Easter with the Walkers

This year, Easter fell pretty close to my due date and I didn't feel comfortable driving all the way to Massachusetts for Easter with Tim's family. So instead, they all came to us! It is great with our new house, we actually have enough room to fit everyone comfortably. Tom and Joan slept in the guest bedroom, Jack and Ella were in Cameron's room, Kim and Jeff were in the nursery, and Cathy and Ron were in the office. Cameron slept in our room with us (well, actually, he slept in the closet!). It worked out really well and we didn't feel crowded at all. It was great fun to spend the whole weekend with everyone, and the weather was gorgeous so that worked out even better. It was 80 degrees on Friday and Saturday!! It made it a bit warm for cooking and eating Easter dinner, but we made it work.

Our first meal in the dining room! Two big folding tables pushed together made for a great dining room table.
For dessert we served creme brule. Tim has become quite good at making it and it was delicious. The berry decor was my contribution.
After Easter dinner on Saturday afternoon, we went outside to spend time in the gorgeous weather. Jack helped Cameron ride his bike all over the place.
Jeff, really enjoying the wine!
A view of our house from the road. The grass is (slowly) coming in.
Some of the crew decided to go for a walk in the woods, to check out the river. Here are Kim and Jack walking in the easement.
Tom... not sure what he is doing but I love the face!
Kim, Ron and Cathy making their way through the woods.
I don't know what Ron is doing here, but I hope it doesn't have anything to do with polluting the lake!
Posting pictures like this is NOT the way to win your sister-in-law's hearts. But it was too good not to post!! :-P
A great picture of Tom in front of Oneida River

On Easter Sunday morning, everyone woke up bright and early to go downstairs to see if the Easter Bunny had come. Luckily, he found his way from Massachusetts to New York and brought baskets for Ella and Jack, along with Cameron's. They also all had Easter eggs to find. Everyone had a fun time looking for their baskets and the eggs.

Cam, figuring out that there was something in the eggs (jelly beans, much to his excitement)
Cam finds his basket, which was hidden under the counter in the cut-out that will eventually hold a wine fridge.
Checking out his basket - he got the movie Cars, some rain boots, a book, a bath pouf, some M&Ms and more jelly beans.
Cam also got gifts from his aunties and Mimi and Grandpa. We asked him to hold up part of the gift to show the camera, and this is what he did...
Cam with his new puzzle, and a very "CHEESE"-y smile

Cam Cutes - Three Random Stories

Three random Cameron Cutes....

One of Cam's favorite phrases (which he probably got from a TV show) is "We make a great team!" It is very cute to hear when he comes up with it - I got a "We make a great team!" when we finished making muffins for breakfast one weekend. Today we planted a bunch of vegetable seeds and when we were done, Cam said "We made a great team!" and gave us all high fives. What a sweet boy. :)
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We have a good size front porch now, and the sun sets on the front of the house. We put our Adirondack chairs up there and like to sit up there at the end of the day and watch the sun go down. Sometimes Cam goes up there all on his own while Tim and I work around the yard or in the garage. The other day, Cameron asked me for a bowl of grapes to eat while he watched the sun go down.
Why are you taking pictures of me? I am just trying to enjoy my grapes in peace!
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Cameron has some toys that "watch him sleep" at night - that means that they sit up on the headboard of his bed while he sleeps. For the most part, they actually do just sit there and "watch" him, and he doesn't really play with them. At nap time yesterday, the toys came down and he spent a good part of nap time playing with the toys rather than napping (which, subsequently got them taken away from him - but that is a different story). He has a bunch of little glow in the dark lizards (from Auntie Cathy) that sit on his headboard, and usually at least one or two trains (of the Thomas the Tank Engine variety).

Apparently, as he told both Tim and I at separate times, they are not actually lizards and trains. The lizards are skaters (aka hockey players) and the trains are zambonis. The skaters take their turn playing hockey and skating around the rink (Cam's pillow) and then when it is intermission, they go back to the bench (Cam's headboard) and wait for the zamboni to clean the ice off. It is quite an elaborate game, complete with some skaters going to the penalty box (another part of his headboard) when they are bad, and other skaters taking turns sitting on the bench when it isn't their turn. I watched Cameron play this game during nap time, over the video monitor that we have, and was just amazed at his imagination. He played for almost a half hour before I went in there and made him put the toys away and go to sleep! This morning, he was telling Tim all about his skaters and zambonis. Our boy sure loves hockey!

