Shake, shake, shake

Camden is sporting a new do. All Thursday morning Camden begged me to put some braids in her hair. She carried around her comb and her elastics all morning hoping I would give in. I did give in, but it took waaaaaaay longer than I thought it would. I probably should have just done the usual two braids across the front and called it good, but I wanted to try something different. The end result is pretty cute. Please just don't look at it too closely or you might notice how uneven the squares are. I was pretty meticulous about the parts being straight, but I failed to notice that the back part wasn't even on both sides of her head until I had already done a bunch of braids on the uneven side. I know, nice work mommy. I'll do better next time. I promise. I'm still trying to decide if I should do some more in the back or maybe some cornrows. If I do more I'll post another picture.

Here she is with her new style. You'll be seeing this for a few weeks. Camden loves how her hair shakes and rattles.

Camden also insisted that we have a picture together.  At least one of us has cute hair.  Mine is currently out of control.  Jered wants me to grow it out so here's to shaggy hair for a bit.

Camp...In

Last Friday morning Camden asked me if she could do something fun with her daddy. I told her we sure could do something fun when dad got home from work. I tried to come up with a fun thing to do, as a family, that wasn't going to cost a bunch of money. After a bit of brain racking and talking with Camden we decided it would be fun to have a camp out. Seeing that it is far to cold (and still quite stinky) to really camp out, we opted for the much warmer version of camping in the living room.

Since we don't have a fire place I had to make us a camp fire.I cut some flames out of yellow, orange and red construction paper and glued them onto a strip of orange paper. They weren't thick enough to stand up all alone so I glued and taped some gold sparkly pipe cleaners to the back of some. Then I just curled the ends a little so they would look a little more flame/smoke like. I pulled out the lights we use for our Halloween pumpkins and taped the flames around them. When the lights are on they flicker just like a real fire does. The logs are obviously toilet paper rolls. I drew some wood grain on them with a marker and glued some brown construction paper circles to the ends. It looks a little corny in the day light, but trust me, it was AWESOME when it was dark and the pumpkin lights were flickering.

See here's proof...kind of. Just blink your eyes while you're looking at the picture to get a flicker-like effect.
I cut out some paper stars and taped them to the ceiling and pulled out some star lights. I strung the lights through the regular light fixture and also hung a string of them on the wall.When Jered got home he put up the tent. It's a lot bigger than we remembered so we had to move one of the couches into the hallway. The tent provided a delightful place for us to eat our hot dogs and chips while we watched the Jazz game (Hence the blue glow on our heads in the picture below). We "warmed" ourselves by the fire.We ate some DELICIOUS "smores". We didn't really have the right stuff for smores so I improvised a little. We used two, fresh from the oven, peanut butter cup cookies with a large peanut butter cup and a little cream cheese frosting in between. They were sure tasty and just a grain of sugar shy of being complete sugar overloads!

We encountered only one wild animal. Luckily she was very nice so we let her sleep with us too. The evening came to a close with us howling at the moon (aka the flashlight shining on the ceiling)

Camden agreed that it was a fun night and that we should do it again. The best part about it was it didn't cost a dime. We will definitely do this again and maybe next time we can even throw in a little fishing.

Newest Villain

I'm not sure if you've heard, but there's a new villain in town. She's quite small and most people don't know her secret identity. Most of you will be safe from her secret weapon, as your faces are a few feet away from her reach. I reveal her to you now, at great risk to myself, mind you. I hope all of you appreciate what I'm about to do...

It's my arch-nemesis, MARKER FACE!

For those of you who are still unsure of who this is, here she is without her mask.

Yup, it's Camden. She got some markers trick-or-treating at Sea World and decided they would color beautifully on her chin.

The best thing about this is I didn't even notice when she came downstairs wanting to play a game on the Wii. I got the game all set up for her and she played for a few minutes before she decided she was hungry. She came upstairs and was getting into the pantry when I saw the streak across her cheek. At first I thought her nose was bleeding or maybe her finger that she'd wipe across her face. Upon further inspection I asked her if she wrote on herself with her markers. She proudly replied, "Uh huh" then ran over to her desk and picked up a marker and said, "With this one." Lucky for me it was a washable marker. And lucky for the rest of the world, her secret weapons (aka the markers) have been confiscated and must now spend a few days in time out.

God Bless America

Happy Veteran's Day! This morning Camden and I headed over to the park for a little bit of play time away from home. I had totally forgotten that the city does a Veteran's Day parade and ceremony, until we arrived at the park. Bands were warming up and motorcycles were roaring to life. We had about a half hour to play before the parade began. I wasn't sure if I wanted to walk out to the street for the parade, but Camden was excited to go watch. I'm really glad we did. I was reminded of how much I love the USA.

Camden and I quietly placed our hand over our hearts as the leading flag made its way past us. I was brought to tears as the flag billowed in the wind. (This is nothing new to me. It happens at every parade.) Through the whole parade tears were rolling down my cheeks. I couldn't stop

thinking about the brave men and women who protect the freedoms I enjoy daily. I am truly blessed to be a citizen of the greatest country in the world! God bless America!

