Cameron at 9 months old

(Don't mind my gushing about my baby. I'm writing all of this for my loyal family and friends, but also just for me so I can remember what he was like at this age.)

It's hard to think back to the time when Cameron was not crawling every where and getting into everything. He's always been an active baby kicking his legs non stop and wanting to be where ever the rest of us are. I love to watch him after his afternoon where he follows Leah where ever she goes and tries to grab whatever she is holding. He wants to be big just like her.

At meal times lately he will get mad if I'm trying to feed him with the spoon, and I don't let him have the spoon. So I usually give him his own spoon and bowl to keep him busy while I sneak in some yogurt, applesauce or baby food. He LOVES to try whatever we are eating, and I usually just give him tiny bits he can mash with his little teeth and gums. I was scared to give Leah the food we were eating when she was this young, so she had a slower time of accepting certain textures and foods. She is not usually interested in trying new things.

But I haven't had a problem with Cameron. He will pretty much eat anything (except this Turkey vegetable dinner jar of baby food from Beech Nut - the minute it went in, it came right back out). I don't really blame him for not wanting baby food much anymore because our food tastes so much better. He also LOVES drinking from sippy cups. He gets mad if Leah has one and he doesn't.

He is very expressive and vocal. He is usually jabbering away in the car, in his crib, at the dinner table or making noise with his toys or spoons. He likes to get into the bathroom cabinets, under the computer desks where the cords are, and into the entertainment cabinets. So we've had to make some adjustments.

He is still nursing three times a day and will get distracted even if we're alone in his room. And he's STILL waking up once or twice at night to nurse. We have tried on multiple occasions to let him cry it out, but we usually get too tired of listening so I just go in to feed him. Some times he will go back to sleep but then he wakes up an hour or two later. This has made me very exhausted some days so I know that I need to do something to help him sleep through the night.

He is always smiling and happy and such a joy to cuddle and tickle. And I can't believe that he's already 9 months and has the body of a one-year-old. They just grow up too fast!

(Notice how the front of his shirt below is all wet - this boy can DROOL!)

Having fun doing her hair

Leah actually let me fix her hair one morning with the curling iron after she had a bath. Her hair is getting longer now, and when I blow dry it she actually has a little style to it. She looked so grown up that I had to take pictures.

























Here's another time where she let me braid her hair upside down. This shot was taken after she had played all morning so it looks a little messed up.


















And this is just her being silly.

Doctor's appointments and new car seats

Both Leah and Cameron had their checkups today since Cameron will be 9 months this Saturday and Leah will turn 3 next Friday. Both were good sports through it all. It took a good hour and a half once we got there, and a lot of it was waiting. We thought they would need their immunizations, but both were caught up on them. We had been telling Leah she would need to get poked, but then we said she wouldn't need to.

Then at the end the doctor asked us about getting flu shots, and we decided it would be a good idea for them. So then we told Leah about getting a shot, and she did not want to. But it was a good thing I brought a treat for her so she was okay with it. She cried a little bit and then got over it when we pulled out the treat.

They both got measured and here are their stats:

Leah - 39 3/4 inches tall (97 percentile)
39 pounds (97 percentile)

Cameron - 31 inches tall (99 percentile)
22 pounds 12 ounces (83 percentile)


And I have to mention that we bought a new car seat for Leah, a taller booster seat with a harness, and moved her car seat rear facing for Cameron. He had been too long for his infant seat for a month now so it was about time that we did this. And Leah's harness on her old car seat was getting too short for her shoulders too.

What can I say, we have BIG kids.

More to come about what each of them are doing at these ages. I'll have to post more when the kids are napping.

Keeping busy

I kept telling myself that I needed to blog this month, but I haven't had a lot of motivation to do it. Maybe it's the limited amount of time I get on the computer before my kids both want to sit on my lap or the shorter naps that Cameron has been taking in the afternoon. I think that there's so much to blog about and so little time to do it.

Well, here's the short version of what we've been doing:

Keeping the kids out of trouble and playing nice together


















playing under the kitchen table



















































Keeping Cameron off of the stairs because he doesn't know how to go down them yet. We finally borrowed a baby gate from our neighbors and that issue has been solved.


































