what an adventure

Update on the five of us

2012-01-27T09:54:00.005-09:00

Hello!

It's been quite a year for us. One that I'll never forget and one that I know the Lord is using to teach me and refine me with. My last blog post (almost a year ago -yikes!) we had just found out we were having twins. Well, we had them! :) And in this amazing moment today where all three of my kids are asleep at the same time, I thought I might share as much of the story of the last year as time will allow (until a baby wakes up). I have no idea if anyone reads this blog or if anyone is interested, but its fun for me to reflect.

The pregnancy was such an amazing blessing for us! As we've shared before, it's very hard for us to get pregnant. I know we're able to with the help of drugs and I don't take that for granted. I'm grateful that God has answered our prayers for a family with our children. And frankly, I'm astounded and so excited still that He chose to answer that prayer for us by giving us a two for one! ;) Practically the moment I became pregnant my body went crazy. I'm a lady that gets super sick when prego and this pregnancy was really bad. By 8 weeks I was already looking pregnant and feeling very sick - so much so that I had to go to the hospital and get 3 liters of fluids pumped back into me to get me out of the danger zone for dehydration. My Dr. put me on anti nausea meds and I was a new person (still sick every day but not all day every day). Until about 28 weeks I did really well and at the end of 28 weeks I went into pre-labor. This happens to a lot of twin pregnancies and actually happened to my Mom with my brother and I at 32 weeks. The difference is that we were able to manage my contractions and my Mom wasn't so she had Kyle & I two months early. I can honestly say the deep fear I struggled with in that first 24 hours of being in the hospital was one of the hardest 'moments' of my life so far. It's right up there with the night my brother and Dad were in a car accident and we didn't know if Kyle would be ok. It was hard but the Lord is good and after trying 3 different types of medications one finally helped "calm" my contractions a bit. I was sent home after 2 days and told to come back if anything changed at all and from that day on I was on modified bedrest until further notice.

Anyone who has endured bedrest can tell you it's tough! It may sound like a vacation but for me it was very difficult. I felt so angry for those weeks. I had lost control of being a hands on parent, I had very little control over what was occurring with my body and I lost the ability to leave my house except for the doctors appointments. My WONDERFUL Mother in Law dropped everything and came 6 weeks early to essentially take care of me and Campbell while I was unable to. What a gift she gave us! I love her so much and am grateful for her willingness to endure me (angry controlling pregnant lady) and Campbell (angry defiant confused-about-life 3 year old). We had a lot of rough spots peppered with great ones and long story short - we made it through! I'm convinced that if it weren't for Janet coming to help us, we would have had premie babies.

Lets skip to the labor/delivery part! I'll say that never in my wildest dreams would I have thought we'd have a labor/delivery like we had! It was "one for the books" my Dr. said! I was scheduled for a c sec or induction depending on the position of the boys for Oct. 11th. I had been having contractions for months at this point and they always hurt so I didn't really think I was going to go into labor any sooner than our due date. I should mention that despite my pre labor issues, I was able to make it to full term - 39 weeks! The night before our due date I gave Campbell a bath & put her to bed. Then I sat down on the couch with a bid bowl of ice cream and laughed and said wouldn't it be funny if I went into labor early? The funny part being we had to get up at 3am to be at the hospital by 5am anyway so I thought that would be very ironic. Apparently God has a good sense of humor. Around 1am I woke up with harder contractions than the ones I'd been having for so long. We timed them for 20 min and the intensity was building quickly. We decided to get ready to go to the hospital. I was told to take a shower with special soap before coming in for the c sec and thought I still needed to do that. In hind sight - maybe not the best decision. So I took a shower - Jeff is timing contractions, I'm stopping every 4 minutes to get through the painful contractions and then we got our stuff and left. My thought as I got in the car was "this is going to be the hardest car ride of my life!" I really had no idea that would be so true.

We live 45 min. away from the hospital. Jeff made it in 30 min. because about 20 min. in I was screaming, my water broke and I felt like pushing. Jeff yelled at me, "fight that urge!" and hit the gas. Praise Jesus there were no cops out that night. We got to the hospital and I had a hard bearing down contraction so the lady at the registration window put me in wheelchair and practically ran us up to maternity. From that point on I remember parts of things. I'm sure they checked me - don't remember. I did have another bearing down contraction moments after getting up to maternity that triggered a lot of people running around getting things and a nurse helping rip my clothes off and getting me into a delivery bed. I told the Dr. that I felt like pushing and he (awesome guy and happens to be my Dr.'s Dad ) told me, "well, push Honey!" He was very calm despite the chaos going on around him. So long story short I had 3 contractions and pushed out Everett who was screaming mad. My OB Dr. got there in time to catch Rett. One of my favorite parts was her sticky up bed head! She got to the hospital fast! I had about 5 minutes relief before hard contractions started again.

This was the scary part. We didn't know what position Titus was in. We were coming in at 5 am to have an ultrasound to check that but since we got there early and I was fully dilated and crowning there wasn't a option to check position. We also had the boys at a small hospital so the OR wasn't ready for us - essentially we had no other option than vaginal delivery for both boys, no matter if Titus was feet first or head down. Scary. My Dr. told me to PUSH to get Titus down far enough to figure out which direction he was. It was harder to get him down & out than it was Everett. I felt like I was pushing from my tonsils! God ROCKS though and Titus turned head down and my Dr. yelled "there's a head! We can do this! PUSH!" and I had him 14 minutes after Rett. Everett was 6lbs 6oz and Titus was 5lbs 13oz. By the hospital paperwork we had Everett 7 minutes after we got there and Titus 14 min after that. Two healthy boys! I had no drugs, not even a monitor on the babies. They managed to get an iv in me between babies being born so I felt really great and alert after they were born. We had our boys! Our second and third miracle babies!! God took care of every single detail of this entire process and I am eternally grateful. My heart will hold so close the events of the last year. I can't really express how much it has meant to me, but it has changed me.

Now I have three children. A three & a half year old and two three month olds. My life is full. My husband is amazing and gives 110% all the time and we are busy! Some days are incredibly hard, some are easy and all are a blessing. I've been helped by so many people and I've learned so much about the value of community in this.

That's most of our story! Now my days are feedings, naps, changing, trying to get some loves in for Campbell and so on. I don't leave my house much and I don't sleep much but I'm glad for my babies and I know it'll get easier soon. I'm try to find the moments each day to cherish and I can't get enough of my kids -they're amazing! Thanks to the Lord!!!

Big News x's 2!!!

2011-03-24T09:56:00.003-08:00

Hey friends and family,

We have some really wonderful and big news to share. Most of you already know but for those of you who don't....(drumroll please)

We're Pregnant with TWINS! :)

We couldn't be happier! It's been such an incredibly long and hard journey in many ways for us to get pregnant both with Campbell and now with these babies so we don't take lightly the grace the Lord has shown us. He's truly heard the desires of our hearts and has blessed us two times! I'm due Oct. 22nd and I'll be at 10 weeks tomorrow I think. We had our ultrasound last week and we took Campbell with us. We had our suspicions about there being more than one because I've been extremely sick (couldn't keep down a cracker, drink of water or anything for about 6 days in the beginning and then had to go to the hospital for 3 liters of iv fluids.), extremely tired (much more than we remember with Campbell), and I'm growing very fast (I'm showing about a month ahead of where a single pregnancy would be).

