Breakfast with Santa

Well, the past couple of weeks have been eventful! That first week after Thanksgiving and decorating for Christmas, I got really sick with a stomach bug one night. I was throwing up a ton and ended up having Daniel take me to the hospital, which ended up being just an expensive mistake. It was the middle of the night, I was tired and not feeling good, and I thought I was throwing up blood. So I went in, and it ended up being nothing. They hydrated me, gave me some anti-nausea medication, and sent me home. It took a few days after that to feel back to normal. I didn't throw up anymore, but I was out of energy, exhausted and had moments of nausea.

Saturday the 5th, there was a Ugly Sweater Christmas party at the Faucette's house. It was a nice party, with food and white elephant gift exchange. We had a good time.

Daniel's been taking a bunch of work off lately. He took a day off when I was sick to help me take care of the girls. And he took another day off last week. They still haven't been giving him much to work on, so he figures he might as well take the time. We're drinking it up now, because once busy season hits next month, we won't see much of each other.

This past Saturday, the 12th, was our Ward's Breakfast with Santa. Chelsea Bulkley had really decked out the cultural hall. The theme was the Grinch, and it was so fun and cute. We had breakfast and talked with our friends; Brooke did some Christmas crafts; and then Santa came and I stood in line with Brooke to see Santa. She was SO excited to see Santa, she was having a hard time waiting. When we finally got up to Santa, she went right up to him and he put her on his lap and she had no problems talking to him. He asked her if she'd been a good girl and if she helped her mamma, she said yes, of course. She told him about her newly painted nails. He asked her what she wanted for Christmas, and she said, "I like the Grinch!" She was so cute.

It's been a fun Christmas season so far! And we're so excited to go to Oregon next week! I can't wait to see my family!!!

Goals

Over the past few weeks, I have been considering my life as it is and where I'd like it to go. Which leads me to start thinking about goals. It is an appropriate time of the year to be thinking about goals, I suppose. It's the ending of another year, and we have a new one, with all kinds of new possibilities, right on our tails.

So, today, after a few weeks with it on my to-do list, I sat down, with a pen and paper, and started thinking about my long-term goals. I realized, as I did this, that I have accomplished almost all of the goals that I had growing up: I attended BYU and got my degree; I went through the temple and made covenants; I fell in love with an amazing man, and a returned missionary, and got married in the temple; I've started a family -- 2 beautiful, wonderful babies, hopefully with more on the way; and recently, I ran a half marathon. There are a few things I didn't do: serve a mission, which I'd planned on doing; and have a successful career. I thought that it would be important to have some kind of respectable career, as the world sees things. And I'd planned on that. However, I have chosen an occupation, and I truly love my occupation and do not, at present, feel the need for something else.

I find it so wonderful that I have done nearly all that I had set out to do in my youth! I'm living my dream! But, in discovering this, it begs the question ... what next? And so, I wrote out a list of the things that I really want to accomplish in this life. It's probably what anyone would expect: I want a bunch of kids -- happy, healthy, good kids; I want my husband to be happy; I want my house to be in good shape and for us to be prepared for ... whatever; and I want to always be working on myself -- staying healthy and well, close to the Savior, and always learning new things and new skills. I do have other dreams: I'd like to travel one day; and serve a mission with Daniel. And there are other things that I consider, but haven't decided about, like homeschooling my kids or going back to school myself. But if these things never happen, I don't think I would be heartbroken. I suppose that I don't care too much about what it is that I do in this life, so long as I achieve my ultimate goal of eternal life in the world to come -- and so long as I do something good. I just want to follow God's plan for me, and I suppose I'm not sure what all that entails.

Which brings me right back to goals. There are so many good things that I could be working towards. But what do I want to work towards? Training for my half marathon was really good for me. I had something concrete to work on and a real goal in mind. I was focused and confident. But since that's ended, I feel like I need something else to work on. Too much that I could do. Not entirely sure what I should do.

Spoiled

The girls and I have been mightily spoiled this week. Daniel, since his superiors are not giving him any work to do, took this entire week off! So he's been home, hanging out with us, without going in to work or working from home at all, for an entire week. And it's been the most wonderful week of my life!! I was commenting to Daniel at the start of this week that I'm so lucky that I like my husband and enjoy spending time with him. Many wives, when they learn that their husband is taking a whole week off of work, complain about it and say how the husband is just going to interrupt their routine and that it'll be miserable. I feel so fortunate that I am not one of those. Having him home this whole week has been like a dream! And we've done some fun things!

