Lots to report!!!

I've been getting emails about waiting to see new posts - sorry!! It's hard to remember to update this blog at night once the girls are in bed. I'm so tired at that point!!

We have had a busy couple weeks since my last post. Alaina participated in the Rookie Run - it's a "race" for kids sponsored by the Indy 500 during their month of May events. Since Adam and I ran the Mini, Alaina also wanted to run a race. She was SO excited for her race, counting down the days every day. She had her face painted and then ran 2 blocks for her race. She did GREAT!!! Here are a few pictures of the Rookie Run:

Getting Ready...

During the race...Proud finisher...

Cami's thoughts...

This weekend was full of fun. Saturday mornings are Alaina's soccer games. She's the youngest and smallest kid on her team. She has an amazing team - they're so good! She'd rather be on a winning team than play a lot I think. :) Here's a picture of her during practice.After soccer, we came home and while I was making lunch, Alaina yelled "Mom! Come here and see Cami!" So I walk in and here she is -All by herself, she decided she wanted to look outside, so she climbed the mat and up she went.

Later that afternoon, we decided to take the girls to the spray park - it's so great because the kids just run around the area while water sprays up from the ground! Alaina LOVES this place, and so do I since it's easier than the pool - plus it's free! :)

Alaina - running through...

And sitting on! Cami - didn't enjoy so much... Preferred Daddy's arms!

One last thought for the night: Alaina went down to the basement after church today to change into play clothes (not sure why she went to the basement rather than her room). Here's the outfit she came up in: My first thought: I don't think those shorts are Alaina's. The more I looked at them, I realized that they weren't Alaina's at all - they were a pair of Cami's capris!!! They were Alaina's when she was a baby (size 12 months!!!) and now of course, are Cami's. But Alaina's little bum fits into them perfectly like they're shorts!!!! Too funny... sharing clothes already...

Love you all!!!

Mother's Day, baptism & a new friend

So last weekend was very busy for us! Actually, Sunday itself was just a very busy but blessed day for our family. It was Mother's Day first of all! Here's the breakfast in bed Alaina made for me:

Then, we proceeded to church for Cami's baptism - it was so wonderful. She's just so sweet and both her and Alaina were very good during the baptism. We had all our extended families here which was really special. We then had a small cook-out with family and just a few friends from our bible study to celebrate. Of course, Cami slept through almost the whole celebration, but we enjoyed the time together!

Still that day, we were headed to the airport to meet our good friends the Castor's returning from bring their new son home from Ethiopia. Joshua Tariku was born just a few days before Cameran, so we are really excited for them to become the best of friends like Toby (their other son) and Alaina have. Here are a few pictures from the airport reunion!

Sarah & Joshua Tariku

Cami meeting Joshua Tariku

Toby & Alaina

Oh! And on Wednesday (Cami's 11th month birthday), Cami took her first steps alone - not just one, but three! And today at gymnastics, she stood by herself on purpose to clap for kids. She's starting to get some confidence and before long she'll be off!!! :)

Long time, long post!

Wow, it's been a long time! Sorry for the delay. We've been a busy family, with Alaina starting soccer and swimming lessons to Adam & I running the Mini Marathon this past weekend!

I last left you when we were getting ready to head to FW for the weekend. Here are a couple pictures from our trip.

Alaina & Uncle Kevin

Cami & her new favorite toy

Alaina asleep in the car

While we're on a sleeping thought, I went in to check on Cami the other night and here's what I found: Isn't she sweet?!?

Alaina started two things this week - sleeping with no rails on her bed (ah! scary!) and swimming lessons. This is the first time in Alaina's short life that she's slept in real bedding. She normally sleeps on top of it, but she's scared she'll fall out of bed now, so I tuck her in good! :)

She just LOVES her swimming lessons - she asks EVERY morning if it's swimming day. Here's a picture of her during lessons.Once the Mini pictures are available, I'll post some of Adam and I. Maybe, they may be pretty bad - they are "action" pictures during the race. Those may not be the prettiest. :)

Love you all!

Entertaining dinner...

The girls and I were alone for dinner tonight and it sure was entertaining! Alaina had on her dress-up veil the whole dinner. Last night, the kids in our small group were babysat at our house and Alaina was in her bride clothes (dress, veil and pink cowboy boots) the entire evening - from 6 to 8:30!!

Cami found out that she loves to chew on celery this week. She's teething more this week and she just knaws on the celery and pulls bits off and laughs! As you can see in the pictures, the babysitters must have had a hard time hitting Cami's mouth at dinner last night since most of the food is on the seat of her highchair! No clue how that happened. I truly can't even imagine what happened! :)

She is getting so old. She's pulling up easily now on anything and cruising effortlessly. All she wants to do is walk around holding on to your fingers. She'll be walking in no time I'm sure. Alaina is quick and Cameran is dying to catch up!