So when we got to the ultrasound and our suspicions were confirmed we were overjoyed! We've done many many months of clomid and another drug called metformin, suffered miscarriage and were on our last 6 months of drugs before there was no other options other than in-vitro, which is just too expensive of an option for us. We have tried to get pregnant again since about 6 months after Campbell was born so it's been a long journey. I know it's not as long and heartbreaking as some out there face - I feel very aware that God has blessed us in unmeasurable ways with our children. I'm so thankful for them! All this to say - we are THRILLED to be having TWINS!! :) We know it'll be chaotic and we may not sleep for a year but we're ok with that. We're having two babies!! YAY!

Campbell is equally excited to be a big sister and I know she'll be great at it! She talks to the babies and today tried to teach them to walk. It was hysterical! She asked if they could come out and play but I told her they had to grow a lot bigger first. Then she told them she loved them. How much better does life get?!

We don't have a digital copy of the ultrasound so I'll try to figure out how to get that up here soon. Thank you for all who have prayed for us during this journey! Prayers for the babies and pregnancy would be really appreciated.

This picture is from last week at the beginning of 9 weeks - as you can see, I'm already way bigger than a normal 9 week pregnancy. I think I'm as big right now as I was at 4 months with Campbell.

Yep, we're still here. :)

2011-01-03T16:50:00.005-09:00

So 6 months is a long time between posts. I know. A lot has happened in our lives in that amount of time. Here's the brief update:

Jeff started year 2 of being a Director of Major Gifts at Houghton College
I started 2 part time jobs - 15 hours a week at the Houghton Campus Store and 16 hours watching a 2 & 4 year old.
Campbell is now going to a babysitters house 3 days a week and loves it. I honestly think the adjustment to going back to work and sending her off was harder on me than it was her. She's so social.
I'm helping co lead our women's bible study at church - a huge growing challenge for me as I don't feel leading/teaching is really in my gifting but I felt the Lord's encouragement to try.
Campbell is going to Puggles (Awana's for 2 yr olds) on Wed nights while I'm in bible study - again, she LOVES it! Anything with friends. :)
Spent Thanksgiving here in Houghton with my brother Troy and then drove down to PA and did Thanksgiving again with our friends Missy Davis, the Hanson's & the Loomis'. Nice to get away for a bit but in doing so realized how much of a homebody our adventurous little person actually is. Homebody and needer of routine. We didn't sleep much in that weekend away and crashed when we got home.
Grammy came to visit for a couple of weeks in early December - Yay!!
For the first time in 7 years we didn't travel for Christmas. We stayed here in NY and made our own family traditions. We had a very wonderful and relaxing Christmas - we did deeply miss our families though. We had a lot of fun because Cams really understood it all and it was all so magical to her.
I suppose that's about it for the big things. We have busy weeks and recovering weekends it seems. Not really how I want to live life, and we're getting better at being intentional but it's taken a semester to get our footing under us with me working.

Here's a few pictures from Christmas:

The last month

2010-08-25T06:06:00.005-08:00

In the last month....

I turned 29

Got a beautiful chair for my birthday that I'm going to use as inspiration to decorate our bedroom

We've played with friends - Sam and Jack and Campbell are all the same age and we play with them a lot! We love them and their families tons!

Went to Sam and Jack's birthday party!

Gardened with Daddy and cleared a big flower bed...

dressed up in about 4 outfits a day and have loved being a princess

Helped Mama cook dinner (most nights this happens) and apparently loves lettuce

Got a beautiful new princess dress from Aunt Traci and Uncle Tony

...and play ice cream too! (Thanks T&T!)

We pretend to talk to Cinderella almost every day :)

We all went to a county fair and saw lots of animals which was so much fun!

Cams especially liked the cows!

We played with bubbles

Played and hiked at Moss lake - 5 min. away from our house

And lots more - but I don't have more pictures to show you of all the adventures we've been on.

Another new adventure which has started for our family is that I'm working again. I've accepted a part time position at Houghton's campus store. It's a new experience lining up daycare but I think it'll be positive all the way around.

That's it for now. We're all keeping busy and loving watching Campbell grow every day. Right now she's starting to have imaginary friends, be very opinionated and loves reading and running as fast as she can. She frequently cracks us up with what she says and we love it!

That's all for now.

Happy Wednesday!

Summer fun with Amelia

2010-07-26T16:39:00.000-08:00

Summer Buddies

Campbell's 2nd Birthday and other summer fun

2010-07-25T16:18:00.006-08:00

Campbell asked her Daddy to help her blow out her candles. I can't believe she's two!

Nana & Papa being here is so special. Especially because Campbell and Papa share a birthday - Happy Birthday to Cams and Papa!
At the National Museum of Play in Rochester

We got Campbell a bike for her 2nd birthday and she is so excited to be a big kid. :) Now we can go bike riding with our neighbors like Campbell has wanted to all summer!

Tonight Cams decided to hop in the pool after dinner fully clothed. Summer fun doesn't get better than this!
This is Meng fei (pronounced mung -fey), a student at Houghton who is from China. We're his host family and have dinner all together most Sunday's. We've really loved getting to know him this year!
This was the morning of Campbell's birthday when she saw her new table and chairs from Grammy and Boppa for the first time. She was very happy to have it!
Seeing her new bike! Nana got her this monkey (she named him George) and Cams loves it! George has to take baths with her every night now. She washes him all up and teaches him how to swim. Pretty cute!
Princess Campbell in one of her new dresses from Nana & Papa coloring and playing tea party the day after her birthday.
Now lunch is at our new table! :)
An AWESOME gift from Nana & Papa! This has been such a hit with Campbell! She wants us to go fast and pull her down the little hill in our yard. It's "very very fun!" as Campbell says. Thanks Nana & Papa!!!

Jeff and I have been married for 7 years tomorrow. We were blessed to go on a date and Steve & Janet watched Campbell for the evening. We went to dinner and a movie which we haven't done in a year so it was much appreciated and enjoyed! I love this man - so blessed to be his wife!

Fun with Nana & Papa here

2010-07-20T03:44:00.004-08:00

We've had a busy week so far but it's been wonderful having Steve & Janet here. We drove a lot the first four days of their visit but now we're getting to take it a little easier. We went to the eastern side of NY and visited Jeff's cousins who are nuns and that was really wonderful for all of us. We also went to Niagara Falls on Sunday (just the American side) and enjoyed all the beauty! I threw in a few pictures of Campbell dressing up in some of her new awesome princess dresses - thank you Nana and Grammy! She's is greatly enjoying all the attention and being spoiled! :)

The falls on the right side of these two pictures is Niagara falls, but only a small part of it. We hadn't gone to a different spot to see it better yet...

The falls on the left hand side is beautiful too and it's called the American Falls.

Cassi (Sister Marie Vianney) and Staci (Sister Mary Veronica) loving on Campbell. She had fun playing with the Sisters and thought their black dresses were pretty. :)

The front of the convent.

At the motel we stayed at.

Nana & Papa are coming & a Campbell update

2010-07-13T09:06:00.003-08:00

We've had a crazy last two weeks here in the Kirksey household. Campbell is keeping us on our toes! We're getting ready for Nana & Papa (Jeff's parents) to come visit and we couldn't be more excited! This is their first time seeing our house here in NY and the first time they've seen Campbell since Christmas. We're just so excited to spend some time with them!

