Way back in October, the kids and I took our annual trip to the pumpkin patch down the street. It is always good for some cute fall photos. Although Campbell was in kind of a weird mood and I had to work so hard to get any good photos. Oh well! They are still so cute!

Just realized I never posted about our awesome trip to the White House bowling alley. We did this in August–basically Ben’s friend there let us in because no one else was in town!

Cool view from INSIDE the gates:

Helpful signage:

Ben was pretty excited about the photos on the walls:

Action shot:

BYOB:

Sweet parting gifts:

Thanks for having us Mr. and Mrs. Obama. We had a blast, just sorry we missed you.

I just uploaded some photos and found these videos from right before Thanksgiving. It was one of those rare moments where the kids would actually sing for me!!

I am going to do a 5 year old update post soon but I wanted to post pictures from Sam’s birthday party which are way overdue! This year we decided to have a very small party for Sam. I actually made a big long list of people to invite, addressed the envelopes, and then ended up not sending most of them out. I just decided on the day I was going to send the invites out to keep the guest list to our neighbors. There are four families on our block with kids Sam’s age and they all have so much fun together. It just seemed to make sense to keep the party limited to a few friends this year.

Sam wanted to have an octonauts party this year, so I had fun with the theme. It is a really cute show and it’s educational too!

THE FOOD:

 (Grandma Katie’s macaroni and cheese)

(grapes)

 (blue jello with swedish fish)

 (this yummy kale salad)

THE GAMES:

 (pin the patch on kwazii)

 (Shellington pull-string pinata)

THE FAVORS:

The mother of one of the kids I tutor is an amazing cookie maker and made these incredible and delicious cookies that we gave away as party favors!

Hey there! I bet you forgot I had a blog! Eeek! I can’t believe it has been over a month since my last post!! I didn’t mean for it to be so long but I was just so busy with Handmade By The Millers (my embroidery business) that I haven’t had time for much else. But Campbell is way overdue for her TWO and a HALF year old post (considering she’ll be three in just three more months!). So without further ado, here is what our little girl has been up to.

• Weight and Height: Not sure of her weight but she is fairly slim. And as for height, she is TALL! She is taller than all of her friends! But she got mad the other day when we told her she was tall and insisted that no, she is little (explaining the concept of being “tall for your age” doesn’t really work with toddlers).

• Eating: Campbell isn’t a picky eater in that there is nothing she refuses to eat (though she isn’t a fan of spicy). However, she doesn’t eat much at all. She just picks at all of her meals, occasionally devouring platefuls. I don’t worry because she never complains of being hungry!

• Sleeping: We are still going very strong on naps. She almost always sleeps for 3 hours (1:30-4:30) and sometimes I have to wake her up! Of course, this also means that she likes to stay up talking to herself way past her 8:00 bedtime. Sometimes Sam will join in but there have been many times we’ve gone to check on them and Sam is passed out while Campbell is 5 feet away belting out some song or other silliness. She is still in her crib but we are thinking about moving her to a big girl bed when she turns three. We’ll see. I have a feeling she won’t be as good about staying in her bed as her older brother has been. But on the other hand, I also worry she’ll try to climb out of her crib.

• Behavior: Campbell has definitely been acting like more of a two year old lately. For the most part she is still our happy and silly girl, but she definitely has been showing more attitude! We have even had to do a few timeouts for swatting at Sam or not listening. But when she isn’t being naughty, she is one of the sweetest little girls I have ever seen. She is very cuddly and loves to snuggle and give hugs. She is very silly and even downright weird–whatever it takes for a laugh.

• Sibling relations: Sam and Campbell have so much fun together these days. They love to egg each other on and can get really wild. Lately Campbell has really been following Sam’s lead. If I ask them if they like a song, for example, Campbell waits to hear what Sam says first and then answers the same thing. Pretty cute!

We love you, love you, love you, sweet little girl!! It has been a great two and a half years!!

I am playing a little blog catch up. We had a fun Halloween with Nana and Grandpa Jerry in town (as usual, we didn’t manage to get pics that included them! Boo!).

Sam was a pirate and Campbell was Tinkerbell:

Trick or treating like a champ:

Tinkerbell and her superhero sidekick, Ned:

The day I have been waiting for since I found out I was having a little girl has arrived–Campbell’s first dance class. I am really not even kidding. I have dreamed of having a little dancer! It’s not that I want Campbell to become a professional dancer or anything (though that’s fine if she does), it’s really just that I love the idea of having a sweet little girl in a leotard and tights! Ha! I know. Serious parenting here.

Anyway, the class is great and she loves it! All the girls are so adorable in their little outfits. I wouldn’t say there is a lot of real dancing going on, but they are so cute doing whatever it is they are doing!

Sam and Campbell had their first day of school a few weeks ago! We were all so excited for school to start. Cue adorable back to school photos:

However once we actually got to school. both kids got cold feet. This was the best we could do for a family photo the first time.

We got a little better with the second person we asked. Haha!

But once they were in their classes and with their friends, they were happy as could be! They have both continued to be really excited about going to school each day. Hooray!