Grand Floral Parade Walk

We have done the Grand Floral Parade walk here in Oregon for the last few years. We have loved it every year! This year Bank of the West was sponsoring it, which is the bank my father-in-law works for. We get to walk in the parade at the beginning and then the parade follows us with various different floats. Camo loves watching the parade. His favorite is the marching bands.

Camping

In May, Camo and J were supposed to go on a father son's camp out. We had been talking about it with Camo the entire week and he was so excited. I was excited to have a quiet evening with TJ. I can't wait for the boys to get older so they both can go and I can get some peace and quiet for a night.   It was so disappointing the day of the camp out because  it was raining so hard. Camo was really sad but perked right up when we told him we would set up our tent in the living room and eat snacks/treats. Camo had a lot of fun!! When we asked him what his favorite part about the night was, he said the food. He must be our kid.

Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival

Back in April we decided to go to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival in Woodburn, Oregon with some friends. Another great thing about living in Oregon is all the tulips you can see in one spot. It was so beautiful. They also have a really cool area for kids to go on rides, go down slides, and ride the cow train. Camo was talking about riding the cow train the entire time. As soon as the train started to go, he was all smiles. He loved it!! He is still talking about it to this day. 

Family Update

It's so hard to keep up with this blogging thing, but I know I will appreciate that I kept up with it someday. Here is an update of our little family.

TJ
He is now 11 months old. I completely missed blogging about his 10th month. He is such a happy baby for the most part, but don't look at him the wrong way or he will completely change.  I never know what kind of mood he is going to be in. He is weighing in at roughly 21 pounds. He is cruising along couches and will now stand by himself for about 10 to 20 seconds. I think he is still a bit nervous to take any steps. Another funny thing about TJ is he loves putting things over his head like clothes, blankets, diapers(clean of course), etc. However, he doesn't like when we put hats on him. He is very ticklish. We have tried to take him swimming a few times this summer, but he doesn't like the water like Camo does. I think it's because they keep our swimming pool a bit too cold. He is finally sleeping well through the night, but sometimes he wakes up early. He still takes a morning nap and afternoon. He has completely stopped nursing which is a bit sad for me. I wanted to go until his birthday. I did start him on whole milk out of a sippy. He still eats baby food 3 times a day and will go through about 7-8 jars. I can tell he wants our food though because he gets very upset if we don't give him what we are eating. He is starting to say a few words like daddy, mama and uh oh.  He still absolutely loves his brother.

Camo
He is 3 1/2 years old. He is still the sweetest little boy. I was just thinking the other day that he is getting so much easier. He still has a few tantrums every once in a while, but for the most part he handles things pretty well. He is super funny. Here are some things he has said lately. It's so shocking that at 3 years old he is so observant.

Camo to Megan(Owner of Training Day PDX)- Did you paint or something in here?
Megan- Why yes I did!
Camo- It looks really nice.

Camo to Megan- Megan, your looking kind of funny today. (She just recently dyed her hair.)

Camo to Andrea(my friend) It smells like ingredients in here. (He said this when we walked into her house. She had done a lot of cooking the previous night.)

Camo to mommy- Mom, don't drop your phone or the battery will fall out and your phone will die just like Jesus died.

This kid is super smart and impresses me every day. He is starting to call me out on things when I am wrong. Sometimes I think he is smarter than I am. He is really into Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Handy Manny, and Bubble Guppies, Kipper, and Caillou. He is really into motorcycles and big trucks. He loves to ride his bike.  He loves music and  we are told that he is the loudest singer in nursery. We love his sweet, mellow personality.

T
I am still just trying to keep up with the motherhood thing. Sometimes it feels like I can never get caught up on anything. I am really into cooking lately and I love to try new recipes. I am still personal training at the studio a couple nights a week.

J
He is still working at Back to Health Clinic as a chiropractor and loving his job. He has been playing basketball one night a week and really enjoys that. He is now involved in a softball league a couple nights a week throughout the summer time.

