Thursday, December 31, 2009

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Hope you're all having a wonderful New Year's Eve! We're at the cabin, thanks to dear friends! We've shopped, and groceried, and cooked, and eaten, and played, and played some more! Now to find some dessert and ring in the new year together! Poor Camden is already sleepin', but the Bigs are rarin' to go!
Happy New Year Everyone!

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Happy Birthday, Jeff!

Today, Jeff turns 35! We are so blessed to have him as the husband and daddy in our house! He's by far, the BEST man we know! We love you and hope you have a VERY Happy Birthday, Jeff!
Molly and I made this very special cake for him. . .
Mississippi Mud Cake! Don't you wish you were part of the family that gets to enjoy this? It's still warm and i'm VERY tempted to cut it right now to make sure it's edible. . . this is a first-time recipe.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Merry Christmas!

What a wonderful week it has been leading up to Christmas! A night at the cabin with great friends, a LOT of shopping, a movie with more great friends, a playdate, a sleepover, LOTS of cooking and baking, some burning, lots of wrapping, more shopping, more wrapping. Dinner with family, church (except for the little bit that refused to nap today), and a little bit of UNwrapping. Off to bed they go, and i will get busy preparing for tomorrow's excitement. Merry Christmas to all of YOU!

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Almost Christmas Outing

After ENDLESS hours of last minute shopping (because yes, i was nowhere near done getting the things i need) these past two days, i took a break and had a fun time at the movies. The girls that attended our cookie swap (post to come soon) all met at the theater (with a couple brothers) and saw The Princess and the Frog!Other than a little "darkness," thanks to some voodoo magic, the movie was wonderful! The soundtrack is bound to be awesome! The kids sat in the row in front of the moms, and it was fun to see them bopping in the seats as the music was playing!

Now, off to baking land and cleaning up and wrapping for tomorrow's influx of family! Let the festivities begin!

Friday, December 18, 2009

Speech Therapy

So, Camden is 22 months old and we're still working on building his vocabulary. He definitely has a delay, but he's #3, so we're sure with our prior experience of speech therapy times 2, we can help him along for a few more months.

So tonight at dinner, Griffin (who is completely exhausted) is fussing and just plain whiny at the dinner table. So i say, "Camden, when Griffin is fussing, say waaa, waaaa, waaaa!" Camden looks him square in the eye after the next word out of Griffin's mouth and says, clear as day, "Waaaaaaa, waaaaaaa, waaaaaaa!"

Griffin couldn't help but cheer up!

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Camden's sweetheart!

Camden's bestie is sweet little Gracie down the street! They spend every Monday and Wednesday afternoon together and Tuesday all day! Here they are! Is she not the cutest best friend a guy could have? Maybe there will be prom dates in their future together! Looks to me like they're thinking about holding hands, but decided they might be too young for that!

Monday, December 14, 2009

Story of the Night!

Camden is obsessed with gagging noises. He thinks it's so funny to pretend to burp. But, in his 2 years (almost) of living, he has never thrown up - except for his reflux issues as a baby. He has no idea what a stomach virus feels like. Tonight after dinner, we gave him a small bowl of ice cream and when he was finished, he was sitting so nicely entertaining himself with the bowl and spoon. Then, it progressed to gagging himself with the end of the spoon (he does this game regularly - in the car, in the stroller, etc - sticks his finger down his throat until he gags). He thought it was terribly funny, until . . . .
You guessed it, he threw up! All over his lap. And obviously, it didn't taste so good. Then he cried for himself, because no one else, namely Jeff and I, felt sorry for him. And then it moved to being grossed out. And repeating over and over, in his precious way, "eeeewwww, eeeeewwww, eeeeewwwww!" All the while scrunching his nose and pursing his lips!
He's in the tub now, getting cleaned up! Hoping he learned his lesson on the gag reflex thing! Perhaps he'll find a new way to be funny from now on!

Sunday, December 13, 2009

A Minute of the Mouse

I don't have much time to blog, but didn't want to leave you hanging all week! I WILL get caught up on blogging soon, i HAVE to! But, here is a little minute of the mouse . . . and his friends.

Camden LOVED Donald Duck. Funny to me, because Griffin always loved Mickey and Pluto, Molly has always been partial to Minnie and the Princesses, and now Camden loves someone entirely different. He LOVED him. Wanted to touch and just look at him. Was amazed! Truly the "magic" in the most magical place on earth. Camden was the perfect age for this! He loved every minute and was a delight the WHOLE week! I mean a delight. Slept when we would enter a dark theater for a show and snacked when he was too small to ride a ride, and happy as a lark the rest of the time. What a blessing he is to our family!
These are the "magic" lights at Epcot. They are fiber optics in the sidewalk. They appear then disappear and reappear. Camden was intrigued. I think he would have spent half his time there, and been just as happy. Every time they would disappear, he would raise his arms in question and say, "where go where go??" in his own little language that he has! Not sure what strange child those legs next to him belong to. Not a McCreary!
Yes, 18 days before Christmas and here we are, at the Magic Kingdom. The funny story about this day was the kids watching a child eat popcorn off the sidewalk! Yes, from the sidewalk! We were waiting in line to see Santa. The child in front of us stood in front of this marker and proceeded to spill half a bucket of popcorn (might i add approximately $3 worth of popcorn)! About 5 minutes later and two families behind us, the mom wasn't paying a lick of attention to the girl with her, and my kids were freaking out as Molly reported watching the little girl EAT FROM THE SIDEWALK!! I had been showering them in antibacterial handgel from morning to night, so to watch a child eat FROM THE SIDEWALK must have been a freak show to them. When the mother finally saw the child, she barely cared! Molly and Griffin were amazed how relaxed the mother was, guess they could only imagine what my reaction might have been if it were one of mine. . . both suggested i might have induced vomiting or worse, but we won't go there!
Sorry for the sideways picture . . . haven't cropped and resaved and flipped and such yet. Didn't realize it until this was already loaded, but turn your head sideways and note how Camden is looking up at Donald. I believe his eyes were blinking, but he was so interested in looking at him, he would get frustrated if we would put him NEXT to any of the characters for a picture and move back immediately. Not scared, just wanted to be able to look at them and inspect every inch!
Goofy was the master of friendliness and managed to coerce Camden into closeness for a picture. This isn't the best, but it was the first one i clicked on.
It snowed on Main Street at Magic Kingdom and it snowed at Hollywood studios. . . all part of the magic. Again, sorry we're not flipped, but this shows Camden's amazement with this too! He had no idea what it was! It was very real too. Amazing!
And in tradition with saving the best for last . . . this is Camden after his first ride on Dumbo. He was MAD AS A HORNET that he had to get off. Cried and cried. . . well, not really cried, although there were tears, he was just mad! He wanted so badly to stay on the ride. Yes, Jeff is really flinching as there were punches being thrown. Then, he was even more mad that the camera was in his face! It was hilarious at the same time. However, please know that as soon as we told him we were going to ride the carousel, he managed to get it together. The people all around us thought this fit was as precious as we did!

