Been a long time gone and...

this is why:


No, I didn't miraculously have a third child without telling anyone, but I am watching my friends little girl during the week from 7:30 to about 4:00 every day. She's two months older than Camden (almost to the day, even), so needless to say it's a little bit of a handful dealing with two babies under the age of 6 months and an almost 2-year-old. Any sort of schedule that I might have managed to get the boys on is now completely out the door and my stress level is a little bit higher than it used to be. I am, however, VERY grateful for the fact that I have been blessed with two very mellow, easy-going little boys who are willing to share their mommy and her time with someone else. I do however now have extra guilt for the fact that I can no longer devote 100% of my time to my little boys, and I'm trying to figure out how to get over it (for the record, I really don't think it will ever happen). I'm also grateful for the fact that I have been able to stay at home with both of my boys. I couldn't imagine having to go back to work at any point in their lives (at least not while they are this young) and I recognize just how lucky I am to be a stay-at-home mom (and I'm loving that title).

Anyway, before I kind of became homebound (the back seat of my focus just isn't big enough for 3 car seats and we're not quite ready for a mini-van yet) we managed to have a lot of fun with the boys. There was, of course, Halloween where my little lion (Camden) managed to win the prize for the cutest baby costume in the ward, but before that there was a visit from cousins (Becky, Keegan still asks daily where they are. He will be so excited to see them again soon, as will AJ and I), there was a trip to the pumpkin patch, an afternoon at Petco park where Keegan was able to realize all of his major-league dreams (if he even has any, that is) and the general busyness of home renovations (the boys room should be done this weekend, fingers crossed and all).

It is amazing how quickly time passes. Keegan will be two in just a few months, and has become such a little chatterbox, even if most of it is only understood by me and AJ. He is such the typical boy and is really quite the character with the greatest personality. Camden is 3(!) months old and growing like crazy (although not nearly at the rate Keegan did). He loves to smile and will do so on command or to anyone who pays him any sort of attention. He now rolls over any time I put him on his stomach (the little stinker). We will be blessing him on the 30th of November (not a shock to my family, but maybe news to others) so anyone who wants to make the trek to San Diego is welcome.

Here's some photos from our day at Petco Park....they'll have to do until I have time to post more.

BOO!

Just a quick sneak preview of the festivities to come!!!



Love,
The Mischievous Little Monkey and The Super Cuddly Lion

I've so been there...

I had made Keegan his lunch, and then gone to check on Camden who was sleeping (HOORAY!!) and then pay a couple of bills. Keegan got really, really quiet (which usually means he's up to no good), so I went out to check on him and this is what I found. He was so tired that he fell asleep eating his lunch. What this picture doesn't totally show you is the fact that before he laid his head down he had the foresight to push his plate out of the way so that he wasn't laying on it. Oh to be a kid again and just go so hard that you crash.

And because I can, here's a couple of pictures of Camden. I can't believe how big he has gotten. He really doesn't look like the typical 6 week old. He's about 12 1/2 pounds now. We'll see for sure just how much he's grown when we go to the doctor's in a couple of weeks (although I'm not looking forward to the shots that he will be getting).

Our Own Little Picasso

This is what happens when it's late at night, AJ's gone at a meeting, and I'm nursing Camden and trying to get him asleep. The house gets really quiet and I know that Keegan is up to no good.


He was so proud of himself. He had colored all the way down my hall, on both sides of the hall. It was all I could do to not laugh as I told him "No, we don't use our colors on the walls." Unfortunately, I think that I have only myself to blame, since the day before I had marked his height on the wall with pencil.


He had to help me clean up, of course, although I'm pretty sure that it wasn't the punishment that I was hoping it would be (and it really only lasted long enough for me to take the photos documenting the whole thing). Thank goodness for Mr. Clean Magic Eraser sponges. They really do take crayon off the walls!

A Little Perspective...

This is Keegan now:

pardon the blurriness; AJ was taking the picture himself.

And this was Keegan a year ago:

It never ceases to amaze me how much of a difference one year can make; especially in the life of a little boy. It is like night and day.

AJ on the other hand never seems to age at all. Personally, I don't think that's very fair, but I guess that's just the way things are.

It's Potty Time

Yep, that's right. AJ and I are now embarking on a journey into unchartered territory (at least for the two of us). We are starting to potty train Keegan (and for those of you who really don't want to read a post about pee and poop, I totally understand, and feel free to skip the remainder of this post).

