Camille Turns ONE!

 I can hardly believe she's ONE.  This year has gone by so fast. It literally slipped away from me.  I want her to stop growing up.  Some facts about Camille: She's a tiny little thing at only 17lbs (2% for weight and 5% for height) but no worries... the doctor says she is healthy. (If you could see her little legs, you would know she is not underfed!)  Sad for her though because the doctor said she will have to stay in a rear facing car seat for a while.
She stands on her own all the time, and takes 4-5 steps... but only when she wants to and never at our begging or pleading.   She loves to climb up on anything and can climb the whole flight of stairs in no time (with someone behind her).  

 This is her funny smile where she kinda grits her teeth (all 3 of them... ) and squints her eyes. She "winks" at people (with both eyes). She hates her hands touched and she LOVES her brother and sister.  They are pretty much the only ones who can get her to laugh, really belly laugh.

 She's a little bit feisty with a bit of a temper.  Under all that dark hair... is RED. I think she will eventually be a red head, but we will see.  Here she is mad that her dad wont give her the screw driver as he's putting her present together.

 Still mad.

 Here she is taking off with her stroller/walker.  

 Awww. Too cute not to put up here.

 I'm kind of a lame mom... and didn't make her a cake. (Kate said "that's not fair for Camille") but she loved this just as much. She whipped out the candle before I could even light it.

We love our little Camille so much!!!!

Sam's Baptism.

We had such a great day.  Sam had been counting down the days to his baptism, like he did for his birthday.  We had our families over beforehand for a brunchish thing (muffins, donuts, fruit, etc.)  so that it didn't take up everyone's day, and he also had a class party to go to that afternoon. 

Here is a picture of Sam digitally enhanced to see what he will look like in 30 years, 60 years, and 90 years... Just kidding, here's 4 generations!  
Sam is lucky to have the support of so many people who love him.  
Probably the coolest thing (for me at least... and it will to Sam in the future) were all the sweet notes people wrote to Sam while we were waiting for him to get dressed.  I cried when I read them, which made Sam worry and he said "Mom, I love you, please stop crying. I'll never leave you."  We had such a great day and we are so blessed to have him in our family..

In an attempt to get a night's sleep...

This little girl still wakes up in the night to eat.  She's such a tiny little thing that I have been a pushover about it thinking she needs the nutrients.  I put a bunch of binkies in her crib thinking she would find one when she wakes up and put it back in her mouth an go back to sleep.  It hasn't happened yet. But I'm hoping.  Obviously, she's FOUND them... because this is what she usually looks like when I go in to get her in the mornings.

Sam's Birthday!

We took Sam to Planet Play for his birthday. Being New Year's Eve... there was a party going on! Sam and Kate both invited a little friend and they had fun playing laser tag, getting their faces painted and eating pizza, cookies, ice cream and slushies. That is Sam's cake (Give me a break you over achieving mom's out there who may be reading this. We were gone all day and they are yummy and he was ok with it.)

Looks like I never blogged about Katelyn's birthday (but she turned 5.. YAY! And had a great day by the way). BUT, I also bought her a sparkler candle... and we aren't very experienced with sparklers around here so it was a little scary. And kinda dumb, because it made our house stink and got specks of burned sparkler all over her cake. Which we scraped off and it all turned out fine. ALL of which I forgot, until I about lit Sam's candle and he reminded me. That kid never forgets anything.)  For any of you looking at the background... we were in the midst of our big home improvement project which had some thing to do with me not blogging.  But that is why we have folding chairs, card table and carpet remnants.


 
Anyway... so, here we are and Sam is lighting it outside because he's such a smart boy to remind his mom.  He was also able to look at the stars and moon with the telescope he got for Christmas.

Camille was scared of it.  I never really liked New Year's Eve until we had Sam.  My kids have never been told that people stay up until midnight. And I'm not going to tell them either. We did let them "stay up late" because it was Sam's birthday, but that was still 9 p.m.  Truth be told... we were in bed before midnight. Until those darn fireworks woke us up.  

Christmas!

We had a great Christmas this year. We spent most of the holiday season keeping this little one away from our Christmas tree. (Although it looks like she's decorating it... she is UNdecorating it).

I haven't posted anything since Halloween so I'm doing a quick post. I remember Camille was sick and teething and I was sleep deprived, and here it is not even a month away from Christmas and I can't remember much.  This year was tame compared to last year,  (Last year I was a million months pregnant and Michael had gotten a colonoscopy the week before to tests for Crohn's disease among other things after the complications from his surgery in October. Sam had gotten his tonsils out the week before and was miserable.)  but next year I want everyone healthy for Christmas!  But I have to say "my cup runneth over" because I know how blessed we are.