Life on Lofty Lane: December 2012

'Tis the Season

I love the Christmas season and all that comes with it! It is a lot of work decorating the tree, the house, the yard, shopping, wrapping, etc, but it is also so much fun. Even though it is early in the month we have already been enjoying things. At some point I want to make a gingerbread house with Emerson so she can help decorate. We have not driven around to see the Christmas lights, but we will do that soon. We have visited Santa though, which went as I expected. Cameron was delighted and Emerson was apprehensive! She looks really ticked off in the picture!! Bless her heart, she was not sure she could trust Santa!

So here are a few pictures so far this Christmas.

Seriously, could he be any cuter?

Such a sweetheart!!

We have amazing kids

I really love this picture

Emerson loves playing in the leaves!

With CC and GrandPaul

Emerson was playing with the snowman while we decorated.

This is when Emerson was saying "It's beautiful daddy" when he turned the lights on. :)

I wanted to see how similar Cameron looks to Emerson's first picture with Santa. They look so alike!! And poor Emerson looks so mad. I was glad she did not cry, but I hope next year she will smile again. I just need to convince her that Santa is a nice guy!

Cam is 7 months!

So seriously, where has the time gone?! I really feel like this last month FLEW by and that they just keep getting faster. I sort of expected that it would seem like time would pass by faster with our second because we are just busier than before, but I wasn't expecting it to be like this. Some of it is the time of year with the holiday season so I am going to hope that the months of January-April are not as much of a whirlwind!

It has been an exciting month for our little man... the biggest news being that he finished his Star band that I posted about before. You talk about a huge relief... it is so nice not having to worry about that any more! At first it was strange to look at Cameron because we were used to seeing him in his helmet 98% of the time, but now it is back to normal! We had other exciting things happen over the month so I will just list the highlights and everything with where he is on things...

We started Cam on solid foods! By solid food I mean the pureed baby foods! He likes everything so far it seems. At first we were feeding him just sweet potatoes, carrots, or peas once at night, but now we have some fancier pouches that have a mixture of foods that he likes as well. So far so good with all the food and no reactions. He is eating 2 times a day, lunch and dinner, where he eats around 2- 2.5 ounces each time. (This is one small container or maybe half a bigger pouch). When we started it was a little messy and he was confused, but it got better each time. It has been fun feeding him and now he bites the spoon and I have to really pull to get it out of his mouth! :)
Our poor little guy has 6 teeth!! Yes, 6! It is a little crazy. He got his first at the end of last month, and then 5 more pushed through. It feels like overnight he went from a little baby to big baby. No more toothless smiles, there are giant white teeth everywhere now! And it looks like 2 more are getting close to coming through so we will see! He has been a real trooper with all of tis because it has to hurt!!
Now Cameron is sitting up on his own fully without needing any support. Earlier in the month he needed some for stability, but he is good now. He is so interested in toys that he intentionally falls forward to try to scoot and reach for toys.
He enjoys standing and holding on to our ottoman. We will help him with his balance, but he seems pretty tickled to be standing! It is cute.
Here lately he has done a little bit of the rocking motion, but not a whole lot. He may not crawl as soon as Emerson so we will see!
His sounds are changing some and he will do this "MaMaMaMa" sound. I know he is not saying this because he truly understands I am "Mama", but it is fun hearing him say that and I of course encourage it often. :)
We get him in bed around 8:30 and he will sleep until 6-6:30, where we change his diaper, and then usually he will sleep a little longer until closer to 7 or 7:30. This varies of course. I don't think this will get much better. :)
He is wearing 9 month clothes or the 6-12 month size. The weather has been so much warmer that we still have not been able to get some of the cooler temperature clothes on him! When is the next cold front coming in for goodness sakes?!!
Size 3 diapers and they still fit well which is a good thing because I have a big box or two to go through that we bought before!
At night Cameron will sleep with his pacifier more. He used to always spit it out, but he will keep it some of the time now. I think it helped that I moved to the bigger size.
Cameron still has 4 bottles each day with 8 ounces. He recently started only wanting around 6 ounces for his lunchtime bottle though so now that one is smaller. The bottles still have rice cereal, which I plan to stop at some point. I am not sure when though. His first bottle is around 7:45, then he eats around 11:45 with a bottle after, then 3:45 or so, eats around 6:30, with his last bottle at 7:40.
Not to gross anyone out, but I will just comment that now that he is eating food there are some pretty downright awful smelling poopy diapers. It is hard to understand how it can smell so terrible... I mean BAD. Just wanted to make that comment. :)
Cameron is absolutely a joyful little baby. He is always, always smiling. He loves to cuddle and bury his face in your shoulder. He hugs back and grabs a hold of you so tightly. He is just so, so, so sweet. He loves his big sister and smiles ear to ear watching her dance or play around. He makes us all so happy every day!

