Day 39

Yum! Chocolate ice cream!

Day 38: Memorial Day

Memorial Day was hot. Cam had fun in the pool at my mom's house. He went down the slide, and he even got brave enough to go down the slide face first. That's pretty amazing for a boy who won't let us wash his hair in the bath anymore.

Day 37: A Day Out with Thomas

I think this was my favorite shot from the train ride. It was about 90+ degrees (or at least it felt like it) so it was nice to have air conditioned cars. It did make for very dark shooting conditions, though, and Cam was everywhere - up and down, switching seats, dancing while chanting "chugga chugga, choo choo! I, choo!"

Day 36: Family photo

Here's a family photo from Gary's cousin's graduation party.

Day 35

Oatmeal for breakfast, while watching PBS cartoons.

Day 34: Teaching Riley toys

Riley is finally starting to love to follow toys with her eyes and start to bat at them. Thus I am trying to get Cam interested in entertaining her. It's good for everyone. :D

Day 33: A day at the park

We met Cam's friends, Michael and Lorenzo at the park in the morning. Michael decided he was keeper of the goldfish and was handing them out as needed. I think Cam was a little peeved that no one was paying attention to him.

Day 32

Just in the past couple of weeks, Cam has really been getting into solitary imaginative play. Red, who he affectionately refers to as "Ow-Wow" and Dinoco Lightning McQueen, aka "Mommy's car" are crashing into each other.

Day 31

I'm forever spelling names out of building blocks. Usually Cam snatches them up before I get a chance to take a pic. Not this time! :D

Day 30

It got up to 90* yesterday! While Gary worked more around the house, the kids and I chilled out at my mom's house, and my mom emptied out a storage tub to use as a makeshift pool. Camden is very into the water this year!

Day 29

Gary and Cam got some projects done around the house today. Cam's choochoo painting finally got hung above his bed, Riley got a new sign, the new coat rack made progress, and in this picture Gary let Cam help him "install" the paper towel rack.

Day 28: Best buddies

We brought leftover pizza home from Mimi's for Gary to have for dinner. Cam begged the whole ride home for more pizza, so when we got home they shared it on the picnic table. Gary was laughing because of how Cam sat down, smiled up at him shyly, and then scooted right next to him and put his arm around him.

Day 27

Watching Cars again, this time decked out in his Cars pajamas. I can't wait to take him to the movies this summer for the first time to check out the sequel. I'm not sure he'll get the most out of the experience, but it will definitely be something interesting to try.

Day 26

He's not technically allowed to use the computer, but he likes to pretend. Mostly  he likes to turn the mouse sensor on and off and occasionally point out Os, Ts, Cs, and Ys.

Day 25

Cam jumped in Riley's crib this day. He turned on her (that used to be his) fish aquarium soother, turned on her Ocean Wonders seahorse, and wound up the mobile. Then he cuddled up with all her stuffed animals and her blanket and just chilled while I rocked Riley in the glider.

Day 24

The tulips Gary bought me for Mother's Day bloomed! It was pretty chilly outside, so I brought them in and Cam named each one of them, "Mommy," "Daddy," "my," and "baby"

Day 23

Cam adores his sister. If I get the camera out and ask him to sit with her he runs - but as soon as my back is turned or I'm out of the room, he just cannot get enough of her. He's always right in her face, waving. chanting "Hi, hi, hi," in a sweet little voice, and petting her hair, proclaiming "nice." She's smiled a him a few times, but she still smiles at random high contrast objects that aren't even moving, too.
So this moment was neat for me to capture. It's one of the few times they've both been into each other at the same time. It's a mini-glimpse into the future when they'll actually start to interact, and maybe, just possibly, like each other.

Day 22: Cars

I know TV isn't recommended under two, and even over two it should be limited. With a newborn, we don't even try to follow those guidelines anymore, and Cam is finally old enough that he is starting to understand minor plot points and simple scenes from shows. Which means - time to introduce him to really cool movies! I'm not a huge fan of Cars, but he loves cars of all sorts, loves "Daddy's Car" (Lightning McQueen), and it is Disney, so there are definitely some redeeming moments. He is just captivated for 10 minutes every so often during the movie.

Day 21: A Flower

My little heartbreaker - already knows the way to a girl's heart. He picked a flower and let Riley smell it (as he demonstrates how to sniff, because, well - let's face it - she doesn't know how yet.) and then said "here" as he laid it down beside her in her chair. And all that was after he crawled on top of her in the bouncer to give her a kiss.

Day 20

This might look like a bit of a redux of the previous day, but this time I think everyone was a little bit more tired.

