Car Conversations With Camryn

"Hey Mommy?"
"Yes?"
"I need to go to JCPenney's."
"JCPenney's? For What"
"I need to get Dad a Christmas present."
"From JCPenney's? What are you wanting to get him?"
"A Christmas Shirt."

I can just see Luke wearing a Christmas shirt with little snowmen on the front of it, can't you?

"Mommy, how old is God?"
"Ummmm....well, He's always been. He's always existed. I guess you could say He doesn't have a birthday."
"MOMMY! God has a birthday, it's Christmas!!!"
"OH! You're right"

How do you explain this to a 4 year old?

For the past couple of weeks, when I've pick Camryn up from school she's been complaining of these kids that have been calling her a baby. After a couple of days of this I told her that she just needs to ask them nicely not to call her a baby anymore. The next day she came home and said that she talked to the little girl who had been calling her a baby and asked her not do it. The girl agreed and said they could be friends. Her exact words were "Mommy, I trained her not to call me a baby anymore, now I just have to train those 2 boys!" Yesterday she told me that one of the little boys she has now trained not to call her a baby. She now has one more left to train!

Grant's 1st Haircut

We finally gave our little Grant a haircut. I felt sad cutting that baby hair away, but it had to be done. It was starting to look like he had a little rat tail in the back. It looks a lot better. He did so good. I put in a Baby Einstein video and sat him up in his chair and snipped away. He sat so still. I was so glad because I had a lollipop to give him as a last resort. I didn't want to have to go down the lollipop road with him yet...he's still a little young for that. Some of these pictures Camryn took for me. She does quite well with the camera. : )

What A Day!

Camryn and Grant went to a friend's birthday party this afternoon at Pump It Up. We had never been before and had heard from our Dooley friends about it. What a cool place. Both of them had so much fun. Since Grant is so little I had to do everything with him so after an hour and a half of climbing and jumping I was pretty pooped. Grant and I sat down to put on his shoes and go into the party room for cake and popcorn. Next thing I know he is puking all over my arms and legs. I think he drank too much and then with all the playing it just came back up. So I smelt like puke the rest of the party and immediately came home and cleaned up. After dinner, I gave our sweet kids a bath. Our son decided to puke again in the bathtub with his sister in it. I quickly got her out and was getting her situated when I turned around and saw him taking a poop in the bathtub. Oh so gross!!! What is with this boy? Seriously!! I got him out, cleaned him up and then I had the lovely job of disinfecting all the toys and of course the bathtub too! I told Camryn that when she was little she pooped in the tub too. She laughed and said, "Yeah, when I was 4 I used to pee in the bathtub!" Umm...wait, you are 4! She said she doesn't do it anymore though!

We started painting our house yesterday. This week our goal is to get the dining room and one wall in the living room done. We are almost done...yeah! It's a reddish burgundy color so it will require a third coat. Hopefully we will have it done tomorrow evening. The weather has been so cold the last few days. Camryn is happy because it means that she gets to wear all the long sleeve shirts that were packed away. It's like Christmas when we pull out those shirts she hasn't seen since last year. She's a true girl...loves clothes! Today I stopped into Goodwill to kill time before another store opened at 10:00. I love Goodwill! I mean it's hit or miss, but today I got Camryn a pair of Sketchers and a cute little outfit that still had the tags on it. This particular Goodwill gets all of Targets leftovers so sometimes you can find cute Target clothes with the tags still on them. We love Target too!

The kids are doing well this week. For some reason Grant's room stays so cold. The last few nights I've had to double up on his jammies. I put regular long sleeve jammies on him with socks and then on top I put the footed jammies on him. When I get him out of bed in the morning his little cheeks and hands are like icicles. I may have to break down and turn the heater on tonight. : ) Camryn got in trouble tonight before bed for not obeying (imagine that) and Daddy gave her a spakin'. Afterward she came up to me and pulled down her pants and asked if she had a rash. So funny!! She just wanted to know if her bottom was red. She used to call it the red rear. She would tell Luke, "Daddy, don't give me the red rear!" Except it was pronounced "wed wear".

