9 Month Photos Are Here!

We had an absolutly talented person take Camerons 9 month photos. She was so nice and did such a great job. Thanks Angie! www.angiepenrose.blogspot.com

Standing Alone and Peek A Boo

Cameron and I are spending a relaxed comfy day at home and having lots of fun playing together today. Look at him standing on his own! He does it all the time now, I think he will be walking before we know it! In our dining room we have these red drapes, Cameron has discovered them and he loves to play with them. He hides behind them and giggles and then waits for you to pull them away and say "Peek A Boo!" Then he cracks up and squeals! We have been playing this game alot today. I took these pictures while I was playing with him. He is by far the cutest baby in the world!

Cousin Buddies

Today Cameron and I went to have a play date with Brody, his cousin. It was a lot of fun. They are 6 months apart so they will be good buddies Im sure when they get a little older. It was so cute to see them play together, Brody kept giving Cameron kisses on his head. They were adorable. Cameron had a great time. And it was fun for me to chat with my sister in law Megan too. Adult conversation is always nice! I am so glad that Cameron has so many cousins, and that he has two boy cousins close to his age.

Sweet Daddy Moments

Bret was playing with Cameron and they were driving the remote control car around the other night. I thought it was so cute, he was putting Camerons fingers on the controls and showing him how they work. What a good daddy.

I just love this picture. Every night before bed we read Cameron some books. The other night Bret was reading to him and I came over to see this, what a sweet little moment. I grabbed my camera quick to catch it forever in a picture. Cameron loves his Daddy!

Every night when Bret comes home I can hear his truck coming so I say "Dada's home!" Cameron stops whatever he is doing and crawls over to the door and I pick him up and wait for Bret to get out of the truck. The second he gets out, Cameron starts waving like crazy and giggling with excitement. Its so adorable. I love seeing them interact and seeing how already Cameron looks up to Bret.

Headless Baby!

The other night we were playing with Cameron and he was laughing up a storm. When he laughs really hard sometimes he flings backwards. This time he did that and he thought that flinging himself back was really funny too. From my point of view this is what I saw! It looked so funny to me I had to get a picture.

Here he is, with his head again:) He was laughing so hard, this went on for quite some time.

Typical Day In The Kitchen

What? Did I make a mess or something?

This is the way my kitchen looks every day now that Cameron has discovered he can pull everything out of the cupboard and drawers. I mean, what can you do? If I clean it up he pulls it all right back out... So it just stays this way until he moves on to another room. Silly little kiddo!

Simplify and Save

I am on a mission to save as much money as possible on whatever I can. We are trying right now to really simplify and cut back on things that we can. We just cut back on our cable today and that will save a bit for us, along with some other things we are changing to save some money. With the economy the way it is and in preparation for expanding our family in the hopefully near future we are working really hard to simplify life and our finances. I am trying to be a coupon clipper and so far it seems to be saving a bit of money! My friend Courtney told me about this website called grocerysmarts.com that shows you what is on ad or sale that week and then links you with printable coupons or tells you that there are sunday paper coupons that you can use with the sale items to save a lot of money. Let me tell you, there are some darn good deals out there! Last night we went to Safeway and spend $56 and saved $42. Then tonight we went to Albertsons and spent $37 and saved $26. Thats almost half each time! I just plan our meals around whats on sale and in combonation with coupons you can save quite a bit. So my mission is to become an accomplished coupon clipper. We are going to start getting the Sunday paper because there are some great coupons in there. I almost feel upset that I never did this before, what a lot of money I have wasted over the years by not doing it!

