4 Months Old

Cameron is 4 months old!  Now we're officially into my favorite time period--from about 4 months until 2 years old.  I feel like this time period with Nathan just got better and better and now I'm excited to experience it with Cameron.  So much development and personality is coming out every week.  Here are the things about this time that I don't want to forget:

*Cameron rolled over!  It just happened yesterday for the first time as far as we know.  And then it happened again today.  Unfortunately the roll over is still elusive though.  No one has actually witnessed the act in person.  Yesterday Gramma and Grampa went to hang something on the wall and when they turned around, Cameron was on his tummy all by himself on the play mat.  Then this morning Nathan and I were in the kitchen and when I went to check on Cameron in the living room, he was on his tummy!  Hopefully we'll get to see him in action soon.  Such a big milestone!
*He's also started to grasp on to things.  He can now hold on to his rattles or play toys.  He doesn't hold on to them very long, but it makes him happy to get a few noises or shakes out.
*Cameron's temperament is still great.  His smile just lights up our days and he is such a joyful boy.  He's starting laughing a little too which is so sweet.
*What a mover!  His legs never stop.  And now that he can roll over, he goes over to his side all the time.  I'm sure he's so anxious to just get up and walk already after observing his brother all the time.  It's all I can do to get a diaper on the boy!
*The challenging part about this time so far is that Cameron's sleep habits have really changed.  He's waking up quite a bit at night--every 1-2 hours.  He just needs help soothing and getting back to sleep when he wakes up and he's not up for very long.  But I'm exhausted getting up so many times during the night and having my sleep broken up so much.  I've read that this is common.  I feel funny about starting any kind of sleep training because he feels too young.  But I've resulted to giving him the binkie every time he needs to be soothed and I might need to start moving away from that so he doesn't get too dependent on it.  Oh the neverending change of babies' sleep patterns!
*Cameron is "talking" quite a bit.  He loves to make squealing and cooing noises like he's talking to us and definitely always wants to be part of the conversation.  Poor James--I think he's gonna have 3 extroverts on his hands!

Happy 4 months Cameron!!

This looks like 2 little old men having a chat :)

Christmas Moments and Memories

Now that I'm back to work full time it's tough to find time to blog.  But I'm committed to doing it even if it means the entries might be shorter.  This is one such entry.  I want to capture our Christmas moments for this year and I'm mostly going to do it through images.  So here is a look back at Christmas 2014:

James and his little "elf" decorating the Christmas tree

Our annual trip to Molbaks and the traditional photo in front of the poinsettia tree

Seeing Santa was a success....no meltdowns!

Visiting the Teddy Bear Suite at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel

Our annual tradition of making Christmas cut-out cookies at Nana and Pops' house!

Riding the Santa Train in Snoqualmie

Christmas morning at our house--the boys in their Christmas pj's

Love this shot of Nathan going through his stocking and pulling out the traditional orange from the toe

Our sweet little candy cane.  Happy 1st Christmas Cameron!

One of Nathan's favorite gifts--he's an official "worker man" now

Look at all that loot!  Legos, puzzles, books, etc.

And the grand finale gift from Santa....a train table!

Every year Christmas gets more and more magical because of our kids.  Unfortunately because James was kind of out of it from his surgery, we didn't get many photos from our time with our families.  But we had wonderful Christmases with both the Spauldings/Antis' and the Warners as always.  Can't believe it's already over and we're into 2015 already.  Happy New Year!

Surgery Round 2

A little over a year later and here we are going through another surgery.  For the last 2 years or so James has been dealing with pain and irritation in his right shoulder.  After seeing the doctor and getting x-rays he determined that he had a calcium deposit in his shoulder.  Strange I know.  They're not entirely sure why calcium collects in one spot--maybe something is rubbing inside or something is off with the bone structure.  But nonetheless James developed a chunk of calcium that has been irritating his shoulder area for a long time.  After a cortisone shot did nothing to relieve the pain, he decided it was time to remove it through surgery.

