Camilla at 15 months

Running. Throwing tantrums. Picking and choosing what she wants to eat. Repeating things you say, though not always. Those are some of our highlights from the last three months with Camilla.

Here are some of the things I've absolutely loved.

Sunday I was walking down the hall at church with Camilla in my arms. We passed one of the portraits on the wall and I heard "Je-a" as she was looking at the picture of Christ. I think that's the youngest any of the girls have been when they've named him from a picture without being prompted.

A few weeks ago I told Camilla "Good job" for something (I think it was putting something away) and I heard "Ga ja" right afterwards. When I told Todd I thought she said Good Job, she nodded and grinned. Coincidence?

She now loves baths. At one year, it was like she was a cat the way she acted in the bathtub. Now, she actually wants baths and will try and take off her clothes to get in the tub herself. I know the change happened while we were on vacation but I'm not sure exactly what contributed to it. My best guess was the time we spent in pools on vacation solidified her love of water and she was willing to accept it in tub form as well as pool. I'm grateful--it's nice not leaving the bathroom soaked from head to toe now.

Kayla and her Charisma

I wish I had pictures, but with the craziness of the last few months and my overall dissatisfaction with my photo skills, I've seen the past few months go by in a haze that has no remnants on my digital photo cartridge or photo file. So, I decided to at least salvage my photographic failure with an attempt to catalog some remembrances with words--you know, the old-fashioned way of keeping histories.

Kayla, now three, has made me laugh a lot lately. She's really expanded her repertoire of vocal skills. Here are some of my favorites that made me laugh at the time. They may be lost in the retelling, but I figured it was worth trying.

Very matter of factly: "I have ex-ze-ma" while talking about how the dry patches on her legs were feeling that day. (This has been a battle for us for the past yr & a 1/2 to control the patches, with bouts of redness, bleeding, but the latest flare-up is getting better so we're putting up a good fight.)

Said with a smile and shiver: "It's chil-ly this morning"

Said of her clover Care Bear with pink sunglasses: "She looks sty-lish"

Putting a bunch of cards in the card holder together instead of one at a time: "I had to put them in one at a time because a whole bunch was dif-fi-cult."

Part of her charm is the way she ennuciates everything. She's very careful about her pronunciation and so her actual sentence doesn't come out quickly, but she thinks about what is going on and observes things that surprises me.

For instance, last night I got a call on my cell phone that was a wrong no., followed by a text from the same no, saying Linh, its allyssa, call me. I related the incident to Todd, with Kayla listening. Kayla then matter of factly repeated the situation a few minutes later: "That was Linh and Alyssa calling."

She loves reading, repeating whatever Abri or Emma is learning on their homework. She loves counting and singing the ABC song. Her favorite book is probably One Fish, two fish. What a cutie.

Camilla's Habits

• cupping her right hand and waving it in the air


• being stingy with her hugs--I miss the cuddly days. She is just too busy for such things most times.


• saying ba-ha, ba-ha, over and over


• crawling excitedly to meet Daddy when he comes home from work. If she happens to be upstairs, we hear an excited squeal and slow progress to make her way downstairs.


• if she wants to talk with you and you turn your head away, she adjusts her position to put her face back in your line of vision.


• taking pacifiers away from other babies (she doesn't use one)


• likes being in swimming water, but can't stand the bathtub


• she cries when you put her to bed-night or nap, doesn't matter-but she's happy as a lark when she gets up and will stay in her crib talking for about 20 mins before she starts wondering why no one has gotten her out
• she won't sleep anywhere but in her crib. The only exception is sometimes during 3rd hour of church when Daddy is holding her, she'll collapse for 15 mins (it doesn't work when Mommy holds her 3rd hour, though--why is that?!!?)
• she goes right to the blanket in her crib when she's tired. she loves to snuggle with it at least. she has to lay down with them by her face. I've been somewhat freaked out about this but she always sleeps with her head to the side.

I'm sure I've missed some of the things I've noticed lately but at least it's a partial list

Happy Birthday Camilla!

