It's a Gymboree Day!!

Gymboree didn't have their regularly scheduled classes this week, but they had play gym time where you can just show up and hang out. Katie and I thought it would be a good idea to take the boys and let them expend some energy. We were wrong. We got some pretty cute pictures, but neither Camden nor Hayden was particularly happy to be there - or anywhere else today for that matter. After Gymboree we went to Target, which was an extension of the disaster that began at Gymboree. We intended to grab a quick bite on the way home, but since we were being screamed at in stereo we decided we better get home and get them fed and in bed. What a relief it was when the house finally fell silent!

"You did it!" . . . "No, you did it!"

Christmas 2006

Christmas 2007

Christmas, Part 4

Camden got a 1939 Model A truck to haul all his loot around in!

Peyton enjoyed Camden's tunnel, even at almost 15 years old!

We tried to pretend Camden likes to open gifts, but all the paper-tearing

didn't really hold his attention for long today.

Tara tried to rock out, but apparently being a Guitar Hero isn't easy.

Nana and Camden opened gifts together.

We finished Christmas up today. It's been great, but I think we're all glad it's all over! Nana, Chappy, TK and Peyton came over for our gift exchange, which was a lot of fun. We had spaghetti and salad - how festive is that? It was nice to have something non-Christmasy and it was a lot quicker and easier to get on the table! We played Scene it! and Guitar Hero III, which was a total hoot. It's been another wonderful day, but now I think we all need a 3 day nap!

More Christmas pictures

Hanging out with Aunt Tara.
Trying out his new spin and bounce zebra from Aunt Beth and Uncle Bill.

Santa and his fattest elf!
"Wow, I'm a big brother!" t-shirt.

Putting Aunt Beth to work keeping up with him.

Even Santa Baby has to take time out to eat!

We had a very nice time with Blake's family this afternoon. Once again, Camden made out like a bandit, and Landry added a few more items to her list of gifts. Tomorrow we'll have lunch and exchange gifts with Blake's immediate family, so the fun's not quite over yet! More pictures to come . . .

What a wonderful first Christmas!

As promised, Santa made his first appearance at the Rainey house. We left him a half full bottle and some banana puffs, and that really must have done the trick because he left Camden some pretty good stuff! Camden got a cool tunnel like the one he plays in at Gymboree, a chair embroidered with his name that's just his big, some musical instrument rattle thingies, a whale rocker and a few other goodies. Blake and I made out pretty well, too. I got a shiny red laptop and a new camera, and Blake got a Nintendo Wii and some pretty cool ducks that Chad carved for him. The pups got a new bed and t-shirts. Miller's a good sport, but Abigail is still traumatized about wearing clothes. We'll post some pictures of our loot when we get home this evening.

Christmas really is more fun through the eyes of a child! He's not really sure what's going on around him, but he's certainly been enjoying all of the attention. Being able to traipse around in piles and piles of paper and boxes doesn't hurt either! Last night we went to Granny's, and this morning we went to Aunt Haley and Uncle Chris'. Camden got some neat things from both places. Landry got a couple of things, also.

We're off to Aunt Beth and Uncle Bill's shortly, so we'll have more pictures and stories to share later on. We hope you are all having as memorable of a day as we are!

Merry Christmas!

Since some of you won't get your cards by Christmas I thought I'd go ahead and post the card here. We hope to have some wonderful pictures and video to share with you over the next few days. Merry Christmas to you all!

Christmas card mishap

So the first problem with the Christmas cards is that it took so long to get them, and then the second is that I'm obviously mentally challenged. I received them on Tuesday and was extremely proud of myself for getting them in the mail yesterday. I was surprised to hear from several people that they got their cards today. Then I go to the mailbox this afternoon and see all these cute little red envelopes that bear a striking resemblance to the cards I sent out. I think to myself, "What the #!&@?". Apparently, if your cards are square they require 17 cents of additional postage. So what I'm learning is that some post offices or postal carriers (or whomever gets to decide the fate of square cards) are nicer than others and delivered the cards without the postage, and some are mail Nazis and sent them back. So if yours is one that got returned (or has yet to be returned), I'll put it back in the mail as soon as Blake fetches me some 17 cent stamps. You'd think after selling me Kwanzaa stamps in May for Camden's birth announcements they could let this one slide!

