Rudolph

Camden had her 6 month check up last week. She weighed 15 lbs 3 oz and was 26 1/2 inches. As you can see from her red nose she's a bit miserable. Our usual happy, content, easy going baby has not been so happy this past week. She's cut one tooth, working on another, has a cold, and is constipated. She has passed her cold onto mommy so hopefully she'll turn the corner soon. Oh and start sleeping through the night again..that hasn't happened since my last post.

She crawled under the chair today and was stuck, but didn't seem to mind.

I have people ask me often, "Is it so different having a girl, or is it so much fun?" I usually say its really not that different right now with her being a baby, other than the clothes. However, I must confess I did play dress up this one morning. Yep, my baby girl has Ugg's and her mommy doesn't even own a pair.

Growing up

Every day I am reminded just fast my babies are growing up. I can't seem to find the time to journal or fill out the baby book lately so this is my outlet or record until I can play catch up.
-Pierce told me today, "Mom at Staples I saw one." When were you at Staples, "with Pop, he had to get some size D batteries." and when did he know what Staples was and start talking like an adult.
-Or "Mom, they are buy one get one free." Where did you hear that? "On the commercial."
-"Mom, this year maybe we can figure out the gingerbread house. (I guess I couldn't figure it out last year). And maybe while we are making it we should have some candy."
-Pierce had his five year checkup this week. He was 95% in height and ..ready for this...90% in weight. I'm still not real sure about that second statistic. If you have seen our boy lately, he's pretty tall and slim. I think the nurse missed the mark on the scale and added a few.
-I need some accountability this week. I've promised myself that once the Christmas decorations came out I would put up the baby swing and bouncy seat to give us some more room. I've always been so excited to put up baby items for the space but really struggling with it this time around. To think this could be the last time we would have a swing or bouncy seat sitting around brings me to tears. Camden was literally doing a handstand out of the bouncy seat the other night..it is time, like it or not.
-Camden is sitting up now, I think she ended up doing it the same day she crawled. She's eating lunch and dinner. She seems to like babyfood but when she is done, she's done. She pulls up on her knees and wants to play with anything the boys have left on the ground or they are playing with. Drumroll...she has slept through the night 4 out of the past 7 nights!!
-Holt calls many of people "bad guys." Ever since he was an army man for halloween he has grabbed on to this bad guy concept. We are not sure where it came from but we are working on it , as he calls certain friends bad guys, the pizza man a bad guy, and anyone military is a bad guy.

Lessons learned and advice to give..

So now that we have had the second throw up bug in two weeks to hit our house I thought I'd summarize what I have learned. For those of you who have a weak stomach you might not want to read :) Also most of this I learned from this week when Holt got sick in the car after eating a large breakfast and lunch..enough said.
-Rubber floor mats are one of the smartest, best investments we have made. Also the rubber seat protector came in quite handy and leather seats.
-A hose works wonderful when child has thrown up 4 plus times in the car seat and thank goodness you can wash the car seat covers.
-I knew my friend Hope was an amazing friend but she proved this once again when she stayed on the phone with me as I cleaned the car and talked to me to distract me from the task at hand and keep me from throwing up myself. I only had to pull the phone away once to gag.
-I will not be able to eat Chick-fil-a for quite a while.
-Keep large ziplock bags in the seat pockets in front of the kids seats in case they decide to get sick. I did not have these, however they are in there now!
-When your child says his stomach is hurting when leaving school. Maybe stick around just a little longer before putting him in the car.
-When the nurse tells you not to give them water until they haven't thrown up for an hour...really don't do it or know that even that water will come right back up.

And its not even officially winter yet, hopefully our household and yours can stay healthy for the holidays!

More Birthday Pictures

Five Years Old!!

Pierce got his first Panthers jersey.

I love this picture. I was taking a picture of the group and Pierce grabbed Holt and looked over at me.

Pierce turned 5 last Tuesday. Wow..we have a five year old! I can't believe that he's already five. If only I could freeze him at this age. He is so full of life, has such an imagination, and loves all of us so well. He has the biggest heart and a sharp mind like his daddy. We finally had his birthday party yesterday after is had to be rescheduled twice as daddy was out of the country for work and then Pierce had the stomach bug. But we had a beautiful day and ALL the boys had fun.