I couldn't let the week pass without officially tracking our little girl/baby's progress. From month 11 to 12 we've seen lots of changes.
She can now officially:
climb down the stairs consistently on her own (backwards)
walk 5 steps without assistance before falling down
drink from any type of sippy cup
stand for whatever period of time she so desires without assistance
climb onto the kids' picnic table--not something we've encouraged!

stand from a sitting position without anything to lean on for support

Update: 10 days after her birthday she was cruisin' around the rooms and walking up a storm. Whew, it can happen fast!

11 months and counting

Three teeth, officially! She loves walking with assistance, getting much better at doing it with just one hand holding and sometimes requests you get up from what you're doing to walk with her.

Logic of Adoration

Abri has a Wish Bear, her "Care Bear Baby" that she sleeps with each night. We had the misfortune of leaving it at my parents' house a week ago. She was really brave about not having it, but she was so disappointed. I had thought she was over it since she hadn't mentioned it since the first night. Then tonight we each shared a wish, and Abri surprised me: "I wish for my care bear baby back." Later at bedtime she couldn't go to sleep because she was thinking about it so much. I offered her some suggestions of other animals and here are her responses:
Yellow kitty: no, it's too small
Flower teddy bear: the thing around its neck bothers me; (when I say we can take it off) and its tummy is too soft
Brown bear: no, its tummy doesn't feel like Care Bear baby
[few others I can't remember]

Finally:
sheep [with a half-smile]: it's soft like my Care Bear baby. ok. [then off to bed]

Moral of the story: kids have their reasons for their favorites. I didn't ever appreciate just how much thought must go into those preferences.

Train's a coming. . .

So, here is our not so exciting home video from Jan of this year with the girls acting out a train. . .I thought it was sweet. The grandparents will enjoy it I hope. We don't do videos often, but after posting the video of Emma's musical I thought, hey why not add another. They add a refreshing change of pace to the blog even if I find the video itself rather unspectacular.

Eight is Great

After cancelling her baptism originally scheduled for 3/6 due to a 24-hr stomach bug in our house, Emma was baptised on 4/17. When the first service was cancelled in March, she was disappointed; in true drama queen fashion, she felt like her baptism was going to be postponed indefinitely and we would never get around to it. We explained patiently that that was not at all the case and that she would get baptized and the time would go pretty quickly since it was only a six week delay.

On the day of her baptism, she spent some time on her "Baptism Quiz" as I called it--a packet of activities from the primary presidency with questions about preparing for baptism, a crossword puzzle, fill in the blanks, etc. She enjoyed the challenge of seeing what she had learned in primary, in our family home evenings talking about it, and mini lessons with Daddy using the missionary discussions.

After she was baptised, I asked Emma how she felt and her reply was "COLD!" She was shivering from the water that wasn't heated in the baptismal font. When she received the gift of the Holy Ghost, I asked her how that felt, and she said, "Happy All Over!" I thought that was a perfect description of what the spirit feels like in that special moment.

After the baptismal service, we enjoyed dinner back at our house for family and friends that had attended the service. I love attending baptisms and it was all the more special to see Emma getting baptised. There is such a sweet spirit that accompanies the performance of baptisms and I am so grateful for the witness of the spirit as it teachs and affirms truth.

Move over High School Musical still pics

Here are still pics of the 2nd grade musical on 4/20. First three are self-explanatory. Fourth is the girls with their Uncle Chad, Todd's brother who was visiting from out of state for Emma's baptism. I thought we had a family shot that night but I think it was only on my mother-in-law's camera.

Move Over High School Musical

Emma participated in her 2nd grade musical a few weeks ago on April 20th. Todd took this video clip of the song just prior to her speaking part. The title was How does your Garden Grow and told the story of a gardener named Herb who was inundated with weeds and how Herb and the other garden animals and plants chase away the weeds. I admit that between poor seating, mumbled speaking parts, and general audience noise, I couldn't follow much of the 30 min play. Watching Todd's video was actually the best view I ever had of Emma in her part; as much as I strained and craned to see her on stage, my glimpse was fleeting of her magical moment to speak 4 lines as a bunny who talks about how pretty the flowers are. Emma had a lot of fun doing it and was so excited about it. She didn't get nervous about being on stage and she had learned her lines as soon as they started practices 2 months earlier. She wasn't the loudest speaker and could have slowed down, but not bad. It was great to see so many fun costumes on the kids and the set was well done for an elementary production. Enjoy!

