Happy Birthday Camilla Gorilla!

My sweet baby girl turned 1 one me. I can't believe it. Oh how I am obsessed with this little girl. I can seriously not get enough of her. I just want to squeeze her little face every time I see her, every, single time. "Camilla is the sweetest girl. " We hear that every morning when Carson wakes up and it is so true. Camilla just smiles and waves at everyone she meets and can't understand why everyone doesn't want to be her very best friend. She's that baby at church who is walking to other people's pews to sit with them and play with them. Camilla is determined to keep up with all her cousins, she will not be left behind of anything. She is walking with them, climbing with them, and trying to ride scooters and bikes with them. She loves to give big, open mouthed kisses and random hugs throughout the day. She loves her bottle and avocado and scrambled eggs. Camilla loves to wave her hands when she's excited, which is often and grunts when she wants you to hand her something. She is so BUSY, she gets into EVERYTHING. She never sits still and is trying to open everything and pull it all out and if you get out something she wants it too. Camilla is a fish and loves the water, she likes to jump off the edge of the pool and kick her legs like she's swimming too. She hasn't burned all summer and has a nice tan to her skin. No hair for my sweet girl but we have high hopes for next year. :) Camilla is an early riser and we don't ever set alarm clocks because she will be up before we want to. She does go to bed early. Camilla has a lot of teeth, 9 that I can feel and several more on their way up. She has no interest in books of any kind and would rather not sit still for any activities that would require stillness. Camilla loves me, she really, really loves me.

We celebrated her birthday with a fancy lunch to Chick Fila with her cousins and I made her a fruit tart but she went to bed too early to eat it. :) We celebrated with my family the Sunday before her birthday and she was a big fan of the cupcakes.

We call Camilla, Camilla Gorilla and Millie and her eyes light up when she hears her name. We love you Camilla!

Official Stats:

Height: 29.5" (60th)

Weight: 20.3 lbs. (30th)

Head: 18.25" (90th)

Remember When...

I used to blog. I vaguely do. We have been having so much fun this summer and with my computer in storage I just haven't really been up for blogging. But I don't want to forget all the fun stuff that we have done this summer so I am dedicating this week to trying to catch up on a few things.

Florida!!

Aaron and I took a vacation to Florida in June. Well for me it was a vacation, I tagged along with Aaron because he had a conference in Miami. Aaron was really trying to convince me to come. What? convince you why? you might be thinking. Well I really miss my kids when I'm not with them and I was worried about leaving my sweet baby girl. I'm kind of attached to her and I was still nursing her so I was going to have to wean her and I just wasn't sure if I could leave. So Aaron convinces me to get a ticket and its settled. I will be spending 5 days at The Palms in Miami. I was anxious/nervous up until the day we left but also excited, but I started to worry about what I would do all day by myself. I splurged and bought a new swimsuit for the first time in 5 years and Aaron and I were off.

 My kids doing just fine without me, wanting to eat breakfast together.

 

Well let me tell you, I don't know why I worried at all! Apparently I am perfectly content sleeping in until I want to wake up, running on the boardwalk, spending the morning by the pool while Aaron brings me lunch, taking a nap in the afternoon, and then spending the rest of the afternoon at the beach while Aaron brings me fruit and chocolate, and then leisurely showering/getting ready to go out and eat fancy dinners. My kids didn't miss me at all and Camilla loved her bottle so much. It was such a fabulous vacation, I would not have done one thing different.  Its just the sort of trip we would never normally get to take without Aaron's firm and we ate up every second of it.

Okay so you might not believe me but these are actually all from different days even though I'm doing the same things. Ha ha.  I finished two books.

Go ahead and say it friends, I look good. :) Well I at least made an attempt to get ready for this vacation. I only ate ice cream one night a week and didn't get fries with my meals when we ate out. That was a serious sacrifice.

This trip also happened to fall right before our 5 year anniversary. So we celebrated while we were there. Aaron's firm graciously offered to let us eat out wherever we wanted to celebrate. I thought that was pretty classy since they know he's quitting soon. So we ate fabulous sushi and then went to Serendipity for dessert. And by dessert I mean amazing deliciousness. These sundaes were so huge and we each got our own because Aaron hates sharing dessert with me because he says I hog too much.

Yes those are fried oreos.

The last day of the trip Aaron had no meetings so we got to spend the whole day swimming together and relaxing together. I was so sad to leave, we had so much fun. It was just so great to have time just the two of us. I made Aaron promise me we could do something again for our ten year anniversary. Miami was such a fun city and I loved the downtown area. I couldn't believe how beautiful the water was and the water temperature was perfect.

 

My Mom was so fabulous to keep my kids for us the whole time and they had so much fun with her. She did fun stuff with them all week and I know they didn't miss us one second. I was so appreciative to know that my kiddos were in such good hands. 

Arkansas

We were lucky enough to spend two whole weeks in Arkansas this summer visiting Aaron's family. One of those weeks was spent with the entire Pierson family having our family reunion. We went to a cabin in the Ozarks and had so much fun. We brought the Spitzer's slip-n-slide and it was perfect. I can't even say how many hours were spent sliding up and down this slide, racing on this slide, and putting soap on the slide. We ate more fabulous food than I can remember and spent so many hours just hanging out and talking. 

The Karaoke machine is always a huge hit with Carson but this year Camilla wanted to sing too. 

We had devotionals every night before bed. 

Carson and Grandma played the "baptar"

We spent a lot of time at a swimming hole nearby that was just perfect. It had a large rock that was sticking out that we hiked up to jump off. Carson said he wanted to do it but you had to jump out and I was afraid he wasn't going to jump out far enough so me and my sis-in-law threw him and we got our timing off and he belly flopped. I felt so bad and he didn't want to try it again. After we got back from the swimming hole we hosed the kids down rather than do baths. 

One day we went into Fayetville to visit the Crystal Bridges Museum. It was a little difficult with the kiddos but once we got the kid's part and then outside things got a little bit easier to manage. The art was beautiful and I wish that I would've gotten to enjoy it a little more. (Ahem, the men were golfing this day)

After the cabin we went to Maumelle where we spent the fourth of July. Carson LOVED the fireworks, he just screamed after each one, "Oh its so beautiful!"

We hiked pinnacle. We got to spend a lot of time with our Josie who we miss like crazy. We were so excited to see her and tried to do fun stuff with her while we were visiting. 

 

Carson and Camilla had so much fun with their cousins that we seriously hated to leave. Carson talked about them for weeks after and wanted to go back. 

 Purple Cow is always a must. 

 Of course, many, many hours spent in the pool.