Dear Campbell,

Today you turned 1! What a year you've had, too!

You started out being colicky, a difficult sleeper, and slow to laugh. Now you are snuggly, animated, and laugh at every joke. You have really brought me (mom) to my knees this year, but you are brimming with so much personality, I can see why you had a hard time being a newborn.

Now you are toddling around, trying to talk, and picking up on social cues. Here are some things about you at age 1:

-You love music. Like your sister, you love the song I Love NYC. You also really love to dance to the Strawberry Shortcake songs, especially when Mommy dances with you.

-Your first word was "Dance" ("Da!") but your favorite word is "Guck!" I taught you to say duck about a month ago and that has become your word for everything. You call most people "Dada", which offends the original Dada :), and you really crack us up when you put your hand to your own chest and emphatically say, "Dada! Dada!" You also say, "ticka-ticka-ticka" when being tickled.

-You love babies and spend much of your day trying to find a doll to love and snuggle with.We got you your very own baby doll for your birthday. You love her very much!

-You give the best hugs.

-You're a mommy's girl.

-Your thighs still raise eyebrows, invite laughter, and usually a few comments about how "healthy" you are.

-You bellow. You love loud, intense sounds.

-You fold your arms for prayer. We never taught this to you. You picked it up on your own when you were only about 9 months old.

-You can get knocked over by your sister, tumble off of a chair, or smacked in the back (again, Cadence), and not even care. But if somebody takes something from you, you bellow, throw yourself prostrate upon the ground, and bang your head a few times.

-Your head is bigger than Cadence's and arguably even Mom's.

Wearing Cadence's hat, which is snug on you! Hmmm, I wonder who's head you inherited?

-You love to play games and have fun. You never stop exploring and playing and talking and climbing and loving.



We have loved watching your grow and learn and become a more mobile, independent person this year. Your personality is so exciting and sweet. We can't wait for all the years to come when we get to know more and more about the fiery, exciteable, loving, and warm spirit that you have. We love having you as a part of our family.

We love you so much,

Love,

Mom and Dad.

Pictures from your first birthday celebration:

Dear Cadence,

Today you turned 3! Yesterday as Mom was hurriedly running around setting up for your birthday party, she thought of how quickly you grow and change and she may have shed a few tears. We want to always remember what a special girl you are at this time in your life.
Here are some things about you right now:

--Your favorite song is "I Love NYC" By Andrew W.K., although you also love Bram's Lullaby, I Love to See the Temple, and the Strawberry Shortcake theme song.

--You love music and dance. You can shake it like nobody's business! One of your favorite things to do is to turn on some music and dance all together with Mom, Dad, and Campbell.

--You love colors. Painting, coloring, play-doh, they are all experimentations with color for you. And you love "matching". You notice who else is wearing pink, or red, or whatever, or if somebody's shoes match their skirt.

--You love to play pretend, especially pretending that you are an authority figure who gets to boss mom around! You usual insist that YOU are mom, and I am Cadence. You also love to play dress ups and to take good care of your dolls.

--Like always, you still make friends everywhere you go. You look people in the eyes, you open your mouth and whatever comes out always makes somebody smile!

--You are extremely motivated to complete your responsibilities and have recently turned a new leaf with whining and "keeping your hands to yourself" (aka not clobbering your sister). You get an ice cream cone at the end of a responsible week.

--You have a vocabulary beyond your years and you use it constantly. Today you told me to not be so "naked to your sister", which means "nice", apparently. You use words like ridiculous, hilarious, and terrible.

Daddy made you pancakes (your favorite) with "marshminnows" (your other favorite!)

To celebrate your birthday this year I was worried that we wouldn't be able to have a party, since we have only been in Flower Mound, TX for a month. We invited friends to the community pool to celebrate and 35 of us came to party! We had rainbow cupcakes and some snacks, and lot's of sun and water. Even your third cousin Sam Nelson came, who was only 4 days old! (Still impressed, Nadine!) Everybody had a lot of fun and you ever-so-politely thanked most all of them for coming to your party.

Cadence, we are so proud of you. In only three years you have managed to turn our world upside down and inside out, and we've never been happier. We feel guilty sometimes that we are just learning how to be parents and so we make a lot of mistakes with you. But you are resilient, clever, and cheerful, and we doubt there's much of anything we can do to ruin your beautiful spirit.

We love you. Happy third birthday.

Love,
Mom and Dad.

Here are some more pictures from your party:

You HAVE GOT to see this...

Okay, sorry for the rapid fire posts. Elisabeth posted this video and it just made my day:



And then I watched this: (it's a little longer, but very informative)



Oh man. man oh man oh man. I'm totally going straight and blonde. Or dirty blonde.

Vocab Practice and Head Banging

This morning Cadence rambled off the following sentences, almost one after another, with a few unrelated sentences here and there, which I have not included:

"Mom! I'm about to threak my Cheerios!" (without my correction, she moved on to the correct pronunciation...)
"That fly is going to freak out!"
"I'm going to freak the fly."
"The fly is going to freak itself."
"I'm gonna freak out something!"
"I'm about to freak out."
"I'll freak out down there!" (pointing to a little hole in her booster seat.)

I cannot even guess how she got stuck on that word. I tried to ignore it, but totally had to turn and laugh when she said "The fly is going to freak itself."