Thanks to all who serve with a very special thanks to the best grandpa in the whole wide world!

Who Stinks?

I love our house. I love the neighborhood it's in. I love that sometimes during the day I can hear the kids playing outside at the school around the corner. I love that Camden has so many cute little friends. I love all of their mommies and am so lucky to have them as friends. I love that the geese fly right over our house, honks of encouragement flying through the air with them. I love watching the kids race to school, their backpacks almost as big as they are. I love watching the sun set through our front window. I love that on our walks around the block Camden can stop and see the cows. I love hearing the sound of the old tractor, plowing the fields just down the street. There is so much more I love about it here, but this time of year it really STINKS!

Along with that old tractor plowing comes the wonderful scent of POOP! Yup, poop. This is the time of year they fertilize the fields. What's better that poop to fertilize? Lots and lots of poop. We literally have to check our shoes before we come inside to make sure we didn't step in dog poop. On the up side it's made for some fun, "You stink" jokes.

I'll get you my pretty...

"He, he, he" (as Camden says when you ask her what a witch says) Happy Halloween! Have you ever seen such a cute witch? We spent the day at Sea World and Camden was definitely NOT this cute there. She was kind of a pill and really cranky all day.This is her at Sea World...pretty witchy! She didn't want to wear her costume, but I told her that since I took the time to make it she was wearing it weather she liked it or not. Once we told her that she couldn't get any treats unless she was wearing the costume she decided it would be ok. They had little trick-or-treat stations around the park. Each one was giving out hand fulls of stuff. By the time we left the park her bag is full even though we only hit a few of the stations. She ended up with a bunch of candy, some Crayola markers, pretzels, pencils and even some tiny bananas. As soon as we got back to the condo and Jered asked if he could take some pictures, she turned on the ham. She was doing all sorts of poses and was full of smile and giggles. The rest are super cute and maybe we'll post more later.

I will post this one though because every time I look at it I have to laugh. As we were headed for the exit we saw a photo booth with Oscar the Grouch waiting to meet kids and have pictures taken. Camden was having a blast watching him come in and out of his garbage can waving and even blowing kisses. As soon as it was her turn for a picture with him she started freaking out. Pretty scary witch right? It's bad when Oscar the Grouch has a bigger smile than you.

Right now we are soaking up the SUN, SUN, SUN! It's been very nice to get away from the cold and get to wear shorts and flip flops all day, every day. It was so nice of the folks her in California to order such nice weather for us. I just wish we could bottle some of this up and bring home with us to use throughout the winter.

Our condo is right on the beach so we get to watch the waves crashing in and have seen some beautiful sunsets. We've been sleeping in too late to see any sun rises, but maybe before our vacation is over we can convince our lazy bodies to wake up before the sun. Don't count on it though. This has definitely brought back some memories of being here when I was a little girl. Can't wait for more fun the rest of the week. We're sending WARM thoughts your way...sorry if you can't feel them.

San Diego or Bust

We leave for SUNNY San Diego bright and early tomorrow morning. We're excited to get away from the snowy, cold weather for a week. I'm not so sure any of us are looking forward to the long drive. We've packed lots of goodies and books and to occupy the little monster I have a bunch of little presents for her to open along the way.

Just in case anyone wanted to know, it really stinks trying to pack with a two year old "helping". The way we pack around here is that I get everything (except for Jered's clothes, most of the time) all together and lay it out on our bed then Jered actually packs everything into the suitcase. He's very good at making everything fit so it takes up much less space than when I do it. It really is quite amazing. The added bonus to doing it this way is that he can kind of double check that we have what we need. The down side to this is that Camden can see EVERYTHING. Things have a way of jumping off the bed and running away when she's around.

Today she was extremely helpful to try on all of her clothes. While I was in the shower she came upstairs stark naked and proceeded to tell me that she needed to change her clothes. She then tried on a few outfits until she settled on a pair of orange pants and a red tank top. She insisted that she was going to wear this today...I insisted otherwise and promptly changed her into long pants and a sweater.

As soon as we got home from running a few errands she went upstairs and changed back into her orange pants and red tank top. I guess the girl knows what she wants.

I came downstairs to start some more laundry. As I was pulling clothes out of the dryer I heard her throwing a fit upstairs. All I could hear was something about her "pampees" (panties). She had to try on a different pair of panties with every outfit she put on so I was just figuring that she couldn't find a new pair or something. Upon reaching the stairs this is what I saw...

She had both of her legs through one of the shorts leg holes. Look how proud of herself she is. After further investigation I discovered the problem with the panties.

Not only is she wearing two pairs, but one is on backward AND her poor little cheek couldn't be contained by either one. I suppose the "Wedgie Free" claim on the underwear package only applies when the panties are worn the right way.