And among other things, we have been busy canning and baking some yummy treats. Logan brought apples back from his Grandparents' house, and we borrowed some canning equipment from friends in our ward and made applesauce. It came out delicious! Then we made her cookies to bring back with the equipment and snacked on those today. Logan also wanted to experiment making homemade pretzels (at dinner time so they were part of our dinner), and they turned out great too. I'll have to cut back on the treats this week and exercise extra hard to make up for it.

Our little princess/movie star

I can't believe how grown up she is these days. Her 3rd birthday is just coming up in less than 4 weeks now.

She always makes us smile while she sings songs or says funny things, and sometimes makes us frustrated when she tries to be Cameron's mom or takes his toys. She definitely has a mind of her own and likes to express herself her opinion on just about everything. What can I say, she is a girl through and through!!

Cameron turned 8 months and he's CRAWLING

During our vacation in Texas, Cameron improved everyday with his crawling. He was following Leah around the house and my parents' dog Frosty. He was getting so mobile even then. We got home, my mom flew in a couple days later, and I forgot to post about Cameron turning 8 months old and crawling.




















He is busy and has always been a VERY active boy and has been known to kick his legs continuously throughout the day. He started army crawling when he turned 7 months and learned to crawl by 8 months. I've heard from a few people that they think he'll be walking by 9 months. I really hope not. He's already getting into too much stuff now.

His favorite thing to grab is the cords under our computer desk or anything that Leah has. We have put the desktop computer in our living room since Cameron was born, and it's been a baby magnet ever since he could grab on to things. He is also pulling himself up to stand and climbing the 6 stairs that go up to our front door. I just know one of these days he is going to tumble down them.


Cameron climbing the stairs and almost falling down them (sorry I don't know how to turn the video right side up)





Logan making Cameron laugh

Spending time with family

Before we got back to Utah, my mom heard from her sisters that my grandpa's health was getting worse so she started making plans to fly out to see him. So she flew out two days after we got back home. She drove right to see him that Wednesday and by Thursday night, he passed away. Even though this is a sad time in losing my grandpa and patriarch of my extended family, we are grateful for the gospel and the knowledge that families can be together forever, and my grandpa and grandma will be reunited. She passed away about 10 years ago, and he missed her dearly during that time. We are also grateful that my grandpa is no longer suffering and experiencing the challenges that come from our mortal bodies.

I have been blessed to live here close to my mom's family and see my grandfather before he passed away. My oldest brother Danny, his wife Chalise and four kids have been staying in Utah for the past week and we got to spend some time with them recently.

They came over for dinner after visiting my grandpa, and Leah enjoyed playing with Danny's kids for awhile. We also went to dinner with them on my mom's birthday and woke up the next day to hear the sad news of my grandpa's death. We were all glad that we made the time to go see him.

Flashbacks from our Texas trip

I'm have been a busy mom the last few weeks, and I feel like I haven't had much time for blogging. I barely had enough time to get that slide of pictures put on the blog. I'll explain why I've been absent lately.

As most of you know, Logan and I took a family vacation to Texas at the end of July to see my family there. It was a great trip. We swam, ate good food, went to a bounce house, celebrated my mom's birthday, swam and ate more, shopped, visited with friends, ate some more good food, made sugar cookies, took walks, went to the park and ate snow cones. There's a lot more that I'm missing. We also got to see Logan's dad while we were in Texas because he was there working so he came down to swim on Saturday. He took some great shots in the pool. I'll just post a few of them.























We were playing Ring around the Rosie, per Leah's request.





































My dad jumping off the diving board.

We had lots of fun and tried to do as much as we could around my kids' nap schedules. Cameron takes a morning and afternoon one, and Leah still takes an afternoon nap. And they did surprisingly well for sleeping in a different place. Leah even let my mom and dad get up with her in the mornings which allowed us to sleep in a little more. And I let Logan sleep in most mornings, and since we were sleeping in the upstairs bonus room he didn't hear the kids at all in the morning.

The only bad part about the trip was the flight home. Let's not get into the frustrating details but let's just say that we spent about 6 hours in the airport from the time we got there to the time we actually took off. The kids pretty well except for when we had to wake up them to get off the plane and into the car to drive home another 45 mins. We didn't make it to our home until about 2 a.m. I hope we never experience that again.