It's been a while...

Well…it’s been a while since I’ve done a real update. I’ve just been posting a lot of pictures lately. And I haven’t been doing that very often either. So here’s what’s going on at our house.

First, let’s start with the house. Our house is officially on the market. It has been for about 3 weeks. So far we have had a lot of showings, but no offers yet. That’s okay—we will stay positive and know that it will happen when it’s meant to happen. We aren’t making any plans to go anywhere until we sell ours anyway. So we will just remain patient and wait for the time to come.

Moving on to Camden. She is now potty-trained! WooHoo! She has been out of diapers for the last month and doing very well with it. She still wears pull-ups at nap time and bed time, but is in “big girl underwear” the rest of the time. We are so proud of how well she has done with this! And we love not having to buy diapers for two kids!

She is still doing gymnastics one night per week. I can see how much she is learning every week. And I’m not just talking physical skills, I’m talking life skills. She is learning things like taking turns, patience, following directions and social skills. Because she is at an in-home daycare, she is only exposed to the two other children there most days. I think it’s great for her to be in a group with several other kids all about the same age. And I’m proud to say most days we leave there and I feel that I have one of the best-behaved kids in the class! She makes me proud!

Camden’s favorite thing to do right now is to play outside and play with her neighbors. She loves to be outside. She pouts nearly every night when we tell her it is time to come inside. She usually says, "I never get to play with my neighbors." But in reality she plays with them all the time! And if she is inside and sees a neighbor kid playing outside she thinks she HAS to go outside to play with them. I’m thankful for the great weather we’ve been having, but we just can’t play outside every night. Believe it or not, we sometimes have other things to do!

Camden is always full of the funniest things. I swear, we spend half our day just laughing at the crazy things she says. Last Sunday we were driving home from my parents’ house after spending the day playing with her cousins Emmett and Ella. Camden said, “Mommy, I have a brother named Kade. And Emmett has a girl brother named Ella.” Umm, I think that would be called a sister, honey. And last night Derek was reading her a bedtime story, Are you my Mother. He got to the page where the little bird saw the plane and thought it was his mother. Apparently Derek didn’t annunciate the word plane well enough for Camden so she corrected him by saying, “Pp-Pp-Ppplllaaaannnneee. Daddy can you say Ppplllaaaannnneee? Pp-Pp Ppplllaaaannnneee.”

I could go on and on… Instead I'll just post a cute picture of Camden and Daddy!

Now for the Kade update. Kade is growing and changing so much every day. I try telling him to slow down on the growing, Mommy wants each stage to last much longer. But he just doesn’t seem to listen to me! He is mobile now. He gets wherever he wants to go in no time flat! Nothing is safe any longer. Any lamp cord he sees dangling, he takes off for. Camden is starting to really understand what having a younger sibling means—they get into your things! He has also pulled himself up to standing a few times too. It scared us the first time it happened. I set Kade on the floor to play with an activity table and next thing I know, he’s STANDING at the activity table! How’d that happen?!? He has done it a few times since then too. Look out world, this boy wants to walk!

Kade has also reached another major milestone. He has teeth! Not one, but two teeth! They are barely poking through, but enough to know they are there. He got his top right tooth first (isn’t that weird to get a top tooth first?) and then his bottom left tooth next. I guess that could explain why our full nights of sleep were interrupted by a crying boy last week.

Kade’s surgery to repair his hypospadias was originally scheduled for April 21st. When Derek took him for his pre-op physical, they found that he had a double ear infection (yet another possible reason our full nights of sleep were interrupted). They put him on antibiotics and hoped to have it cleared up in a week for the surgery. I took him back 5 days later and his ears looked the same, if not worse. So they put him on a stronger antibiotic and rescheduled his surgery for May 10th. I take him back on Monday for yet another pre-op physical (if you’re counting, this is number 3). Hopefully he’ll get the all clear so we can go ahead with the surgery! We just want it done and over with! And the younger he is when they do it, the less impact it’s going to have on him.

Not much to report with Derek and I. I took a new job about a month ago. I’m still with Wells Fargo, but in a new role and at a new building. I’m really enjoying it and enjoying the freedom to work from home occasionally, but missing having Friday afternoons off to spend with my kiddos. And not looking forward to the business travel next month and leaving my babies for 3 days. At least that only happens a few times a year. I can survive it! And I think Derek and the kids can survive without me for a few days. He’s a great daddy and will be just fine :)

Derek is staying busy playing in his basketball leagues. Yes that was plural. He plays weekday mornings at the YMCA a few times each week. He just finished up a Wednesday night league with some friends. And he has just started playing with a Saturday morning league at our church.


He spent some time hunting with my dad and brother last weekend. He shot a big turkey on Monday. Way to go Derek!

Now that the weather is so nice, we like to spend our nights going for bike rides. But the problem with that is there are so many parks in Ankeny and every time we ride by one, Camden thinks we need to stop and play. We need to design a route that avoids all parks. I’m not sure that is possible!

Well, that was quite the updated! Now everyone is officially caught up with what’s going on in our world. I’ll try to be better about updating this thing more regularly. And with real things too…not just pictures!