What makes her Smile: Camilla

Successfully clearing the nightstand of its contents
Tearing papers out of your hand
Putting her hand in your mouth and pinching your lip
Hearing our family bedtime songs
Seeing Mommy after she's been gone
Being rescued from Kayla's grip
Being allowed upstairs with the big girls
Chocolate muffins (I know, horrible parenting, right?)
Getting taken out of her crib
When she rolls away during a diaper change
When she can successfully keep her jaw closed and keep me from getting what's in her mouth

I know, I know, these make her typical.

Matching Colors

At our house, putting away the laundry just isn't as simple as it should be. When I request help from the girls to put their clothes on hangers, we have to go thru the process of matching hanger colors to the shirts. Little did I know when I purchased packs of childrens' hangers that I should have gotten one color and stuck with it. Now that we have red, blue, pink, white and wire hangers we have to coordinate them to the clothes. sigh. My question is, Does it really matter?!My clothes are happy no matter what color they are on, and I find my clothes no matter which hanger they are on. Funny thing is, generally speaking, Abri is like me and Emma is like Todd, but in this way, they both take after him. He has to have just wood hangers. It annoys him that he has two types of wood hangers--the shade of wood and metal hook are slightly different but we didn't purchase enough the first time we bought them to get them all the same. The trials of life.

Musings on Beauty

I went down to visit my parents this weekend and attended church with them. As we exited the building, we ran into my mom's choir director and spouse. The choir director said to my mom: "Are those your grandchildren? They are beautiful! What a blessed grandmother you are!"

Now, as a mom, it's such a pleasure to hear compliments on your kids and know that they aren't just beautiful to you. I'd like to say that it doesn't matter to me that my children are pretty, because I value them for their personalities and the things they do, but honestly, it is so nice to hear. What really makes me sad is that it shows me just how much I (and people generally) really value attractiveness. No offense to this sweet sister, but my mom is no more blessed than any grandmother. Yet, if we had to rate blessings, would we rate beauty as a greater blessing than something else? Anne of Green Gables asked Matthew Cuthbert, "Which would you rather be if you had the choice--divinely beautiful, dazzlingly clever, or angelically good?" I'm not sure I can decide between them, mostly because I'd want to say angelically good but that other part of me would say, no! take the beauty!! :)

I do worry that they will base their self-concept too much on their appearance, so I try and compliment them frequently on other things, but I can't help but be concerned. That concern is compounded by the fact that adolescense looms with its accompanying changes, and the impact it has on their self-worth. It definitely wasn't a kind time for me, so I'm hoping to improve upon my own experience for their sake. . .but for now it's all just speculation.

So, if you had to choose, what would you choose? Divinely beautiful, dazzlingly clever, or angelically good?

More from the temple. I tried adding these to the other post and couldn't get it to work for some reason. I am really inept when it comes to these blogs--I have no idea how to add music, how to get really cute backgrounds, how to do slide shows, etc. Then again, I don't really have the desire to find out HOW to do those things either, so there you go. My blog is just bare blog.

So here are some of the results of our attempt to take photos at the temple last month.
Kayla wasn't so cooperative so she doesn't have an individual shot.
90 mins., two trips to the bathroom and twenty shots later. . .
Speaking of photos I still don't have any Easter shots of Camilla.
Poor fourth child. Not a thing to scrapbook for her Easter page.

The Hardest Thing

The school district had a "Fun Run" for all elementary school kids to participate in. I entered Emma because she loves running and thought it would be a good experience. When she came home from school the day of the race, she excitedly changed into her clothes and started doing warm-up exercises. We hurried to get there by the start time of 3:30. It turned out to be a 1 mile run. Parents were invited to run with their kids to help them along if need be, but I wasn't able to run with her because I had the three other girls with me.