37 Week Picture

This picture was from last week, which was week 37. I am feeling okay overall but am getting tired much quicker than even just a week ago. My feet and legs swell up much quicker and I have to be careful to keep them raised up as often as I can.

We are getting a lot done around the house though, so I am feeling good about being ready for Little Girl's arrival. The changing table, pack n' play, and swing are all out. Clothes are washed and in the drawers, and our bag is mostly packed for the hospital. The plan is that when I go into labor, we will call Nana and Poppa, and Poppa will come stay with Cameron. Nana is coming to the hospital with us to see the arrival of her second grandchild.

I had a doctor's appointment this morning and everything is looking good. My blood pressure is nice and low, my stomach is measuring appropriately, heartbeat is strong and I didn't gain any weight from last week. Doctor says it could be any day now, or the full two weeks til my due date, or more. Thanks - that is really helpful for planning purposes! So, sometime in the next month, I will have a baby. :-P

Day at the Zoo

This weekend we decided to try and do a few fun things with Cameron - a few final outings as a family of three. We got a membership at the Syracuse Zoo earlier this year so we decided to head over there. It was a beautiful day, so everyone else in Syracuse had the exact same idea! We ended up mainly looking at the outside animals because it was so hot and crowded in the buildings. Cameron had a great time though - he really loves animals and can stand and watch them for far longer than I would have thought his attention span would last. We will definitely be taking advantage of our membership this summer - it makes Cam so happy go to to the zoo and the animals are fun to watch.

Cameron and Daddy check out the eagle. Cam was especially enamored with the birds this visit.
Riding on a tiger!
Cam did not like riding the tiger all by himself.
He did like walking on the "secret" path by himself, and was a bit peeved that Daddy was following him. He said, "I go by myself" and then tried to speed walk away from Tim.
Cam climbed up on some rocks and then goofed around while we tried to take a nice picture of him. We got some cute ones!
I think I told him that I was going to tickle him right before this picture.
Cameron's current favorite show is "Rocket Ship" (the real name is Little Einsteins, on the Disney channel) and he was doing a "Blast Off!!" in this picture.
Cameron the little penguin
Looking out for a swimming penguin - he loved when they would swim right by him. Unfortunately, we did not get any pictures of that.
The lions were all out enjoying the nice weather. This one looked especially comfortable!

Cam Cutes: Getting Ready for Baby

One weekend morning, we are all laying together in our bed, not wanting to get up quite yet. Cameron is squirming around and ends up kicking me in the stomach. He is admonished immediately - we tell him that the baby is in there and he cannot kick her or Mama. His response? "Baby kicks Mama, so me kick Baby." Apparently he was just sticking up for his Mama!
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Discussing rooms in our new house...
Mama: The baby will sleep in this room.
Cam: No, the baby not sleep here.
Mama: Well then, where will the baby sleep?
Cam: At Nana and Poppa's house!

(In all fairness, we had just moved into the house and the last place that Cameron had seen the crib was set up at Nana and Poppa's house. So he may have just meant that: that the crib was at Nana's and babies sleep in cribs, therefore the baby will sleep at Nana's. Maybe?)
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Cameron and Daddy are downstairs in the basement, working on cleaning up. Daddy is using the shop vac. Cam comes running up to him, tugs on his arm and says, "Daddy, be quiet, the baby is sleeping!!" He gets very agitated when Daddy doesn't listen, and continues to insist that Daddy stop because upstairs the baby in Mama's belly is sleeping!
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Cameron randomly likes to pull up my shirt and talk or sing to my belly. It is adorable, other than the couple of times he has done it when we are out at a store! He likes to tell the baby about what he did that day ("I play outside on big playground") or something that we are doing ("We watching hockey - white team score!") or sing to her (endless renditions of Twinkle, Twinkle). It is so sweet and touching because he often just does it on his own with no prompting from anyone.
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Lately, Cam has been telling us that he has a baby in his belly too. His baby is also a girl. She does not have a name, except for "Baby". Sometimes she is sleeping and we have to be quiet so we don't wake her. Other times, she wants to play with Mama's baby so we press our bellies together. Other times, he can't do something because of the baby - "I not eat that carrot because of my baby." Daddy has explained to him multiple times that boys can't have babies in their tummies, but it doesn't phase him. Cam's "baby" comes and goes as it pleases.

