Camping with a baby?

We went camping TWO times with our little lady this summer. The first one was the annual Palmer camp. It really didn't turn out great for us. Savannah had a horrible time which made ME have a horrible time. Good thing I go for Keaton and was committed or we would have bailed :) Not too many pictures of our family on that one due to Savannah being in tears most of it.

Why did we try it AGAIN 2 weeks later? I had put together a camp for my Mom's family. I really felt like I couldn't get out of it :) It was MUCH better on Savannah....SO better for all:)

Here is my Uncle Drew and his "adventure scouts". Have I told you about Drew before? He is a real live Peter Pan. Don't we all need one of those in our lives? He never wants to grow up. That makes him Grandpa/Uncle of the YEAR. He had our little collection of 3 year olds going. He took them on a tent stake rescue mission, had them imagining the twisty Aspen trees were snakes, and told them about "Monkshood" flowers to name a few topics. Keaton LOVED it. I {heart} Uncle Drew.

Here we are at Silver Lake, what a great little walk!

Keaton trying to fit in with the girls :)

Keaton and Savannah...best buds.

I had to laugh, on our walk with the girls my cousin Launie is working on letters in the dirt with her girls. Keaton...has scurried 1/2 way up this wall. The differences of gender!

Keaton and his buddies Katie and Maggie.

Oh Savannah oh don't you cry for me....

We have a serious problem here. See this girl? She has decided she is not a fan of people (my Mom tells stories that I was the same way...I don't believe her). The problem is that she looks so dang cute in her ruffley socks, patent shoes, and bow and smiles... at a distance. People think they should hold her...but she thinks only her Mom should hold her. Then she turns into ANGRY baby and thinks she needs to yell until EVERYONE knows she is MAD. I think after this week they are sending around a petition to have us go inactive :)

The final straw.

If you know our little Keaton very well you know he is adventurous...to put it mildly. He taught himself to swim by just jumping in the pool 100 times. He loves to climb on, jump off or wrestle ANYTHING. He has 30 first cousins and I don't think there is a one of them he hasn't wrestled. He really doesn't have any fear. We have been thrilled that we have kept him out of the ER and are pleased he has never broken anything or needed anything stitched up....until...

CHURCH!!!! Can you believe it? Sunday he ran into the counter at church. Our neighbor Haley is a nurse and came to check him out. Sure enough we had to take him to urgent care for 2 stitches (he also has a pretty good black eye that doesn't show up in the pics too well). They ended up putting a new sealer on his cheek to lessen scarring. He is pretty bummed that he can't swim of 10 days (and counting). He was thrilled though when his sweet Sunbeam teacher brought him by a bag of bravery goodies :)

Not REALLY Santa?

Santa was in our local Costco today. He was in plaid shorts, a t-shirt and smelled slightly of beef sticks but Keaton and I were sure it was him. This is how we came to believe:)
We get right about to the deli area and Keaton decides to go into full blown tantrum mode. My normal, "Keaton if you can't calm down we are going to have to leave instead of staying and getting a drink to share" was not working. When we came to the lady who was passing out the free micro samples of ham we discovered she was O.U.T. The nerve. This put Keaton over the edge (can we say tired?). Santa seeing the issue comes on over. He gets right in Keatons face and says, "buddy this isn't gonna work. Be nice or you are off THE LIST". Keaton looked at me and spent the rest of the time saying, "are you o.k. my lady?/ what can I do for you my lady?" (where he got the my lady part I am not sure, he has a pretty funny vocabulary).
So Keaton and I left the Costco believing in and LOVING Santa :)

Itty Bitty Ball

Keaton just finished up Itty Bitty Ball last week. I was so thrilled to get him in it this summer. Our city does this program for kids 3-5. They spend a week learning basketball, a week on baseball (his favorite was when they used water balloons to practice catching and wading pools for bases), and a week on soccer. Keaton loves to play so he couldn't pick a favorite. He loved them all. After the first week when I asked him what his favorite part was he said, "I love it when I make a basket and I can hear you say GO KEATON"....sweet. He had a lot of his good friends on his "team". His good friend Zach he met at swim lessons, Joshua (the rocket neighbor :), and Joshua from when he was in nursery (yep 2 Josh's). We will definitely have to sign up again next year (best spent $24 of the year). His only disappointment.....he was sure he was going to get a trophy at the end like his cousins (I really tried to clear that up at the beginning....he KNEW I was wrong :(.

Keaton and Zach with the HUGE ball they used the last day to play "crab soccer".

Keaton kicking Zach instead of the ball.....REALLY I am trying to teach him.

Had to include one of our little Vanny girl :)

3...well 4 mos!

Our little princess turned 3 mos.... a month ago. I really meant to get this picture up and a summary written, oh well ;) She is such a little blessing to us. Now she is 4 mos and is rolling around, easily entertained by Keaton and still is a good sleeper. She also talks to us CONSTANTLY. I think she must take after Keaton (who Lee says takes after me :). She just had her 4 mos appt. and is 17% for weight and 20% for height. That is not too shabby since she started out 3%. She weighs a whole 12 pounds now.
I have to tell you how much she adores Keaton (unless he has poked her for the umpteenth time). When I was pregnant with her I had the distinct feeling that she was excited to come down from Heaven to her family. She was excited to see Lee and I but she was MOST excited to see Keaton. That pretty much sums it up for most people we know, everyone seems most excited by Keaton :)

Lost....and FOUND

I lost my little Keaton today. Just like that I turned around and he was gone. We had gone to the park with a few friends and I could see all of them...no Keaton. Can I say I lost it? I have never really misplaced a child. I couldn't imagine he would go off by himself without being a pied piper and taking some buddies with him. I was sure one of the lurking weirdos walked off with him. I called and called and called for him and went from one area of the play area to the other looking for him with tears in my eyes and panic in my chest. Poor Savannah could feel my panic and she started to fuss right along with me. My cousins wife jumped up and stared looking too. I just couldn't think straight about my options...call 911 (does that count as a life and death emergency?), organize a search party with the 200 other moms at the park that day, WHAT? Sure enough within 5 minutes Keaton wandered back over to his chips and salsa (I brought enough for everyone....he thought I only brought enough for him). When I asked him where he was: "I was in the castle, why did you not look in the castle?" Cleary HE was not concerned (although after he felt my concern he stayed pretty near the rest of the time).

I think every so often one of these terrifying moments are good for us mama's it helps us appreciate these precious moments even more. Keaton got extra hugs, extra kisses tonight, even 3 extra bed time songs....just in case :)