Boys...what else can I say?

True...I swear...

Today Cameron comes running into the kitchen with his right hand behind his back. He looks up at me with his uniquely Cameron "crazy" face. With the ever present mischevious twinkle in his eye, he announced to me, "I have a surprise in my pants for you....BOING!!!" I found myself simultaneously breathing a sigh of relief that his hand was actually empty and dreading the day he starts Kindergarten. I was at the school yesterday and saw the principal in the hall. I feel the need to introduce him to Cameron soon in case he wants to consider early retirement or put in for a transfer to a new district.

Don't forget the lyrics...

It's been awhile since my last post, but I didn't realize it's been THIS long. There are a lot of things to catch up on...maybe this weekend. Tonight I wanted to post two cute song mix-ups that each of my boys did today before I forgot about them.

Cameron:

"A B C D E F G, wonder what you mean to me?" (his version of twinkle, twinkle little star). He has gotten better singing his ABC's on his own and sometimes it comes out: ABCDEFG JKJKJK MNOP WXYZ.

Cooper:

Tonight the kids took the Little People Nativity into the bathtub. Earlier today we heard "Shoo Fly" on Radio Disney. While I was cutting Cooper's hair after his bath, I heard him singing "Jesus, Don't Bother Me...Jesus, Don't Bother Me".

Happy Birthday Pappy

We headed off to the Kersey Valley Maize Adventure . I found it on the internet and although it's only 30 minutes from our house, I don't know anyone that's been there. We got a little nervous because the final couple of miles to the "farm" is not the most attractive. Then all of a sudden there is this little mini theme park oasis. It was fantastic. It was all set up like an old west mining town. We had a great day!! Hope you had a nice birthday Pappy!

There was a big bear and this huge jack-o-lantern carved from tree stumps.

Not sure who had more fun on the Jumping Pillow, the kids or Daddy!! I'd never heard of these before. It's like a giant balloon buried in a sandbox. So cool.

Cameron didn't want to jump, he was content playing in the sand.

The little kids went through the small maize maze and collected their ABC's along the way. The big maze was 4 miles long and can take several hours to get through, so we skipped that one.

After digging for dinosaur fossils, we cooled off in the water and panned for gems. This was Abbie's favorite part.

A beautiful day at the Amazing Maize Maze!!

The Big 3-6

Happy Birthday to me. Tim was in class and Abbie was at Girl Scout camp but I still had a fun day with Grandy, Aunt Cathy and my boys. We drove an hour or so to the Brushy Mountain Apple Festival. We had a great time and other than a 20 minute scenic route detour when we missed the sign for the shuttle parking, things went very smoothly. "We" enjoyed the obligatory festival indulgences of funnel cakes and cotton candy, a couple of apple treats of the caramel and candy coated variety, and the tad unusual roasted corn on the cob :)

The crafts were the best part. The pottery was beautiful, some photography and prints came home with me but my most favorite was some recycled art...glass bottle wind chimes from Bottle Benders. They either use flattened (how do they do that?) vintage bottles attached to driftwood (what I got) or they use newer discarded bottles and color them in all kinds of ways. Seeing a whole tent of them displayed in the sun and chiming in the breeze was so beautiful. So creative.

The boys enjoyed visiting with each and every single one of the hundreds of dogs welcomed there.

BUT, Cooper trampling through a pile of doggy discards was easily the lowpoint of the day :( It was quite obvious that the pile did not belong to the teeny doggie in the picture. It was much more likely to have come from some ginormous mutant dog/horse hybrid.

All in all it was a great day. And tomorrow wil be too. Off to a pumpkin patch adventure for Pappy's birthday. I predict more photos.

Transitions

I've been cleaning out closets the past week. Trying to stock them with appropriate attire for 45-85 degrees. Gotta love the seasonal transition into Fall. I do love Fall but it is hard to dress for the day sometimes.

My biggest saddness though has to be that this is the first year that my baby girl can hardly wear ANYTHING from the previous year. She had a tremendous growth spurt over the summer. Some growth up but mostly out. It really surprised me because we were very active at the pool this summer so I didn't think that it was just weight gain from being sedentary at home over the summer. Her spurts had usually been coming towards the middle of the school year. I really think she's just hitting that "stage" already. Ugh, boo-hoo. It might have been my mom that said she's transitioning into a young lady. But I want her to stay my baby girl.

I was an early bloomer. I got my first bra in 4th grade, she's just a year away. It's also incredibly hard not to impose my body image insecurities onto her. So far that's been my biggest struggle. Not to tell her to stand up straight and suck it in. I have said it to her and it kills me that I can't take it back. I'm not one that remembers lots of things from my childhood but I have vivid memories of being teased by my dad. I can't believe I'm possibly doing the same thing to my daughter. She already seems so much more confident than I felt at her age. I don't want to damage that. I think we're heading into that age range where they say that it's harder raising girls than boys.

Smarty pants

Cameron brought me a decorative plaque that I had layng on the shelf in the den. He handed it to me saying, "Mommy, dis a octagon, dis a octagon." I had to count the sides real quick but sure enough, he was right!! And they say TV is bad for pre-schoolers!! I sure didn't teach him that :)

Family Day

I was worried this weekend that we wouldn't be able to go to our first family Wake Forest football game. It rained non-stop for like 36 hours or something crazy like that. It finally stopped enough for us to attempt it. I'm so glad we decided to go. We had such a good time even though Wake got beat bad! We almost left before halftime because Cooper started getting a tummy ache but he perked up quickly and started hooting and hollering like all the rest of us.

His favorite thing was yelling "TACKLE HIM". He was so cute. Later in the game the sun barely poked out and there was a rainbow for about 5 minutes. We finished off the day with Hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts on the way home.