To summarize: Emma stuck with it the whole way. She placed 95th officially among the girls, though actually a few places earlier than that since she stopped to talk to me before keeping her place in line to turn in her name id. The first thing she said to me after finishing was, "That was the hardest thing I've ever done in my whole life" amidst crying because her side hurt so bad. She continued, "I thought it was going to be fun, but it wasn't. It was hard." Now she doesn't want to do it next year.

Sigh. How do you encourage your kids to want to push themselves to get better at something that they enjoy? Is it just having the luck of finding what it is they absolutely love, or do you not let them give up at something they enjoy and are good at but don't love enough to do it when it's hard work?

9 month update-Camilla

After a month of standing at the foot of stairs crying, she figured out how to get up the stairs. She also loves to shake her head No at me. She has gotten pretty picky about the foods she likes. She would eat frozen peas before, but now has decided they just aren't her thing and will stick her tongue out of her mouth to keep one from going in. We finally made it to full nights of sleep with no interruptions. What a relief. She loves making messes already--papers on the nightstand, movies on the movie stand, baskets of CDs, you name it.
Adorable as she is, she's the runt of the litter. At her 9 month well check she was just over 16 lbs, so she's still wearing 3-6 month clothes and her head circumference isn't even on the charts for percentiles, and has no teeth whatsoever. She likes to bop along to the songs when we sing as a family. Too cute.

Preschool and Emma

Remember my charity entry? Well, I'm going to add teaching co-op preschool on there. I love the kids, and at the end of the 3 hr craziness I can even admit that it's really not that bad. But, I have to share something from this last Friday.

As background, Abri is part of a 10 child co-op group. (Yes, we're a bit optimistic having that many kids in the group, but it just worked out that way given a few factors related to which kids/families were participating this year.) We had 3 weeks of teaching for each child we had participating in the co-op, two days each week. I just finished my 3 week assignment last Friday. Emma stayed home from school that day.

(As a side note--she had complained that morning before school that her tummy was hurting. It was similar to a time we had had with her two weeks earlier where she stayed home for the same reason but never got sick, so I figured it was the same thing, that she wasn't contagious, and that it's got to be related to allergies/digestion issues that we are working out with her--to reassure any of my friends reading this whose kids came over that day and wondered why she was there at all.)

It was actually pretty great having Emma there to help. She is such a great eldest child--always looking for ways to help. (On the down side, she is quite the little mom already in her reprimands of the little girls, but she really does mean well.) She was quick to think of things to do, even suggesting that we do a W activity where we say sentences to the kids and they have to say which word(s) start with W. She basically gave me that extra pair of hands that really comes in handy when you have so many kids asking for help with glueing, opening lunch items, washing hands, etc.

Well, after all the kids had gone home, Emma asked me, "Mom, are they always that loud?"
Me: "Yep."
Emma, smiling: "Wow, I feel bad for you. . .[then reflectively] I wonder if they are louder than we are."
Me: "Your class?"
Emma: "Yeah. We get pretty loud. I don't know how Mrs Key does it everyday."

Me either. Kudos to teachers. Make a point to thank those teachers in your kids lives. They are awesome.

Exasperation

I was getting out of the shower the other day when I heard a knock on the bathroom door. "Mama!" came Abri's voice.
"Yes?"
"Cami!"
Without even opening up the door to see: "Abri, did you pick her up? You can put her down. I can't get her right now."
Then in exasperation, "I can't take care of her all the time. She'll start crying if I put her down."

Of all the girls, Abri is the one still obsessed with Camilla. She loves picking her up and giving her kisses but she hates when Camilla cries and often picks her up when I am not as responsive as she thinks I should be. Kayla tolerates her. Emma helps with her when I ask but doesn't generally volunteer.