And, to lessen the pain, i think we rode Dumbo 3 more times over the duration of the trip. Its a Small World at least 3 times, and the Carousel (which turned out to be even better than Dumbo) he rode one night about 5 times in a row. . . the cast member didn't even make him get off in between rides!

We had a wonderful time together, are so thankful that Khaki and Papa were with us to share all the fun and memories, and are now freaking out over how much we have to do before Christmas arrives in not even two weeks!

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

We are having FUN!

So sorry for no posts about Disney, but we left the card reader for the digital camera at home, so we can't dump the SD card every night! But, Papa took this picture yesterday. . .

If this doesn't say it all, i'm not sure what would! We went to Animal Kingdom yesterday. As our last ride, we told the kids, we could ride Kali River Rapids before we left (since we knew we'd be soaked). Camden is too little to ride, so he received the consolation prize of Mickey ice cream while the grandparents took turns riding/staying with him. As you can see, he was not disappointed in the prize!

We are having a wonderful time! All my guilt of missing school and work is now gone as this is worth every bit of it! The kids have been so good, have been very agreeable, and truly are enjoying themselves. Camden has yet to fuss, except for the 5 minute fit he pitched when Dumbo ended and he had to get off of the ride! It was hilarious and if i can figure out how to load videos from my camcorder when we get home, i will post it here!

Hope everyone reading is having a great week. Ours is quite "Magical!"

Saturday, December 5, 2009

At the Mouse's House!

We are about to hit the hay to rest up for a busy day at Epcot tomorrow! My feet ache already thinking about how tired we're going to be on this "vacation." But, so excited that we're going to have a super fun week! Hope you all have a great week! I'll post when i'm not too terribly tired. And will upload pics to facebook on the spot.

Friday, December 4, 2009

More Creativity!!

Once again, it's 1am and i've just finished the creative project du jour! Special thanks to Andrea for the fabric. . . i truly did not have time to go to Hobby Lobby today and stand in line for approximately 10 inches of fabric. So Andrea let me raid her stash of fabric scraps instead! You're a lifesaver, and quite honestly, have almost as much fabric as Hobby Lobby!
Here is what i created - a whole set of mickey and minnie shirts. From the littlest peep, all the way to the big dude!
For CLM:

For MGM:

For GMM:

And a closeup of Minnie. . .

Sorry for the blurry pictures. . .it's late and i wanted to post these before we leave. The boys' shirts are red with black mickey. MGM's shirt is black with checked minnie and red bow! I'll take good ones the day they wear them!

Thursday, December 3, 2009

From the Mouths of Babes

Today, Jeff is attending a memorial service for a dear lady he knew grewing up and has also worked with in recent years. When Griffin and Molly woke up, he was already in suit pants (side note: if you don't see us daily, Jeff is business casual at the office, never more than khakis and a button down). So as Griffin watched Jeff put on a dress shirt and tie, this is the conversation that ensued. . .
Grif: "Dad, WHY are you wearing THAT?"
Jeff: "Grif, Do you remember me talking about Ann Allen? She passed away and I'm going to her funeral. I worked with her at Bellsouth and she is the nice lady that made the curtains in the keeping room for us."
Grif: "Why would she invite you to her funeral?"
Jeff: "ummmmmm. . . ."

Needless to say, our children have not yet experienced death and the process of funerals and events that follow the death of a person near and dear to them. Guess we'll have THAT conversation tonight or in the near future. Invitations to funerals. . . that could be something new.

Late Night Creativity!

This is my latest late night creativity party creation . . .

I've fallen in love with appliques, and found they are so easy to do. I'm going to surprise Molly in the morning with this one! I'm sure she will love it. We'll be doing a couple days at Disney and i'm sure she'll beg to wear this one as soon as the sun goes down each afternoon! Should i embroider on the back. . . "Ask my mom how you can own this sweatshirt too?" Or maybe i should just take a bag full of them with me and sell them for cash only. Could be a quick way to make some spending money. You know the cheapest sweatshirt down there would cost at least $25 in the gift stores. . . i could sell mine for $19.95 and make a killin'! Too bad i don't have time to make a bunch before we leave. Tomorrow night's late-night party will be to make Camden a Mickey one!
Here's the close-up. And again . . .My kids will only be able to wear them for so long, i'll be passing them on in a year!