Keegan learned the sign for "potty" forever ago, but I don't think that he really made the correlation between the sign and actually doing it until recently. He's been telling AJ every night for the past week or so when he's been in the bath that he's needed to go to the bathroom (and to be fair, AJ has been telling and showing him for months how "big boys" go to the bathroom). So, AJ started taking him out of the tub and sitting him on the toilet and Keegan's loved it! Apparently he's a little backward, since he loves to poop on the toilet and he's really good about telling us when he needs to now (especially since I've begun bugging him a billion times a day about whether he has to go or not), but he doesn't really tell me when he has to pee, which is why he's still in diapers for the moment. Personally, I think some of the appeal was that daddy would give him high-5's every time he did something in the toilet, and I gave him a dum-dum today, and that he got to use his special green soap to wash his hands when he was done, but it's a start and we'll take what we can get.

That being said...for my readers that have been through this before, I'm looking for any words of wisdom, advice, suggestions, etc. that you can give me. Since he's already used to sitting on the toilet we aren't going to get him his own separate one (because I really don't want to have to empty it to be honest) and are just going to get a step stool to help him get on the toilet. I have been told to not use pull-ups, as they tend to provide a safety net for the kids sometimes, and a friend of mine did the whole "7 days with the kid being buck naked from the waist down" way, and it worked, but she has wood floors and I have carpet everywhere so her messes were a whole lot easier to clean-up. We did go out and buy him some "big boy underwear" today, but I'm not sure he really understood what we were buying, or what it means. He is only 20 1/2 months, afterall. So, what's worked for you? What didn't work? I'm all ears.

So, I'm a Slacker...

What can I say, I've been slacking a little on the whole blogging lately. We've been busy, but not necessarily with anything earth-shatteringly important to talk about, and it's been hot (seriously, bring on the fall weather already...or at least what passes for fall in California) and I've been trying to keep Keegan occupied and busy and then I fall into bed each night and then think "oh wait, I wanted to blog today" right before I fall into a semi-deep sleep for 3 1/2 hours (yes, Camden is actually letting me sleep that long...HURRAY!!).

So, in order to make up for the lack of posts I will at least post some pictures, because really, that's probably all anyone who reads my blog is looking for, and to be honest, my brain isn't totally functioning right now, at least not enough to compose complete blog posts (hence the long run-on sentences. It's a good thing I'm no longer in school and being graded on this).


I love this picture...despite the fact that it's part in shadow and part in bright sunlight I love that Keegan is so gentle and loving with his brother. This was early one morning and Keegan just laid his head down on the pillow next to Camden. So great!!! We've been lucky...I'm well aware that it could have ended up very differently for us having had two kids so close together.


Keegan wanted to "hold" his brother (personally I think he was stalling and trying to put off bedtime), but only daddy could help him, so mommy snapped the picture.


This is what happens when AJ gets Keegan ready for bed. In the first picture, Keegan has AJ's socks on his feet and is pretending to call his dad on the phone (who just happens to be standing in front of him taking the picture). The little half smirk/grin is what makes me laugh the most in this picture. The second one is of Keegan signing the emotion "scared". It's one of the greatest signs that he does. He might know a lot of non-useful signs (I mean, really, does he need to know how to sign "skunk" or "rainbow" right now?), but the signing has been fabulous because he can still tell us what he needs, although he has definitely become the little chatter these days.


AJ had been looking for months on craigslist (seriously, greatest website ever!!!) and he finally found this one. He's had to restain it (and it's actually not totally restained yet), and they just put it up about a week ago, but Keegan loves it, and it means I don't always have to take him to the park when he wants to ride the slides and swing on the swings. There is a bonus to having a big backyard.



So I braved the zoo with both the boys about a week ago. Keegan had been asking to see the elephants and I wanted to make good on my promise to take him. Camden pretty much slepth the whole time, and Keegan was how he always is at the zoo...happy and friendly and wanting to look at everything.



I realized as I was going through my pictures for this blog that I have very few pictures of Camden. I guess what they say is true...you take more pictures and video of your first baby than you do of any subsequent children. Poor Camden...I guess I better get on that, so that I have pictures to put in his album. He was a little grumpy when I took this, but it shows how big he's gotten. At his 1-month check up he weighed in at 11 lbs and was 22 1/2 inches long. He's totally a little porker, but I love it.