Campbell is getting so big! She is now climbing into her crib (not out yet - praise the Lord!), LOVES to paint with her watercolors, loves swimming in her kiddy pool, loves playing with other kids, has started using her imagination -this morning she was a hungry dinosaur. She's starting to be afraid of things like snakes (she thinks she sees them everywhere ). I have NO idea where this came from. And at sunday school this week Jeff and I taught the 2 & 3 year old children's church and we talked about Noah's ark and how God helps you do good things even when they're hard. We had the kids tell us what animals went on the boat and then we said what sounds they made. One animal was a lion. All the kids roared really loud which scared Campbell a lot (she was in my arms shaking and crying) and now she's afraid of lions. This morning she said a lion was eating her arm. (what in the world?) So, needless to say, this is new territory for us.

And for your entertainment here is what Campbell said to me on Sunday morning:

Me to Jeff from the kitchen, " hey, do you want coffee?"

Campbell, from her seat at the table where she is eating breakfast, " no thank you, Mama. Have my juice." :)

Campbell is truly exerting her independence right now and we're having more time outs because of it. The newest thing we've started using time out for is the phrase, "leave me alone!" Yep. At age 2. 13 is going to be rough if we're starting this at 2. Actually, the little girl (who's 8) I'm babysitting over the summer has said that to Campbell a few times and Cams picked it right up. So now, because she keeps yelling "leave me alone!" in anger towards her Dad and myself, we've started time outs for it. We've had 2 today already.

Aside from time outs and the 2 year old tantrums, we LOVE life! Our days are filled with walking to campus to run around or going to the student center to ride the elevator. We go to a local play ground some times, paint, color, play with playdough, and generally play with toys. Campbell loves to read and now is starting to try and read to her stuffed animals a lot. She's speaking so well and can communicate almost 100% of the time now - she even tries different words to explain what she means if initially Jeff and I aren't getting it. So smart! It's just amazing to watch this little person grow up.

Well, I need to go do some cleaning while Cams is still napping. I'll post pictures of our time with the Kirksey's in a while. They're here for 10 days and we've got lots of plans so the blog may be a little empty for a few weeks.

Blessings to everyone!

Growing

2010-07-01T09:51:00.004-08:00

Apparently Campbell is growing. For breakfast she ate two pancakes, a whole egg and a bowl of blueberries. For lunch she just polished off two whole pbj sandwiches and a cup of pears. If I had any questions about her going through a growth spurt, they were answered today. Yes, she is in fact growing! Crazy. The kid only weighs 24lbs - that's a ton of food for someone so small! Now we need to run off the energy she had from filling up so much. Off to the playground we go...

Campbell's first painting

2010-06-29T10:49:00.002-08:00

Campbell did her first painting last week. I'm so proud of her and she worked really hard. I haven't seen her focus that hard many times, but she did for this. Isn't it beautiful!? :) I know I'm a little biased but I think she's incredible. Go Campbell for painting her first watercolor at the age of 1!

Happy Birthday Jeff!

2010-06-29T10:21:00.005-08:00

These pictures are in a bit of a reverse order. Starting at the end of the night and moving to the beginning of it. Jeff turned 31 last week and we had a great day of celebrating him! After all, we think he is the best Dad and husband of all time so he deserved an awesome birthday!

Campbell helps Jeff take care of his farm on facebook (it's a game). They love doing this together! Campbell points at the different animals and tells her Daddy what to do. :)

After cake sugar surge = a nice game of tag, 2 year old style.

The temper tantrum just before tag and just after cake and ice cream. We're seriously into the terrible two stages even though she's a month from her 2nd birthday. This mass of emotion was from us telling her to stay in the back yard. Apparently she really wanted to play in the driveway.

family picture time!

Love my family!!!

No shirt for ice cream - she's not a big fan of cake. She does LOVE helping to make the cake and blow out the candles though.

He's now officially into his 30's - not on the edge, but in them. His face can tell you how he feels about that. :)* We love you Jeff!

high five after a successful team effort to blow out Daddy's candles.

Blowing out the candles! It was pretty sweet. Campbell was so excited all day for this part. She was also very excited to sing Daddy the happy birthday song and did so many times. She kept saying, "Happy Birthday Daddy! Happy Birthday Dada!"

A little pre cake climbing on Daddy happening here - an activity which Campbell would prefer to do most of the day right now if she could.

For the summer I'm watching Jeff's coworker's little girl. She was excited to help decorate for Jeff's birthday. So we worked hard all morning painting and coloring signs and decorating an awesome cake!

Amelia's signs for Jeff. She was really proud of them, as she should be!

Campbell and I made the Happy Birthday sign.

The girls decorated Jeff's cake - they were SO proud. :) I think Jeff appreciated the effort!

Helping Mama make the cake! So, I usually give Cams a little bit of flour to mix up while I'm baking and that day she took a spoonful and just blew on it and it some how covered her little face and the whole counter around her! I think she had fun though. After this she stopped helping me so I could get the real cake made.

It was a great day to celebrate Jeff!

Road trip to PA

2010-06-28T07:42:00.013-08:00

We went last weekend down to Beaver Falls, PA to see our friends Joanna and Taylor before they moved away. They've been like family to us and we love them so much. It was such a blessing to get to spend time with them for a few days. Campbell is in love with her Aunt Jo & Uncle Taylor as well as our dear friend Ryan who is also called Uncle Ryan. Here's a few pictures of our time together:

Jeff driving us down to PA - it is a 4 1/2 hour drive but with Cams the trip usually takes about 6 hours because we have to stop.

Sweet girl - Campbell was so excited to see her Uncle Ryan that she was an ANGEL the whole drive down. Uncle Ryan was good motivation. Jeff and I couldn't even believe how good she was on that first car ride! The car ride back however was not as easy.

After we checked into our hotel Campbell wanted to wear a dress (are we surprised? :) ) to go see Uncle Ryan. We weren't going to be able to see Joanna & Taylor till the next morning. So off we went, all cute to have dinner with some friends from Geneva.

Uncle Ryan and Campbell - together at last! :)* Poor Ryan, about every 20 seconds Cams was saying "Uncle Ryan! Uncle Ryan!" He was a great sport and gave her lots of attention and love.

Our friends Matthew and Celisse who have both been hired to be RDs at different schools next year. In a way it was our goodbye with them too. We love these two!

The next day we went to spend time with Taylor, Jo & Ryan and we went to an really cool park that was built like a big castle. Princess Campbell loved it! :)

We are rich in friendship.

Taylor, Joanna and Ryan conspired to surprise Jeff with an early birthday ice cream cake - it was special to celebrate together! Thanks you guys!

The Llama is a whole story unto itself - lets just say it made Jeff's day! Thanks Missy & Ryan!

Aunt Jo - how we love her!!! We miss her terribly! Joanna was the person that helped Jeff and I make it through the first year with Campbell while we were working full time and I was doing grad school too. She taught me so much.

Wonderful friends.

It was a great trip. Very special to us. We miss our friends so much but we know we'll always be part of each others lives. Blessings on you, Taylor & Jo - May the Lord bless you incredibly in your next adventure!

cute stuff

2010-06-28T07:33:00.002-08:00

saying hmmmm like her Daddy :) such a thinker!

frequently Campbell has to have her purse, stroller, dress up clothes and as many babies or stuffed animals as she can carry with her to walk around the house.

dressing up some more...

So much fun to have a little girl!

Happy Father's day Jeff!

