Sesame Place

As previously planned, we met Steph, Scott, and Sarah at Sesame Place yesterday before they went back to Florida. I am so glad that we found a time and place to see them during their visit here. This worked out perfectly and gave the girls a fun place to play together. We were all slightly disappointed in the park itself, but Scott gets free tickets through work (thanks again, guys!!), so we didn't let it bother us too much. The park was just a lot smaller than we thought it would be and it was poorly managed in certain areas, but we still had a good time. Steph and I rode the rides with the girls while Chris and Scott were left with stroller and camera duties. Camryn REALLY enjoyed the rides and expressed her disappointment (to put it nicely) after she had to get off of each and every one of them. The girls also enjoyed the Elmo's World Live show while the adults enjoyed sitting in the AC for 20 minutes. It was a very hot day, so any opportunity to cool down was a good thing! Unfortunately, Steph, Scott, and Sarah had to leave after a few hours in order to catch their flight home, but we were thankful for the time we got to spend with them. We decided to spend a little more time at the park after they left. Camryn wanted to see Elmo again, so we went to see the Elmo's World Live show for a second time. She enjoyed it just as much that time as she did the first. Then, we saw Abby and Elmo. She was very excited to see them and told us she wanted to give them a hug. But, when she got within 2 feet of each of them, she refused. We were able to convince her to give them both high-fives, but that was absolutely it. I give her credit for at least doing that! We rode a few more rides, including Grover's World Twirl. It is a bunch of teacups that spin really fast. Chris was relentless in spinning the teacup and Camryn was LOVING it. I was taking pictures of her fun - the one to the right is my favorite picture of the whole day. Her face says it all! After some rides, we walked around for a few more minutes and sat on the Sesame Street "stoop". At that time, it started to rain. We knew it was coming, but we figured we would leave before it started. Nope! I will say that rain never felt so good - it cooled me down quite a bit. We all got soaked walking back to the car, but we had fun doing it! Camryn thought it was silly that we were staying out in the rain. I assumed that she would sleep on the way home, but she was wide awake. She went the entire day without a nap and wasn't even overly cranky. We took that as a sign that she had a really good time!

Updated pictures

I finally updated pictures of Camryn on the website. I have been meaning to do it for a while now, but I finally forced myself to get it done last night. We are working on completely changing our website around so we can do it all on the new laptop, but that involves a lot of work. Surprisingly enough, we have been very busy since school ended, so we haven't had too much time to sit and fiddle with it. But, anyway, there are new candids, birthday pictures, Gymboree pictures, and pictures from her daycare picnic. I will try to be better about updating pictures more often because I really have no excuse not to. Enjoy!

Birthday weekend!

We all had an exciting weekend for Camryn's birthday. It is still hard to believe that she is 2 already. We started off the weekend by going to her Gymboree class on Saturday morning. Chris and I felt like we had never left because we were just there Friday evening. She had a lot of fun learning and pretending to be one of her favorite things - birds. As soon as we got home, we put her down for a nap so we could get ready for her party. Chris picked up the cakes (when you turn 2, you get 2 cakes!) and balloons while I started on the food. When she got up from her nap, she was excited to see that her guests were here. She was especially happy when she saw that one of her cakes was Cinderella. She successfully blew out one of her candles all on her own, but couldn't quite blow out the second one. So, she tried to put it out with her fingers. Needless to say, mommy had to move in really quick to blow it out for her before she hurt herself!!! We gave her a fork and told her to dig in because that cake was all hers. Well, I hadn't thought about how messy blue icing could be - good thing we were outside! I don't think she ate any cake because she was enjoying the icing too much. She ended up getting icing on her dress, so we had to change into another dress for presents - just like last year! Although, this year, she didn't require an entire bath before opening her presents!!! She took her sweet old time opening her presents - I guess she wanted it to last a long time! She spent the rest of the evening enjoying all of her new gifts. She really was a very lucky birthday girl!!!