Ready or not..

She's off. Our sweet baby girl turned 6 months today and is CRAWLING!!! I'm not ready for this, she's my baby, not even quite sitting up on her own or sleeping through the night but crawling for a book. I think this is a result of Gran encouraging her all week but it certainly wasn't this mommy encouraging her to crawl this early. I had to post for daddy to see. In the background is my photographer Pierce, he got a camera for his birthday and has probaly taken 200 pictures in 24 hours. More birthday post to come.

Army Crew

We like to see how much we can fit into a night on Halloween each year. We start off going to our neighborhood parade. We then head over to our old neighborhood for our chili dinner that has become a tradition with our friends there. Then we are back to our house to trick or treat. Pop meets us and loves taking the boys out trick-or-treating. The past couple years he has come in some kind of costume. The boys were so excited all day to find out what Pop was going to be dressed up as...and look an army guy just like them. I have learned after last night I need to set a limit to how many houses they can go to as I had to get in the car at 8 to find them. They both had huge bags 2/3's of the way FULL of candy. For those of you who know me well, know that I have a 'small' candy addiction. So when I'm complaining of mouth ulcers this week you will know why.

Halloween

Has anyone noticed that our boys are yelling in most of their pictures? And I wonder why I have headaches by the end of most days lately :)

Camden had two outfits. I had bought one and my mother-in-law also bought one so of course I had to try both of them on.

Army man was getting his workout on in Lindsay's garage.

Good Treats and First Eats...

The Whites had us all over on Thursday for a fun Halloween party. Chaos would be the only word to explain getting five families together totaling 10 boys and 3 girls. Linds, thanks for being so brave and the fun time.

Camden had rice cereal for the first time this week. I was trying to hold out until 6 months but the night feedings are getting old so thought I would give this a try in hopes of more sleep at night.

My big boy

Pierce turns five in just a couple weeks and he is growing up right before my eyes. Sorry this video is sideways but I couldn't figure out how to turn in. He learned this song at school and sang the whole thing for me and I thought to get the camera at the end. He is so full of life and loves learning new things. I thought this video just captured his personality. We are in the midst of open houses and school searching for him right now. I can't believe my baby will be in kindergarten. I thought I would never be that parent who cried and was sad when there child when to school. Oh was I wrong, I literally was crying as I sat at an open house last week and thought of sending him to school. I can barely have a conversation about it all without getting emotional. Just keep reminding me that it will all work out and I will be ok :) Here are a couple cute things he has said to me in the past couple weeks...

"Soon I'm not going to have these toys anymore because I'm going to be a big daddy and big daddies don't have these toys."

"Mom, when I turn six, will I go to highschool?"

Camden Pics

1st time in Exersaucer...

Camden is 5 1/2 months old and is such a joy. Her smile lights up her whole face and she definately just goes with the flow. We are still trying to master sleeping through the night but she is content as can be during the day. We are still on no schedule, which I am actually pretty proud of considering I was pretty obsessive with a schedule with the boys. I have realized between school and getting out that its really not possible and almost easier to not have one. She does nap, but whether that is in the car, baby bjorn, or her crib it just depends on the day. I still long for the days when all three will nap together in the afternoon, but considering Pierce hasn't napped for a year and Camden is usually due to nurse as soon as I get Holt down I will just try to enjoy the lower ratio in the afternoons.

Weekend in the Mountains

We got poured on at Tweetsie, but the boys still had a blast and we didn't have to wait in one line.

On the mile high bridge at Grandfather mountain. This made Gran and Pop just a little nervous us taking the kids over it.

We spent an amazing weekend up in the mountains. We did Tweetsie Friday and Grandfather mountain Saturday, and played in Blowing rock on Sunday. We rested a lot, and ate lots of yummy food, and enjoyed the changing leaves and beautiful views. It was such a blessing to be able to get away, soak in the beauty of the mountains and enjoy some fun time as a family away from the chaos of life.

Dedication

Her Mom-Mom in Philadelphia made this sweet sweater she is wearing.

Camden was dedicated at church today. We were a little nervous having the boys up there with us too but they did great. I guess a little M&M bribing didn't hurt. She was content as usual an it was a sweet time for us as a family to celebrate her life and dedicating her to the Lord. The verse we chose for her dedication was Zephaniah 3:17 The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in your, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."