2010-06-18T05:42:00.004-08:00

I know this post is a couple days early but I won't be around internet this weekend and don't want to miss posting this. Jeff is such a wonderful Dad - he and his little girl are so in love with each other. When Daddy comes home from work to play it's the best part of the day to Campbell. Jeff always helps every night with Campbell, comes home and starts playing right away. He always has time for Cams and lets her jump on him in the mornings and cuddle. It's pretty special. I love my husband and I know the God has given me one of the greatest gifts in Jeff. So Happy Father's Day Jeff!!! Campbell and I think you're doing and INCREDIBLE job! :)

When Cams was 7 or 8 months I think...

Still like hanging out and talking... :)

Daddy makes the best sand castles!

This is Campbell and Daddy's special spot outside. Campbell won't let anyone else near "Daddy's rock". They sit out here together almost every day right now.

snuggle hugs...

Best Daddy EVER!

Eating with friends

2010-06-18T05:32:00.002-08:00

One of Campbell's new things is that her dolls and stuffed animal friends are needing to eat meals with her. She wants to show them how to eat and talks to them through out her meal. It's pretty cute. One morning Strawberry shortcake had to have her own bowl of cereal with milk and everything. One day at lunch all of her friends and her purse had to sit in the chair across from her. :) I'm loving her imagination!

All her little friends

We are loving this age! Campbell turns two in one month and it's just fun to see what she's going to do or say all the time. Some days are challenging with the attitude and tantrums but others are so wonderful. It's such a blessing to have Campbell - the best Campbell in the world! (we tell her that every day).

The mystery of the alarm clock

2010-06-18T05:00:00.003-08:00

Our morning started off pretty typically - tired Mama wakes up to a crying 2 year old and tells her to go back to sleep because it's not time to get up yet and I'll come get you when your alarm clock goes off. That was at 5:37am at which time Campbell's clock read the correct time.

It may seem a little odd that we're using an alarm clock with our 23 month old but we needed to find a more concrete way of getting her to accept staying in bed and/or sleeping longer (past 5am) and I read about this method in the Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child book (which I love - I would recommend it to any parent). The method is geared for ages 3 and up but we were out of ideas and decided to try. It's worked amazingly well! Both Jeff and I feel like Campbell's response has almost been too good to be true but we're thankful for it. I think we've learned that a rewards system works really well with motivating her. Her reward is two m&m's when she stays quiet in her bed until her alarm goes off at 6:20. Apparently my child is nuts over chocolate! Don't judge me - it's only 2 m&m's. :)

So normally my alarm on my phone is set to go off at 6:17am so I wake up and head right in to turn the alarm clock off and be prompt in getting Campbell up like we say we will. Today my alarm went off 10 minutes late and I have no idea how that happened. So I looked at my clock and realize Campbell must have been listening to her alarm for a LONG time and I jumped out of bed to go get her (really hoping she wasn't upset that we hadn't come yet.) To my surprise and joy Campbell was sitting quietly in her bed happily waiting. When I come in I always say "Good Morning!" and I walked in and Cams said "Good morning Mama!! Good Morning!" I was really proud of her. I went to turn her alarm clock off and saw something strange. Even though the alarm had been going off at the right time, the time on her clock read 2:37pm. Hmmmm. That didn't make sense.

I didn't spend much time thinking about it initially because I wanted to reward Cams while she remembered what it was about. After being downstairs for awhile I started thinking about it. The time was right at 5:30 when I went in. The alarm went off at the right time so the clock time had to have been correct in order for the alarm to go off correctly. It would make sense if we thought our little person could get in and out of her crib to try and turn it off by herself and mess with buttons but we don't really think that she can yet. We've seen her try to climb in and out but when Jeff and I have watched she just can't make it over her crib and lift herself that high. So the clock mystery is perplexing me. Either Campbell all the sudden figured out how to climb out and into her crib quickly and quietly (with the self control to get back in her crib and not come find us) or something went wrong with her clock.

I asked Cams if she tried to turn her alarm clock off and she said, "NO!" like she does when she's telling on herself for doing something wrong. That answer could mean either no or yes. It's a bit hard to figure things out with a 23 month old when you weren't there to see it yourself. I am hoping that Cams doesn't know how to get out of her crib yet but I guess we'll see if the clock has another mysterious time change tomorrow morning! I just have no idea what to expect!

did i mention that Campbell likes to dress up?

2010-06-09T07:14:00.001-08:00

I love how creative she is! Every day is a new adventure.

TV Fast

2010-06-08T09:48:00.002-08:00

Just decided today at lunch - Jeff and I are going on a TV fast till July 4th and if we like how this month has gone we will possibly do it all summer. The rules are that we can't watch TV except for when Jeff is traveling (only about 3 or 4 days) and an occasional movie together. Cams can watch a little in the morning too. We decided that we have lots of things we can do together or on our own to fill the hours at night usually spent just vegging out. And if we can't think of anything, we can go to bed. All healthier options than TV.

So here's to a month of more quality time and hopefully a step towards a healthier lifestyle for the Kirksey household!

Still here...

2010-06-08T04:38:00.005-08:00

It's been a busy last two months, thus the lack of blog posts. Lots to share and process through. I'll share more about everything in a later post but for now I'll show you a few graduation and Mothers Day pictures. I decided to walk for my graduation with a Masters in Higher Education from Geneva College. My parents flew out to be there and we had a great time! We also got to celebrate Mothers Day together which was really special to me. Campbell helped make her first apple pie! A big deal in our family - we made apple pie in honor of my Grandma Brooks. Here's some pictures (a bit out of order, thanks to blogger)- more thoughts to come as I have time to post them...

My Beautiful Niece!

2010-04-23T15:58:00.002-08:00

My Mom took this picture of my sweet niece Addison today - it's so cute I just had to share it! We skype a lot with Kyle & Christina & Addison or with Grammy and Addison when Grammy watches her. It's been fun to watch the girls know each other and interact. We love Addison!!!

21 months old today!

2010-04-23T12:52:00.003-08:00

Campbell Ann is 21 months old today and I can see her 2nd birthday coming around the corner. How did two years go by so fast? My baby is no longer a baby. She is speaking in small sentences and sometimes bigger ones. She's saying "no, thank you" and is developing opinions about everything from what she wants to wear (mostly dresses these days), what she wants to eat, and to coming inside from playing. I'll say, "Campbell - time to go inside." Campbell answers, " no, thank you Mama. play." And she'll try to run off. Can you believe it? I can't! :) Cams loves to play with other kids and would be outside all the time if she could. She's starting to want Jeff more for certain things like rocking her at night and I love that, so does he. :)

Life is so much fun with her right now. Every day is new and exciting! We are so in love with our little girl. I am a blessed Mama.

at the big table

2010-04-18T12:01:00.002-08:00

Campbell is in process of moving to eating like a big person at the big table and she's very excited. Her knees are starting to hit the tray on her booster chair so we decided to get some kid plates and move her. She thoroughly enjoyed the experience today. :)

So happy to be together!

2010-04-18T11:59:00.001-08:00

Someone was happy to have her Daddy home after he'd been gone for a week on business. :) She wanted to take a nap with him and I could not resist the sweet photo op. Not sure life gets much better than this.

Playing today

2010-04-14T18:19:00.003-08:00

Playing up on Houghton's campus today - it was beautiful outside!

Campbell was so proud of herself for climbing up on the big bench that she asked for a picture (a first)!

We picked baby daisy's...

Climbing on the bridge to look at the stream (I was right behind her, don't worry!)

We had lunch with some friends a couple of weeks ago and one of them taught Campbell to try and push the tree down and now she has to try on most trees. :) PS - another outfit choice in the hat and the mitten, which she put on herself. Pretty funny!