Tennis Shoes

Cameron has had really big feet, like little blocks they are so chubby, since he was born. It has always been really hard to buy shoes for him, his feet are always too pudgy! So I have had him in soft soled shoes because they are the only ones I could get on him and that would stay on. He is growing so fast and is starting to thin out, and I figured since he is going to be learning to walk in the next few months he should have some real shoes. The only hard soled shoes I have gotten him were church shoes and some beige suade high top shoes, so it was time for some tennis shoes. We went to a real shoe store instead of just to Babies R Us and got him a handsome little pair of tennis shoes, his first pair of real shoes! I was told by the girl who sold them to me that he is going to be tall because he has big feet for his age (he wears a 4 1/2) but I dont know where he would get any kind of tall genes from! I went ahead and bought him some cute brown sandels too for summer in a size bigger. He looks like such a big kid with his shoes on:)

(excuse all the stuff in the background, he likes to pull everything out of its place and drag it around the house with him)

This is another favorite thing of his now, he loves to pyll all the bowls and pots and pans out of the cupboards.

New Favorite Play Place

Cameron is in love with the dining room, he plays in there under the table more than he does with his toys in the living room. He has a big blue ball that he rolls in there and then rolls it under the table and crawls under the table to roll it around down there. He plays in the dining room for a long time until I convince him to play somewhere else. I think its so cute how he peers through the legs of the chairs and plays peek-a-boo with you. What a funny kid!

Finally, Im back!

This morning I weighed myself and I was miraculously at my pre-pregnancy weight! I have been working for months to hit that number and finally I got to see it on the scale. Somehow sadly it wasnt as profound of a moment as I thought it would be since when I look in the mirror I dont look like I did before I got pregnant. I think everything except maybe my feet looks different, wait, no those have changed too. I wear a half a size bigger in shoe now... But, I felt better when I thought about it and its such a small price to pay to have my wonderful little baby in my life. So I am proud of myself that I lost the weight, besides, I told myself I would be ok with getting pregnant again once I hit that weight so I feel glad that I met that goal.

New Car Seat

When we took Cameron to the pediatrition we found out that if he is over 20lbs at 9 months we should put him in an upright carseat. But because he isnt 1 year old yet he cant be forward facing. So we got him a convertable one that can be forward or rear facing and can also be a booster seat up to 100lbs. Here he is the last time in his carseat before we left to get the new one.

Here he is this morning, the first time in his new big boy car seat. I couldnt get a good smile out of him, he was trying to grab the camera.

9 Month Photos

We had Camerons photos taken last Saturday. He is usually a big smiler, but he was a little sick so he didnt smile much, sad:( But the gal that took them posted a few on her blog and they are really cute. We dont have all the pictures yet but go to her blog to check out a few of them. www.angiepenrose.blogspot.com She did such a great job and she was really nice, we cant wait to have her take his 1 year pictures!

New Teeth

For about the last 3 weeks I have been able to see both of Camerons Incisors moving down in his gums. On one side it is just cutting through the skin and the other is right behind it. He is such a little wiggle worm and so strong that I havent really gotten an amazing look at his top gums. So yesterday at the doctors I asked him to have a peek for me. Somehow they have magic ways of pinning babies down and actually getting their mouth open at the same time. He was amazed. He said that he should have his Incisors within a couple weeks or so and that his two middle top teeth are also coming down in the gums and should cut through within the next month. Poor little guy, no wonder he has been so fussy, besides being sick. He is working on getting 4 teeth right now! He tends to take a long time to actually cut the tooth and then it takes forever to really move up out of his gums, so Im thinking it could be a month or two until they are out of the gums and actual teeth that you can see well. But, I am so excited to see what he will look like with top teeth! Can he get any cuter??

Helping Out In The Kitchen

Cameron has a new obsession with the dishwasher. I had a really cute video of him but it wont let me upload it for some reason. But the other night while I was unloading the dishwasher I gave him a few bowls of different sizes from it and let him play with them. Next thing I knew he was dragging them up to the dishwasher and putting them in. What a good learner! Its amazing how they learn so much just from watching you. I love all the funny little things he does.