Hormones or reality or both?

I don't really know if I should attribute this rant to hormones or to a good dose of reality, but my Aunt Tonya gave me a piece of advice in her comment to my last entry about enjoying these moments because they pass so quickly, and it really got me thinking. Blake and I try to keep in mind that time is really precious right now. I'm sure we'd cling tight to Camden anyway because he is our child, but I think sometimes we might cling a little tighter because we know his days as the baby are numbered - and we don't want him to ever feel like he got shafted. The first few weeks after we found out we were pregnant again I had a tremendous amount of guilt over the fact that he wouldn't even have a year as the baby. Every baby deserves to be the baby, right? Even though he'll still be a baby, there will be something smaller and more fragile and needy in the house that will take time away from him that he deserves. I'm not concerned about having two in diapers or two on formula (even though that should only last a month) - I think I can handle those trivial issues. And I'm not at all concerned that there won't be enough love to go around. My concern is: how do you divide your time when they will each have such different needs? I hope we are prepared for the challenges we'll face as the parents of two children who will be the same age for one month every year. And I hope I'm prepared for the amount of laundry two adults and two babies will make!

32 Week Checkup

I had my 32 week checkup today. Everything went well. I weighed in 2 pounds lighter than two weeks ago (yay!). I think it had a lot to do with not having lunch and two glasses of tea before my appointment, but hey, I'll take it. I'm also finally measuring right on track. I'll be 33 weeks on Thursday and I measured 33 cm. I've been measuring anywhere from 2 to almost 3 weeks ahead the past few months. So hopefully that means I won't be having a gigantic baby. It's hard to believe we have just over 7 weeks to go - if I go to 40 weeks.

Busy Friday

Camden had a busy Friday. We went to Gymboree, to Daddy's office to see Pop Steve, to lunch with Daddy, and to Adam and Michelle's for dinner, with a few naps in between all of the excitement. We had our first "bath date" and it was a disaster. It turns out that when your kid is a crazy bath-time kicker it's not a good idea to put him in the tub with other kids. Now we know. Fortunately there were no injuries. Gabrielle refused to even get in the tub with the crazy guy (she's a smart girl), so she missed out on the date pictures. Poor Lillian didn't have a choice. We won't make that mistake again!

Merry Elfin' Christmas!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1401526163



You'll notice that both of my boys have boobs (and know how to shake them), while Abby and I have man bodies. I really wasn't just leaving Miller out - he doesn't pose well for photos.

Merry Almost Christmas!

Our Christmas cards are going to be delinquent this year, so I thought I'd give you guys a sneak peek. This isn't the photo that made the card, so you'll still have something new to look at when you finally get it. Maybe I should have just sent out Happy New Year cards.

A Labor Story

This is seriously one of the funniest stories I've ever read. If you're easily offended you might want to skip it. Erin sent it to me before I had Camden, and with Landry's impending birth it came to mind again. It's a long story, so you might want to carve out some time before embarking on this journey!

http://www.dooce.com/archives/daily/03_16_2004.html

It could have been worse

My mom likes to remind me that I was "goth" in high school. I would never have considered myself "goth", but I did like the black clothes and red lipstick. I post this picture just so she realizes that it could have been a lot worse! Here's her sweet little goth daughter's senior picture:

What kind of goth girl wears white?!?!

Happy Birthday, Aidan!

Today is Aidan's 2nd birthday. We celebrated yesterday at Haley and Chris' new house. He didn't seem to care much about the party, but he did finally enjoy opening gifts. I think it helped that his big brothers were outside playing and weren't "helping" him open his loot. He got a bunch of tractor-themed goodies!

Afternoon nap

I put Camden down for his nap about 3:15 this afternoon and he played and talked and whined a little bit until about 3:45. When he fell silent I turned the monitor on and saw this:

I went in and pulled his legs back through the slats of the crib to avoid injury if he rolled over, but I had to take a couple of pictures first. He didn't budge for the flash of the camera or when I moved him, so Gymboree must have really done him in today.