We love each other.

a fun new outfit to play in

2010-04-14T17:53:00.004-08:00

posing for Mama

look how long she's getting!?

Thank you Nana & Papa for the wonderful new outfit - Campbell LOVES it. She's worn some part of it almost every day since she got it.

Farmer wave for Papa! :)

Goofy girl put her outfit together and her sandals on backwards...

love her! :)

Fun from the last two days

2010-04-14T17:02:00.002-08:00

For Nana & Papa

2010-04-08T06:48:00.002-08:00

This is a video of Cams opening her Easter gifts from her Nana & Papa - it's super long so I imagine only Nana & Papa will be interested in watching it! :) Nevertheless - thought I'd post it for you to see.

For the Grandparents :)

2010-04-08T06:36:00.003-08:00

For Grandma Carla

2010-04-08T06:30:00.002-08:00

Grandma,

I just wanted to tell you we love you with all our hearts! Here's a little video from Campbell and I (she's being a 2 year old, but I think you'll like it anyway! :) )

Easter 2010

2010-04-05T06:37:00.002-08:00

Our good friends Ryan and Missy drove up to our house to spend Easter weekend with us! We had so much fun with them and just loved their company.

Our friends have truly become family to us - love you guys!

Pretty girl in her new Easter dress

Family picture time. :)

Walking home from Church

It was a great weekend. Good time to be together, awesome reminders of the love the Lord has shown us through salvation and God blessed us with amazing weather. Such a gift!

tired+stress= more tired & more stress

2010-03-22T09:55:00.003-08:00

Well, right now I have 6 weeks until graduation, 5 to have all my work done. I am stressed. And for some reason I'm experiencing a new symptom to my stress that I've never had before. I'm an avoider - my body's coping mechanism when I get really overwhelmed or stressed is usually deep tiredness aka all I want to do is sleep all the time. For the last three weeks I've experienced the usual stress tiredness during the day but I'm sleeping horribly at night. Anywhere from 1am to 3am I begin waking up thinking about all I have to do and I struggle to get back to sleep. I've been waking up every hour until Campbell gets up between 5-5:30am and then getting up with her. This is not helping the tiredness - I'm exhausted. So if you think about it, I'd love prayer for strength and perseverance, and good sleep for the next 5 weeks. I have a ton to do and need all the prayer I can get! :)

fun videos of Campbell

2010-03-15T08:02:00.005-08:00

I took this video on Saturday - just thought it was cute!

This video was taken around Christmas time - we were making pancakes and I do realize I said stair instead of chair...I was tired! :)

Let the thaw of Spring begin!

2010-03-09T09:49:00.002-09:00

This is the first time we've seen our grass in months! Our yard has had a lot of snow on it all winter because its pretty shaded. Campbell was showing me this weird green stuff under the really familiar snow. :)

Cams was SO EXCITED to be outside! I was too - this is her telling our neighbor Joe about the snow she's trying to pick up with her bare hands.

Campbell loved running today! She also loved seeing any and all college students. If she saw them 20 feet away she'd stop running and stand in that spot until they got close enough for her to wave and say hi. Pretty cute and slightly awkward to stand and watch lots of people walking towards you. :) What can I say, I have a very social little person.

Thank you God for the beautiful sunshine!!!

Aunt Lesley came to visit!

2010-03-09T05:25:00.008-09:00

My sister Lesley came to NY to visit us last week and it was such a treat for us all. Campbell especially loved having her Aunt Lesley around as you'll be able to see by the pictures. As you'll also see by the pictures Campbell now does a frowning cheese smile or doesn't smile at all. :) A new phase I guess...

My little Sweetpea would prefer to be naked most of the time...

Campbell likes to dress up and have Mama & Daddy dress up too. This day at lunch she made Daddy wear this hat. I think they look pretty cute together!

I love this picture. Campbell was just laying there talking to her Daddy. I think he loved this moment too. Campbell has recently starting telling us things about her day and what she's excited about. It's so precious to me to sit and listen to her and have a mini conversation. I can't believe how big she's getting!

We love to color!

A picture to show you her curls! We have a very curly red head - and it's always commented on anywhere we go.

Playing around before bed one night.

Aunt Lesley is the BEST! She played and played and played with miss Campbell - they dressed up a lot!

It was sad to say goodbye to Aunt Lesley. Campbell cried a little after she went though security and we couldn't see her anymore, as did I. We've been so lonely for our family lately and were very happy to have Lesley here for a week. (no idea what Campbell is pointing at...)

The girls!

I wish Campbell's smile wasn't so frowny in this picture but its great of her and Jeff anyway.

We have a new game called, "lets see how many objects we can stick down our shirt." Campbell tries to stick everything down her shirt right now - not sure why. I thought this was funny though because she filled her onesie up with blocks.

We're doing well here in Houghton. It's been sunny and warmer the last couple of days which is so wonderful. We've been really stuck in the house with the cold and snow outside all winter and I for one am ready to be outside and have Campbell outside without worrying about her little cheeks getting windburned or chapped and her fingers staying warm. So, yay for sunshine!

Campbell is doing really well - talking in small sentences, sleeping through the night but getting up very early. We start our days around 5-5:30am. She's becoming a more picky eater as is normal for toddlers I guess. She's still super skinny - only 22 lbs at the doctor two weeks ago. We just got a bean bag for her and its the new favorite thing - she climbs and jumps, falls off and giggles and climbs up and goes again! I'm thankful for the energy that gets burnt off from all the climbing!

What a night.

2010-02-20T11:28:00.003-09:00

Last night our sweet girl got very sick - she threw up for 5 hours, the first three of those it was every 10-25 minutes. What a heart-wrenching thing to watch your little 1 year old be so sick and not understand why it hurts or why its scary. We called the Dr. and they said to just watch her and that it was most likely a virus that is going around. I'd like to just say for the record here, I'm so thankful my husband is a rock in these kinds of situations. I'm the one that is always scared and freaking out thinking we need to take Cams to the dr. right away and Jeff was able to keep encouraging me to stay calm and patient. Basically, Jeff took care of his girls last night. :)

On the up side (if there is one when your so sick) Campbell got to sleep and cuddle all night in Mama & Daddy's bed and watch Veggie Tales too. It was a long night but around 2:30-3am Campbell sat up and said, "Mama, juice!" to which I replied with, "ok" and got her sippy cup full of pedialite as fast as I could. She tanked down (over about 1/2 an hour) one and a half sippys of that stuff. Go Campbell! She was so thirsty. Today she's feeling better but not well. Needing lots of loves and not wanting to eat anything. The Dr. did say she might not want anything to eat for up to 24 hours and I think we're easily going to get to that point. Hopefully tonight will be good sleep and tomorrow will bring a hungry and settled tummy for my baby.

Thats our quick update. I'm in the library working on a paper right now and Jeff and Campbell are at home. Loving the sunshine in the sky today! It's making 34 degrees feel really warm.

Blessings!

Some Oregon pictures

2010-02-15T06:46:00.006-09:00

I've got more pictures to come with some captions, but for now heres pictures from Campbell & I's trip to Oregon...

Thank you Aunt Trisha & Uncle Troy!

