It's a Girl!!

We are proud to announce the birth of our niece Ava Lee Meyers. My sister had a baby today. I need to give you some background before I go into her details. My sister's due date was my very same due date for Camden a year ago. Today is Camden's first birthday. So my sister and I were due on the same day and had babies on the same day one year apart. We must have a strong sister connection. Anyway back to Ava Lee. She was born around 10:20 am today. She weighs 8 pounds and 7oz. She is twenty inches long and has black curly hair just like her mom did. She gets her middle from me and I am so honored. I want to cry every time I think about it. I am going to meet her tonight after we have a little birthday celebration for Camden with both of his Grandma's at Red Robin. I will post pictures soon. We give God the glory for this new little blessing in our family.

Can't Decide

This was really cute. After a nap Camden couldn't decide between his binky and his milk. He would go back and forth between his milk and his binky over and over.

Sleepy

Camden was given this stuffed Sleepy dwarf from a friend. One day I got Camden up from his nap and he was still a little sleepy. I brought him downstairs and went to make his milk. I turned around and Camden had crawled over to Sleepy and laid his head down on him for a rest. It was soo cute I went to get my camera to take a picture. When I came back he of course lifted his head to see what I was up to. I couldn't get him to put his head back down but it was still a cute picture so I had to take one.

Too Cute

Steven always has lots of kisses for Camden when he gets home from work. Whenever Steven goes to kiss Camden he will turn and open his mouth and kiss him back. It's really wet and sloppy but too cute.

Calories for Camden

Yesterday I took Camden to his doctor for his one year check up. Mostly everything was good (I will talk more about that later) but we had some areas to work on. The biggest thing was that Camden needs to weigh more. I will admit that feeding him has been my biggest challenge (everything was so easy when I supplied him everything he needed). When he began to eat solid food I tried to keep everything really healthy. I believe you create what kind of eating habits they will have for the rest of their lives in the first two years. With the rise of obesity and the direction our health crazed country has taken I'll admit I jumped on board the "health train". What it comes down to is Camden needs more calories in his diet. I take him back for a weight check in six weeks. We are asking for your prayer that we could feed Camden more calories without becoming obsessed and creating any negative eating habits. Camden seems to also be on the picky side. That doesn't help the situation (the kid doesn't like pudding). We would appreciate your prayers and if any of you have any tips on maximizing the calories at meal time we would also appreciate those. I will keep you posted at his next weight check-up.

Play Group

These are pictures from our play group this past week. There was a small group of us there. It has been hit or miss for us with the play group this year. We seem to have a lot going on during the week between play group, Bible study and MOPS (and that's when we are healthy). Camden and I took the opportunity to go to Kristin's house for some mommy and play time. The pictures are mostly of Camden and his friend Hannah. She is just a few months older than him but they were really cute trying to play together (they really just took turns taking toys from each other).

Valentine's Day!

I love Valentine's Day. I love the pink and the red and the romance. Well until I had a one year old... now it's just different. It's still fun, just not as spontaneous as it used to be. I am enjoying my little valentine today and the rule is lots of kisses. I was thinking about our Valentine's day last year. It was our last big holiday together alone. It's a pretty humerous story so I thought I would share it. We had a doctor's appointment that afternoon. Everything was quite routine. I had made it to 37 weeks and was considered full term. They checked me and I had even diolated 1-2 centemeters and was 50% efaced (for those of you who don't know what that means ask your wife). We were excited there was some progress. Then my doctor measured my belly. I was measuring a couple of centimeters smaller than the previous check-up. This somewhat alarmed my doctor. It meant either the baby had dropped or I was loosing fluid. To be on the safe side she wanted me to have an ultrasound in the next day or two. If I was losing fluid she told us we could have this baby as early as the weekend. This really freaked us out. I wasn't packed. The baby wasn't packed. We didn't have diapers or a pack-n-play and other important things we needed to bring our baby home to. We rushed out of the doctor's office. Our nice romantic dinner for the evening was cancelled. We got a quick bite and rushed to Target and headed home. Upon arriving at home I smelled a strong natural gas smell. Steven couldn't smell it as strong as me (pregnant nose). He was convinced our neighbors were cooking on their gas stove next door and that I could smell it through the walls. None the less I called the gas company. They told us they would be out to our house within two hours. We were not to turn on any lights and we were told to open our doors and windows. There we were in our cold, dark house on Valentine's day waiting for the gas guy to show up. After a few minutes we realized that Pepper (our dog) was not right there with us annoying Steven. This was odd. Our door was open and the dog gate was pushed out just a little. Great. I'm about to have a baby, our house smells of natural gas, and our dog is gone on Valentine's day. Steven and I both ran outside (or I waddled) and called for Pepper. We walked up and down the sidewalk calling for him and shaking treat bags. That seems to always get him in the door quickly. Steven remembered going into the garage after we got home, so he asked me to go and check for Pepper in there. I checked and found Pepper alone in the dark garage. What a relief. Shortly after that, the gas guy showed up and checked our home and our neighbors home. He found that our neighbors had left their gas BBQ on very low in their garage for several hours. We were grateful to be safe. The next day I went in for my ultrasound and everything was fine. Camden had just dropped really low. A week and a half later we had him and he forever changed our lives. We love him so much. He is the best little Valentine!