As for head banging, I just wanted to report on Campbell's latest development. She has learned how to object to not getting what she wants, also known as "throw a tantrum". She throws her head to the floor and bangs it. I remember when Cadence did this, too. It's so funny. Especially since her little bald head is so BIG. She also shreaks, which is less cute but still pretty funny.

And on that same thread (think headbanging), have I ever told you how Cadence is a backseat DJ? She has had a need to be in control of the music being played for as long as she could communicate. She used to cover her ears and whine if I made her listen to a song she didn't want, and whine until I put on the song of her choice. Here are some of her favorites from times past:

-Hard Rain (Bob Dylan, although the version we have is some one else)
-"The Ha-a-a-a-a-a-a-eart Song" (that one by Regina Spektor)
-Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
-"The Make a Pie Song"

And currently, we are allowed to listen to 2 songs only, in this order:

I Love NYC by Andrew W.K.
I Love NYC
I Love NYC
and then we get to listen to, "The Loud Lady" which is to say, The Way You Make Me Feel, by our Late Great Michael Jackson.
Then it's back to I Love NYC.

As soon as they hear it, both girls get this really big smile on their faces and start dancing. It's not exactly a kid song. Elisabeth, if you don't know this song yet, you'd darn well better download it NOW.

Proof:




Of course once the camera was out they didn't do their real crazy headbanging dancin'.

A New Hobby...

***I just posted and then realized the pictures are too small to see the faces. If you WANT to see the pictures better, just double click the picture.***

Admittedly, this post is 90% for Spencer (who is travelling) and 7% for my own personal "family journaling" purposes, and maybe just a tiny-percent for some verbal affirmation. :)

My cousin-in-law Amie always has the most beautiful pictures and collages on her blog. I have drooled over these for a long, long time.

Did you notice my new banner? (That's right, we're totally and completely Texans.) Amie let me in on a few of her secrets, one of those being Picnik.com. I'm obviously a novice, but I can finally tell that I'm getting a little quicker and hopefully a little better at this. Here are some of my first photo edits. May I please solicit your reactions? Too much color? Not aesthetically pleasing? Not professional-looking? I'm pretty please with myself, to be quite honest. But I need other eyes to help me improve.

And then if you haven't started doing this yourself, might I recommend trying? It makes it easier that buying that super-awesome-pretty-heavy-i'll-never-really-know-how-to-use-it-like-it's-supposed-to-be-used-expensive Camera is still a-WAY-off in the distance. Shoot, I hardly need it these days, now that I know how to whiten my own teeth and brighten the colors.

Okay, for your viewing pleasure, with before-and-after's:



What did you think? I think the one of Campbell as a newborn is my fave. It really brings her to life.

Not a woman anymore....

I'M A MOM.

Have you guys seen the "Mom Jeans" Saturday Night Live skit? Oh, please please please go to Hulu and view it. Please. Now. If you are a mom, or have a mom, or know somebody who is a mom..... do it.

Okay, I was dying. It really hit home for me. Maybe it was just so-so for you. Well, you obviously don't "get it".

And on that note, I'll blog about how I DO have a life beyond my kids. About once a year. And this year, it was on a giant catamaran with free booze and top 40's blastin'. We enjoyed the free Gatorade and the opportunity to hear what the kids are listenin' to these days (man, that stuff is crap. Send me back to the golden grunge era, please.)
Spencer is doing an internship this summer with Bain Consulting here in Dallas, as most of you know. They do a lot of fun/cool/schmoozzhzhin' activities to show the interns that this is the place we want to be when we grow up. So this was one of those activities. Bring on the schmoozhzhin'.
Spencer impressed everybody with his serious wakeboarding skills. Really, he was pretty good, especially since it's been a while since he's gone frequently. (Oh, how I miss those college-years trips down to Powell). Sorry, I didn't get any pictures of it. I was busy letting my thighs get deep fat fried. (the "deep" and the "fat" were more a function of my thighs than my actual sun + skin experience).

But somebody did snap this picture of Spencer and I enjoying the boat-ride.

I love boat rides. Oh I do. It felt so good to have the wind on my face and feel the splash of the (slightly anti-freeze-colored) lake cool my skin. When the boat stopped and we felt the sun beating violently down upon us...it was HH-HH-Hot. Oh we had such fun. I have rarely left my children for that long (nearly 7 hours), but it was a much needed break for me.

But now let's be serious. Why bother posting if I'm not going to put some pics of the kids up? Here are some super cute pictures of Cadence with Cache at the St. Louis Zoo. On our road trip (remember, the one where I looked homeless?) we got to pass through St. Louis and see my cousin Devin, his beautiful and awesome wife Amie and their two kids who are fairly close in age to ours. Cache and Cadence were two peas in a pod. It didn't take them long to become fast friends.

And here's one of the whole group. Also some of the only picture proof that Mikalyn was with us. The other proof is that we made it and we're all still alive.
We had so much fun with Devin and his fam. I wish we could get our families together more often. And I wish Mikalyn never had to go home!

And wow, that post just sort of went all over the map, didn't it? I hope none of my readers are English teachers.... (dang it, Nor.) This is exactly why I got horrible grades on writing assignments.