2010-02-10T12:01:00.004-09:00

This is a very belated but BIG Thank You to Aunt Trisha and Uncle Troy for the AWESOME Christmas presents!! :) Campbell LOVES tutu's right now and you'll see by the pictures, she dances in them. It's pretty sweet! And we used the backpack to take toys with us as we traveled to Oregon and Campbell felt so proud to have her own bag. Thank you so much!!!

sweet dance moves

My favorite snow picture so far. How beautiful is my daughter?! :)

Family Fun

2010-01-18T09:59:00.002-09:00

Last night we had our friends the Wade's over for dinner and had a ton of fun with the kids. They all love each other so much and we LOVE the Wades! :) They spice up our life. Campbell tries to bow and say "thank you very much" at one point - in case its hard to hear.

A few more Christmas pictures from Montana

2010-01-02T07:22:00.004-09:00

Playing in the bathtub at Nana & Papa's house & having a ball - this girl loves her baths! She gets upset when its time to get out.

Jeff & his Dad Steve

Dancing to musical snowmen lights in Nana's mud room

Nana & Papa danced with Campbell every day multiple times a day!

Loves from Aunt Traci

Our whole family at McKenzie River pizza in Helena - a family tradition! They have the best salads ever - it's really what we all go there for.

Aunt Traci gave Campbell this adorable hat for Christmas!

Spending time with Great Grandma Ann on her birthday before we left.

They were singing together at one point. Campbell's middle name is after her Grandma Ann. It was special to see them together.

I think that's it for Montana pictures. We had a blast! It is always such a blessing to be with family since we live so far away from everyone. The time went too fast - but we are so thankful to have had it. We love you guys!!!

17 months old

2010-01-02T07:11:00.002-09:00

Dec. 23rd Campbell turned 17 months old! I know I say this every month but it's crazy how fast she's growing up. Here's a few teddy bear pictures. As you can see, we have more personality every day! :)

crazy energy

sweet loving little girl

cheese smile for Mama

We love this little pumpkin so much!

Back in NY

2010-01-02T06:53:00.003-09:00

Hello everyone!

We made it back to our home in NY on Thursday after a very long travel day - 3 flights and a return trip to the airport after we forgot a bag which put us home around 1:30am. We were up almost 24 hours but we slept good that night! We miss our family a ton, but its also good to be home. Campbell knew where she was right away and the next morning took each one of her toys out and brought them to me one by one. It was fun! :)

Jeff and I put together her kitchen last night which was her big present from us for Christmas. We had to reorder a part that was damaged so we weren't able to give it to her before we left for Montana. She saw it this morning and loved it! It was so much fun to watch her and she knew what everything was. She was a little mad the sink didn't have water in it to wash her hands with - we'll have to work on what it means to imagine water. :) Here's a few pictures...

Other things can go in the sink too - like our purses, of course!

cooking like Mama

She's clapping and saying "Yay!" here - it's a big hit!

Happy girl!

Sunday fun

2009-12-27T12:52:00.003-09:00

We had a good time at church this morning - the guest speaker was the police chaplain for Gallatin county - he talked about heaven, that we need to remember we're citizens of heaven, that hope's foundation is in Christ and to remember God's power over sin. Great reminders and good encouragement to start the new year with.

It was also fun to show off Campbell at church - this proud Nana & Papa had a very energetic 1 year old to chase after this morning! :)

Love my family!

The girls were in red today

Adorable little girl in her pretty dress from Aunt Lesley, with her doggy on her tractor. So cute! I had to take a picture!

This has fascinated me in the last three days - how is it that Campbell knows that when we put a beautiful dress on her she should twirl and dance? :) I love it! And she loves to dance in these dresses so much. Today after the church service was done she marched straight up to the platform and started to twirl and dance and giggle at herself. I loved that all the Kirksey family friends at church got to see the true Campbell in action, instead of the shy one that comes out some times.

Thank you Aunt Lesley for the beautiful dress! We love it!

Christmas 2009

2009-12-26T11:12:00.007-09:00

These pictures are in reverse order but they tell you about our Christmas - it's been so special this year with Campbell old enough to understand some of the basics of what's going on. We have so enjoyed watching her joy throughout this last few weeks. God has truly blessed Jeff and I with the best gift ever in our daughter - and I've found my love for her overwhelming at times lately. What an awesome way for Christ to show us a piece of his love for us through children.

So ending with last night - we went to hang out with Jeff's Mom's side of the family and we love to do that! All of the cousins have kids around the same age and even though Campbell was exhausted, she was SO excited to play with the kids!

Yesterday morning at the end of presents - playing in one of the boxes...go figure! :)

Riding and grooving out to some music and loving life with all her new toys!

Everyone showing off their Christmas socks that my Mom has made - we love them!

My bro in law loving his new sock because now he's totally part of the family! :)

Yay for new dress up clothes!

Reading scripture before presents

A NEW TRACTOR!!! Yay! Thank you Santa! aka Nana and Papa :)

So Campbell and I came upstairs early, like normal and she found one of her gifts. So when Nana came out we opened the first present super early, before anyone else had gotten up. It was fun to see her excitement.

The tree & the gifts - Campbell made out like a bandit this year!

Christmas Eve - family pic with a tired little girl

In our new dress from Nana and Papa for Christmas Eve! Campbell LOVED this dress -she came out and showed it off to the family and we've never seen her do that before. It was very cute! She thought her dress was really pretty and sparkly!

Opening her present Christmas eve...

And in other news for our week - Cams is teething like CRAZY! I'm not joking. She picked this week to break one molar and two more are coming through so the finger in the mouth has been constant as well as lots of drool and snot and crankiness.

The very cool play room that Nana made for Campbell to stay in - she is in heaven! She keeps telling Nana "Stairs!" because she wants to go down stairs to play. :)

Back at Home in NY before we left -

We did our own family Christmas and opened gifts from Jeff & I and the Welstad side of the family. Grammy and Boppa gave Campbell wonderful gifts but her big one was a really mini piano. As you can see - she was SO excited! She said "Piano!" when she opened it and then stood up and clapped and said "Yay!!!" It was so fun to watch her open her gifts!

We are a blessed family. We're loving our time with the Kirksey's in Montana and we're missing our family in Oregon. Thank you all for making this a very memorable Christmas! Love to you all!

fun adventures in our house - since its so cold outside!

2009-12-17T05:07:00.005-09:00

We took a family picture in hopes of getting a Christmas card pic out - don't think we'll get the card out but thought I'd share the picture.

A little bit of our house all decorated for Christmas - this is actually in our dining room. We couldn't figure out another place to hang stockings. I think it turned out well!

We love our living room with the tree in it and we've been spending a lot of time in there. It's a great room to read in with cup of hot chocolate! :)

This picture was taken from the kitchen looking into the dining room. Our first floor is a big loop - if you take a left at the tree it'll spit you into the hallway that will take you back into the family room that leads into the kitchen. :) Just thought you'd find that interesting.

We've been baking a lot of cookies lately and Campbell is my constant little helper. It's pretty fun - she loves to help!

Cute picture in her new play tent - so happy!

reading books in her tent

crawling through the tunnel is so fun, especially if Jeff or I are at the other end saying, "I'm gonna get you!" Its a favorite game around here.

The tent - Thank you Grammy & Boppa!

I know this is blurry but it is a PERFECT representation of Jack & Campbell's personalities. :) Especially when they're together.

Little love bug hugging on her teddy bear - almost 17 months old! I can hardly believe it.

A new favorite activity - rocking in the big rocking chair and reading books.

Just an up close shot to show you all that she is getting more hair and it's getting curly!!

This happened this morning - Jeff slipped and missed the last stair on his way down with Campbell. He bruised his foot & hand - she got a little road rash from his beard. The sound of them falling scared me to death but they were both just fine.