No More Binky!

It was my goal by Camden's first birthday that he would only use the binky for bedtime and rides in the car. He was too quiet when the binky was in his mouth and he was playing. I love to hear him chatter away and I didn't want the binky to get in the way of speech development (or talking through his binky). So at around 10 months we started this process. It was fairly easy. When he would get up from his nap we would drop the binky in his bed and wave bye-bye to it. He was fairly easy going about this and never put up a fight. Now he is almost one and he rarely has his binky when he is up and playing (unless I am just having one of those days). Then I started to notice that Camden always had something else in his mouth. One day he liked the stoppers to his sippy cups (which we quickly put away because they are a choking hazard). Since then it has been big plastic toy screws, a plastic cup, and mushy balls and blocks. So my grand plan didn't work so well. Oh well. I am happy at least it isn't the binky, and hopefully he will move past this oral stage quickly. I'm sure when we post on our website: http://www.stevenandjessie.com/ in the next couple of weeks you will see lots of pictures of Camden with something in his mouth.

Door Stop

I was prepared for the stage when everything goes in Camden's mouth. We are well into this stage at our house. I was not prepared however, for Camden to put random things that are attached to our house in his mouth. I understand most kids fascination with door stops. I have only ever known of them exploring them with their hands. Leave it to my Camden to feel the need to taste them. I have not caught him putting them in his mouth since. I guess they didn't really taste that great. I will never know.

I can only wonder what will be in his mouth next.

Snow! Snow! Snow!

We have had so much snow this year. It has been really beautiful but also really challenging. One snow storm caused us to total our car. We were fortunate to not have any injuries (except the car). God provided us with another car quickly. I have really enjoyed the snow partly becasue I don't have to venture out of the house if I don't need to. Steven has been less excited about all of the travelilng in the snow, espically with his long commute. God has protected him and for that we are grateful. Camden doesn't care either way. We have taken him outside for a few quick pictures but he stays as still and as silent as possible. When we bring him in and thaw him out he is much louder and on the move. We try not to freeze him too often for the sake of a picture.

Here are a few pictures I took from our house.

Camden's New Car

Camden got this car for Christmas from his Granna and Pop. We thought he would be a little young for it but it would be something he would grow into. That is simply not the case. It has all the bells and whistles so It will grow with him over time. It starts off with a rocker so he can't go anywhere but he can still move in it. That lasted about an hour. We took the rocker feature off and we were pushing him around the house (Steven always pushing a little faster than me). He loves to move in it and we try to put him in it everyday. Although, Camden will never wants to get out of his car so we have to set limits. Now Steven will push him around for a while when he gets home from work (Camden and I both look forward to this everyday). I make dinner and Steven and Camden release some energy. Now Camden can make it go on his own in a straight line. He will usually bump into the couch or the wall and turn around and look at Steven. Camden doesn't have any words but we know exactly what he is telling us.

Christmas (finally)

Ok, it is February and Camden is almost one. I still haven't updated my blog about Christmas. I am going to try to have it all updated soon. I am also working on making my blog as spiffy as my sister-in-law Diana's. She made hers really cool and I am trying to be as cool as her.

Christmas was not at all how I envisioned it. I have been putting off blogging it. For those of you who don't know I was really sick over Christmas and in the hospital. It was hard to come up with a diagnosis but the doctors finally landed on severe food poisoning (I don't think I will ever have sushi again). After three days in the hospital I was released in the evening of Christmas day. I was still very weak for a week and a half after that. My mom and my sister helped out for a few days and Steven's mom flew out to help us for a little over a week. We were grateful for all of the help. I had to stop breastfeeding and switch Camden to a sippy cup with formula. He was a champ and did well throughout the entire ordeal. He has been an easy going happy baby (just like his mommy was as a baby).

We celebrated Christmas late. We are grateful that Camden didn't know the difference. We are also thankful that I do not have a chronic illness. God took care of us and he continues to watch over us.

We look forward to a wonderful 2008!