Pictures

A couple fun pictures from the last week or so...

Awesome hair Miss Cameron!

Helping Daddy fix the dresser drawers...FUN!

 She discovered the q-tip container...at least she attempted to put them back in after she took them out!

 New backpack!

 She looks like such a big girl.

 "Hello everybody, this is my school bus"

"Hi!"

 

All is Well

My doctor's appointment went great yesterday afternoon. I got to see baby moving around on the ultrasound machine, which is so neat. It's amazing to see how much he/she has grown since the last ultrasound that we had at 6 weeks. At 6 weeks he/she looked like no more than a blob, but this time you could see a head body, legs and arms moving around.

My mom reminded me of those "Precious Feet" pins that diptct the exact size and shape of a 10-week unborn baby's feet. It's crazy to think that's how big baby's feet are right now (or maybe a little bigger if he/she takes after mommy and has humongo feet! HA)

I measured right on track, 10 weeks one day, which is about right give or take a few days. It's just hard for me to believe that a little tiny one inch human is living inside of me right now—it's so incrediable! Everything else checked out ok. I had bloodwork done, so they're supposed to call if anything comes back abnormal. I think last time I ended up being a little low in iron and in Vitamin D, so we'll see what they say this time.

Here's baby's picture. It was actually kind of hard for the doctor to get a clear shot because he/she was moving around so much! Ha

March 21, 2011, Baby at 10-weeks old

Thanks so much for your prayers! We really appreciate the support. Keep praying that everything continues to go smoothly!

A Little of This and a Little of That

I picked up the pottery that Ryan and I painted last weekend, and I think it turned out pretty darn good so I wanted to post a picture and show off our artistic skills! :-) I painted the light switch cover (for Cameron's new room in our new house) and Ryan painted the dragon bank. Apparently dragons are all the rage with little kids these days because of the new movie How to Train Your Dragon. We had no idea!

Also, Cameron is starting to love being outside. I let her play out on our patio a couple times this weekend and we also went for a walk around the neighborhood. And when I say a walk, I mean Cameron walked the whole way all by herself! I was pretty impressed by how far she made it. She, of course, kept wanting to stop to inspect (and even taste) rocks, point to birds flying by and check out the decorations that people had outside of their front doors. It was fun though. I can't believe how much she is growing up.

Here is a short video clip of her playing on the patio with her ball. You can hear her say "ball" a couple times...and you can see her testing me by trying to touch the grill utensils, which she knew were off limits!

My doctor's appointment is this afternoon at 2pm. Please pray that everything is going well with little "Kumquat" Volk! 

Three + One More = Four!

Well I think the cat is out of the bag, so I figure it's time to update the blog with our news...Ryan and I are expecting our second little munchkin next Fall! The official due date is October 16. We had a ultrasound a few weeks ago to find out how far along I was and to make sure that everything looked ok. We heard a heartbeat and got to see our little...well blob...on the screen, which was really cool. It never ceases to amaze me how truly incredible God is.

Originally I wanted to wait until after our 10 week doctors appointment (which is this coming Monday) to make the official announcement to everyone. Anyone that's ever had a baby can probably relate, but those first weeks are so nerve racking. It's nearly impossible to not worry about something happening. But it just started to get too hard trying to keep it a secret, so we told our parents a couple weeks ago and have slowly been revealing the news to friends and family since then.

I haven't been feeling horrible, but I definitely haven't been feeling great either. I would have to say that this time around I've been feeling it more than I did with Cameron. I've had a pretty consistent yucky throw-up feeling in my stomach—although I haven't actually thrown-up, thank goodness—and I've had a really hard time sleeping. I'm just thankful that Cameron takes a couple of good naps everyday so that I can nap too! I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that we're approaching the end of these yuckies.

We are so blessed to have this opportunity to expand our family! We absolutely love being parents and couldn't think of anything that could possibly be more rewarding. Please keep us and Baby Volk  in your prayers over these next weeks and months. We just pray for a healthy baby, smooth pregnancy and God's guidance through every step of the process.

Overnight at Superpop and Grandma's

My mom has been asking when Cameron can spend the night pretty much since she was born. Well, I finally caved in. Last Friday night Cameron had her first overnight adventure at Grandma and Superpop's house and Ryan and I had a date night (which actually kind of turned into a date morning.)

From the sounds of it, Cameron had a blast. She got to eat chicken noodle soup, walk to the coffee shop, swing at the park, swim at the pool...it was a pretty jam packed 24 hours. When we picked her up on Saturday afternoon and brought her home, she took a 3.5 hour nap! She was exhausted.

Ryan and I actually were pretty lame considering we were kid free for the night. After we dropped Cameron off, we went to Rock Bottom Brewery for happy hour. They have great food a drink deals. We got these HUGE nachos for $5 and that was pretty much it. I kept telling Ryan that he was luck to have such a cheap date. Our total bill was less than $10. Craziness! When we got home we basically went straight to bed. We're such nerds.

Saturday morning we went to breakfast at Lucile's, one of our favorite breakfast places, and then went to paint pottery at Crack Pots. It was really fun. We had been planning on going to Crack Pots last Valentine's Day when we thought for sure that Cameron was going to be late. But we ended up spending Valentine's Day in the hospital, so Crack Pots wasn't an option. (Which was A-OK with me!)

Ryan painted a dragon piggy bank and I painted a light switch cover for Cameron's new room at our new house. It's actually really relaxing to paint pottery, so we had fun.

