Children's Museum

 

 We recently purchased a year membership to our local Children's Museum. It's been rated #1 in the country (world?) for as long as I can remember. They had it decorated for Christmas time, but Camden had so much fun in the Playscape.

 

 There was a big music room where kids can play with egg shakers, drums, and other instruments. I grew up with music (flute/piccolo here) and want Camden to be able to do the same. When I was in school music wasn't an elective; it was an expected part of the curriculum. I feel that it still should be although many superintendent's don't agree. Whether it's offered in school or not, he will be participating in lessons either way. :)

 

His favorite part of the museum (besides the food) was the messiest part, the water play area. There was flowing water, scoops, spoons, plastic sharks, etc. He loved it. There were aprons, but they were all really wet and by the time I found a dry one, his clothes were soaked anyways. 

Overall we absolutely had a great time! I love taking him places where we aren't having to constantly watch what he touches or plays with. I like the fact that he can play with anything and everything he can reach.

LOVE IT!

I think it really helps him to be able to test his own limits and is great sensory stimulation. We will definitely be getting our money's worth out of this membership!

A Family Christmas

 Per the usual we had to get a real Christmas Tree (Frasier Fir) and we found a bargain at Home Depot at less than $50 for a 10-foot tree! Camden was so excited to water and decorate it!

 Per our tradition, we also had Brad and Cam put the star on the tree. We had to borrow a large-tree stand that would be sturdy enough to hold a 10' tree.

 As you can see the tree was gorgeous and that includes the random hanger Camden thought would fit well on the tree. Confession: I was too sentimental about the silly hanger and left it through Christmas. ;)

 LOVE

We ended up seeing Santa at his school on their holiday party night. They got to make cookies and see Santa.

 This year he was a little more hesitant to sit on Santa's lap. He did, but after I talked with him a little. Last year it was all I could do to hold him back from being in everyone else's picture. Hah.

We also had a mommy's play date Holiday Party getting all of the kids together. We really miss our Friday play dates and I can't wait until school is done in another 5 months.

 Christmas morning was a BLAST! He loved ripping off the wrapping paper. He had to get every last piece off and tore it off every square inch at a time. It was slow and he is at the age where he wants to open every single toy as he sees it.

Funny how many high-tech and expensive toys he received, but his favorites were a puffy jacket and a $3 cell phone from the dollar section at Target.

Of course Papaw Jones got him a Big Wheel. I mean where do we store all of this?

A family member made a fantastic idea for future presents. Because he gets so many different toys from all four sets of grandparents he has and then even more from us, it was suggested to start a college fund and allow people to donate. Starting on his 3rd birthday and all following holidays, we will be starting a college fund and allowing family to donate and asking for monetary donations with minimal toys. This way we are being responsible and frugal. We can also keep Camden modest in gifts and what he receives.

 

But really, how easy is it to say no to that adorable, perfect little face?!

Not easy. At all.

Fun in the snow? PLUS: snow ice cream recipe

We have had some crazy weather these past few days and thought I'd share some amazing and fun photos I got of the Indiana blizzard. Starting 2014 off right, I guess. State of emergency. Quarantined to the house. Any travel made illegal. 

 

 

Then, temperatures with windchill in the negative 30's and 40's. It was so cold that there was frost on the inside of Brad's truck. 

If anyone wants to know, ice scrapers do not work on the inside of windows.

 

 

 

 

Some of these pictures show just how wet the snow was. My jacket was soaked! It was so wet we used an umbrella to keep the snow off of the camera.

Snow Ice Cream

Later that night I saw a friend who posted that she made ice cream from snow. Who even know that was possible!?

 

Just take a bucket of [clean] snow (around 1 gallon) inside.

Add about 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract, and 1/2-1 cup of milk. (Add the milk in small increments until the consistency you want.)

 

Add sprinkles or other toppings.

 

This was such a fun thing to do with the kiddo. 

A ghost says BOOOO

Halloween night this year was "rained out" and postponed due to strong winds and heavy rain. Unfortunately I wasn't able to go trick-or-treating with Camden this year because of that. I worked really hard to be available from clinical and work on Halloween night, but was scheduled to work the next day. Thus my disappointment in the postponed trick-or-treating.

Several local mascots came to visit the kiddo's on Halloween!

On Halloween I had my pediatric clinical and someone coordinated about 8 mascots to come visit the sick kids in the hospital that day. Some students in the past have gotten to meet Peyton Manning (which would also be SO awesome, hint hint).

Around Halloween a local senior community hosts an indoor Halloween trick-or-treating event. The residents can sit in their doorway and the kids run up and down the halls trick-or-treating. They also sit in the dining area and serve cookies, fruit punch, snacks, and more. I am not sure if they had it this year, but last year they had a craft station and arts area where kids could make a drawing, too. 

Camden had a lot of fun. (Even if it did take him the entire hour and a half we were there to trick or treat on his own.) He was a little scared to go near the strangers at first but when he saw they had candy and other goodies he started warming up.

On Halloween night (the postponed version .. bah humbug) Brad took Camden out to trick-or-treat. I think that he did better there because it was in our neighborhood he's familiar with and he knew some other people. He likes doing whatever the big kids are doing.

I guess he caught on quickly and went house-to-house saying "Trick or Treat" and greeting our trick-or-treater's later in the night with a "Happy Ha-ween!"  He absolutely loved dressing up as Mickey Mouse and totally understood the costume idea. He liked all the pretty princesses in sparkly dresses and also saw a spider girl!