It's late at our house and I hear Luke snoring in the chair. I better move him to the bed. TTFN

Camrynisms

There are certain words that Camryn says or used to say that I will always remember and probably pronounce wrong for the rest of my life. I'm sure if you have kids your family has the same thing going on. When our nephew, Davey, was 2 he called the remote, "the bemote". I don't know if his parents even remember that, but to this day I still call the remote "the bemote". My niece Charis calls chocolate milk "chalkie bookie". So funny!! Here are some of my favorite Camrynisms:

"Tadults"--adults

"Pak-uter"--computer

"Hair pretties"--hair bows

"Eddybody"--everybody

"Pesketti"-- spaghetti

"Hooj Big" -- huge, big

"Peep"--pee, potty

"Breakafull" -- breakable

"Her"--she (for example--"Her is my best friend.")

"Sleeping Booty"--Sleeping Beauty

"Poxel"--Popsicle

Of course there are others, but that's all I could come up with for now. I can't wait to hear Grant's little sayings and the new baby's little sayings too! Aren't kids so much fun?!

1728 Quail Trail

Here is our new place. Our life for the past couple of weeks has been all about unpacking and organizing. What a job. I don't really enjoy the whole process of moving...who does for that matter. I think we are about done unpacking all of our boxes and life is starting to feel normal again. Our garage is a complete disaster. Whatever we don't want in the house, we've just been throwing in the garage and so it is just a mess. Organizing that mess will be an all day event. We also have to paint the stair hallway and the whole downstairs. Our goal is to be done with it by Christmas. I think we can do it. I must say it has been so great living close by to everything we do! Five minutes to church...amazing!!! Last Sunday we were dressed and ready to go and just waited and waited until it was time to leave and this was for the 9 am service. It's also been cool to save so much money on gas. I have 1/2 of a tank left and I filled up over a week ago. I had been filling up every 5 days or so. Crazy! Another great thing about living here is our neighborhood. I just love it. It is so quiet and all the neighbors are friendly and seem normal. : ) The kids and I actually went on a walk this afternoon which was fun. I would have never attempted this without Luke any other place we have ever lived.

Camryn seems to be adjusting to her school really well. We love her teacher, Mrs. Cyndy. She is so sweet to Camryn and patient too. There is another Cameron in her class, but he is a boy. I guess all the kids were calling Camryn "Camryn the girl" and calling him "Cameron the boy". Mrs. Cyndy thought that instead she would have them say their last name initial, so Camryn would be called "Camryn W." Camryn came home from school that day and said "Mrs. Cyndy asked if everyone could call me Camryn W. and I said no thanks, you all can just call me Cinderella or princess." That's my girl!! She thinks she is going to be a princess when she grows up. I haven't really explained to her that being a princess is not a profession you can go into! A few days later Mrs. Cyndy told me that they settled on calling her "Camryn Noelle". Apparently she agreed to this one. : )

I must share the bargain I found yesterday. We have tile floors all throughout the downstairs so Luke and I wanted to get an area rug for the living room. I looked around Saturday and couldn't find anything I liked. So yesterday I went to Target and decided to get this one rug that was $100. It wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but it was the best I could find. I mean the colors didn't match my decor very well. So I decided to run over to Ross because I still needed a rug for the bathroom and a couple of other things. I'm in there looking around and I found the area rug I had been looking for...the colors were just right!! There wasn't a price on the rug and so I asked the lady at the front counter if she knew how much it was. To make a long story short, I got it for $25!! Can you believe that?! I saved $75! I'm so proud of myself. : )

In other news, we have a beautiful new niece, Hannah Brooke. We plan on going and seeing her this weekend. We can't wait to meet her and hold her. Sorry Nana...don't be jealous.