9 Month Doctor Visit and Bret

Today was Camerons 9 month check up. He is growing really well, I weighed him myself about a week and half or two weeks ago and he was just over 23lbs and today at the doctor he was 1 ounce under 22lbs, so he was 21lbs 15oz. He has lost a little weight having not been able to eat for the last 4 or so days... poor little man. But the doctor wasnt concerned about it, he will gain it right back once he is able to eat and drink more than pedialyte. He was 28.5in long. His percentiles were the 75th for weight, just above 50th for height and just under the 50th for head circumfrunce. So he has grown well, the doctor said he is perfect on the growth charts. We talked to him about his flu and he said there isnt really anything they can do to help a baby with vomitting and diarhea unless he gets really dehydrated again and then we have to get him another IV of fluids. So sadly he will have to continue to be sick until it clears out of him. We have to take him back on Monday if he is still having flu like symptoms. Hopefully he will be just fine in a few days. We had a better day today, no blow outs, hurray! And only a few "dirty" diapers to deal with. He woke up this morning at about 4:30am throwing up again, but he hasnt again all day. Over all he got a good bill of health and I know Im doing at least something right.

As for Bret... He had to come with me to the doctor today because he is very sick. I was pretty sick on Friday and so was Cameron but Bret was fine. Then Saturday I was feeling better and around 4pm Bret started feeling really sick. He ended up being very very sick really fast. After about 3 1/2 hours of "taking care of business" on both ends he had to be taken to the hospital because he was extremely dehydrated and couldnt keep a single thing down, not even medicine. I went upstairs to check on him and he was sweaty and white even his lips were pale and he said he was feeling like he was going to faint and he couldnt stand up or he would fall over. There was no way that Cameron was going to last in an ER for hours on end especially past his bedtime, so my parents picked him up and kept him overnight for us. (This was my first night away from my baby and it was really really hard. I cried on the drive up to their house to pick him up and cried when I saw him, I missed him so much! But, I enjoyed the sleep!) He had to have an IV with two bags of fluids while we were there and they gave him anti-nausea medicine to help him stop throwing up. He was very dehydrated, the nurse that gave him his IV was shocked at how bad he was after only 4 hours, his veins were hard to get an IV into. We were at the ER until about 1am. He was sick still on Sunday but he is doing better today. While we were at the doctor today for Cameron he had to have a check up too to make sure he was doing ok and that the meds they gave him prescriptions for were working. While we were at the ER they did a flu swab but we didnt get the results back then. We got them today and it came back negative for Influenza so they think he has the Norwalk Virus or Norovirus (same thing, different name). It is highly contagious and makes you very sick. He is doing much better today and I am so glad. It was an interesting weekend to say the least.

Icky Sickies

Cameron has been having really runny bowel movements for the last week but I just attributed it to teething or the fact that we changed formulas. But, last night came the fun... He woke up around 4am throwing up and I went in to check on him since I heard weird noises and sure enough, he had thrown up all over inside his crib. I brought him in our room to sleep with me and he kept waking up dry heaving and throwing up stomach bial. Yesterday he had 3 blowout diapers and I thought that was bad, today he has had about 5 or so and about the same number or more of diapers that could have easily been blowouts but werent. I feel so bad for him.

To top it all off, I have it too. I felt a little woosy this morning but I firgured it was because of the smell of his throw up. Then as the morning went on I started feeling horrible. I just took my temperature again and I have a fever of 101.5, I keep going back and forth between hot and cold. Not to mention my really bad body aches and Im really weak because I havent been able to eat anything today. I was having a really hard time with Cameron because he started feeling better this afternoon after Bret left for work, I could hardly carry him I was so weak and I couldnt keep up with him. Bret, being the great husband he is, came home from work to take care of us, thank goodness! He is so sweet, he told me that he wishes he could take away my sickness and Camerons and have it himself for us. What a good husband. Although it was really nice because this morning Cameron, Bret and I slept in until noon since we didnt feel good and Bret was tired from getting home from work at 3am.

I feel so bad for my little guy, he has had the flu twice now and a cold I dont know how many times. He is such a trooper. Last time he had the flu we ended up in the ER because he wouldnt take anything down and he got dehydrated. This time luckily he is drinking the Pedialyte. We have his 9 month pictures in the afternoon tomorrow, so I hope we are all feeling better before then!

Mommy-Made Raviolis, Yum!