Mom Mom and Pop Pop brought up ALL of Jason's old Lego's today for the boys. They love legos. No exaggeration..Pierce played with them from the time we got home from lunch at 1:30 until 7:30 tonight, he only stopped to eat dinner. I think Daddy is as excited about the new legos as the boys are.

Pumpkin Patch

Don't worry, Pierce still has his soccer jersey on from his game at 9 this morning. He doesn't like to take it off on game day. We also didn't paint this pumpkin on his face for this outing if you were wondering, we came straight from our neighborhood fall picnic.

We took the kids to pick out pumpkins tonight. They have been begging to go, they love pumpkins! You would of thought we were at Disney World when we got there. This wasn't even a real pumpkin patch, just a place selling them. It so much fun to see the joy kids can get out of something so simple.

New Camera!

About once a week we hear a 'thud' upstairs after we put the boys down. This is the sound of one of them falling out of bed. This night after we went up to check on them a little while after the thud this is what we saw. Pierce had no idea the next morning Holt had even been in his bed.

One of my best friends Amy is having a baby in a few weeks and we had a baby shower for her last week. We have been best friends since childhoold so its always fun to share these milestones together and see just how far we have come. Some would have said in our hyper days we may never be fit to be mammas. Who knows some may still say it now :) Amy I can't wait to see you as a mommy, she is going to be one blessed little girl!

Jason wanted to give me a new camera for our anniversary this year. However, thrifty Courtney wasn't going to take him up on going to get it, because I didn't think we could justify spending money on a camera. But as we watch once again with our Camden how fast these precious days go by, I decided that it would be really fun to get even better pictures of them and not miss any of these sweet moments. So here are some of my first shots. I'm definately still getting the hang of the camera and am hoping to take some classes to learn how to really use it, but I'm loving it so far!

Friends

Camden had her first playdate with a girl friend a couple weeks ago. Jackie's beautiful little girl, Stella, came over. She is two months younger than Camden, we look forward to watching them grow up together!

The bottom picture is the boys with some of their best buddies, Britt and Chet at our church picnic two weekends ago. Its crazy how similar our boys are and how much they love playing together. Holt and Chet are in the same preschool class this year which is fun.

Off we go!

Monday I came down the driveway and Pierce was at the bottom of our street and had already taken off one side of his training wheels. He then asked me to go get the wrench to remove the other side. I went along with it not anticipating him to really want to learn to ride without them. However, I literally helped him get up on the bike and off he went. And that was that, no more training wheels. I was shocked as we tried this at the beach a couple months ago and he had no interest and I quickly lost interest after balancing him down the street. I guess when they are ready, there ready. Next thing I know I look over at Holt with wrench in hand trying to remove his training wheels. Needless to say, he's not quite ready..although he didn't want to hear this from me.

4 months old

This was my best attempt to get a picture of the three of them together.

Camden turned 4 months old this week. We can't believe its already been 4 months. She is such a blessing and has become so easy going and happy. She loves being outside, her baths, being held, her activity mat, and sitting in her umbrella stroller watching the boys play in the cul-de-sac. She is napping a little more regularly and sometimes sleeps through the night...still trying to master both of these. The boys still adore her. Holt says "mommy Camden Gray is getting bigger and bigger and biggger." If we are going somewhere and I say Pierce is coming to Holt, he's say "and Camden Gray." Pierce is always helping me with her and loving on her. Now if only they could love eachother so sweetly :) Pierce has picked up on the fact that he is older and can try to tell Holt what to do and take whatever he wants from him...Holt's not taking this so well which leads to just a 'few' arguments a week.

1st Game and Movie night

Pierce had his first soccer game yesterday. He did great and had fun out there. Every picture I took of him we was smiling as he was playing. His team won their first game.

The bottom picture is from our 'movie night' last weekend. We have been saying we were going to start doing a movie night every month and finally came through on our promise. The boys went with me to pick out a movie and chose 'A Bug's Life.' Holt watched long enough to finish his popcorn and M&M's and then he was done...as he still will not watch anything for more than five minutes. Pierce had no problem finishing the movie.