Thankful

This year I am feeling especially grateful for all the blessings in my life. After spending a weekend with Oprah, (yes it's true!) I truly realized just how fulfilled my life is.  I can truly say knowing what matters in my life makes every day better, and I am the happiest I've been in a long time.  Here are just some of the things I've learned to truly appreciate and be thankful for.

"Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough." - Oprah Winfrey

• watching Addy & Cameron give each other "huggies and kissies"every morning at school
• listening to Addy read Cameron stories & teach him everything she knows
• hearing them laugh when Brian chases them
• snuggling with Cameron before he says "go in crib now"
• reading stories with Addy and watching her find the words she knows in the book
• enjoying a conversation with Brian without interruption (it does happen on a rare occasion)
• living in a home and a neighborhood that we love
• walking into a clean kitchen or organized room after Brian has worked his magic
• enjoying a phone call with an old friend, even if all we have is 5 minutes to talk 
• watching my kids sing songs with everything they've got

I think this might be my favorite holiday season in a long time because I know what matters and it's not about the stuff it's about the memories and the experiences you share with those who matter to you. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dino-mite!

Last weekend we went to a Bobby's 2-year-old birthday party. It was dinosaur themed party and was so adorable! The kids got dinosaur "tails" and had a blast. Cameron was in awe of all of the presents, but did such a good job sitting and watching. In fact all of the kids sat on the fireplace and watched Bobby open presents and it was so cute. They got to take the tails home and now both Addy and Cameron love wearing them around the house or using them as pillows. So cute!

Parent Teacher Conferences

Last week Brian and I went to the kids' school for their parent teacher conferences. I've been through enough of them now to know what to expect, but there is still something really sweet about hearing teachers give feedback on your young children. Cameron's was first and we are fortunate enough to have one of his teacher's who was also with him in the infant room. This woman has been Cameron's teacher for most of his time at the daycare. She is super sweet and you can tell she just loves Cameron. She talked about how he is very social and even though he is fairly new to the 2 year old room he is always very engaging with the other kids and is very compassionate whenever any of them are upset or are unhappy. He knows his ABC's, can count to 3 and knows most of the songs that they sing. He can recognize his name and is starting to learn a lot of the shapes, but still has work to do on his colors (he thinks everything is pink, I'm sure we can thank his big sister for that).

Next we had Addy's and there were so many priceless quotes, the first of which was "When I first met Adelyn I thought she was very quiet and docile, I quickly learned that was not the case." The teacher said that Addy is definitely the leader of the girls and that, "she gives everyone a chance to say what they want to do so they feel involved, but then just has them do whatever she wants to do." This was hilarious to us because it's exactly what she does to us. She asks us questions on what we want to play and then just tells us no and instructs us what to do. The teacher also said that her and another girl appear to be best of friends but have a major disagreement almost everyday. This also seems true because I will ask Addy who her best friend at school is and she'll say her name but followed with, "but she never lets me be Elsa so I never play with her anymore." The teacher said that sometimes she just tries to let the two girls work it out themselves and can't help but smile when she hears them talk it out. When it came to the academic part it was all good news. Addy knows all of the things she should for her age and the teacher commented she is very particular about her work (hmmm, wonder where she gets that from?) She also said that she is a leader when it comes to listening and following instructions and they often use her behavior as an example to get the other kids to listen.
All in all it was such a positive experience and we both left even more proud of our two wonderfully smart and funny children. We are so lucky!

23 months!

Cameron is 23 months old. In 1 month we will have a 5 year old and a 2 year old. Who's children are these because they can't be mine!
Cameron continues to show us more of his "terrible two's" streak. Now when he doesn't want to do something he yells and shouts and runs in place as fast as he can saying, "no, no, no, no." I wish I could say this doesn't happen very often, but it does. He also loves to copy anything he hears. One morning I went to wake up Adelyn and gave her a big hug saying, "good morning sweetheart." Cameron followed it with the same, "good morning sweetheart." The other night I started to sing our normal good night song, but he asked for "Let it Go" so the two of us sang it together before bed. This kid is ready for his solo debut on that one.
I also think he has a shot at politics, I joke that he's practicing to be mayor. The other week we went to a big dinner with a bunch of people Cameron doesn't know very well. As we were leaving he gave everyone one of them a big hug and a kiss with his signature "mmwwahhh" sound. Some were lucky enough to get round two. This kid just loves to share the love.
He loves books and will sit for a very long time reading them, however we've discovered he's not ready for "big kid" books without supervision. I've had to repair more than a few pages of our book collection.
He also clearly loves football. He has a few shirts and pajamas and whenever he wears them he yells, "Football. Go Seahawks! Go Russell Wilson! Go Cameron Evert!" Pretty adorable.
Here he is with his signature squint smile.