Leprechaun Lope

While I was in Utah I decided to run a 10k with my friends Valerie and Sabrina who used to be my running buddies in Portland. Our original plan was to run a half marathon, but Valerie had a baby 3 months prior to the race and I just wasn't feeling up to a half marathon yet. I am so glad I decided to just do the 10k. I remember all my long training runs while training for The Suavie Island Half and I don't miss them at all. Don't get me wrong, I will probably train for another half in the future, but now isn't the time. I didn't really have a goal time for this race because I have never done a 10k before so I wasn't sure how fast I could run it. I also wasn't sure how the altitude would affect me. When we got to the race start we had no idea what the course would be like. We just prayed that it wasn't uphill. Well our prayers were not answered because the first 3 miles were completely uphill into the canyon. I remember just getting colder and colder the higher up the canyon I got. My lungs were burning within the first 2 miles of this run and I blame the altitude for that.The only thing that got me through the first 3 miles was knowing that as soon as I got halfway I would be going back downhill the rest of the race. I think I averaged about 9 minute miles on the way up and 7 minute miles on the way down. I was the first female to finish in my age group 25-29 and I was the 4th female overall to finish. I think my time was around 51 minutes.

Utah Vacation

I'm not sure how much of this trip was a vacation, but it was worth it. I loved catching up with all of my sister's, but being a single mom to two kids for almost two weeks was a challenge. Camo had a hard time with his sleeping schedule and I think he was really missing his daddy.

I started off my trip at my sister Ralina's house. It was fun to see our babies next to each other. TJ was monstrous compared to his cousin Cade who is a month younger than him.

We did a lot of fun things while we were there. We went swimming, to a trampoline place, watched cousin Creighton's soccer games, played on the hot wheels motorcycle, went to the park, shopping, made lots of treats, rode on scooters, and played games. There is always something fun to do at my sister Ralina's house. 

I was also excited to go to Utah to see our newest baby cousin Caleb. This was my sister Shalisa's first baby and we were all excited to see him. We decided since all of us girls would be together we would do a mini photo shoot as well. It was a blast and Shalisa was such a trooper doing all the jumps having had a baby a week prior. Her baby was adorable. It's so fun to see her as a mommy. 

                                                                     Camo loves Grandma!

                                                              Beautiful Shalisa and baby Caleb

The next week I stayed at my sister Larissa's house. It was filled with laughter, cooking galore, games, bracelet making,  kickball and many other outdoor activities.  I was so grateful for my sister Larissa. She helped me with TJ so much. There was one night I was up all night because TJ would not stop crying. He had a fever and was not settling down.  My sister felt so bad that the following night she heard me up with him at 3 in the morning again so she told me she would take him from 3 until 7. I don't know what I would have done without her. I needed those extra four hours of sleep so bad. Turns out he was getting some teeth in. He cut 4 top teeth while we were in Utah! The following night my other sister Tana who was also staying with Larisa, told me she would take the monitor and get up with him when he started to cry. I was grateful for her because she allowed me to sleep almost the entire night. I have the best sister's! 

We also went to Soldier Hollow to go sledding one of the days while we were there. We went on a fairly warm day so some of the snow was melting. Because of that the sledding was a bit slower. It was perfect for Camo though. He had a blast. He didn't want to go home, but I had to force him to because he was starting to shake from being so cold. I didn't really dress him properly because I didn't think he would be going down so many times. I thought he might be scared, but I was definitely wrong.  Thank you to his cousin Tyler and Uncle Topher who helped him up the hill the entire time. I had to stay with TJ, but was able to sneak away one time to go down with Camo. 

Another reason why I was excited to go to Utah was to see my amazing friend Valerie. J and her husband were in Chiropractic school together and he is now practicing in Utah. Valerie and I were great running partners/friends while she was here in Oregon so we decided to run a 10k in Salt Lake together. I will blog more about that run in another post. I decided to stay a night with Valerie in Provo to catch up with her and her family. We miss them so much and wished we all lived closer. We had a bbq and then we were able to sneak out later that night to have some ice cream at the BYU creamery. Abbey who was another good friend from Chiropractic school was also able to meet up with us, as well as Sabrina and her family another Chiropractic student. Camo missed Abbey's son Travis so much and was so excited to reunite with him. It was so fun to get all the kids together. That night was filled with plenty of laughter! I can't wait to get back together with everyone and hopefully J will be with us next time.