Our Week In A Nutshell

We signed the lease on our new place earlier this week! We are so glad to be moving closer to our church and Luke's work. God seems to have worked out all the details for us including a great preschool that will be close by for Camryn to attend. She is not too keen on the idea of switching schools, but I know she will do great. I think she is really going to miss her teacher. She loves Ms. Dempsey! I think the feeling is mutual, not that Camryn is special, but Mrs. Dempsey knows her and is so patient and loving with her. This week's challenge for Camryn at school was leaning in her chair. She got a yellow card on Tuesday because she would not stop leaning and rocking in her chair. The rule is that if you get 2 yellow or red cards in a week you can't have treasure box on Friday. I had a big talk with her on Tuesday on how she doesn't need to be leaning in her chair because she could get hurt. Of course I reminded her that if she got another yellow or red card this week that she could not get treasure box. She looked at me and said "Mommy, I know the rule is you can't have 2 yellow cards so maybe if I get 3 yellow cards then I will get treasure box!" Nice try. She ended up with 2 yellow cards this week, but she still somehow managed to get a treasure. I guess they felt bad for her because it had been a while. : )

Today Grant, Hope, and I met the landlord's friend at our new place to do a walk through. It was such a stressful morning!! Poor Hope and Grant wanted to be held and so they pretty much cried and whined the whole time I was walking through the house with the lady. I felt bad for the kids and for the lady. She acted like she understood, but I'm sure she was a little annoyed. I was so ready to leave. We went back tonight to get the rooms set up for painting and I thought I might try to clean the place a little. Once I got started I realized how dirty the place actually was. The kitchen is awful! We decided to call the owners and ask them if they would get the place professionally cleaned. Thankfully they agreed to have it cleaned! I was feeling so overwhelmed! We are just praying that they are able to have it cleaned early in the week so we can finish painting and move in by Saturday. We will see!

Grant is doing great! He loves to eat. I took him to MOPS on Thursday and we got there a little early. The ladies in hospitality were putting out the food and he just stood by the food table and stared at the food. He would giggle and point like he was saying "please mommy?!" He loves food just like his Daddy. Grant is also into balls these days. I couldn't figure out why he would say "ball" every time I pulled him out of the car and then Thursday I saw him pointing at the little white rocks beside the driveway. If it's round, apparently it must be a ball. All the round fruits and veggies in the produce section at the store he calls "ball" too. Maybe I should teach him the word "circle" instead!

I'm starting to crave certain foods with this pregnancy. This week I've been craving pizza and a pumpkin spice donut from Krispy Kreme...I know, it sooo bad!! I finally got my pizza tonight. It was all that I had hoped it would be! Now all I need is my donut! I hope these cravings get a little healthier or I might gain 100 lbs with this kid!

Okay, enough rambling for now. TTFN

Our Motto

Finally we started a family blog! We've been talking about doing this for a while, but we just kept putting it off...laziness, I guess. So last night we finally decided to do this. We named our blog "It'll Be Alright" because it has become our family motto...well, actually it started as Luke's motto and has turned into a family motto! When I was pregnant with Camryn and I would complain of not feeling well Luke would say "You'll Be Alright". Which was true, but I was looking for some sympathy not "Ah...You'll Be Alright". When Camryn or Grant get hurt Luke tells them "It'll Be Alright" and I must admit I have started saying it too. Not that we don't love on them. We do comfort them, but it always seems to end with "It'll Be Alright!" I have even heard Camryn tell Grant "It'll Be Alright" when he cries. She is picking up on it too. Whenever we have big life decisions or trials, we always come around to saying no matter what "It'll Be Alright". Recently and much to our surprise we found out that we are pregnant again. Yes...baby #3 is on the way. And before you say anything, yes we know what causes this, but it's just not a habit we are willing to let go of. So this motto has become even more fitting for our family. Two kids less than 2 years apart...."It'll Be Alright!"