Unfortunately, I got sick a little over a week ago with a mild cold, which I then gave to my whole family. Daniel has been feeling mildly sick for weeks, it seems, and right when he was starting to feel better, he caught whatever I had and is feeling sick again this week. I was lucky in that my cold didn't last long. It seemed to peak on Monday or Tuesday, and by Wednesday, I was feeling pretty much as good as new. Poor Camille has gotten the worst of it, I think. She's been stuffy and her nose has been runny all week. None of us seem to have a bad cough, which has been good. Just nose stuff, and sore throat.

Anyway, despite that, we've done a little shopping, we've arranged for Christmas presents for the girls, we've watched some tv, we've played some games.... We took the girls to the library one day. Daniel and I even started a puzzle this week that we're close to finishing.

On Tuesday, we dropped the girls off at the Mapps house and Daniel took me out on a lunch date. We picked up pizza at Pizza Rev, and then went to a local park to make a little picnic of it. It was so fun! It was a nice, cool Fall day; the leaves were turning and falling, but it was bright and sunny and blue-skied outside. A perfect date!

    
We had sort of been expecting Aunt Liz and Uncle Bob to invite us for Thanksgiving ... because that's what we've done every other year. But ... Tuesday before Thanksgiving rolled around without hearing from them, and we figured they weren't going to invite. Which was fine! We weren't hurt or upset at all! But, we did need to figure out what we were doing. The Hills in our ward invited us to spend Thanksgiving with their family, and so Wednesday morning we finally got back to them and accepted their invitation. What's funny is that a few hours or so after that, Aunt Liz texted and asked if we would be able to come! And we laughed!

We could have done both dinners. The Hills were scheduled to eat around 12:30pm, and Aunt Liz said their dinner was at 4 pm. But ... Camille was really sick and obviously not feeling well. And by the time we got around to eating at the Hill's, it was after 2pm. We had a nice time with the Hills, though we felt a little bit out of place. The family is huge and crazy, which is totally fun. But we don't know every one of them. The dinner was delicious, and we were very grateful for their kindness and generosity.

We finished eating by around 3:30, so we texted Aunt Liz and told her we wouldn't be coming. Camille was clearly not feeling well and she was tired. We hung out at home for a little bit, the girls played while Daniel and I snoozed a little bit, we fed the girls a little bit, and then they went to bed a little bit early. It was a nice, relaxing Thanksgiving day!

Yesterday was our day to decorate for Christmas! Before Camille and Brooke went down for naps, we got down the Christmas boxes and put everything up. Then after naps, we went to Wal-mart to buy a Christmas Tree and a few other things. We came home, rearranged a few things, and put our tree up. Daniel and I were both pleasantly surprised by how pretty it is. It was all wrapped up at Wal-mart, so we couldn't really see how it looked and it was a shot in the dark as to how it would turn out. But it's beautiful! There aren't any bald spots in the branches and it's all very uniform looking. We have never had a real tree, in all the time we have been married. The first year we were married, we didn't get a tree because we didn't want to spend the money and because we would be spending a couple of weeks in Oregon and figured we wouldn't enjoy a tree for long enough anyway. But right after the season ended, Daniel got a fake Christmas tree for free that we used every year until this. It died last year. It was looking really sad, and parts of it were breaking off. It's so nice to have a real tree! It smells delicious in the house, and it's so beautiful! Our old tree served it's purpose, but it sure was ugly. :)

After the tree was up, Daniel strung the lights while I fed the girls a little dinner. When he was done, we all helped to put the ornaments on the tree. And now it's all complete! Christmas-time is officially here!

Millie's (Half) Marathon

A week after Halloween was the date for my Half Marathon. That whole week was a little different than usual, a bit of a recovery. Mom left that Sunday after Halloween, and the week was spent working on some things at home. I didn't do too much running. We were resting up for our race, although Heather and I both did a few runs, a 3-mile run and a 5-mile run. Two days before we stopped doing any kind of exercise. I did stretch really good Friday night, though.

I tried to go to bed early on Friday night, but it was a little difficult. I wasn't in the habit of going to bed as early as I needed to, and I was nervous and anxious and excited, so my mind just wouldn't rest. Daniel read a little bit of Harry Potter in Spanish to me to help me fall asleep. And that worked pretty well.