Screen Time

We are pretty disciplined about not letting Addy watch too much TV and not having Cameron watch any, but football season is when we sometimes make an exception. One Sunday the game was on and we decided we had to turn it off because Cameron was so captured by it he literally could do nothing else. It was so funny to see him standing as close as possible to the TV with his hands in his pockets. The funniest part is that both kids really only enjoy the commercials, the actual game isn't all that interesting to them. Whenever I tell Addy we are turning the TV off, she begs to wait until the commercials are over.

Dance Class

Addy has been in a dance class for the last couple of months and last week they got to wear a costume to class. Addy wanted to be a princess, but her teacher decided she was a party girl so all through class she referred to her as party girl. The other day we were reading a Fancy Nancy book and realized her dress was just like that hers, so I guess she was dressed up like Fancy Nancy!

Crazy Hair Day

The kids had Spirit Week at school and one of the days was crazy hair day. I think I might have enjoyed it even more than they did. 

Happy Halloween

The kids were really excited about Halloween. Adelyn picked out her costume and decided to be Princess Ariel, not the mermaid Ariel, but the princess Ariel (this was a very important distinction for her). I decided Cameron should be a pirate (mainly because I already had the key parts of the costume on hand). It was hilarious because I'm certain he has no idea what a pirate is, but he embraced it full and learned to say, "I'm a pirate, aarrrr matey." Even more unbelievable was that he actually wore the eye patch.
The kids dressed up in their costumes for school, did some trick-or-treating from classroom to classroom and then Brian and I picked them up early and took them trick-or-treating through the businesses on Main Street and ran into lots of our friends! We were lucky because we made it out before the rain really started. We got so much candy I can't imagine what we would have ended up with had we not left early. After dinner we did a quick round with our neighbors, turns out Adelyn and Cameron were the only trick-or-treaters of the night! They got a haul and have been busy sorting the candy into groups every since which I think is by far Addy's favorite part. She even said, "we can just keep this candy until next year and then give it out for Halloween next year."
They also even have their costumes for next year decided. Addy wants to be Elsa and she wants Cameron to be Olaf. We shall see...

Birthday Presents!

I have a love/hate relationship with birthday presents. It is so sweet to watch a child open a present and be genuinely excited and grateful for the gift. I love that part. It is not great to see the volume of stuff accumulate in our house and to hear things like "will I get to open more presents tomorrow too?" Not my favorite part. 

Thankfully Adelyn was extremely gracious this year and got a lot of truly wonderful gifts (and is busy working on a lot of thank you cards!) She got a good mix of craft toys, princess stuff, books, clothes and games. We got her a "big girl bike" without training wheels so we are excited to see if she will give that a try or not. All in all it was a pretty spectacular 5th birthday!

My Beauty & Beauty & the Beast

As if Adelyn's party wasn't enough of a special treat for her birthday, she found out the next day about another special birthday surprise. My Dad and Kathy's gift was tickets to see the musical Beauty and the Beast. I absolutely love seeing musicals and I have a feeling Addy might be my date for more shows in the future. She loved it! She was impressed by the dancing and the costumes, she loved the music and she enjoyed the story. Her favorite part was the "Be Our Guest" number with the singing and dancing plates and silverware. She was a little scared by some of the scenes with the Beast but it helped that we watched the movie a few times that week so she knew that he wasn't such a scary guy after all. She also loved the end when all of the "things" turned into real people. It was a great show and really well done.

On the way home she said something to the effect of, "those people were just in costumes dressed up like the real Belle but they weren't the real people. The real Belle was on the Disney cruise." My little beauty is just so smart.