the Troubling Twos... although that is not good either.  At any rate, little Emerson has definitely entered that phase of childhood.  Along with her active imagination and greater cognitive understanding comes a more challenging personality.  We tell her countless times each day how much we love her, but have really had to get on to her when she acts out.  No one likes to be told not to do something... Emerson's reaction to that right now is to say no back, go limp and collapse to the floor, or to start crying/whaling.  When this happens it is still a little shocking because we think "What?  What just happened???" since usually it is something so small... Where these little blow ups used to happen once a week, they are now daily or more!  :)  It is just a phase... and it isn't all the time.  Most of the time she is still the sweet little angel... only some of the time she gets upset.  And because time is already passing too quickly I will not say I hope this passes quickly... I'll just hope I can continue being patient and consistent with her so she will understand boundaries.  :)

And again unrelated, but since there is no monthly update on Emerson alone, I will comment about one thing she does with me that melts my heart...  When you ask for a hug she will usually say "No Mommy" (which is no joke her favorite phrase right now!), but if I get down close to the ground with her and hold my arms out and say "Pleasssssssseeeeeeeee" she can't resist and comes running and giggling to give me a strong hug.  It is fun doing that... I do it every day.  And she also will asks me to hold her, but she says "Mommy can I hold yah" when she wants me to pick her up... which comes from me asking her if she wants me to hold her.  That always makes me smile too.  

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Pumpkin Carving and Halloween Fun

I wanted to carve a pumpkin with Emerson so earlier tonight I decided to go ahead and do it!  Halloween is in just a few days... how did it sneak up??  Emerson was very interested in what I was doing and helped just a little.  When she took the top off and she saw all the stringy stuff with seeds she said "Ewe, gross" and made sure she didn't touch it!  It took a little while to clean out the inside and then I decided to copy a pattern from the carving book.  You are supposed to tape the page to the pumpkin and carve it, but I didn't see that going well so I drew it by hand first.  I think I did a pretty good job on that if I do say so myself.  :)  As I was trying to pull out one of the eyes I had carved I accidentally pulled the eye ball part of the design too so I had to modify the design.  I actually think I like it more this way, though if it hadn't happened I would have liked the original design too!  When I was finished Emerson was so impressed and really liked the pumpkin.  She wanted to look and touch it.  Now we are ready for trick-or-treaters Wednesday night after her brief spin through the neighborhood with Cameron!








Other Halloween Fun:

This weekend our neighborhood also had a kids Halloween Pageant and party.  We didn't get the kids in costume, but we had them in some cute Halloween outfits.  I wanted a picture of them together, but Emerson wouldn't have it!  :)  There was a bounce house, a huge slide, and they met by the cemetery that is in the middle of the neighborhood on the Estate side.  It is a real cemetery that is a historical marker for Plano.  In May 1895 the Collinsworth family was infected with small pox and ten family members died.  A photographer actually wrote about it on this blog and it has all the pictures: http://www.necropoliscreep.net/collinsworth.html.  It is pretty crazy that the cemetery is in the neighborhood, but kind of cool, except that it is a very sad story.  It makes for an appropriate place for a Halloween Party too though!  So here are a few other pics from this weekend.

Sweet little spookster!

He sort of looks like a jailbird.  :)

As close as I was going to get with a picture of them together!

She doesn't want in the jump house, but wants to jump outside of it!

A sweet older kid helping her slide down.  She enjoyed it though she seemed a little afraid.  

She is a sassy thing these days... the flare on the pants looked so cute on her.  

She had a good time!

Some Amateur 6 Month Pics of Cam

Tomorrow Cameron will officially be 6 months old so I wanted to get some pictures of our fast growing little man!  I think I am pretty good at taking pictures, but I really ought to take a class on using  our camera so I can adjust things based on lighting and such.  Not sure how I'll manage to squeeze that in, but maybe sometime in the future.  :)  So here are a few pictures we took this afternoon ourselves... we took these while Emerson was jealous that Cam was getting all the attention.  There were multiple goldfish crackers injured during the session as they were thrown across the floor.  Emerson almost knocked herself out throwing a tantrum, but this didn't phase out littlest sweetheart one bit.  He was having so much fun pushing up and moving around.  I'm glad to get several that I really like and can't wait until the real professional, Alecia,can take our family pics in a couple of weeks outside.  I am keeping my fingers crossed for great weather and will be thinking of clever ways to get Emerson to cooperate so we can get some of all of us.  :)










These remind me of some pics we took of Emerson at 6 months too.  :)