More Florida Photos

Some more photos...

Cam and Mama hanging out by the pool
Cam walking with Opa down to the water
Opa, Cam and Daddy in the Gulf
Cam and Daddy
Cute boy!
Omi, Cam and Mama walking to get ice cream
Ice cream is yummy!!

More fun in the sun

Here are some more cute pictures of Cameron on the beach and by the pool.

He insisted on carrying this large bucket all by himself and was very proud of himself the whole time
Cam destroying the nice castle Daddy built
More heavy lifting
Chasing seagulls
And running down the beach
Mama pulls Cam out of the water so he doesn't soak his shoes
During our morning stroll on the beach
Taking some time out from swimming to relax on the lounge chair
And maybe take a little nap? Yea, right!!

Two beautiful sunsets

Since Siesta Key is on the gulf side of Florida, we get to see beautiful sunsets. Twice during our stay we have gone down to watch the sunset, and both of them were beautiful.

Cam and Mama
Looking at the sunset
"Hi Daddy!"
Cameron the Beach Baby
Sitting on a cloud
Cam, pointing to the ocean

The Pool and the Beach

Starting on our third day, Friday, the weather was back to what we would expect for Florida at this time of year. During the day the highs were in the 70s, and the sun was always shining. We spent the mornings and afternoons at the pool and beach, with a break for lunch and a nap (for Cam) in the condo.
Whose soda is this? Can I have some?Cam and Opa, relaxing by the pool
Cameron, sitting on a big boy chair, chowing down on his snack of grapesCameron loves both the pool and the beach. Most days he swims twice, and stays in for 45 minutes to an hour. He loves to "swim" around, play with a ball and the noodles, and dunk daddy. His favorite part of the pool is definitely the first two steps, which are shallow enough that he can play on them. He likes to jump, kick his legs, and float with his feet off the step. He is having a blast in the pool, and we are so glad to have a water baby!

On the beach, he loves to dig in the sand. At first he didn't like the sand because it was too chilly, but once we showed him that he could dig in it, he was hooked. He also figured out that he can dig his toes into the sand, which he really liked. When we go for walks, he likes to wade in the water (although prefers to have shoes on when doing so!) and chase the seagulls. He is way too slow to even scare them, so they just walk away from him, rather than flying away. But he likes it a lot.

What to do on a chilly day in Florida

The first two days we were here it was a bit chilly for Florida (although the 50 degree high was positively balmy for those of us from the north!), so we didn't spend too much time down by the pool. In order to give Cam something to do other than run around the condo destroying everything in sight, we ended up going to the Sarasota Mall. They have a really nice play area in the middle of the mall, perfect for kids Cam's age and a bit older. It was a large area with mats for floors, benches around the outside, and lots of soft things to play on. Cam loved crawling, running and jumping on everything - he had a blast and it was a great way to kill an hour.

What snow? All we can see is the sun!

We are currently in Florida, on our annual trip to visit Omi and Opa. We have lots of great pics and are working on a post, but the internet connection is either dial-up or a really crappy wireless signal. Hopefully in the next day or two we will have something up.

The weather is beautiful here, in the mid 70s and SUNNY. We are all having a great time, but especially Cameron, who alternates between swimming in the pool, playing on the beach and eating all the fresh fruit he can jam into his mouth. We are enjoying our time with Omi and Opa, eating fabulous meals, playing dominos and rummikub, and hanging out in the sunshine. We still have three days left, but so far it has been an excellent trip.

Pictures soon!

Cameron and Mama make breakfast

On the weekends, Tim and I take turns getting up early with Cameron. That way, one of us can sleep in on Saturday and the other one can sleep in on Sunday. This morning, Tim is sleeping in so I am awake and playing with Cam.

Cam and I decided to make some muffins for breakfast this morning. We pulled a chair up to the counter and Cameron helped me to put the ingredients into the bowl and mix everything up. Then he put the papers into the muffin tin all by himself. I poured the mix into the tin and put it into the oven. Cameron helped me put the dishes into the dishwasher and now we are waiting for our muffins to be done. Cameron is such a good helper and he really loves doing activities together like this!

First we stir the ingredients...

Then we taste the batter....

Then we taste it some more...

Wow, cooking is fun!

Holiday Fun, Video Edition

Here are two cute videos of Cameron at Christmas. Both are taken at Mom and Dad K's house. The first video is of Cameron playing "Santa" and delivering a gift to Uncle Paul. Notice how Uncle Paul signs "thank you" when he receives the gift!



Here is the second video. It is using a different video service because it was too big to use the Blogger embedded video program. Let me know if there are any problems seeing it.

