Some pre-Christmas pics

I'd have to say that this Christmas was really fun this year with Leah. She loves to have me turn on the Christmas lights and then turn off all the other lights in the house. They she would say "We're having a Merry Christmas, mom."

She loved decorating the tree, opening presents, reading a scripture about Jesus every day in Dec. thanks to my sister-in-law's advent calendar, making cookies, Christmas music, snow (though I'm getting tired of it in Utah) and everything else related to Christmas. She also enjoyed picking out some toys for another little girl for Logan's work's Sub for Santa.

I hope we can continue to have the spirit of Christmas in our home each year and continue some of these great traditions. Last year she didn't understand as well about Christmas so it was fun to see her learn more and more about it.

I forgot to post about Logan and I celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary back on Dec. 16. I think I got too wrapped up in preparing for our trip to Texas that I forgot to write about it.

We put the kids to bed, asked our neighbors to listen for Cameron via the monitor (we have great neighbors upstairs), and ate out at a fun Indian restaurant called the Bombay House. We don't get to eat there very often so it was a treat. The food and service was great, and we even tried to talk about other things besides our kids.

I can't believe it's already been 5 years. And we're looking forward to many more wonderful years to come.

Cameron is here playing with his favorite animals - his tiger and lion. Leah dressed him up in her tutu so I had to snap a shot of him.

Our Christmas Holiday (better late than never)

We've returned, and I finally have some time to blog about our Christmas adventures in Texas. We were truly blessed to be with our family this year and made the trip there and back without any major complications (thankfully).

There is always something we forget on our flights to Texas, and this time it was my memory card to our camera. So the pictures I have are the ones my mom took while we were there. She was great about getting some pictures of us, but I just wished I would have brought mine along. We did take the video camera with us to capture the kids in action, but that takes a little longer to upload.

When we got there on Sunday, we had such gorgeous 50-60 degree weather until Christmas Eve when temperatures dropped and it started snowing. The wind was blowing so hard that the snow was falling sideways. But we had plenty of activities to keep us inside our cozy home, and we even made a couple of trips to our church building to let the kids get their wiggles out.

Some activities we did included making sugar cookies with Leah and my nephew Dallin, chasing my 2-year-old nephew Ben and Cameron around the house and watching them so they wouldn't mess with my parents' dog, singing Christmas songs, and driving around almost every night to see Christmas lights.

There is a house down the street from my parents' house that decorates ALL OUT for Christmas over most of their roof and yard with lights, a mini carousel and Ferris wheel, a Santa seesaw, etc (you get the picture) and Leah called it the "crazy house". Every day she asked to see the "crazy house". The city park also hangs Christmas lights all over and you can walk around and see the displays. Leah thoroughly enjoyed this too. no pics though :(

So here are the pictures that I have from my mom.


Leah with only some of her Christmas loot. She got herself all dressed up like this when we were getting ready to go out.











Cameron after eating chili one night.














My mom and I took Cameron to get his first haircut since his hair had been growing out and was looking shaggy. It was a bittersweet moment for me because he had such cute curls at his neck but now he looks like such a little boy inside of an infant. I was please with the cut.















Here's the finished product. Don't look at my tired face and pulled back hair. We had been shopping all day.





The girls minus my sister Angie and sister in law Lindsey. I think this was taken when we got home from shopping the day after Christmas and we were the three girls left in the house. Angie went back to her apartment in Lewisville and my brother's family flew out ON Christmas day to see her family in Denver.














Leah posing in the beautiful dress my mom got her. She was walking around the house with it on.















We tried to get the kids to smile good with my parents. And I think they were just tired from all the day's activities.




We really enjoyed a wonderful Texas Christmas! Thanks to my parents and siblings for helping us with the kids and spoiling us while we visited. Happy Holidays to you all!

'Tis the season for....

....visiting Santa and giving him the Christmas list. She wasn't even scared this year to talk to Santa and sit beside him. When he asked her what she wanted, she said she wanted a Barbie and a princess castle. And when he asked what Cameron wanted, she said "Maybe he wants a train." I tried to put Cameron down with them but he totally freaked out and wanted NOTHING to do with Santa. So I put him back in his stroller.













The kids both got a sucker afterward, but it was a huge rectangular caramel sucker that should not be given to kids. Nevertheless, Cameron sucked on his happily while we walked around the mall and didn't make any kind of noise so I didn't pay much attention to him. When we were in the Disney store a while later, I looked down to see him still enjoying the sucker but with sticky sucker drool ALL over his hands, shirt, pants and face. It was a trade-off.