I had to wake up at 3 in the morning to start getting ready. I got dressed and made a bit of breakfast for myself, gathered the stuff I thought I would need, and then Heather came to get me and we drove out to Azusa. It took about an hour to get there and another half hour at least to park and get on the bus. The bus was to take us up to the starting point of our race, 13 miles up the canyon. But our bus driver did not apparently know where he was supposed to go, because we drove around, a bit aimlessly, and he turned around a few times before we got on the right rode. We rode around like that for at least 20 minutes before we started up the canyon, and I was dying because I had to go to the bathroom so bad. The whole ride was a little nerve-racking, on top of which I was anxious about the race already.

We finally got up to the starting line around 5:30am or so. And it was crazy up there! And FREEZING! There were at least 50 little port-o-potties up there, and Heather and I estimated at least 200 people milling around. We picked a spot against a rock wall to hang out, and just watch what was going on. Everyone was wrapped up in sweaters and emergency blankets that the race company provided. People were sitting and laying down; there was loud music playing; some were walking and jogging around, eating, talking to people, getting ready. Heather and I just sat and watched and talked a bit.

When it was almost time to start, we took some pictures and followed the herds of people heading out to the Starting Line. We threw our Drop Bags onto the truck and swung around with everyone else to start. The gun went off, and we were still trying to get to our place; we didn't officially start the race until about 4 minutes after it started, but ... we weren't in any rush. There was a chip in our bib that tracked our time from when we crossed the starting line to when we crossed the finish line; so it didn't matter too much that we didn't get out right away.

The first mile was weird, because we were so cold, and our bodies had to warm up to running. Plus, everyone was so bunched up at the beginning, for at least the first few miles, that it was a little hard to navigate through the crowds. After that first mile, we started shedding our layers. I was surprised how quickly I warmed up and started feeling warm. So after about 2 or 3 miles, we started feeling really good. We were going along at a fairly good clip, and we both felt strong and energetic.

Heather and I stuck together for most of the race. There were a few slow and steady, but long, hills where we got separated for a short time. And we did take one bathroom break around mile 7. But other than that one stop, and the few real short ones to get some water, we ran the whole time. That was my main goal: to run the whole thing without walking. I was surprised with how many people would stop and walk for a while, especially up the hills, and then start running again. I felt really good that I was running the whole time, and very consistently, too.

We did the first 10 miles without really any difficulty. We felt good! We were doing it! It was wonderful and so fun! It was around mile 11 that we started to feel it. Heather's knee started giving her grief and I was just all around tired. I noticed that my lungs and heart were doing just great; but ... the rest of my body was getting tired. The road that we were running on was slanted to one direction or the other, and my ankles were really sore and tired. On top of that, my hip flexors were getting really tired, and my quads. That's about the point that we separated. I tried to keep constant, and even pick it up a little, though I was tired. I knew if I slowed down, it would be difficult to keep it going. But Heather fell behind a little bit.

The last mile was -- Killer! Right at mile 12, we turned a corner, and as I turned it, I saw the last mile ... climbing a little hill. What?! A hill, right at the end?! It was so sad. But. I picked up and finished, passing people on the way (which felt SO good) and it was so exciting. There were a whole bunch of people at the finish line yelling and cheering, and I saw Daniel and the girls there cheering for me. I finished in 2 hours, 18 minutes and 14.10 seconds, at about a 10:33 min/mile pace. I crossed, they gave me a metal, and then I navigated the crowds getting food and water. They had a ton of stuff: granola bars, water bottles, energy drinks, bananas and fruit, pie ... It was intense! So loud and crazy. I grabbed what I could, but I was more anxious to see my family and then find Heather.

It was such a good feeling! Heather and I were so proud and happy! It felt good to finish. And we were so tired and sore for days afterwards.



*Freezing up at the top! It was pretty cold.*

*At the Starting Line with about a million people. It was very exciting!*



*Beautiful race*

*Crossing the finish line! So cool!*

 

Daniel let me take a long shower and a long nap when we got home, which I sorely needed. It felt so good to sleep!

Stats:

Bib #	4474
Event	Half Marathon
Chip Time	2:18:14.10
Gun Time	2:22:27.59
Start Time of Day	7:04:33AM
Finish Time of Day	9:22:47AM
Pace (min/mile)	10:33
Overall Rank	686
Gender Rank (Female)	367
Age Division Rank (F25-29)	32

Halloween!!