Baby #2, aka "Little Girl"

I am very embarrassed to realize that I am 37 weeks pregnant, and this is the first official mention of Baby #2 on our blog. I have been writing this post in my head for weeks, maybe even months now, but it just never gets typed out and published. Poor second child, already getting the shaft. But truly, she isn't!!! She is always on our minds and is probably the main topic of conversation in our house, after hockey of course. :-P

I am due on May 11th and we know that the baby is going to be a girl. I wanted the gender to be a surprise, like it was with Cameron, but Tim made me feel guilty that I picked last time (not to find out) and he wanted to know this time. So I gave in, and we know that our second child is going to be a girl. We had them double check at the second sonogram (at 30 weeks), so we are fairly certain she will actually be a girl.

We don't have a name picked out yet, and it is one of our other biggest conversation points... what to name this sweet girl?? There are a couple of names that we kind of like, but nothing is jumping out at us. With Cam, it was so easy - we both loved the name and knew it was exactly right. We aren't having that moment yet with any girl names, so for the moment, we have dubbed her Little Girl.

This pregnancy has been going really well overall. I have been feeling good and didn't actually gain too much weight until recently. In the first trimester, I was sick quite a bit. I wasn't throwing up, but was constantly nauseous and didn't want to eat anything. I just felt yucky all the time and had to force myself to eat. That went away by about week 14 and I felt much better. Again with this baby, just like with Cameron, I have had insane heartburn. I actually think it is worse this time. It is the worst at night so I sleep propped up on a pile of pillows a mile high. It started around 20 weeks and just keeps getting stronger. I am hoping the old wives tail is true and it means Little Girl will have lots of hair! Other than that, I am not swelling up too much, other than at the end of a long day where I am on my feet all day. As long as I keep my feet up, I don't swell too much. My blood pressure has been good and all measurements are right on track.

One of the most interesting parts has been trying to explain everything to Cameron, and to gauge his reaction. He knows that there is a baby in my tummy, and that it will be a baby sister. He knows what a baby is, because there are lots of babies at daycare. But I don't know what exactly he thinks is going to happen, or if he thinks a baby really will come to our house. It will be very interesting! He has said and done so many cute things, but I will save those for another post because this one is about Little Girl!

Here are a couple of pictures from along the way - we have been documenting every week from about week 16 on, just like we did with Cameron. I would like to do a side-by-side with pictures from Cameron, so maybe I will do that too, for another post. For now, pictures!

Week 19 - not much of a bump, still in normal clothes
Week 23
Week 24 - getting kisses from a monster-toweled Cameron
He did laps up and down the hall, occasionally allowing time for a quick picture
Week 25 - getting a bit bigger
Week 29 - Wow, what a difference four weeks make!
Week 33 - another four weeks and the belly just keeps growing. Cam loves to give the baby kisses and sing to her.
Cam wanted a turn showing his belly for a picture!!
And lastly, 35 weeks. I haven't taken any more pictures off the camera, but I think we might have missed last week. Either way, look for a Week 37 picture soon!

Tim's New Toy

In our new house, we have a really big yard. Therefore, our little push mower would no longer suffice. Or at least that is the argument Tim used in order to get his new toy.

Behold.... our new mower (well, technically it is ours, but realistically it is Tim's):

As you can see, Tim is very excited
Cameron compares his mower to Daddy's
And then sits on it with Daddy (don't worry, they didn't go anywhere with Cam on the mower - he just sits on it with Tim)
But, as you can see - we don't have much grass
It doesn't matter to Tim though, because the mower has a zero-degree turning radius.
Who needs grass to mow when you can turn in circles with zero-degree radius?

Syracuse Crunch game

Today we have a guest poster - Nana. She wrote something up and gave me some pictures to post from a Crunch game that they took Cam too. Thanks Nana!!
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A few weeks ago, Nana and Poppa took Cameron to a Syracuse Crunch hockey game. He loves going to the games and watches the action very intently.


The most exciting part at this game was that we had received a cowbell that Cameron could ring during the game. This is a Crunch thing......whenever they do well, people ring their cowbells. Cameron really got into it.

He also loves the mascot for the team, Al. He searches the arena and points him out. When Al came in our section, Cameron was very excited (although it doesn't look like it in the pictures). Al and the cheerleaders hand out various things during the game (t-shirts, candy, ice cream, chips, etc.) Most of the things are donated by the Crunch's sponsors. One of the sponsors this year is a bakery so at every game, they hand out dinner rolls (I know, crazy!) So at this game, Cameron received dinner rolls from Al. It was so funny because he was so excited about it. Then he decided he wanted one so he sat there eating his dinner roll. Who needs nachos or snow cones when you have dinner rolls?