Mom and dad like the raiding the candy bucket at the end of the night part. ;)

The rest of the year should be fairly low-key since I'm on call at work for Thanksgiving and Christmas is always at home. I can't wait until I get an entire month off of school in December! We haven't had a break since spring break in March. 

Literally nonstop. 

I'm thinking a mini-vacation is in order. Maybe for spring break? Yes, please!

Tuttle Orchards

With the end of summer (and baseball season), comes fall.

Fall means delicious apples, homemade apple sauce, beautiful fall leaves, pumpkins galore, and lots of yummy not-so-good-for-you treats. :)

We decided to visit Tuttle Orchards last weekend after I learned about them from a friend. They provide everything you need to pick the apples and even have tons of red wagons which the kids end up riding in by the end of the trip.

They even had a huge play area with two mazes, a red tractor, a few play sets, swings, and more. Camden loved that area and when we left kept asking to go back to the "apple trees" over and over again. If I have ever been to an apple orchard, I don't remember but this seems like a great place to go every year!

Camden loved to play with the corn hole set as well!

They had two barns of delicious goodies and treats. We all split an ear of corn and a caramel apple. Brad wanted a cold apple cider (YUCK!) and I wanted a hot one so we each got that. I wanted to try the slushy, but we saved that for next year. They also had a neat little honey bee hive case you could see the bees. Cam really loved that!

 So far, fall at home has been wonderful and our little man is growing up so fast! *tear*

If you are as excited and ready for fall as I am, I highly suggest visiting Tuttle's for apples and in October they open the pumpkin fields! We usually always go to a certain farm for our pumpkins, which we still love, but this place just had much more to offer and is slightly closer. It's so hard to break tradition, but Camden loved this place!

Indiana State Fair

The Indiana State Fair has long been an annual must-do activity for my family. Brad, Camden, and I went this year and it was fun!

 

Side note: I wish the Fishers Train had a better schedule with closer times as we barely made one lap around the fairgrounds and had to run to catch the train (or stay another 2 hours when it was Cam's bed time).

 

We will most likely drive next year to avoid that and be able to come and go whenever we want. This was the year of Popcorn, which was a little disappointing that I didn't see more popcorn-themed food or displays. I couldn't find the giant ball of popcorn everyone posted pictures of and I only saw two popcorn stands. The Kettle Corn was still pretty amazing!

 

What I enjoyed most was the fact that Cam was so into everything and could even ride the kiddie rides! He loved the giant slide and the rides so much I can't wait to take him to an amusement park.

 

We haven't had much time to do any kind of vacation so this was a nice break from studying and work to be able to enjoy some time together. It was a perfect day (and $2 Tuesday) so we really enjoyed the weather! 

 

Brad and Cam waiting to board the train!

 

Camden was pretty excited to ride the choo choo train, as you can clearly see.

 

Riding the fair Shetlands!

 

Picking up some seeds in the kids area.

 

Enjoying his hot dog and fries. :)

 

He LOVED this slide! LOVED!

 

The yearly DNR photo. Man, he's getting too big! ;)

 

Saying bye-bye to the train.

 

All in all we had a good time and it was pretty inexpensive since it was $2 Tuesday. $2 entry and $2 food. Win-win.



Let the holidays begin, Thanksgiving style

This past weekend was Thanksgiving and we all went down to southern Indiana to visit Brad's family and celebrate. We drove down Wednesday around noon, did some shopping, and then had an amazing dinner (and breakfast, I might add) at Brad's moms house.

 

 

Camden woke up bright eyed and bushy-tailed (little spit fire we've got on our hands). He slept really well in the pack-and-play considering he's maybe slept in it 3 times overnight. We did find out that he doesn't like the pitch black. He screamed until we put a night light in the room, then he went to sleep A-OK. He has one in his room, but I never thought it was that big of a deal. Apparently we need to invest in a small, cheap one to travel with.

 

 

Grandma ABSOLUTELY LOVED having Camden around. Brad was always following him, making sure he wasn't getting into stuff he wasn't supposed to. Me, on the other hand, I was relaxing. I feel like Brad and I have reversed roles since having Camden. I'm the more laid-back one and he's more of the I-have-to-watch-him-at-all-times one. 0:) Love you, babe!

 

 

After breakfast, Camden and Brad looked at some of the Black Friday ads and Cam was picking out and pointing to toys in the ToysRUs ad. It was stinkin' adorable.

 

 

Later Thanksgiving afternoon, we headed over to Brad's aunts house. Luckily there were a few little ones he could play with, but by the time we got here he was tired, had a 15-minute nap, and a banana in place of lunch (so he could eat some Thanksgiving food). Poor kiddo was not happy until he got to inhale, which he did, some turkey and potatoes.

 

 

Then it was picture time and I sorta went a little crazy. :) Someone mentioned a group picture and that their family hadn't had a group picture since before I was around. So while everyone was congregating, I decided to set up a chair stacked with our pack-and-play and some sheets (for stability) on the front lawn and somehow convinced everyone to stand on the porch for a group photo. (See above.)

 

Then I took some of Brad's family. His sister, as we now call her Aunt Rachael, and Camden were playing on the porch and I snapped a few of the one above. It's by far my favorite picture of him and her together. They're so stinkin' adorable!

 

 

I was so happy to also see Rachael's twin, Ryan, at the dinner. I haven't seen him in a long while and it meant so much to everyone to be able to see him there. He also was pretty smitten with Camden; it'd been a while since he's seen him.

 

 

Of course we also got a few family photos (although we are in studio next week so keep an eye out for those photos).

 

Happy Thanksgiving and Holidays to everyone!