We had a wonderful Halloween. Mom was still visiting with us, and we had a nice little family dinner. She stayed home to man candy duty while we took the girls out around the neighborhood. We had a good time. Brooke was so excited about it, and Camille seemed not to know what to think about it. She was clinging to me the whole time (but she may also have been a little cold). They sure looked cute. 

I do wish our neighborhood was better about Halloween. Most people don't participate, which is just lame because our little complex here has so much potential. With so many houses so close together, they could make it really fun. But the houses that have candy are so few and far between, it's kind of sad. The girls had fun anyway. I took Camille back before Brooke and Daniel were done. She was tired, poor baby, and it was certainly way past her bedtime.

Halloween was fun!

Halloween Party Madness

This Halloween Season has been awfully exciting. Last year it was exciting, because we were seconds away from having a new baby ... and then we had a new baby. But now. It's been fun because Camille turned one year and we've had a whole bunch of parties to attend.

There was a party thrown by some sisters in our ward and their friends at the beginning of the month. The theme was "Freak Show", and these girls went all out! They held it in the Halladay's backyard (a family in our ward that is loaded and has a huge property where we throw many of our ward parties). They had a dance floor, tables and chairs, a setup for taking pictures, treats and drinks. And the decorations were amazing! It was carnival freak show all over that yard: freaky dolls hanging from the trees; scary clowns hanging out in random places; tents and hay bails; balloons and a hotdog stand; skulls and creepy busts. A ton of people went; there was much dancing and fun all around. We didn't even know the majority of the people there, but we had a great time.

*Jill Newbold, Megan Hebdon, and me*

Then, last weekend, of course, was our ward Halloween party. Also in the Halladay's backyard, and with many of the decorations from the other party. It was a fun party! And much more comfortable for us than in years past, probably because we know people, finally, and have some friends. I made some veg chili for it, mostly for myself ... :) And we all dressed in our fun costumes. The girls had taken a pretty late nap, again (that seems to be happening a lot more lately), so I felt like we could stay a little later than we normally would. Although, Camille was getting pretty restless towards the end. Brooke had fun following Daisey around and playing with her and Miley Delhoyo.

*Tweedle Dee and Alice*

*Tweedle Dum, Tweedle Dee, and Alice in Wonderland*

This year, I wanted to start a new tradition for our family for Halloween -- a Halloween Feast! A special dinner, where I make something delicious and possible Spooky themed. Everything had spooky names. I put out some candles and pumpkins, we played a Halloween station, and we had a great time. Unfortunately, Daniel was working late and commuting home, and Gramma was working at Grandpa Bowen's house, so they missed our fun dinner. But the girls and I had fun. And I had fun planning and making it all. Hopefully next year, Dadda will be able to do it with us. I'm also thinking that next year, we'll have to do some Halloween themed activity afterwards, like carving pumpkins or making little Kleenex ghosts or decorating Halloween cookies. We'll see. But I see a very fun future with this new tradition!

*Our Halloween Feast -- Witches' Wands, Spooky Salad, Worms and Eyeballs, Bones, and Pumpkin muffins. So fun! Camille loved the feast -- the bones and eyeballs and muffins in particular. But she's a really good eater, nearly all of the time. *

Daniel didn't have to go in to work this morning because of his assignment for today. So we had some time to be together, which has been rather rare of late. And we carved pumpkins! Brooke had a great time drawing on, poking holes in and cutting up her pumpkin (with help, of course -- Daniel ended up carving her pumpkin with a happy face, like she requested).

*My vampire pumpkin, Daniel's silly pumpkin, and Brooke's smiley pumpkin in the front.*

This afternoon, Daniel's old firm, KKAJ, had a Halloween Party at their office and invited all the families and children, and they even invited us, which I thought was so nice. They had pizza there for everyone for lunch and they did a fun little Halloween Parade for the kids to show off their costumes. The kids were led around from office to office, trick-or-treating for candy from all of the employees. Brooke had a great time, and it was so fun for Daniel and I to see our friends. They loved having all the kids together in the office, and I must say, they were all pretty cute.

