Cowboy Cameron

Our future cowboy loves this rocking horse!  This was rocking horse was my moms and both of the kids love it.  One day, Cam also found my cowboy hat and was going to town!  He was Yee-hawing and giddy-upping away.  What a cutie!

Misson: Cam's 2nd Birthday Party!

Our big man is in love with Toy Story right now, so it was an easy choice in a 2nd birthday party theme.  It was fun to decorate and buy supplies for his Toy Story party.  We had homemade pizza (a special thanks to Kristina for teaching and helping me make 7 batches of homemade pizza dough), chips and dips, and of course, cake and cupcakes!  Here is a nice shot of the goodie table.

And a close up of the cake and the cupcake tower.  A big thanks to my party partner in crime, Nikki, for helping me create and make the cake and cupcakes!  I couldn't do parties with out her!

Cam got a new trampoline from Nonnie and Poppy and the kids had a great time playing on it!  I didn't get a picture of anyone, but I promise, fun was had by all!

Here is the birthday boy in his Toy Story shirt and birthday cake.  

After cake, it was time for presents.  Hannah was excited to help brother open his presents.  Cam loved everything he got!  We are blessed with great friends and family who came to help us celebrate!

 We were super blessed to have four extra special people visiting for a few days and for the party.  Nana and Papa brought both sets of grandparents down for a visit.  It was great having them at our house and spending some time with them.  I love that my children get to know and interact with their great grandparents!

GO! St. Louis

I am a runner.  I feel like it's taken me a long time to have enough confidence in myself to actually say that, but it is true.  I may not be a fast runner, but a runner nonetheless.  I have learned to really enjoy running and look forward to doing my runs, especially when the weather cooperates and I run outside.  I have several friends that I enjoy running with and some of those lovely ladies and I all go to church together.  This past fall, we ran the Rock and Roll Half Marathon in St. Louis.  We decided we wanted to do something again to keep us running, but no one was up for the training of a half.  So, we decided to run the GO! St. Louis Marathon Relay.  That way we still had to train some for our part (somewhere between 6 and 7.5 miles) but wasn't as time consuming as a half.  We had beautiful weather and met our goal...not coming in last!  I love these girls and am glad I have friends that help me live a healthy lifestyle.

Lynelle and I before the race.  We were legs 1 (me) and 2 (Lynelle) and both had to be downtown super early.

Tim came along as our number one fan and "mule."  It was awesome having him with me right before I started and being able to hang out with him throughout the morning going from station to station.

 Legs 1 & 2 with leg 4 (Jodie) waiting for leg 3 (Mary) to finish.  

One fun part of this race was that everyone got back together with a few blocks to go and crossed the finish line together.

We did it!  Not fast, but not last! And extra kuddos to Mary who is 20 weeks pregnant and just ran 7 miles!

The Bethany Family

We have the privilege of being a Bethany family for life.  Bethany Christian Services is the adoption agency we used with Cameron and it was a wonderful experience.  We would recommend the agency to anyone who is interested in adopting.  One of the things I love about Bethany is that once you are a Bethany family, you are always a Bethany family.  The support they offer to families and adoptees for life is something that we really like about them.  This is the second year we were invited to bring a table of friends and family for their Celebration night.  I mentioned it to Kristina one day a few weeks ago and she said she would be interested in coming down.  Marc was able to take a half a day, so they brought the family down for the night so they could come with us.  Our good friends and fellow adoptive family, the Gruen's (Baby Lauren's mom and dad), my mom and dad, and friends of Tim's and Brad's from FCA all joined us for the night.  It was an awesome night focusing on sustaining the lives of children in many different aspects.  We heard some great testimonies to some of the programs offered at Bethany.  We also heard the amazing adoption story of Andy Benes, former Cardinal pitcher, and his family.  All of the stories were meaningful and touched our hearts.  We are so thankful to be a part of such a wonderful organization!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Cameron!

This boy...

turns two today!  Oh my!  I can't even believe it!  We have loved watching him grow and change over the past year.  Cameron continues to be our BIG little man and is still in the 99th-100th percentile for both height and weight.  He is currently wearing 3T clothes, but we are starting to buy 4T shirts for the end of the summer/fall.  Cam is a fun loving boy...who is ALL BOY!  He continues to show me every day how different boys are from girls.  He loves to jump, kick, climb, play, run, and sometimes hit punch.  He keeps us on our toes!  Cameron also loves TV and movies -- typical man! :-) For a two year old, his attention span is amazing to sit through a kids movie.  Verbally, he is always talking -- and usually not very softly.  I am continually impressed with not only how much he says, but the ideas he can infer.  He is going to be one smart cookie.  Cam also loves his family.  He seems especially fond of Daddy and his Poppy.  It's also fun to see him interact with Hannah.  Although they have their typical brother/sister fights, I love when they curl up together on the couch to watch a show.  I can't wait for school to be out and have the opportunity to spend more time with him this summer.  Cameron, we love you so much and have loved seeing you grow this year.  We can't wait to see what year three brings us!