Sweet Sweet Camilla turns 9!

Sweet Sweet Camilla had a birthday and she is practically a woman...9...Can you believe she is 9? I love this big little girl so much.
She is the type of kid that makes you feel like a good parent even when her successes have absolutely nothing to do with my parenting. She is sensitive and thoughtful and funny and helpful and smart. She is so obedient that I have to be super careful not to take too much advantage of that.
She loves reading and if you get her talking about a book be prepared to listen for hours. She is starting to be embarrassed around boys and care about how she dresses a little...She is still tall and lean and often quiet and shy.
She is still picky about food in weird ways (like she only likes grapes if they are pulled of the vine in the right way or food if it is not mixed in any way with any other food-like salad has to be  just plain lettuce for her to eat it).
She bites her finger nails and can ignore anyone if she is involved in something-she can focus like there's no tomorrow. Because of her focus she is super efficient at things like homework and chores.
She is a good big sister and really very patient, especially with Creed. He totally trusts her and they are good buddies. She is just basically such a great person and every day I am  excited to see what she learns and who she becomes. I am so lucky to be her mom...
How she started....

And time flew because we were having so much fun and look where we are now....

The Rest of Racing Day

So with two sets of cousins in town we couldn't just sit around and recuperate after the morning run. We wanted to have fun fun fun! So we headed over to the carousel that is downtown and rode it about twenty times. It was free that day because it was St George's birthday...The kids totally milked it...

Then when we were good and ready to stop spinning we did a little geocache action. We tried to find a couple different caches but didn't actually find any. We did have fun digging in dirt piles and checking out dumpsters in parking lots....

We then stopped at Judd's for an old fashioned treat. The kids love the old store with the buckets of candy and bottles of pop. It was fun. But there was more fun to be had so on we went to the other cousins basket ball game and then we grabbed Jimmy John's and headed to the new spinning park in town. We played for several hours since it was sunny and relatively warm ish....

We got home in time for a fast spaghetti dinner. Creed really digs noodles and cheese products of any kind...Love that good boy!

Racing Day...

St George is a racy kind of place to live...Always some sort of race is going on or being planned. Last year after the kids did the Iron Man Kids race we wanted to sign them up for others. It was really good for Cami's confidence and it was so much fun to watch. This time of year there is a half marathon and tuff kids run so we signed the kids up. Cami and Taryn ran the mile and Jocelyn ran the 200 yard dash. The cousins Natalie and Jakob were here while their sisters were in soccer tournaments so we signed them up too.

Cami and Natalie and Jakob just booked it and I missed getting pictures of them while they were running because I was helping Jocelyn get started. She was so cute about it-she practiced all week "how I gonna go!" and then ran very fast (with ginormous arm action). 

Taryn was good to go hoping she wouldn't get too sweaty and hoping she could take her mp3 player. (Which she did and rocked out the whole race-but then thought she got lost because she was rocking out and finally looked up and couldn't see anyone...but she kept going and made it to the end with her music to keep her going). 

When it was time to start Jocelyn was feeling a little unsure because I was on the other side of the fence but a kind hearted race worker took her hand and helped her get going and she made it and smiled. 

Creed was a good sport in the stroller and held onto every one's race papers. What a good boy he is and oh how seriously I love him for being so chill when I need him to be...Getting 5 kiddos into a race and pinning numbers on and putting on foot timer things was a little crazier than I anticipated and Brent had to work last minute...Anyway it was all good and good that Creed is my good cooperative boy.

Jocelyn getting ready to kick bum

All the kids thumbs up and ready to go.

Cami and Jake walking to the starting line...

Taryn with her music going now that she found the way back and wasn't lost after all...

Jocelyn getting ready to go with the nice race worker lady...

The finishers with their medals and feeling good!

The fan club-we love our fans....

Again the finish line...

Our buddy holding all the paper work for everyone chillaxin in the stroller....

More fan club action with cousins and Grandma....wish they could have run with us too but  we didn't realize they were coming soon enough to get everyone registered... BUT there will be a next time and hopefully we can talk them into coming down for it and doing it with us.

Jocelyn slept with her medal that night and had happy dreams of what a speedy runner she is....

Buddy Boy is 1!

What can I say about my beautiful boy? I am so happy to have a boy. At first the idea of a boy scared me to death...so many new things for me to figure out how to deal with and how to teach him and he has equipment I am not especially familiar with...But then I realized I was only afraid of the unknown and in general the imagined unknow situations are far worse than reality so I relaxed and fell in love. 

He is really my best little boyfriend ever (while Brent is the best big boyfriend ever). I smooch and love him and he loves back. He is such a happy go lucky kid. I feel like he honestly appreciates me and that is a weird vibe to pick up from a kiddo but honestly he appreciates me. 

He laughs so easily and is the most ticklish kid I have ever seen. He gets all excited for his sisters (like when we go pick them up from school) and I love having kids that usually love each other. He can play really independently and can get into tons of mischief independently (or with Jocelyn). 

He likes to hang out with me in the bathroom while I get ready in the mornings...content to hang out and unroll the toilet paper. He likes being outside and he likes food except anything green. Basically if you have a 4th kid he is the perfect one to have. We are so lucky to have him as part of our family and we love every inch of him (even his non familiar equipment) :) 

The way he started....

Pink up little man...pink up...

World's best nurse-seriously she made no drugs no biggie...

World's best doctor who finally got him unwedged from my pelvis...

So unsure about how to dress a boy baby...

So alert and interested in life right from the start...

I haven't seen this face in a while but he did it frequently as a baby when he was unsure about what was going on...or when Jocelyn wielded the camera - kind of the same thing....

He was so little but chunky at the same time...

Such a good little helper.

The happy family despite the look on every one's faces....

And then time flew...and BUDDY BOY turned 1!!!!!

The night before his actual birthday we had a family party...He LOVED  his pizza and grapes...

How could you  not feel loved and appreciated when that is your  thank you  face...

And now the race car track cake...I have never seen a kid more appreciative and genuinely  so happy about his birthday. He just soaked up the attention. And knew that he should grab an Oreo...

But what to do with the Oreo once you get it? HMMMM...

Oh he figured it out!

And after this he stayed awake singing to himself in his crib for 2 hours-not fussy at all-just really really sugared up and oh SO happy....

The way he spent his actual birthday...

Playing with the kitchen...his favorite toy at the moment.

Then he climbed into the chair and out of the chair and into the chair and out of the chair...

Then he decided to play with Cami's little chair and got really stuck ...and then of course saved and loved on...

Then he was hungry and swiped Jocelyn's oranges grapes and cheese...

After a good nap he played with magnets and chucked them all over the kitchen...

After dinner he opened presents and fell in love with his new BYU cougar blanket...It's never too soon to become a cougar.

And yea for firetrucks and boy toys...

Creed is ready for the bike trailer now and we couldn't be happier about that...

And then he went crazy with new bath toys and I have never seen a 1 year old make so many baskets in anything let alone a little net...He might make Brent and Papa proud...Aunt Rebekah would be happy to know he might resemble Jimmer more than we first thought...(that was her name suggestion and he is totally living up to it so far).