My good friend Courtney lives across the street and we like to get together every now and then. Her husband is out of town and Bret is working nights so she called and invited me to come have dinner together last night. We decided we would take a shot at making our own raviolis, pasta and all! The pasta was kinda hard to roll out thin enough without a machine. We made a delicious filling with parmeson, asiago, mizithra and ricotta cheeses and a some chopped spinich. They turned out really good. I think we needed our pasta a little thinner, and they were huge raviolis. We topped them with some alfredo sauce and threw in a few breadsticks, and you cant forget a little Martinellis (dont worry, not wine). It was a really fun night between all the crying kid moments. I am glad I have such a great friend right across the street to do fun things with!

Big Ol' 9 Months!

My baby is nine months today! He is slowly becoming less of a baby and more of a little kiddo! I cant even believe it, how fast time is going. Its slipping away so quickly and I wanna soak up every second of it. He has grown and changed so much in the last month. I actually have to say, this last month has probably been the most growth and change of all in the "skills" department. He has started crawling, pulling up to standing, getting into sitting from his tummy, cruising on furniture, climbing stairs, and he actually took one step the other day! (of course he fell right after) I am so thankful to my Heavenly Father for sending me such a sweet precious little spirit to be my son. I love him so much and I love being his mommy. Watching him grow and taking care of him is by far the best job in the world! Here are a few pictures from today.

Big smiles! I started spiking his hair occasionally, isnt it cute? Too bad it doesnt last long.

He loves to pull up on his toy baskett. The other day he fell into it with his feet sticking out kicking, I raced to get the camera but he rolled out before I could get a picture of it. (Can you believe he is already in 18 month clothes!?)
Poor kiddo, he is trapped downstairs now. The gate is up and he isnt liking it too much. Bret and I thought it would be funny to put him behind it like jail bars, it was really cute.

Messy messy eater! I swear I have never seen such a messy boy. He loves to hit the spoon when Im feeding him so that some of the food falls onto his tray and then he smears it everywhere, including his hair! He also rubs it all over his face. He is always fun to clean up after a meal.

My Little Stair Climber

He is climbing stairs now! Holy cow this kid is learning so fast, especially over the last month! He has been pulling up to standing on the bottom stair for a while, it was one of the first things he pulled up on. But he didnt know how to go up them. This morning I turned around and he was standing up on the third stair up, it scared me to death! I ran over to grab him so he wouldnt fall, and he climbed right back up. I stayed behind him and he climbed all of the stairs all the way to the top upstairs. We bought a little fence to put up but when we got home it didnt have all the parts we needed, so we have to exchange it and put it up tomorrow. I have been busy trying to baby proof my house!

Play Date

Today my friend Tiffany, who I met in birthing class, and her daughter Eva came over for a play date. Eva and Cameron are a week apart in age. They had a lot of fun! I love playdates, its fun for the kids and fun for the mommies! They are so cute:)

Emergency Preparedness Fair

On Saturday (yesterday) the city I live in put on an Emergency Preparedness Fair and I was asked to put together and set up some tables about home and family preparedness. With the help of a few sisters in my ward I got all kinds of items and information to share. I had four tables to fill. I set up my canning and dehydrating things, as well as the canning in PETE bottles, which I love! Its so amazingly easy and inexpensive, you can your dry foods in pop bottles or any bottle that says PETE on the bottom of it. Anyway, we also had information about sprouting at home, where to purchase dehydrated and freeze dried prepackaged foods, debt management, water storage, 72 hour kits and more! I was really pleased with how it turned out and I think it was a hit, a lot of people took our information and seemed really interested in it.

This is me and Jaylynn, a girl in my ward. She was there doing some service hours to work towards for her senior project and she helped me get everything set up and was such a great help in general! Thank goodness for such sweet young women! Cameron loves her too! Bret came to have a peek at everything and brought Cameron along and Jalynn took care of him for a little bit and played with him. He had a lot of fun with her. Isnt he just the cutest baby in the world! Of course I am very bias, but I cant help it. I also left him last night with an actual babysitter last night other than a family member for the first time. Jalynn came over to watch him and Bret and I went on a date to a movie. It was so fun to get out just the two of us.