Cameron - 2 years old

Well it's that time of the year. Yes, the time where things get a bit crazy for us with everyone's birthdays and the holidays. First up - Cameron! Our big guy turned 2 years old. He's hardly a baby anymore... even though he'll always be my baby boy.

We decided that we are going to skip a party this year, so we headed to The Old Poway Park for a train ride. A few friends decided to join us.

Your stats (Yes you're a skinny little dude):

Weight - 24 lbs - 17%

Height 35.5 inches - 64%

We didn't want to have a big overwhelming party for you this year, but just wanted to enjoy time together as a family, so we decided to take you to Old Poway Park for a train ride. It ended up to be a super cold day and even rained all night the day before, but we bundled up and went on with the plan. I mentioned this  to a few friends of ours and they decided to join us as well, so we even had a few friends on board. You had a great time, and couldn't wait to get on the train. We played a few games and ran around the big grassy field and even had little mini-cupcakes that looked like little baseballs.

A little more about you...
I love your happy and outgoing personality. In the last few months you have really started to be a little chatter box. Repeating just about everything after us and especially Sascha. The only thing you were not willing to say is your name... not sure why that is, but a few weeks after your birthday you saw a picture of you and Sascha and I asked you who that was and you finally said "Cam" in your adorable little voice. You now even use a few Russian words like "Smatrie" to tell me to "Look". Or the word "dye" (means "give") which I remember Sascha used to say very well too at a similar age.

Your favorite birthday toy was a car that you absolutely love. When you push a button, it starts going on it's own and even does a wheely. You sit down and ask us to play with this car so it can go back and forth between the 2 of us. You were also excited about your balance bike and spider man helmet. You tried to ride it at home, but it seems you are just a little bit too small for it. I think in a month or two we can give it another try.
You are super fun and loving little boy. You get super excited when you see school buses on the way to get dropped of at your daycare, so now I always point them out and you say "Oh school bus, fun", "more?". You always want more.
Also as soon as you get up, you ask for "cereal?" It's like an expectation, you get up, get dressed, eat cereal, and may be even watch a little elmo on the weekends.
You have also gotten very independent. Everything I used to do for you, you now yell with authority "MY TURN", and insist on doing it yourself. It started with eating: I have relinquished all control in trying to feed you. If you are going to eat, it's going to be you feeding yourself with a fork or spoon.
You are obsessed with baby beluga, the story and now the animal too. After daddy took you to Sea World and you picked out your white beluga toy, you now go to sleep with it (yes along with the doggy blanket, the giraffe we got you at the zoo, and now a beluga). You give it hugs and even rock with it on the chair attempting to sing the baby beluga song which you insist on us reading/singing every single night.
We've had a a few trying moments with you hitting, mainly it happens when you get frustrated at Sascha because she took something that you wanted and isn't willing to give it back, but we always get you two to kiss and make up. You are actually very giving - when you are being asked nicely to give something back, to our surprise you listen 9 out of 10 times. You have already learned the meaning of the word "share" and yell it out loud all the time when you want Sascha to give you something that she has. It's a lot of fun to watch your relationship together. You definitely look forward to seeing her every day when you guys both come home, and you look up to her so much, trying to do just about everything your big sister does.
What fascinates us the most is you throwing. Mostly I am talking about you throwing a ball, however you like to throw other objects around as well. The ball throwing is getting really fun, you aim and you throw pretty well for a little 2 year old dude. You also try to catch. Throwing and catching is by far your favorite thing to do.

Thanks to Sonya we have a few photos from our outing to the Old Poway Park!

Love this photo she got - it really captures your little boy personality at the moment

So excited to blow out your candle and eat a cupcake

Halloween Party

The Smith's hosted their annual Halloween bash, and we finally came in full costumes. Yes it was a bit last minute, daddy was still working on putting his costume together right before we left, and even though it may look impressive in the picture, we didn't do a very good job of making it comfortable for him to walk in... or even stay put, so most pieces came off shortly after the photos were taken. It was so fun for the kids to see us dressed up, and I think will definitely do our best to try and dress up with them at least while they are small. It was also fun to have a family theme this year. Daddy definitely encouraged it to Sascha by having her watch the Wizard of Oz. She also had a good time walking around Party City to get accessories for all of our costumes. I had a hard time finding red sparkly shoes for her, and ended up ordering them online and luckily they came right in time for her first dress up at the School Festival so all worked out in the end. Sascha was Dorothy, Cameron  was a little Scarecrow, Mommy was the Wicked Witch, and Daddy was the Tin-man. I was not planning on putting the green paint on my face, but of course was encouraged by Tin-man himself since he was putting silver paint on his face. I put some one and showed it to Cameron to make sure he wouldn't get scared and he just laughed pointing at my face. I think Sascha was more scared of my green paint than Cameron.

Before we left our house for the party Cameron managed to open a mini snickers bar and shove the whole thing in his mouth. Once I noticed it was too late... so this is how we find out that he is NOT allergic to Peanuts like we thought he was. So yay, we didn't end up in ER and got to enjoy our evening at a friends house and going trick or treating. Definitely a huge relief to not have to worry about a peanut allergy!

So all ready to go we joined our friends at their house which was decorated even more this year than the previous. Their inspiration came from the tv show "The Walking Dead". It looked pretty awesome! There were a lot of kids this year... what a challenge to try to do a group photo, but of course we attempted anyways! After taking photos of all the kiddos and the families, we were off to go Trick or Treating.

I am always a bit strict with the candy and was worried the kids will want to eat all their candy right away, but it really wasn't a problem. I let both of them eat a few out of her bucket and told them they can have the rest on another day. I did go through the buckets once they went to bed to sort the good stuff out, and get rid of the not so great candy, but they pretty much forgot about it the next day...so not much to worry about.

Grandpa David, Baba and Deda came to see us walk around in our costumes. Cameron went to all the same houses, he did not want to be carried around, and wanted to go everywhere by himself. He did fall a few times, but dusted himself off and kept on moving along... seriously? Like a little man that he is... he didn't get scared and did not want our help with anything, even carrying his bucket which was getting heavy from collecting all the candy. (More pics to come)