That pretty much covers everything. Here are some pictures courtesy of Grandma and Superpop.

13 Months on the 13th

Well, Cameron motored right on past being a one year old and now she's building steam as she moves towards "big girl" status.

She walks like a pro now and has even started experimenting with running a little bit, although she hasn't been that successful thus far. But I'm sure it's not too far off.

Her favorite book is Baby Signs for Bedtime and she's even started to repeat some of the signs as we flip through the pages. She loves books in general and it's not uncommon to find her in her room pulling her books out of her baskets.

She's started saying a few words, "dada" "mama" "ball" "balloon" "apple". They are not real easy to decipher at this point, but you can tell that she's starting to say them more consistently.

She is not shy about telling us what she wants. She'll point and talk until she gets what she's asking for and we've even started to see her throw some fits when she doesn't get what she wants. Oh joy. :)

Her motor skills are continuing to improve. She can easily pull goldfish and cheerios out of her special snack cups now. Which she LOVES to do. Sometimes I'll find her searching through the diaper bag to find snacks. Silly girl. 

She loves pulling her toys out of the toy box, especially the ones that sing or make noise.

She's starting to test us. The best example I have is at mealtimes. She'll hold her food out, look at me and as I tell her "no no" she'll drop it on the floor. We have the conversation over and over that food goes in our mouths or on our trays, NOT on the floor. She'll even point to her mouth showing me that she understands. Then the next thing I know her hand is out over the floor again. And so it begins...

Here are some pictures of our little twinkle toes. :)

Sic 'Em Bears

The CU Lady Buffs played the Baylor Bears last Saturday in Boulder, so we decided to show a little Baylor spirit and go to the game. Baylor cleaned up, their team is really good this year. I think they have a shot at winning the entire tournament, but that's besides the point.

We went to the game with our friends Bob and Regina (there daughter Jessie went to Baylor when I was there), my mom and dad and sister and Ryan's mom and dad, so we had quite the Baylor crew. Cameron had a great time. It was her first basketball game, and her first Baylor sporting event. She was a little tired because the game was during her nap time (which you can tell in the pictures!), but she still did really well.

I forgot my camera so these pictures are courtesy of Superpop and Granne.

Favorite Things

These are a few of Cameron's favorite things lately:

Balls
She has 3 or 4 different balls and she loves playing with them. She throws them and chases them. It's very cute and we're hoping that she continues to develop her athletic abilities...I'm thinking college scholarship here! :)  

Baby Stroller
This was one of her favorite birthday presents. She puts her stuffed animals or baby doll in the stroller and then pushes it all over our house. The only problem comes when she runs into a wall and needs help redirecting.

Rocking Chair
She got a new rocking chair from Gma and Superpop and she thinks she is pretty cool sitting in it and rock. She was a big help putting it together too.

Running Around Naked
Getting dressed after her baths is her last priority these days! Generally we either have to wrestle her to get her dressed right away or let her run around naked for a bit. Well the whole letting her run around naked thing backfired on us a few nights ago when she peed on the carpet before we got her diaper on! Ooops!

An Update

Wow, it's been awhile! I feel like we've been super busy, but then when I think about what all we've been doing it doesn't really seem like much. :-/ Oh well, such is life, huh? Here is a quick update of the past couple weeks:

• We're buying a house! Yes, that's right. We are under contract on a house in Southwest Longmont. It is in a great neighborhood with lots of kids, down the street from the park and close to great schools. We are really excited, but a little bit overwhelmed at the same time. Buying a house is quite the process. 
• Cameron has become a proficient walker. She is motoring around all over the place now. It's so fun to watch her exploring...on her feet! 
• We had Cameron's one year doctors appointment today. She did great! And she's a healthy girl. Still on the small side of things, she weighed 17 pounds 12 ounces (5th percentile), was 29.25 inches (40th percentile), and has a head circumference of 18 inches (65th percentile). I'm not sure why they switched the head measurements to inches instead of centimeters this time around, but they did. She did have to get two shots—which breaks my heart every time—but she is big enough to pick a prize out of the prize drawer when she's done now, so that was exciting. She got a little purple monkey who we've named Fritz.    
• Cameron is drinking milk now...and it only took her two and a half weeks to get used to the taste (which I thought would NEVER happen!) When she turned one we started to introduce cows milk and she didn't want to have anything to do with it. But then this week she finally finished a cup. I guess I knew it was bound to happen eventually, but sometimes it's frustrating waiting.

Well I think that's about all I have to report. Gosh, that's really not all that exciting at all! Sense posts tend to be a little more exciting with photos, here are a few from the zoo. We went a couple weeks ago with our friends Melissa and Madilyn. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time.

 Lunch time!

 Cameron showing off her squatting skills

Melissa and her little girl Madilyn, who is so sweet. Melissa actually went to middle school with me and then we reconnected at church right before she had Maddy.  

 Checking out all the people 

Checking out the gorillas. If you look closely you can see one in the background.

About 30 seconds after I picked Cameron up and moved her away from the glass, a gorilla ran up and pounded on the glass where she had been standing. It would have been interesting to see how she would have reacted to that...I'm such a mean mommy!

Can you just imagine what those gorillas are thinking?

"Hey, look at all those people out there staring at us. Wanna see something funny? Watch this." BAM. "Hahaha, got em!"