Based on conversations with the doc, I think we thought this wouldn't be that big of a deal. Definitely nothing like his ACL surgery last year.  And so far it's been easier than the ACL surgery, but it's been far from easy.  My assumption was that it would get removed, there would be a little bit of recovery and then James would finally feel relief.  We're now into week 3 of James being in a sling and he's suffering with a lot of pain at night and not able to sleep well.  He's sleeping downstairs on our chair with the ottoman because it's the only comfortable position.  And he found out yesterday at his post-op that he has at last 3 more weeks left in the sling.  And probably 4 more weeks or so until he can start PT.  So needless to say--definitely not a "minor" surgery.  Part of the reason is because removing the calcium deposit left a hole in his rotator cuff.  So his injury is similar to a rotator cuff tear which is pretty major.  James did the surgery on the 23rd right before Christmas because he had the whole week off and didn't have to take sick time.  So our Christmas was a little off this year because he felt pretty loopy from his meds and we mostly stayed home and were low key during break.  But it was still a nice holiday....more later on that.

I've been able to be pretty patient and positive about it so far.  But James and I looked at each other the other day and said "No more surgeries for a LONG TIME."  We're looking forward to getting back to normal again soon--especially him so he can have full use of his arm and not have annoying pain from the calcium deposit.  I'm looking forward to having a partner in crime again for diaper changing and taking care of the kiddos.  :)

Deja vu with this photo.  Looks a little similar to this.  James we love the hat!  Feel better soon honey!!

3 months old

Our sweet boy is 3 months old (well really almost 4 months old at the time of blog post)!!  He's looking handsomer every day and is just so dang cute (I know I'm biased).  I love this time on though because it feels like they just get more and more personality and are doing so many amazing developmental things.  Here's what's happening with Cameron at 3 months:

*He is still a very smiley baby--even more so now.  He really engages with everyone and if you talk to him and smile at him he'll give you a big adorable smile back.  He also likes to "talk" with lots of coos and squeals.  I'm thinking he's going to be social and talkative like his brother!
*He's become very wiggly lately.  He scoots all around on his baby gym mat and the other night I went to get him in his crib and he had totally pushed himself up closer to the rails.  We're gonna have to keep our eyes on this one!  Why does it feel early still for all of this to be happening?
*Cameron is a very content baby--luckily not very fussy.  Most of the time he's happy just sitting and observing what we're all doing.  He especially loves watching his big brother.
*He started school this month!  We received a miraculous email in mid-November that a spot opened up in the Infant room for Cameron at the day care/school where Nathan goes.  We love the place so much and had Cameron on the waiting list as soon as I knew I was pregnant, but the infant room has been very full and having him start in Dec. or Jan was tricky timing because not a lot of spots open up.  We were pretty anxious about it and were planning to do a back-up day care for awhile just until a spot opened up.  But thankfully a spot opened up just when we needed it.  We cried when we found out!  Such great news.  He's loving it so far too--smiles at the teachers and is so happy when we go to pick him up.
*Cameron still has quite a bit of hair!  It's turning blonder and is long and pretty thick for being a newborn.  We can even crate a mohawk on him after the bath!
*We've started a bedtime routine with him--I nurse him, and then we put on his Pj's, read 1-2 books to him, sing to him, pray and then turn on his white noise machine.  So far he's doing really well with it and goes to sleep pretty well on his own with us having to soothe him maybe 1-2 times.  Every time I read to him he looks up at me with his sweet big grin!

Nathan getting in on the action

Sweet brothers

Such a little man!

Happy 3 months, Cameron.  We love you!!

Thanksgiving

So I better get caught up about Thanksgiving before Christmas is here! Staying on top of blogging has always been tricky and is even more so now with two kids. But I'm determined to stay with it as a mini journal/scrapbook for our family.

Thanksgiving this year was really nice. I always enjoy this holiday because we spend time with both families and its a little more low key than Christmas.

My favorite part of Thanksgiving this year was how excited Nate was for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  He was glued to the tv once the parade started and was so excited to see the balloons like Thomas, Grover, the turkey, etc.and also loved dancing to the songs and watching the floats. Normally the parade is on in the background and I don't pay much attention to it. This year I actually stopped to watch and snuggle with my boy. That's one of the things I'm loving about having kids-they help me slow down, and stop to notice the more magical parts of the holidays.

We enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner with the Warners with all the normal yummy fare.  Then we pulled out the camera and enjoyed taking some family photos in the 15 minutes it wasn't raining that day. Somehow we were all color coded without meaning to be.  Oh and notice in the background of the first one that my super motivated dad already has the Christmas lights up!