Here is a video of him laughing and you can see his huge teeth! :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9Co2hF8D80

These are the highlights... I am sure I am forgetting something so I will have to add more if I find that to be the case!!

Here are some pics from over the last month! The first few are from our family picture session with Alecia that I love.

Cameron eating real food for the first time!

So happy playing with his toys!

Happy baby!!

Hanging out before bedtime

He loves GrandPaul

His 2nd and 3rd tooth!

The 4th and 5th (next to his first)

One of the last pics with his helmet!

His first time in the highchair while we ate dinner. He loved it!!

Our big 7 month old sitting up in his chair!

Turkey Day 2012

We spent Thanksgiving in Austin this year and had a wonderful visit with Frank's family. Since we both had the whole week off we drove down Tuesday and stayed until Saturday. It is nice to be able to stay put for several days since it's almost a 4 hour drive if traffic is slow and packing up stuff for 2 kids requires some prep work! I spent some of the week shopping with Dorthy and Sarah and Frank was able to golf a little with Big Frank and Glenn. On Thanksgiving we enjoyed a feast like most people with turkey, dressing, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, and more! We also had beef tenderloin that was delicious. :) We took a few family pictures after our late lunch on Thanksgiving and got some really cute pictures of Frank's parents with the kids. On Friday we spent some time hanging out with Team Ross (Todd, Lane, Halden and Sloane). We ate hamburgers and enjoyed the visit. The time always passes so quickly when we visit Austin, which really is not very often! We will be heading back for 2 nights for the Paul family (big group) Christmas on the 22nd. It will be so much fun to see Frank's cousins and visit with them.

I have been so busy that I am behind with posting about Thanksgiving and everything that comes to mind. Over the month of November there were all these people posting daily about what they were thankful for on Facebook. While it was pretty annoying and cliche, I do have to hand it to those people for making sure they stopped every day to think of what they have to be thankful for. Maybe for some it was a show, but they certainly remained vigilant with the posts EVERY DAY. I obviously did not participate... this year I actually didn't post anything on Facebook that day. But I am thankful for so many things in my life. I am thankful for my precious family... Emerson and Cameron mean everything to me and so does Frank. There is no greater joy than the joy they bring to us every day. The giggles, shrieks of laughter, the running around, in Cameron's case the scooting he does to reach toys while clasping his fingers as he tries to reach a toy, the way his eyes light up when you talk to him,and so much more. Watching them brings a smile to my face whether they are playing or sleeping. They are our angels and we are both thankful for them. I tell Frank this I think pretty often, but I am so thankful for his love and his friendship. I watch him with our kids and know he will always be the very best father. He is patient and calm, two words you would not use to describe me and he helps me chill out when I get too twirked up at times. He doesn't complain when I ask him to do things, he helps so much around the house, and he is always able to rub my shoulders and neck when I have a headache. He takes care of me always. I am thankful for our extended families. Both of our parents are still happily married (happily most of the time anyway! ;)) My parents have been married for 40 years and I can say that I am extremely blessed to have been raised in the loving environment that I was, and the same for Frank. I am also proud of them because it is such a rare thing these days, but they have always overcome challenges together and they have put us first. They are the best role models and I hope when our kids are as old as we are they will feel as strongly about us and we do about our parents. I think pretty often how thankful I am that my dad is healthy and still here with us today. It has been almost 7 years (in January) since we found out he had Esophageal cancer and we were told he had a 50/50 chance of survival. He has been cancer free now for over 6 years and when I see him with our kids my heart swells because I can't imagine how different it would be without him. I am thankful for our siblings. Growing up we went through periods where we did not get along as well and we really did not enjoy spending time together. I talk to my sister pretty often though I wish we could talk more. I am so thankful for her wisdom with situations and for reminding me that everything is ok since she knows I worry too much. :) My friends are also very special to me and I am thankful for their support, their shoulders when I need to cry, their ear when I need to talk something through, and their laughter when we share fun times together. Several of you will read this blog and I hope you know how much I value the friendship I have with you. I have so much more I could continue to list, but I will stop here. :) Frank and I have not been to church in a while, but I know we have God to thank for all of these blessings. There have been times when I have been angry with God because I did not understand why things would happen, but over time my heart has changed. I should say I am thankful for God's unending patience while I sometimes still struggle with understanding!

To continue on, here are some pictures from the wonderful week we had in Austin!