On Sunday, her daycare had their annual family picnic. Since she hasn't been going for the past 2 weeks, we thought it would be fun for her to go see her friends. She plays a lot with 2 girls in her class, Peyton and Kirsten. We told her she was going to get to play with them and she got a huge smile on her face. When we got there, she was excited to see everyone. We had a picnic lunch and the kids got to enjoy all kinds of fun activities. Camryn, Peyton, and Kirsten all had fun doing the activities together. They did the peanut scramble (with yummy candy!), got their faces painted, and had a BLAST in the bounce house. Since they were the only ones in their age group there, they had the bounce house all to themselves!! Once they discovered they could climb up to a great big slide, they didn't want to bounce anymore! Camryn LOVED the slide! She flew down it every time with a huge smile on her face. They all had a really great time together. When it was time for the bigger kids to have a turn, the girls played on the playground instead. I am really glad we decided to go. She has little friends at Gymboree, but she has known Peyton and Kirsten for a lot longer. I love the fact that she isn't in daycare over the summer, but it is a bummer that she doesn't get to play with them every day. But, she will be back there before we know it. Ugh - I don't even want to think about that right now!!!

Two Years Old!!!!

Today was our baby's 2nd birthday. How on earth is it possible that she is 2 already?!?! It feels just like yesterday that Chris and I were going to the hospital the day she was born and when I heard her cry for the first time. It is just hard to believe that 2 years have passed already. She is officially a little girl now and there are no signs of my baby anymore. She had her 2 year check up this morning at the doctor. She is perfect in every way as far as the doctor is concerned. She is now 30 lbs 15 oz (91%), 34 1/2 inches tall (75%), and her head is 19 1/2 inches (93%). I think those numbers prove she is no longer my baby!!! She was extremely well behaved and did everything the doctor and nurse asked her to do. They all commented on how good she was! Thank goodness she decided to behave instead of showing her attitude we have seen a lot of lately! She even got 3 stickers for being so good and because it was her birthday. After we left the office, her good luck continued. I had to stop at Toys R Us for a few things and a worker there asked me how old she was. Of course, that turned into her finding out that it was her birthday, so she got a balloon and a crown to wear home. She was so excited!!! The birthday card from my parents also had a princess crown in it and she is posing with it in the picture. She kept saying all day, "Camryn birthday." I am not so sure she knows what that means because her party is tomorrow. So, I am sure she will continue to say that it is her birthday tomorrow!

Because her party is tomorrow, we had to make sure we did something special today. Gymboree has an open play time on Friday evenings, so we decided to take her to play. Gymboree is by far one of her favorite things to do, so we figured that would make her happy! She had the entire place to herself for about 15 minutes and then a few other kids showed up. She had a great time playing with them and was having an absolute blast running around, climbing, and jumping. We were there for a little over an hour and she was on the go the entire time. I finally got my wish and I took a bunch of pictures of her fun. I will make sure I post them when I get around to posting all of the other pictures I have. Anyway, we all had a really good time and she will be even more excited when we go back tomorrow morning for her normal class. It is just amazing how much she loves Gymboree - she gets SO excited when it is a "Gymbadee day!!!"