In the evening we headed to the Spauldings to have yummy pumpkin and apple pie for dessert and to watch the awesome Seahawks wreak havoc on the 49ers (yes!).   All in all it was a wonderful holiday--very relaxing and lots of great family time.

2 Months Old

And in a blink of an eye Cameron is now 2 months old!  Wow time is flying by fast.  Only a couple more weeks left on maternity leave.  It makes me sad so I'm not even gonna think about it.

Cameron is getting bigger and learning new things all the time!  He had his 2 month checkup last week.  He's 12 lbs. 11 oz and about 23 inches long.  He's about in the same place as Nate at this age. He received a good bill of health from the doctor.  And sadly he had to have his first shots which was hard to watch.  I think he turned even redder than Nathan did.  But he had a quick recovery thank goodness and no real fever or suffering later on in the day.

Here are the fun things happening at 2 months:

*Cameron is smiling a lot.  We love his smiling sessions and it just melts our hearts.  He's got such a joyful smile.
*We got out the baby gym and Cam likes it so far.  He's grabbed on to the rings a couple times and likes to look in the mirror.  He's not enamored with the gym--he's even just content looking around the room at different objects and colors
*We get big smiles from Cameron when we read to him--especially books like Goodnight Moon, Brown Bear and Baby Elmo is So Big
*He found his hands in the past 2 weeks.  He likes to look at them and suck on them.  We're hoping he doesn't start sucking his thumb.  So far we're in the clear.
*He has slept through the night a couple times!  Before Daylight Savings ended we had a couple nights of 7 and 8 hours that Cam slept before waking up.  It was heavenly!  But as most parents know the Daylight Savings process interrupts any kind of great schedule you worked so hard to achieve.  So now we're back to him sleeping about 5-6 hours at a time and waking up once during the night.  I'm not complaining though--he's a great sleeper.
*Cameron has the most wonderful cooing sounds.
*He's still a very mellow baby.  The only time he really gets upset is when he's hungry.  And when that happens--watch out.  You better be ready to feed him right that second!
*As you will see below, he still has quite a bit of hair.  He hasn't really lost much of it yet.  And it's lightening up.  We have a feeling he'll be a toe head like his brother.

Spiderman and Skeleton (and Ninja Turtle)

Halloween was such a fun holiday this year!  Especially because I got to be home and help out with Nathan's school Halloween party this year.  It was a packed, fun-filled day!

This year Nate chose to dress up as Spiderman.  It was a tough decision making process for him trying to decide between Captain America, Spiderman and Ironman.  But eventually Spiderman won out.  Cam didn't have much of a choice since his costume possibilities were limited.  But he was a good sport dressing up as a Skeleton.  As an added bonus, his costume glowed in the dark.

We began the day by attending Nathan's school Halloween parade.  What a treat for me to get to go--I usually have to miss it because of work.  Each classroom takes a turn visiting and "trick or treating" at the other classrooms.  It was fun to see all the great costumes and of course Nathan was excited to get his first round of candy loot!

After lots of teeth brushing and a much needed nap, Nana and Pops came over and we all headed back up to Nathan's school for his Halloween Party.  My friend Katie and I helped to put it on.  (Fun fact--Katie and I grew up together.  She lived just a few doors down from me.  Now her daughter and Nathan are in the same class at school.  So amazing that we grew up together and now our kids are growing up together!).  The party was fun with lots of yummy snacks, and activities such as ghost bowling, witch hat ring toss and decorating mini pumpkins.

Nate with his buddy Rylan (my friend Katie's daughter)

Enjoying the party!

Cutest Spiderman ever.  Gotta love the muscles

Sugar overload continues

We all headed home and Uncle Ryan and Carly came over to join in on the trick or treating.  After a warm chili dinner, the gang got ready to head out.  Uncle Ryan was a great sport and dressed up as a Ninja Turtle.  Nathan was ecstatic.  Papa, Pops, Uncle Ryan and Carly all took Nate trick or treating while Nana, Cameron and I stayed home to pass out candy.  Trick or treating is popular in our neighborhood so someone has to stay home or you get in big trouble.  Nathan ended up staying out for over an hour!  I was impressed since he's only 2.5.  And what a loot he came home with.  We've barely made a dent in his candy bucket.  But what a fun time.  He had a blast.  Excited for both boys to go trick or treating next year!

Ninja Turtle and Spiderman join forces!

Love this pic

The bucket was completely full!  He's definitely my kid.  :)