This video is Cameron opening one of his gifts. You will notice that he is pulling off huge pieces of wrapping paper here... unfortunately we don't have any footage of the funny one square inch at a time method of unwrapping. Make sure to pay attention at the very end, when Cameron says and signs "Thank You".



Also, check out below - we added "Holiday Fun, Part 2: Christmas at Nana and Papa's", which was previously missing. So if you didn't see it before, go back and check it out cause there are some cute pictures!

Holiday Fun, Part 5: Christmas at our house

We were finally able to have Christmas at our house on Sunday afternoon when we got home from Rochester. I guess technically, we should have had Christmas at our house first, but things just didn't work out that way. Luckily, Cameron is young enough that he doesn't know what Christmas is, much less what day it is on!

We had a really nice Christmas, just the three of us. We opened gifts together and then relaxed around the house. We had dinner at Mom and Dad's house, along with Paul, Angela and Matt. It was lots of fun, Cameron had a blast playing his uncles.

Our Christmas tree (hung with only non-breakable ornaments) and all of the gifts
Cameron, apparently not too excited about having to stand in front of his gifts. He wants to open them!Cameron and Mama start looking at the gifts. Time to open them up!Cam and his gifts - a sled, wagon, knee hockey set, alphabet floor mats, and a fridge farm puzzle.

Holiday Fun, Part 4: Christmas at Great Grandma and Grandpa K's

On Christmas day, we went to over to Grandma and Grandpa's to spend time with everyone. We had a lot of fun, ate a lot of good food, and got some great gifts. Cameron loved playing with his cousins and especially liked helping Great Grandma (GG) clean up. He walked around the kitchen, pointing out and then collecting all of the empty cans. He would get as many as he could carry (usually two) and then walk with GG out to the garage to put them into the recycle bin. He did that a couple times, even spotting some cans that we had missed.

We had a buffet of turkey and appetizers to snack on all afternoon. Cam bypassed his usual go-to snacks of turkey and meatballs, and headed straight to the shrimp. He wanted them whole (none of those cut up baby pieces, apparently) and ate one after another. In total we think he ate around 20 shrimp, over the course of the day. Crazy baby! But we are glad he is such a good eater.

Opening gifts... clockwise from top left: Aunt Jill, Mom, Aunt Liz, Uncle Dan, Maddy, Maggie and Bridget's back.
Cameron handing me a minuscule piece of wrapping paper. He enjoyed unwrapping his gifts one square inch of paper at a time.
The only other thing Cameron ate all day was an apple. He only ate about half of it, but enjoyed carrying it around for most of the day.

He FINALLY took a nap in the afternoon, sleeping on Nana's lap.

Holiday Fun, Part 3: Christmas at Omi and Opa's

On Christmas Eve afternoon, we drove to Rochester to have Christmas there. Tim and I went to church, while Cameron stayed home with Omi and Opa, and Nana and Papa. When we all got home from church, we had a delicious dinner. Cam got to sit at the adults table, but I am sure it will just be a another year or two before he moves over to the fun and chaos of the kids table!

We opened gifts after dinner. Cameron did pretty well but got tired about half way through. He gave kisses and went to bed. The rest of us finished opening up gifts, ate tons of cookies and had a shot of Bailey's in a chocolate shot glass. It was a fun night!

One funny story about staying in Rochester - we were worried about how well Cam would sleep while we were there. Whenever we travel, Cameron always sleeps really poorly, waking up at night, crying a ton, etc. Our main thoughts on why he sleeps so badly are that 1) he is cold, 2) he can see us in the room and 3) he can hear us in the room. Since there were so many of us staying at Omi's, Tim, Cam and I had to sleep in the same room. Luckily, it is a warm room so #1 was taken care of. We couldn't do much about #3, other than be quiet, so we were left to work on #2. We used the stands that Tim built for photo shoots, hung a sheet over both of them, and cordoned off Cameron's own little corner of the room. Amazingly, it worked! Cameron slept through the night all four nights and only woke up for an extended time one morning. Even more amazing, he slept in til 8 or 8:30am every morning!! That means we will have to bring our photo stands (or something similar) every where we travel, but if that means a full night of sleep, we will take it!

Some photos from Christmas at Omi and Opa's....

One side of the room, while we were opening gifts. From L to R, Uncle Chris, Opa's back, Joe, Aunt Cathy, Omi, a little bit of Matt, a little bit of Aunt Linda, and Amanda's back.
Ben, Michael and Joe show off their nice new sweatpants.
Cameron hanging out on one of his new presents. He really liked putting bows on his head! Cameron climbing up the "mountain" (aka Uncle Randy's muscle)
The traditional photo of the grandkids sitting on the stairs (plus one great grandchild!)The funny version of the stairs photo. Notice how confused Cameron looks!!