Adult Thursdays

For the past two Thursdays, Chris and I have been able to have some adult time to ourselves. We haven't done much of this since Camryn was born mainly because we want to spend time with her as much as we can. But, we have been taking full advantage of the summer so far. Okay, so today involved buying her some birthday presents, but we did it alone. After that, we went to see the movie The Happening. Last week, though, we had a full 24 hours to ourselves in wonderful New York City. We took the train from NJ into Penn Station in the city and only had to walk a few blocks to our hotel. We walked around Madison Square Garden and the Empire State Building for a while until it was time to get ready for our dinner reservations. We left our hotel around 5:30 to grab the subway completely forgetting about rush hour. It is a far cry from rush hour in Lancaster!!! It was quite an experience, but we handled it like pros! After an amazing Italian dinner, we saw Phantom of the Opera. It was awesome! We enjoyed Times Square after the show for a while and headed back to the hotel much later than we had intended. We planned on getting up bright and early at 4:45 AM to get to the ABC studios to see Regis and Kelly - yes, we are crazy. Unfortunately, the alarm didn't go off and I woke up at 5:27 AM. We needed to be at the studio for stand by tickets by 6:00 AM. By some random miracle, we were able to get up, get ready, grab the subway, and make it to the studios right at 6:00 AM. Yeah, don't ask me how! Too bad it was all for nothing because we learned at that point that they don't do live tapings on Fridays in the summer! It would have been nice if the website said that!!! Anyway, we then walked a million blocks while making pit stops at the Today Show where Kenny Chesney was performing and stumbled upon The Early Show where we watched the cast of Xanadu perform as well as Camryn's favorite person, Bindi. We could only imagine what Camryn would have done if she were with us. We literally could have reached out and touched her (apparently the Early Show isn't a popular show in NYC because no one was around), so I am sure Camryn would have run right at her!!! We continued walking and doing whatever it was that we wanted to do. We walked in Central Park, had a great breakfast in a small cafe, and did some shopping in the big stores like Macy's and Toys R Us. Before we knew it, we had walked all the way back to our hotel! It was a lot of walking in one morning!!! We had a wonderful time, but it had to come to an end. We checked out of the hotel at 12:00 and headed back to Penn Station to catch the train to NJ. Camryn had a wonderful time with Connor and Ella and Aunt Jen said she fit right in to the family. She was extremely excited to see us when we got home, though!! There is nothing better than seeing her run full force across the room while screaming, "Mommy! Daddy!!!!!" We missed her a lot, but we had an incredible time. We plan on having more adult time this summer, but it may not all land on a Thursday - any day of the week works for us.

All better

Camryn's surgery was scheduled for 7:30 this morning. We had to be there bright and early at 6:30. She was very good throughout the prep procedures including getting her blood pressure checked. After all of that fun, she was excited when they gave her a puzzle to play with. She began to get rather antsy after a while, but we managed to keep her entertained until they took her away from us. She willingly went with the nice male nurse and she said, "Mommy too." I gave her a kiss and told her that mommy couldn't go with her, but we would see her soon. It was then that she started to cry. Our last sight of her before her surgery was her crying while the nurse walked down the hall. It was terrible!!! We only waited in the waiting room for about 10 minutes when the nurse told us to come back to talk to the doctor. Dr. Belser (who is wonderful, by the way) told us that she was all done. He said that her right ear looked great, but her left ear was red with fluid behind it and was most likely on its way to being infected again. That is yet another sign that we made the right decision. He said the tubes are in and everything looked great. He told us to come on back because she was already beginning to wake up when he left her. We got back to the pediatric recovery room and she was crying. I got her out of bed, but she was still disoriented and crying. She just kept crying and crying - it was breaking my heart. It was a cry that neither of us had ever heard from her before, so I just held her and told her that we were there. We eventually got her dressed and out to the car - still crying. She cried the whole way home. We asked her if she wanted to watch a movie, so she requested Bambi. She immediately calmed down - the picture above is of her engrossed with Bambi. I eventually crawled in beside her and we watched it together. After a little while, she had some toast and started to get back to her normal self. She napped for 3 hours this afternoon - she really needed it. All in all, I don't think she is too traumatized by it. From now on, we just have to make sure she wears her ear plugs in the bath and pool. We got them last week and we tried to make wearing them fun. She went along with it and doesn't complain one bit when it is time to put them in, but I think that is only because they are pink - she loves anything that is pink!

I have more to write about our trip to New York, but that will have to be another post. I figured Camryn took priority over our trip for now. I promise I will write more later and I even have plans to post more pictures of Camryn on the website soon - I will try my best.

Too much time...

I have only been on vacation for a few days and I already feel like I have too much time on my hands. After a trip to the pool this evening, I decided that it was time to turn Camryn into a proper girl. I absolutely have to have my toenails painted pretty colors in the summer (well, all year long), so why shouldn't she? So, I painted her toes a very pretty shade of pink. She loved every second of her pedicure and sat very still while I made her toes "pretty". I figured that Chris would be annoyed with me, but he really liked them. She stood very proud as I took a picture of her toes before bedtime - aren't they pretty???