.....and making graham cracker houses with friends. Our friends Laura and Kart came over with their two kids to make houses with us. Logan looks forward to this tradition every year and plans out some new house design to build. This year he made a tree house, and it turned out really great. Leah enjoyed putting candy on the house we made together, and she kept wanting to put more and more candy on it. So by the end it looked like a candy bag exploded on our house.

Kart and Laura are both creative artists and made really clever houses as well. Even though we tried to keep the candy away from the kids, they still ate lots of it and we did too.

My grown up girl

When it snowed yesterday, we took our time all morning getting ready until we were brave enough to venture out. Leah actually let me curl her hair while she read some books in the bathroom. This doesn't happen very often because she usually takes a bath at night, and she wakes up with it all tangled.

She even let me take her picture. I just can't believe how grown up she looks now with her longer hair. Her looked really cute when I first curled it, but unfortunately she has my hair and it doesn't hold curl for very long.

Cameron eating his birthday muffin

So we were a couple days late making Cameron's pumpkin chocolate chip muffins for his birthday, but he didn't seem to mind. We ran out of butter on Sunday, his actual birthday, so we waited until I got more at the store. He loved them as always!! He didn't stuff his face like I thought he would but still made a good sized mess.


































Here he is walking with his lion and his tiger, probably his favorite birthday gifts.






























Video of Cameron eating his muffin (it's kind of long)




And Leah didn't want to feel left out so she asked me to take one of her spinning.

Cameron's one year check up

I took Cameron to the doctor's office today for his year check up, and he is growing and healthy. He didn't like the nurse and doctor poking at him and checking his body. And he especially didn't like getting the four shots today. Poor guy! But he really loved it when it was all over, and we got to go back out to the waiting area where there was a fish aquarium. He loves to look at fish in books or on TV and he makes the sign for it. And he took really great naps today since he was so worn out from getting shots.

Here are his stats:

32 3/4 inches long (99 percentile)
25 pounds (79 percentile)

Happy Birthday Cameron!

Today our little "Cam Bam" (what we like to call him because he likes to makes lots of noise and crash things together) turned ONE! I can't believe it's already been a year, and he has grown and changed so much since we brought him home from the hospital.

Here are some of the things Cameron likes or loves to do:

1) Follows Leah around the house and play with whatever she is playing with
2) Loves animals like tigers, bears, dogs, cats, lions and likes to make growling noises
3) Knows how to sign please, more, dog, fish, bird and likes to bark when he sees a dog
4) Walks around the whole house. He even can stand himself up when he's fallen down without grabbing on to anything to help him.
5) Eats pretty much anything you lay in front of him (he loves muffins, cakes or any kind of dessert - he is a true Molyneux)
6) Loves to test his boundaries and really knows how to through a fit and show that he's upset when he doesn't get his way (he's probably learned this from Leah)
7) Loves when "da da" comes home or when we go in to wake up Logan in the morning. I hope he will start saying "ma ma" soon especially since I'm with him all day long.
8) is learning to give hugs and kisses and waves his hand when he is saying goodnight
9) Loves his soft, warm blanket that Logan's mom gave us when he was born. He looks forward to getting his blanket at bedtimes and snuggling his face in it.














We had a pretty low key birthday celebration with Cameron today. He already received a fun dump truck and two jackets from Grandma Molyneux and some clothes from Nana Wallace so we just had him open a few toys that we found for him. Logan is going to make Cameron's favorite pumpkin muffins tomorrow for breakfast since we didn't do any cake today. Cameron loves all of the toys and gifts he received for his birthday and so did Leah. We keep reminding her that they are Cameron's birthday toys so she needs to let him play with them.

We are taking him to the doctor tomorrow for his year check up so I will post his stats when I get them tomorrow. We already know he's a big boy because he is wearing 18 month clothes and is as tall as other kids at church who are already in the Nursery.

Cameron is such a happy boy with a fun personality. He is friendly, playful, active, curious, opinionated, and social. He doesn't like to be left in a room by himself. But he's usually good at keeping himself entertained. He is such a joy in our family.





Here are some fun videos (sorry, some are long and mainly for my parents who weren't here for his birthday)

Singing "Happy Birthday" to Cameron and him opening presents



Cameron playing with his birthday train



Cameron and Leah playing with his birthday toys - a wild animal bucket full of safari animals. He is growling towards the end of the video.



