Merry Christmas!

We wish everyone a very, merry Christmas and a happy New Year. This holiday season has been lots of fun and pretty busy. We started with Christmas shopping and decorating our house. We took Christmas pictures for our photo card and had fun ordering those. And we are enjoying my parents visiting us in Colorado! They got in Monday afternoon and we spent our first evening visiting a Christmas light show at a church in town. It was pretty amazing with all the light displays and live characters: snowmen, Santa and Mrs. Claus, elves, and nativity scenes. Then on Tuesday, we drove to Denver to take Camden to the Aquarium. He loved it! I will post videos of this later. He was very excited to see the fish and he also loved sitting on little ledges and rocks that were low to the ground and just his size. We ate lunch at the aquarium and then went shopping at a mall in Denver. We wrapped up the day by eating dinner with my cousin who was in town on business. Wednesday, we did all of our grocery shopping for Christmas dinner, treats, and other meals. On Christmas eve morning, I woke up to notice that it was pretty cold in the house. The thermostat read 58 degrees. It was set for 67 degrees. Uh-oh, the heater went out. Kevin called around and got a guy to come out to fix it, but he couldn't make it out until 3pm. So we spent a lot of time in the kitchen with the stove and oven going making some of our treats and apple cider. We were very glad to have the heat back on before night. Later on, we all dressed up in Christmas colors and went to a Christmas Eve candlelight service at church. The service was pretty and the singing was fun! They also served cookies and hot drinks afterwards. Everyone, but my dad and me, slept in on Christmas morning. I got up and made biscuits and eggs. When Camden woke up he got his presents from Santa: a tricycle and a stocking full of goodies! He was really cute, as he got excited about the tricycle. He immediately tried to climb on and take off, but for now he will have to do with us pushing him since his legs are too short for the peddles. After a few runs on the trike, he opened his stocking gifts: toddler snacks, a couple of videos, and a plate, bowl, and fork and spoon set. He got to use his new fork on breakfast and actually learned really quickly how to stab the eggs with the fork. Such a smart boy. After breakfast was over, we opened all the rest of the presents. Soon we will be eating a wonderful Christmas dinner and enjoying our personal apple or apricot pies for dessert! I hope everyone is enjoying their Christmas time together! We sure are!

Camden's 15 Month Update

Camden turned 15 months on Wednesday. He is such a cutie but also getting somewhat of an attitude. However, he is a very cooperative and good-natured kid most of the time. He is really going through a language explosion the past few weeks. It seems like every day he adds new things to his vocabulary. His favorite word as of late is "basketball". And it is pretty amazing how clearly he says it. He also has learned to say "I don't know." (he holds his hands out like he is shrugging, too), "open it", "A-B-C", "happy", "big boy", "touch down", "Callie" (pronounced a-wee, when looking at a picture of his cousin) "upstairs", "downstairs", and he repeats or really tries to sound out anything you would want him too. But he also picks up things from our conversations (when we aren't focusing on him). The other day, I was talking to Kevin about not being happy about something and Camden repeated "happy" to us. And in another conversation I said "we don't know..." and Camden said "I don't know!" He is such a smart boy, at least we think so! He seems to have a very serious determination to learn things and keeps trying until he masters his activity. I hope that he continues to have this determination throughout his life.

I am not sure about his size, since we haven't had his appointment, but I am thinking he is pretty average, maybe a little on the short side.