Water Baby

We went to the pool last night for the first time. Camryn has never been in a big swimming pool, so I expected her to be a little leery. We started in the kiddie pool and she got bored with that pretty quickly. She pointed to the big pool and said, "Go to big pool, mommy." So, we took her into the big pool and we started to teach her how to "swim" by showing her how to kick her legs and move her arms. She is a natural!! She is definitely daddy's little girl in that respect because I don't particularly like swimming. She was "swimming" in no time. She is definitely going to be a little fish this summer, which is just fine by us. We are very glad that our pool passes are going to be put to good use!!!

Another good thing for the summer is that Gymboree classes are now unlimited. We only went once a week in May, but we can go to any or all level 5 classes every week now if we want to in addition to the free play times. We just got back from our class today and she continues to absolutely love it!! Today, they pretended to be monkeys - she had a blast. All we have to do is ask her, "What day is today?" and she immediately responds with "Gymboree day!!!!"

I am also officially on vacation. It feels great, although it hasn't really sunk in yet. I spent yesterday BY MYSELF since Camryn was scheduled to go to daycare. I don't remember the last time I spent the day doing nothing. It was very nice. I think Camryn knew it was her last day because she didn't want to leave. It was cute. They are having a family picnic in a few weeks, so she will be able to see her friends that day. We are going to try to stay busy this summer so we don't get bored. I think we have done a good job so far!!

I really should be taking a nap now that Camryn is napping. I successfully walked my 2 straight hours for my Relay for Life team last night from 11 PM - 1 AM. My friend, Erin, and I were very glad to have a night walk because it is supposed to be in the upper 90s today. No thank you. It was in the 70s last night and very humid, but it was doable. We walked a little over 7 miles and it felt good. Well, except for the huge blister on the bottom of my foot today. But, that is a minor thing to deal with when compared to those we were walking for.

Alright, I need to go make some pasta salad for a picnic we are going to later. I guess that nap isn't going to happen!

Future Artist

Camryn showed off her artistic skills last night while using sidewalk chalk. She very carefully chose each color and took her time creating her masterpiece. I must say that her picture was very beautiful and extremely colorful. She was so engrossed in her artwork that she didn't even notice that both legs were rather blue from her hard work. Too bad that the rain last night erased her artwork. That is ok because we have a whole summer for her to create more wonderful art.

Speaking of summer, tomorrow is my last day of work!!! I am so glad that it is finally here. Too bad that I had to work my last few days with a black eye. Unfortunately, I am the victim of parental abuse. Camryn and I were playing on Sunday morning when she decided that it would be a good idea to throw a block at me - literally out of nowhere. There was an immediate bruise right under my eye. I could tell she felt terrible and she kept saying, "I hurt Mommy. I tiss her boo boo." She has given me lots of kisses, but it hasn't made my black eye go away. Needless to say, it has been an interesting week at work telling everyone that Camryn gave me a black eye. The kids seem to get a kick out of it.

Even though my last day is tomorrow, Camryn's last day at daycare is Friday. I messed up when I told daycare my last day, so she has another day with her friends. I honestly think she is going to miss them! I haven't quite figured out what I am going to do by myself all day, but I am sure I will come up with something!!! I am looking forward to sleeping in seeing as I am walking in the Relay for Life that night until 1:00 AM. I don't remember the last time I stayed up that late, so we will see how it goes. Chris' last day is Tuesday, so we are celebrating with a night in NYC next Thursday while Camryn has a sleep over with Connor and Ella. We have tickets to see Phantom of the Opera that night and we are hoping to get standby tickets to Regis and Kelly on Friday morning. We are really looking forward getting away together and starting off our summer!!! The next time I write, I will officially be on vacation and will hopefully have more exciting things to share about our extra time with Camryn!!