8 months? 8 months! Camilla's update

I truly can't believe it. She wants to be a big girl already, whether it's eating, playing, going upstairs, or talking (except taking a bath, she HATES baths). She has wanted very much to get up the stairs on her own this month. She's spent an inordinate amount of time standing against the bottom step crying because she hasn't figured out yet how to climb up them like the big girls. She has been pulling up on furniture a lot but isn't surfing it yet, so walking isn't in the imminent future at least. (As of 2/30/10 she is now surfing and pulling whatever she can off tables, night stands, movie racks, you name it. . .)



She most adamantly wants food like the other girls. She'll grab anything on the table within reach. (That meant quite an unpleasant evening for Leanne who spent the evening soaked from ice water Camilla had spilled on her when they went out to celebrate Todd's birthday yesterday.)
Her Loves:

• peaches, peas (from frozen-she screams to high heaven when I tried the baby food stuff), applesauce, and little puffs.
• blowing bubbles
• making noises in Sunday school (albeit happy ones) to disturb everyone else.

I get almost as many comments about what a happy baby she is as I do about how pretty she is. She's a sweetheart and we are grateful to have her.

Charity Is. . .

• Wiping spit up off your child's skin before you wipe it off of yours
• Disciplining with love when you're actually pretty upset that there is glue spilled all over the carpet
• Playing Barbies again, and again, and again
• Reading books to your kids when you really want to be taking a nap
• Sharing your favorite dessert
• Potty Training
• throwing birthday parties and all their associated stress to make it a special day for your kids

I'm still working on this list. . .feel free to add any that strike you. . .

Marketing works

Kayla brought a DVD to me 2 days ago. It was a Toppers Club DVD for Farmers, with the picture of a Top Hat and the Farmers Logo. She kept saying something about it, holding it out to me, and I couldn't figure it out. I thought she was saying off (something) so I guessed outfits? dress-up? with the assumption that she was looking at the hat on the DVD. She said No, shook her head, then repeated what she was saying, this time pointing at the Farmers logo on the DVD. I said Office? and she nodded excitedly, "Uh-huh!" and returned it to the shelf. I had to laugh--of course, she figured out the association of the logo with Daddy's office.



Two days later, she brought me yet another object from our plethora of Farmers labeled items--a red can opener grip, then said, "Farm, Todd," and, after getting my customary acknowledgement of what she said, then went back to whatever she was doing with it. I didn't realize even Kayla would have picked up on the Farmers logo, but then again, I should have realized--as images of Dora and Barney are just two obvious proofs of that.

Have Fun

Todd dropped Abri off at a birthday party today. Abri before leaving the car said to Todd, "I'll have fun. . ."

Note to self: stop telling my kids to have fun and change to something more constructive, like the "remember who you are." Then again, is it so bad to remind them to have fun? Hmm. . .

So embarrassing. . .

A friend of mine came over for a visit. Observing all the girls playing in the living room by the fireplace, she remarked, "You have a beautiful family." Emma, in a very exasperated voice, said, "Ev-er-y-one says that!"

I laughed at the tone of her voice but inside I'm thinking, wow, I definitely didn't instill a very good understanding of how to accept compliments with her, have I. Granted, that was the first time she had said it loudly to the person that actually gave the compliment; other times she has just asked me why we get comments like that while in the grocery store, Costco, mall, restaurant, etc, after they've already left. We've addressed the issue a few times since then to try and drive the point home. Hopefully it's worked.

Dead People

A few weeks ago, as we left Todd's office, Abri remarked, "There are dead people back there." Confused, I asked, "Where? What did you see?" "Back there! But they've turned to stone."
And then a lightbulb went on--we were passing the cemetary just down the street from the office. Funny, I never realized just what kids might think about tombstones over the graves.

Handsome Drawer

A conversation I recently had with Abrianna
Me: Abri, could you put this in your closet? (Referring to one of her belts)
Abri: I'm going to put this in my handsome drawer.
Me: What's that?
Abri: It's the drawer where you have stuff that you look cute in.

I had to laugh. I think the genes for girls to have clothes preferences are definitely built in.