Aside from all of these fun Halloween festivities, I've been reading Dracula during this season. I've missed the last few Octobers; the month just seems to slip away, and I would find that I hadn't read it ... again. (And honestly, you can't read Dracula during any other month of the year. Honestly.)So this year was the year. And I really love it! I keep wondering how it is that I haven't been reading this book every single October! It's the perfectly spooky book to read during Halloween. Spooky, but not really terrifying like you feel during horror movies. It's an interesting and fast-paced story, and it's fast becoming one of my favorite books. I'm not done, yet, though, so that could change in the last 150 pages.

This October has been perfect!!

Birthday Week Madness

Camille's birthday was on Tuesday, so the first part of Monday was spent doing some birthday shopping. I still had presents to buy the little angel. We got part of our shopping done before afternoon naps, and I had planned to finish it after naps. But I noticed that Brooke was starting to fade towards the end of our outing, and then after she'd slept for a while, she woke up crying. I got her out of bed and let her watch some tv, and sat cuddling with her, trying to get her to calm down. But it wasn't long before she got sick and threw up. The poor little thing was sick. We got her all cleaned up, and then I set her up in the toddler bed in her room with a bowl and some cartoons on the laptop while Camille and I did our own thing.

Brooke seemed to start feeling better around dinner and bedtime, so I gave her a snack while I got Camille fed and in bed. Brooke was pretty chipper; I gave her some stomach medicine and put her to bed. She threw up once more, before I went to bed; we got her cleaned up and her bed cleaned up, and she went back to sleep.

*This little bad started crawling up the stairs last week. It's time for her to learn to go down the stairs too.*

Poor little Camille didn't have the best birthday. Brooke was feeling a lot better, but still under the weather, and not well enough (I thought) to go to the park, which is what I had planned for the Millie's birthday. We stayed home for most of the day instead. Brooke helped me make cupcakes while Camille napped. They had a quick lunch, and then I had to them both to Camille's 1 year check up.

The whole thing was a miserable experience. We got there early, hoping they would see us earlier. Nope. They were late in getting us in. They did all their normal measurements of Camille, we waited, and the doctor came in with all kinds of negative language about Camille's growth, or rather, lack of growth. She is still not on the charts, and the doc said that she has only gained about 2 pounds in the last 6 months, which is not good. We had a little chat about it, she asked me all the usual questions about Camille and her development, and then basically said, "Well, except for the fact that she is unusually tiny, she seems to be doing fine. However, I'm gonna run all kinds of tests on her to make sure everything is alright." We then waited for a while; the nurse came in to give the poor kid 5 SHOTS; we waited some more; and then went into the lab for them to draw Camille's blood. The poor little thing! She screamed the whole time they did that, and I was on the verge of tears as well.

On top of all this, Brooke had pooped in her diaper and was stinky and miserable the whole time. We ended up being there a total of 2 hours, and the girls were just ... done. And so was I. And yet we still have to go in for them to collect some other specimens and do an x-ray of Cam's wrist.

This was not how I wanted Camille's first birthday to go.

We went home and I put both girls down for a SUPER late nap. They both slept, though. They were clearly exhausted and fed up.

Daniel came home from work a little early to celebrate Camille's birthday, and we had a nice birthday dinner, complete with cupcakes and presents. Camille dove right into her little mini cupcake. She had no reservations about it at all, and stuffed the whole thing into her mouth. It was so adorable. We got her mostly books for her birthday. But I had Daniel pick up another gift for her, and he chose a little baby doll. Camille was so cute opening that present. Her face just lit up and we could tell she was so excited to have her own baby doll. She loves playing with Brooke's Dolly, so it was just perfect.

*Birthday breakfast -- Pancakes and berries*

*Birthday Girl! And mini Chocolate cupcakes!*

I let Daniel put the girls to bed while I went to a Relief Society Activity making some cute Halloween decorations.

My birthday, on Wednesday, was a whole lot more exciting than Camille's was. Camille gave me a sweet little gift right off: some rare morning cuddles. And I loved every second! Then after getting up a little bit early and getting ready, Heather Delhoyo (my running buddy), Megan Hebdon (my visiting teaching comp and friend) and I walked to breakfast about a mile and a half away at a fun little deli nearby. We met Chelsea Bulkley and Allison Leishman there, and it was so fun. The girls, I think, loved getting out that morning, seeing some friends and getting good food. And I enjoyed all those things as well.