9 Month Checkup

If any of you are still reading this after being bored to death with my girlie purchases, you might actually find this entry somewhat interesting!

We went for Camden's 9 month well baby check today. (The pictures were taken between make out sessions he was having with himself in the mirror!) He weighs 23 pounds (85th percentile) and is 28 inches long (50th percentile). He's only grown a half an inch and gained 2 pounds in the past 3 months. That doesn't sound like much to me, but I guess if there were a problem Dr. Scott would have let us know. He tore up the paper on the exam table, picked up the yard stick and whacked me in the head with it, and eventually hit himself and Blake, too! He's been cleared for table food, as long as it's cut small enough that if he swallows it whole he won't choke on it. And since he often chokes on air alone, this will likely be a long road! Scott said to give him as much formula as he'll take until he's 12 months. I probably should have asked if 4 bottles a day is enough. Hmmm. I knew I'd think of something after we left.

Well, I just wanted to update you guys on his progress (and give you something other than bedding and furniture). Have a great day!

Bedding

Since the nursery rhyme toile bedding I had previously decided on went on back order I had to go to Plan B. The only problem with that is that Plan B didn't exactly exist. After a fairly exhaustive search all the way to the end of the Internet, I finally made a decision. I may be the only one who likes this bedding, but it really struck my fancy when I saw it the first time, and although I'd find other bedding I liked, I just kept going back to this one. I was having a very hard time with the ridiculous price, so I googled "discount and serena and lily" and found a blog with a coupon code for 30% off! That 30% brought the cost down to what I had already decided I was going to spend on the toile bedding, which really helped my feelings. Now I have to break it to Blake that we have to paint the nursery. He was really hoping I'd find something with yellow so we could leave it be.

Let the spending begin!

Today was one of those days where I'm sure Blake will wish I had just stayed home. We finally bought furniture for Landry's room. (I say "we" because one of us has to pay for it - and while my job is rewarding, I don't think Ladies in Waiting or American Express will accept slobbery baby kisses as payment!) I would like to note that I got 10% off the crib and over 50% off the dresser because it has a little defect on one of the drawers. I also got her this adorable little outfit for coming home from the hospital. Hopefully once I decide on bedding I can quit spending for a while since I am blessed with good friends who had girls before me!

This is the crib and dresser, except ours is white, which looks a ton better:

30 week checkup

We went today for our 30 week checkup. Everything looks great with the baby, even though the mom is entirely too fat. I won't mention the exact number of pounds I've gained, but it's pretty close to where I was at the end of my pregnancy with Camden. I naively thought I wouldn't gain as much weight this time since I spend much of my day moving around behind my little guy. So much for that! I measured over 2 weeks ahead of my due date, but the baby's head measured right at 30 weeks. I'm sure that can be explained by the massive weight gain. We were glad to see that all the important parts (heart, brain, kidneys, umbilical cord, etc.) were healthy, and we were thrilled to see (once again) that we're still having a little girl, even though we couldn't have picked the parts out of a genitalia lineup. Apparently we're much better at identifying boy parts than those of a little girl. So now the game is officially on! We'll be broke by Christmas from buying furniture, bedding and pink clothes! Fortunately for those of you on our list, most of our Christmas shopping is already done. Well I'm off to polish off the ice cream so I can get ready for my next weigh-in on December 18th. I hope everyone has a great night.

Has it already been 9 whole months?!?

It's really hard to believe that Camden is 9 whopping months old today! To celebrate he cut one of his top teeth. At least we think he did. He doesn't really let us investigate for more than a split-second, so it's a little hard to tell. If it's not there, it's really close, as is it's neighbor tooth. I guess maybe he did want his two front teeth for Christmas! We took these pictures yesterday at Danielle, Joey and Joshua's house. We tried to pose the boys next to each other on the couch, but Camden kept trying to pull Joshua's face off, so we decided they needed some adult supervision. Up until recently Joshua and Camden didn't really acknowledge each other, but now when Joshua cries Camden gets terribly upset, and when Camden gets excited and squeals it hurts Joshua's feelings (which leads to him crying and then Camden crying, and so on). It's one of those funny disasters - you can't help but feel a little bad for the little guys, but it's also pretty funny to watch the whole episode transpire.