Alaina's first soccer practice is this Saturday (last week's was cancelled because of the weather). Then we're heading to FW for the rest of the weekend. We're seeing some friends and should have some fun pictures up next week of our family and new friends for the girls.

Easter fun!

In case you didn't know because of the weather - it's spring. And with spring, comes Easter! Alaina was super excited about our neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt, even though it was FREEZING cold (so windy that Cami and I got wind burn!). There were 500 eggs hidden at the park and about 12 kids showed up because of the weather. So, you can imagine how much fun Alaina had finding all those eggs! Cami even found a couple of her own.

Here are a few pictures of the girls on Easter. Alaina really learned a lot about what Easter really means. She asked so many good questions about why Jesus had to die and why the people wanted to kill Him. It was great to be able to talk with her about Easter and the resurrection of Jesus. What hope He brought us by rising from the tomb!

Cami also had her first fruit smoothie this weekend - she LOVED them! (See the picture below - this is during a "break" from the smoothie!) It's amazing how a blender, fresh fruit and ice makes something so wonderful! :)

I have really enjoyed keeping this up to date. I hope you are enjoying seeing a glimpse of our days together. We miss our family and friends far away and talk often of when our next visits will be...

Some quick pictures...

Here are a few current pictures of the girls.

Luckily, I was able to get to this tonight. Around 7pm, I was nervous I'd be in the ER with Cameran all night! She thinks she can stand and walk by herself (seriously) but she's far from being able to. Well, tonight she just let go of the couch and fell flat on her face on the hardwoods, putting her top teeth through her bottom lip and her bottom teeth through the top of her mouth. Seriously, outside of giving birth, I don't think I've seen so much blood that close!!! Our friend, Gil, is a pediatrician and he told me tonight that the mouth is a very healing, blood filled place - don't we know now!!!

She's fine - just some stray skin hanging from the top of her mouth and a fat lip. Once I stopped wiping her mouth out, she was actually in great spirits again, trying to get down to the floor to walk again. I'm telling you, this girl just doesn't stop... I wonder who she gets that from...

The girls are so great together. It's fun to see them really connecting, playing and enjoying each other. The picture to the left was the girls' first time playing on the trampoline together. Their hair was standing straight up!

We have a park just 2 blocks from our house that we walk to a TON on nice days. Last week Cami got her first try at the baby swing - as you can see she loved it!

One more picture of the girls at the park and then I'm done for awhile!

This back to work thing is hard - severance was much more fun! :) Getting paid to be at home with the girls - ah, the good old days...

How quickly time goes by...

The girls are getting so big and changing every day I swear!

Alaina is doing well in preschool - she knows all her letters and is learning to count to 100. She's writing all the time. And reading! Man, does that girl like to read!!! Gymnastics is going great - she's really starting to get the hang of cartwheels and other skills. And she has GREAT toe point!! :) She's been playing in the mud in the backyard the last few weeks too - a muddy girl in a skirt! I'll try to remember to post a picture of her I took with that description.

Cami is now 9 1/2 months old! Can you believe it?! She weighed in at nearly 21 lbs at her 9 mo. check-up! (Alaina, by contrast, weighed 6 lbs less at 9 mos!) She is doing the Army crawl and pulling up on things. She absolutely LOVES to stand and wants to do so all the time now. She is quick on her feet while holding mommy's fingers. She loves to go after Elliott and is chatting up a storm. I'm pretty sure "mama" is her favorite word. When she's not talking or walking, she's learning to eat new foods - she LOVES table food and won't eat her baby food when table food is present. She stopped nursing one morning a week before she was 8 mos. old, so she really thinks she's a big girl now. No more baby stuff for her! She just wants to be like Alaina. She lights up every time Alaina walks in the room or speaks or moves...

A girlfriend of mine, Stacy, is a photographer. She took pictures of Cami for us a couple weeks ago and is getting some online for us to see. You can check out her blog at http://www.bluecandy.typepad.com/. Stacy is who took all those WONDERFUL pictures of Alaina a couple years ago.

Here's a picture of the girls in February rooting for their teams!!!


I have started a new job - blah. Not much to talk about there! :)

We are ready for Spring for sure. Adam's been busy on the house and yard - redoing our kitchen ceiling and making a fence for the garden to keep Boomer out!

I'll try to keep this more current! Keep looking for new pictures as Adam has time to upload them (the website is in the first post). Love you all.