By the time we'd walked home, Camille's first nap was well over, and we'd missed it. I played with the girls for a little while, gave them a light lunch and put them both down a little early. They both slept for me while I worked on Camille's Halloween costume (an Alice in Wonderland dress and apron that I had started only a few days before). Daniel came home while they were sleeping with wraps from Chop Stop (one of our favorites), and after the girls woke up, they sequestered themselves off to prepare birthday goodness. And he let me take a little birthday nap while he went down with the girls to make dinner.

We had a pretty light dinner -- Daniel and I were still full of Chop Stop -- of salad and roasted potatoes. It was really perfect after the 2 fairly heavy meals I'd had before. We didn't make a cake, but Hillary Erdmann (a new friend, neighbor, and member of the ward) had brought me a mini bundt cake from a bakery, and we still had about a million mini cupcakes leftover from Camille's birthday. We're going to have to figure out this whole double-birthdays-thing. Because next year, for sure, I'm gonna want my own cake. :)

Daniel and the girls gave me some great gifts (basically what I asked for ... perfect!) -- the new Cinderella movie, a gift card to Bath and Body works (so I can get some delicious fall candles), and almond butter. I know that is a weird combination of things to ask for, but ... that's really what I wanted.

After we put the girls to bed (mostly it was Daniel putting the girls to bed), Daniel humored me and watched most of Cinderella before he had to go to bed. He gets up really early these days and really needs to get to bed early. And I, of course, stayed up and finished the movie. I love that movie!

*Run a mile in mamma's shoes!*

So, the next couple of days after that were busy mostly with taking care of the girls and trying to finish Camille's costume. I had a Stake Relief Society meeting on Thursday night and then we had the Ward Halloween Party on Friday night.

Because of the craziness of this week, and being focused on so many other things, the house had gone to pot. It was ... so messy by Saturday. So, all morning I spent cleaning it up and putting it back together; threw some loads of the laundry in the wash; swept and mopped; vacuumed upstairs. It took about 5 hours, but it was a beautiful thing when it was finished. Daniel helped me a bit with it, as well, which was nice.

When the girls woke up, we took them to a local pumpkin patch, Nancy's Ranch, to pick out pumpkins. They were so cute, getting so excited about it. We let Camille pick her own little pumpkin, and she loved just holding onto that thing and playing with it. And then Brooke picked one out. She liked all of the pumpkins, and we kept getting her to look around at all the pumpkins for the one she liked best. But every one she saw, she would say, "Let's get this one!" She was also fairly obsessed with picking the "big ones". We had fun. (Daniel and I got our pumpkins at Sprouts. They were quite a bit cheaper...)

Daniel started working on putting up shelves in the garage (hooray!) while I made dinner -- roasted potatoes, salad, french bread, and sparkling grape juice. We had our date dinner with the girls ... well, it wasn't much of a date, because Daniel had to rush down his food and jet off to the Adult session of Stake Conference.

It was good he went, while I put the girls down, because I had much preparation to do for our date night. I had set the table up with a candy and snack buffet, and each item had it's own Halloween special name. Red licorice was "Witches Hair"; Peach Rings were "Frogs Tongues"; popcorn was "bone chunks", etc. I lit a bunch of candles, too, and it was the perfect atmosphere. We made our own "Witch's Brew" by combining all of the candy and snacks we wanted into our own bowls, and then we settled in for a late showing of Hocus Pocus. It was so fun!

Mom flew into LAX this morning while I was doing Stake Choir stuff and Conference. And now, everyone is sleeping while I write. It's been a great, busy week. And I'm looking forward to a calmer week with my mom.

*From our morning long run on Saturday the 17th. It was a beautiful foggy day, nice and cool, for our run. This week, I sort of lost my motivation to run. I only put in about 8 miles this whole week, which is not normal, or good for my training. I'm hoping that I can pick it up again this week.*