Cameron eating lunch today on his birthday.

New Videos

Since I haven't been in the mood for blogging lately, I'll just post some videos so you can see the kids in action. This week has been pretty busy because Logan worked 4 out of 5 nights, and I was pretty much on my own with the kids.

And I feel like this month has gone by sooo fast. Cameron is getting really confident in walking and will take off anywhere he has pulled himself up. He still continues to lose his balance and falls down but that usually doesn't bother him. He just takes off crawling really fast wherever he wants to go.

Here is Cameron one night before I put him to bed. I was feeding him baby cereal, and he was growling and getting excited.



This one is Leah singing "Away in a manger", her favorite Christmas song. She gets the phrases and verses mixed up but it's still fun to hear her sing. And she didn't get shy when I had the camera on either.



Here is a video of Leah tickling Cameron on the floor. If you listen close you can hear his little giggle.

Playing in the leaves

Last Saturday we went to the park and had a lot of fun as a family playing in the leaves, but I forgot my camera. So I raked up the leaves in our backyard so Leah could jump in them, and I could snap some shots. She has as much fun rolling around in the leaves as she does throwing them at me or at Logan. She also enjoyed helping us rake them up.

She kept picking up a bunch of leaves and throwing them right at me as I was trying to take a picture so I tried to get some action shots. And she enjoyed burying me in all the leaves.




































































































Cameron was just happy to be outside playing, crawling and walking around the backyard while it was nice weather, but he didn't really care for the leaves much. He was happy also to have Logan home to play with him.

Cameron is 11 months and trying to walk

Cameron turned 11 months old last week, and I still haven't posted about it. I can't believe it's almost been a whole year since he was born.


















Sorry this video is turned to the side.

Happy Halloween! part 2

Trick or Treating

On Friday I took the kids to Logan's work to go trick or treating. Leah was a little shy saying "trick or treat" but was not shy about walking up and pulling out candy from their candy buckets. Cameron made a cute little lion, and I even got his face painted quick enough while he was sitting in his high chair.

Logan dressed up like a co-worker as part of an inside joke. And another co-worker of Logan's brought her cute dog with her, and the kids loved petting it. Cameron kept grunting and pointing to it and got so excited to touch it.

Because Logan's news desk is removed a little from the rest of the office, his section had the over head lights turned off with orange lights, cobwebs, a smoke maker and other spooky decorations. Leah enjoyed seeing all of it.





















































After pumpkin carving on Halloween day, we had Kelcy, Logan's sister, and her friend over for jambalaya. It was so yummy, but it took a little longer cooking so we didn't leave for trick or treating around the neighborhood until 6:30 p.m. Logan stayed home to pass out candy.

We made it three-quarters of the way around our church when it started getting cold, and Leah was getting tired of walking. So we finished up a few more houses and got home at 7 p.m. to warm her up. She had been sick during the week but we thought she had gotten better. But evidently she was still sick and walking around trick or treating did not help, and she ran a temperature last night.

Kelcy dressed up as Audrey Hepburn. And Leah decided to switch and wear her Snow White outfit for trick or treating. She was Cinderella for our ward party.



























































Leah tripped and fell while we walking and was not happy when I tried to take a picture. And then when she did smile, I couldn't snap fast enough.

Happy Halloween! part 1

Carving Pumpkins

Today had it's ups and downs but overall we had a great day. Leah woke up last night with a fever and wouldn't go back to sleep unless I was next to her so we moved her into our bed, and Logan slept in her bed. So I didn't get a very good night's rest because I was worried about her. But thankfully her fever went down in the morning, and her spirits went up. So we continued with our Halloween plans for the day.

We carved pumpkins during Cameron's afternoon nap, and I tried to get Leah to take a nap or have quiet time but she refused. She enjoyed helping with her pumpkin but most of the time we wouldn't let her use the knife so she just watched as Logan carved it for her. Her main criteria for her pumpkin was that it had to be a "girl" pumpkin.

















































Logan was excited to find a pumpkin that was tilted so he could use the stem for the nose. I think his turned out great.





































Here is my pumpkin finished. I picked a really tall one, but didn't realize until I started carving that I picked the pumpkin with the thickest wall to cut. My arm was sore after I was done. And Leah thought my face looked sad. Cameron's baby pumpkin is sitting next to mine, and I was so tired after mine that I didn't feel like carving another one.

















Here was the lighting of the pumpkins. (Sorry if it's a little blurry)