These two LOVE each other! They've been spending a lot more solo time together in the last three weeks as I've been trying to complete a semesters worth of homework that I procrastinated on.

Oh the things you find to do in that hour before bedtime. :)

We're headed to Montana for Christmas in a few days so I likely won't post much for a couple weeks. We pray that all of you have a blessed Christmas! Love to you from our family.

my heart is happy today.

2009-12-13T13:44:00.003-09:00

Some of our closest friends came up to see us in NY today - Taylor & Joanna. It was so good to see them and spend a few hours just sharing life. We ate homemade chili that was a collective effort to make and it turned out great! :) Jeff & I feel refreshed and loved. What a gift an afternoon of friendship can be. Now it feels like Christmas! :)

SNOW!

2009-12-12T17:26:00.001-09:00

Friday it snowed almost a foot here and today we played in it for about 10 minutes before heading to the store - Campbell LOVED it! We had fun watching her. It was a whole new world!

around the house...

2009-12-04T11:34:00.003-09:00

My blue eyed girl...

LOVE! :) This is Jack Wade - Campbell's little best friend. We hung out together this morning and I got a few pictures of them together. They played so well together today! Shared, hugged, Campbell even told Jack, "I love you!" It was a great morning.

Watching our neighbor's cat on their porch next door. And the little doll in Campbell's hand is a $2 find at an antique store we stopped at last weekend. She loves this thing and I think it's fun that it has reddish hair.

Playing dress up this morning!

Jeff put up the rest of our Christmas lights last night and Campbell decided she needed to help by telling Daddy what to do. :)

Love this shot - it totally shows her true little self! And I finally got a good picture of her with all her necklaces and bracelets on. Such a girl! Loving dressing up in all her pretty and sparkly things these days.

I know this is blurry but it's a great example of this new cheesy smile she gives me when I say "smile!" before I take a picture. So funny! The eye squint is the biggest part of this new look that she seems to love.

This girl loves her babies and pushing them in the stroller around the house. She usually tries to carry a bag with something in it too.

Thanks Grammy for the new Elmo shirt! Campbell loves it - as she does all things elmo right now.

Random Campbell moments from the last few weeks

2009-12-02T06:52:00.004-09:00

Dancing with Daddy to Christmas music is now one of our most favorite things to do after dinner!

My baby isn't a baby any more...she's getting so big!

This is for my brothers - she's just being silly and it reminded me of them! :)*

THANK YOU Grammy & Boppa for an early Christmas present! Campbell LOVES her new chair!!!

Giving her new cheesy smile for the camera

16 months old

crazy little ball of energy! We jump in our crib sometimes to burn a little of it off...

ta da!

my girly girl - she carries around her little purse with her cell phone and keys and blush brush and most important of all a picture of her baby cousin Addison. :)

Instead of getting mad, I got my camera. This was the day I found out she was tall enough to grab stuff off the kitchen table.

Sweet girl - she wanted to share a snack with elmo. :)

Thanksgiving

2009-12-02T06:15:00.004-09:00

We had a blast over Thanksgiving because we were able to celebrate with some very good friends that came our way for a few days! These pictures are all out of order but we had a huge and amazing meal at our friend's the Wade's house on Thursday and put Campbell in a pack n play and stayed late. It was so much fun! We laughed really hard and it truly felt like a holiday! :) On Friday we hung out at our house, were lazy, ate a second thanksgiving meal (yes, we really did cook the whole meal again at our house so Jeff could have his leftovers - I love my husband). Friday evening we decorated for Christmas with our friends help! So much fun!

Campbell was tired and had no desire to be silly with us at this point...

How much more Christmas can it get than this? :)

Our dear friend Ryan or Uncle Ryan as we call him, Celisse and Missy helping us decorate. They all stayed with us for the Thanksgiving weekend and it was so fun to have a full house of friends!

wouldn't be a holiday without cards

Showing Mama how to eat olives off your fingers.

This crew is very special to us - we've all gone to school/worked at George Fox, then all lived in Waco, TX to work or go to school at Baylor and now all but Karin live in the western NY/western PA range. Crazy! We've shared a lot of life together over the last 10 years and in TX it was our Thanksgiving tradition to all be together. We loved getting to celebrate together again!

loving being the center of attention - can you tell?

Also LOVING Uncle Ryan! :)

mmmm....good eats!

Karin & Missy

Campbell is a big turkey fan. Not so much veggies, but pretty much any kind of meat. Cracks me up.

Thank you friends for blessing us!

sorry for the absence!

2009-11-24T07:39:00.002-09:00

Well, it seems that I took a blogging sabbatical. I'm back now but in order to put up more pictures I need to find my camera chord which I put somewhere to try and remember it, but now I can't find it! Seriously...that's how my brain works almost all the time now. Not so conducive to writing papers. :)

We had Campbell's 15 month appointment today (she's actually 16 months old today, we're just off on our timing). Here are her stats:

21.6 lbs - 25% on the weight chart
32 inches tall - 75% on the height chart
her speech is still way ahead of the curve - she's talking in small phrases sometimes and starting to try bigger words. She doesn't always get them right but she tries. The latest big word she's trying in elephant. Kinda crazy! She's also telling us things, pointing at pictures and telling us what they are and remembering people and their names.
Campbell is sleeping through the night now about 98% of the time - we are so thankful! Her naps are better now too - just one a day so that she sleeps through the night.
favorite foods are spaghetti, yogurt, any fruit, meat (ham, chicken, etc.) and apple juice. Not a fan of veggies anymore which is making things interesting!

Speaking of food, we need to go eat lunch! I'll look for my camera chords tonight and hopefully get a 16 month old teddy bear pic up really soon,

2009-11-03T12:05:00.000-09:00

Pumpkinville

2009-10-28T09:16:00.003-08:00

While Grammy & Grandpa Welstad were here we took a trip to Pumpkinville farms -it was a hit! Campbell is so independent - the moment we got there she wanted to run around and do her own thing. They had a petting zoo and she LOVED that because she loves animals so much. She fed some goats and it was fun to see how she & Jeff are alike that way.

It was hard to get Campbell to sit still for a picture (no surprise there :) ) but we also had a hard time getting her to smile which is a bit unusual for her. We didn't realize that she was catching a cold - that night she had a horse little voice and was so very tired. We did have a fun day though.

Campbell could have listened to this talking pumpkin all day. She was mesmerized by it and kept coming back to it.

Family picture attempt. As you can see our happy little girl was feeling very done with pictures at this point.

Maybe the ultimate highlight of the trip was the pumpkin donuts we got! They were incredible, and I don't normally love anything pumpkin other than pie. Well, this picture is funny because as we were talking Campbell reached right over and took a huge bite of my Dad's donut! So he had to share the rest of it! :)

Fun fall day! Now we just have to get Campbell to call her pumpkin a pumpkin...she points to it everyday and says "apple".

I am SO cute!

2009-10-28T09:13:00.001-08:00

I put this pot down on the floor for Campbell to drum on. I turned around and found her inside of it! :) So I made her stay there for a picture. Too cute!

Apple

2009-10-26T09:47:00.002-08:00

Fall day at Houghton with Bappa & Grammy

2009-10-23T08:05:00.007-08:00

Grammy & Grandpa Welstad are here to visit and it's been so much fun! Campbell feels so loved and I'm loving extra hands to take care of her and the house. Last weekend we took a walk up to campus to show my folks and our friend Kaylee who was visiting around.

(side-note: Campbell has trouble saying Grandpa so she calls my Dad "Bappa" and Grammy sounds like Mammy or sometimes more like Maaama.)