Day 19

Getting through the day has become fairly rough on Gary and I, since we are both being woken by the baby at night. She sleeps in between us on a Queen sized bed, so it's hard not to all be disturbed when she gets up to eat. With neither one of us able to function (memory loss and fatigue are our number one complaints) we're trying to think of alternatives. We probably won't switch her to the crib until she has a consistent long stretch of sleep at the beginning of the night. So last night, Gary decided to try sleeping out on the couch, hoping to get some more rest (We are on Day 3 of Cam finally sleeping through the night without waking up. It has taken a long time to recover from the habits created when he had the ear infection. Plus we think teeth might be bothering him a little.)

I guess Gary didn't sleep all that much better, but he made it the entire night out there. So when Cam came into our room this morning to tell me he was hungry, I told him to go find daddy on the couch. Instead of eating, they cuddled.

Day 18

I wanted a hard plastic pool with a slide this year for the kids, like we had when we were little, since Cam is finally into slides, but I couldn't find one anywhere. I ended up buying a an inflatable that managed to have most of the features I wanted. The part pictured is the shallow splash pool, which I figured would be a great way to 'ease' into the whole pool idea (for a somewhat water-shy boy) and also nice introduction into outdoor bathing for Riley. The second part of the set is is a deeper pool with a slide that you can attach to aim into the shallow part. However, since spring is just finally beginning to show the slightest bit, I only filled the splash pad for now.

After we came in Cam kept asking for 'more pool,' while doing little swimming motions with his arms. I can't wait until it actually gets warm out this summer! I think he's thrilled that for once we're encouraging him to sit in water while fully dressed, rather than scolding him for it.

Day 17

Mondays we attend a music class - All the Little Birds. While getting ready to go this week, Cam decided that not only did he want to wear a hat, but that he wanted to wear it 'gangsta' style.

Day 16: Mother's Day!

I do have a picture of Cam with me for Mother's Day, and even a picture of him with me *and* my mom, but I already picked this one out before I remembered. Since we had a nice lazy Sunday morning (which is rare) before going to my mom's house, we filled the sandbox (finally) that Grandma Cox had gotten him for his birthday.

We're still working on not dumping sand outside the box.

Day 15

We celebrated Mother's Day for Gary's mom the day before on Saturday up at his sister, Amanda's, house. I took this pic on the drive up. This was also Cam's first trip in his new 'big boy' carseat.

My mom actually bought this seat (a Sunshine Radian 65) to go in her car for Cam, but since it's such a compact seat and I have a compact car, she offered to switch me this seat for the seat Cam was currently using in my car. It kind of makes sense because he rides in my car a lot more often than her car, and this seat gives him so much more room.

Day 14

This is the second day I'm fudging. I took both kids to the doctor's office by myself. I used to always snap a cell phone shot of Cam up on the table for each appointment, so I was trying to do the same with Riley. Cam's appointment was second, and by then (2 consecutive hours spent at the pedi office later) both of them were crying on and off, and it was all I could do to try to keep at least one of them from crying at any given time.

I really did intend to grab a shot of Cam during his appointment. This is probably the first well appointment that I have missed taking a picture of him, but if it helps, he was standing right next to me helping take this picture of his sister at her 10 week appointment.

Day 13

Ever since the first day this spring that Gary brought out the lawn mower, Cam has been obsessed. We get in my car in the garage and he sees the mower (c  cvny;y[;;y;;;)* and he spends the whole car ride begging to mow. Gary usually mows on a day that I have the kids at my moms because it's so much quicker (and time is at a premium now with a toddler, newborn, and Gary's new job) to just power through it. When Cam is at home during a mowing day - he needs, with all the urgency of his two years, to help.

*Cam added that while I went into the kitchen to make him a ham sandwich.

Day 12

Pretty much any time Cam asks to hold his sister I grab the camera. It was happening again, except now he's learned 'Cheese!' I never say cheese for pictures, so I'm thinking my mother-in-law is to blame. While I like smiles for pictures, I mostly prefer candid shots, so I never ask for cheese. Of course, anything my little boy does is adorable, so even though I'm against the cheesey smiles - I love this one.

Day 11

I put one of my outfits from when I was a baby on Riley and was trying to get pictures of it to send to my mom, when Cam insisted he wanted to hold her and then decided he would rather read her a book. He is such a sweet brother to her (before his 2-second 2-year-old attention span runs out. ;D)

Day 10

Cam got this mower for his birthday from his Uncle Josh. He had been sitting on it, hoping I would get up and push him around, but I nixed that. He settled for pulling the cord to start the "engine." I had clearer pictures, but I loved the expression on his face in this one. I think he might have been making mower noises?

Day 9

I try to get cute pictures of the two of them together a lot. It never fails that only one of them ever participates. And since they each only participate about 10% of the time, you can imagine how difficult it is to get those times to overlap.