What's New With Camille

• September 7th, we went to the Aquatic Center with our neighbors, the Antwis. It's a really fun little water park, with a shallow little pool, and a playground in the water. We had a blast with them. Camille started really crawling on her hands and knees that day in the shallow little pool. Since then, she kind of reverted back to army crawling while adding real crawling in here and there. And now, she's a pro at crawling hands and knees! No more army crawl here!
• Camille's bottom two teeth came in at the end of August; she was 10 months old. And in the last month, her top two teeth came in. It all seemed to happen at once, and it was a little rough for a few days each time a new tooth was popping.
• Camille's "Monster Face" is my favorite, and I've been trying, without much success, to get a picture of it. Recently, though, Camille will do Monster Face on demand, which is so cute and hilarious. "Camille, do Monster Face!" And she delivers! :)
• Camille and I are just about done nursing. I've cut us down to just nursing in the morning when she wakes up. Last week sometime, I dropped the evening nursing. She'd been getting so distracted nursing, especially at that time. She likes to look around and see what Brooke is doing in the other room. And she had started to look up at me and start jabbering away: "Aaaah - yayayayayayayayayaaaa!" It was so funny and cute!
• One day last week, while the girls were playing in the loft, I sat down on one of the stairs leading up into the loft, and Camille came over and started practicing the stairs, while I was there to catch her and help her. First, she would crawl over to the stairs, put her little arms and hands down on the next step, shimmy her little body forward, face plant onto the stair and slide her body and plop down. Then she would crawl into my lap and sit with me for a minute, turn back and crawl up that stair and away. She'd crawl away from me for a little bit, maybe go look at a toy or book for a few seconds, and then she'd come back to the stairs to try again. She did it several times, over and over, while I was sitting there, and she was so funny, I was cracking up. I tried to get a video of it; but, you know, babies never perform. I kept trying to explain that we go do the stairs feet first, but ... babies. She has been a lot more interested in the stairs lately, though. Months ago, she fell down the first few stairs a couple of times and has since been pretty good at staying away from them, unless I'm there. But lately, she's trying them more. And when we are downstairs, she likes to try crawling up them. The other day, she'd climbed up a few steps, and I was watching her pretty carefully so she wouldn't fall and hurt herself. But then the moment I was not as watchful, she fell and bonked pretty hard on the floor. It seems I need to teach her how to do the stairs safely. :)

*These girls love to look at books. And they also love to be together!*

 

*Brooke and Camille were playing outside, and there was some sidewalk chalk on the ground. Camille found it.*

Brooke-isms

• One night, after I left Brooke in her crib for bedtime, she started crying, fussing and screaming, which is unusual. I went back in after a few minutes, and, more calmly than I probably felt, asked her what was wrong and why she was crying. She said, still crying, "I don't know!" It was so funny and cute. I told her it was okay to cry if she needed to, but that I needed to go so that she could get some sleep. I said she could cry as long as she felt like it, but that then she needed to be quiet and go to sleep. And that seemed to calm her down, and she was quiet when I left.
• After giving her a toy she wanted, "Thanks, Pirate Mom!"
• "Watching Word World is good for my brain, right Mom?"
• Randomly, "You're the best mom ever!"
• Brooke -- "do I have bosoms?" Me -- "no, not yet." Brooke -- "yes, I do! (lifting up her shirt) See?"
• One day when we were shopping at Walmart, we were checking out, and while I was busy doing that, Brooke was singing about everything -- everything she was thinking and seeing, especially about spooky things. The lady behind us said, "She's the person I've seen all day!" And we both laughed about how cute Brooke is.
• "The dog has polka dots."
• Brooke, as she's wearing a tie, "I don't do that. I'm a man."

*For about a week, I was trying to do some fun little educational things with Brooke while Camille naps. Yes. It only lasted a week, although I keep thinking I should be more consistent with it. Anyway, one day, we learned about rainbows and even talked about Noah and the Ark and how a rainbow appeared in the sky when it stopped raining. We both colored some rainbows, and for hers, I just colored a little portion of each stripe the color it should be, and she did the rest. I was so proud and surprised at how well she colored her little rainbow. And she loved it too!*

*Getting to snuggle with my girl while Camille sleeps. We hunker down with one of Brooke's favorite shows, and watch together for a while before I get up and start doing things.*

*LEAVES! She and Camille went outside to play while I made dinner one day. I think they had fun together outside. They're always screaming and giggling to each other.*

*Daniel bought this shirt for Brooke: Wickedly Awesome Just Like Dad. :) *

*After I pulled all our Halloween stuff out, I had all of the Halloween clothes in a basket that Brooke found. I kept explaining to her that these clothes would be too small for her, but she insisted that they were fine and put them on. This result was too hilarious not to snap a picture -- little mini-skirt and short shirt. :) *

*Brooke is getting pretty good at dressing herself now. I have all of her clothes in drawers that are accessible to her, and she likes doing it all by herself. Everything is "all by myself" these days. She's growing up and getting so big.*