Loving on her Bappa and Mammy.

Campbell & Bappa are getting very close! She wakes up and asks for him first now. :) So we go wake him up early to play. Hee hee.

The girls.

Our wonderful friend Kaylee who we love so much! :) Kaylee is a student at Geneva and came up to visit us on her fall break. Kaylee really helped us with Campbell a lot in the first months of figuring out how to work and do school with an infant. She's see us at our best and worse and still loves us! :) We love her and were blessed to spend some time with her last weekend!

Our little family.

Campbell & Daddy - two peas in a pod. And two of my favorite people!

Grammy and Campbell having fun

All dressed up for Church.

We have pictures from the Pumpkin patch and other adventures coming soon!

Doggy kisses, snow and books in the kitchen

2009-10-23T07:22:00.003-08:00

Aunt Traci got this little boston doggy for Campbell on her birthday and Campbell loves it! She's very much an animal person and just squeals any time we ask her to get her doggy. I thought this was cute...she's giving him kisses.

smiles

We got about 2 inches of snow on October 16th - crazieness! It was beautiful and made our house seem very cozy. I even noticed a calmness in how Campbell acted that day. It was nice. This picture is of our back yard from my kitchen window.

Campbell seeing the snow for the first time. She said, "Wow!" really quietly. It was precious and reminded me of the awesomeness that God places in front of us every day.

Campbell, on her own, brought her baylor pillow and a book into the kitchen and sat there and read while I did dishes. I felt blessed by her sweetness that day!

more pictures to come...

October has been busy!

2009-10-23T06:58:00.002-08:00

Hi everyone! Sorry for the long blog silence...we've been busy! We've been down to PA for Geneva's homecoming, seen great friends, finished unpacking our house, enjoying my (Sarah's) parents visiting and just loving life with Campbell. Here are some pictures from our last few weeks.

Our dear friends from Geneva and our good friend Missy who just moved to PA and is now working at Geneva! :) We love that we get to live close enough to see her now. From L-R : Sarah, Jeff, Missy, Ryan, Campbell, Joanna & Taylor. We so deeply miss these people - they are truly the kind of friends that change you for the better and love you with a love that can only come through Christ. We have so much fun with them and they love Campbell so much. It was just a refreshing time to get to spend a few days with them! Thanks friends - we love you!!!

This picture is entitled : The Campbell Kirksey Lecture Series 101. Our daughter likes to move her stool to different spots in the living room and lecture to us (yes, really) for a few minutes up to 1/2 hour! She's very animated and uses her hands and all her words. It's hysterical and keeps us very entertained in the evenings right now! :)
This was a fun night. We were having a new co worker of Jeff's over for dinner and I had worked really hard that day to get the house clean and a pot roast done, etc. I fed Campbell dinner and was cooking and looking to check on how she was doing every few minutes. Well, one minute was good and the next I looked over and there were refried beans and cheese EVERYWHERE. The bowl was across the dining room and food all over the floor as well as ALL over Campbell. Now we had about 15 minutes until company was to arrive and Jeff was running late and wouldn't be home for about 20 minutes....so we had to quickly take a bath to get the globs of food out of her hair and clean up. We did it with about 30 seconds to spare! whew! (this picture doesn't do the messiness justice, but it's super cute :) ).

14 Months old

2009-10-02T15:45:00.002-08:00

Okay, well...we're a few weeks past the official 14 month day but here are the teddy bear pictures! She was in a good mood and being goofy. It was fun!

strike a pose.

Playing dress up. We're really into putting hats on, as well and necklaces and bracelets.

Hugging a mound of her favorite stuffed animals. And yes, she did that all on her own.

I love this picture! I took it today and I feel like it shows you the heart of who Campbell is. She's so full of energy and love - and strong will. :)

We're doing really well tonight. Jeff being home is a huge blessing! Campbell is in love with her Daddy and wanted to play with him and follow him around all evening. She's still struggling pretty good with her cold so continued prayer for her little body to heal is very appreciated. We're hoping we all get some good sleep tonight because last night was a little rough.

Have a great weekend!

We miss Daddy!

2009-10-01T05:32:00.005-08:00

Jeff has been gone for almost 2 weeks on a business trip to Colorado and is coming home today! We are SO ready for him to be home. We missed him tremendously and the house has felt so empty without him here. I know Campbell has missed him because she goes looking for him sometimes. I'm so thankful for the things he does to take care of us - even the small things like squishing spiders and taking out the trash. We miss his hugs a ton! I'm also ready to have a little help with the kiddo. Campbell and I both got sick a few days ago and we've been up a lot at night and during the day because its hard to breath with all the congestion. It will be nice to have someone to take turns with at night instead of being sick and trying to take care of a sick baby alone.

Here are a few pictures of Campbell's favorite thing to do with Daddy, read! :)

Lately Campbell has been trying to dress herself - and for being 14 mo. old, I think she's doing ok. :) She knows where things go and sometimes gets them on the right way. Socks, pants and shirts are what she's trying to help with lately.

Can't wait for my husband to come home! It's going to be a good day - despite the colds! :)

Campbell's new word of the day: apple and this morning she asked for the phone by saying phone (sorry Mom & Dad for your 4 am wake up call...that was Campbell's finger on the speed dial after I handed her my phone. I promise to quit doing that! :) I was just so impressed that she said phone that I thought I'd give it to her for a second.! It wouldn't be so bad if we didn't have that 3 hour time difference! :)*)

"What?!"

2009-09-29T16:05:00.002-08:00

Campbell's new word is "What?!"

She goes, " Mama!" (forcefully...)

I turn around and then she says "What?!"

pretty cute.

She's walking around saying "um" and "what" and talking with her hands a lot. It makes me smile. She's becoming so big so fast!

learning to use a spoon & fork

2009-09-28T07:29:00.002-08:00

Almost every morning Campbell has banana, a little dry cereal (mostly to entertain her till I get everything together), yogurt and sometimes and egg or blueberry pancake for breakfast. Last week I decided to try and let her feed herself since she's been showing a ton of interest in her spoon or our forks for awhile. To my surprise she did pretty well! Yes, it's very messy, but she's got the concept and is getting better every day. Here's proof of a mostly eaten bowl of yogurt with just a little on her bib ;).

I do have to say...I'm thinking seriously of putting a tablecloth under her - there are meals where that would just make life easier! For instance, rice...not a smart food for self feeding. :) And that's the lesson I learn this week.

As of today, Campbell has her first real cold since probably 5 months ago which is saying something! Last year in the res hall Campbell was literally sick every 6 weeks from month 1 to month 8 because of all the people and germs she was surrounded by. She's doing ok right now, just extremely snotty...it's running like a faucet. The only way I could get her to sleep well last night was basically prop her up in bed with me and surround her with pillows so she couldn't move from the sitting position. Pray for her little body to heal and for her to drink lots of fluids.

just cute!

2009-09-26T04:39:00.000-08:00

Campbell, Jack & Avy

2009-09-24T19:49:00.002-08:00

Here's the kids eating a snack the last day we watched them. They all love each other which is pretty great. The only time they don't love each other is at night when they all just want their Mom - that's when one person putting to bed 3 kids is a bit hard. :)

In Angelica (the neighboring town that the Wade's live in) it was civil war reenactment weekend. The town was decked out, there was a live history, a parade, a battle simulation, etc. Lots of fun stuff with a lot of noise. Avy really liked the dresses and soldier uniforms and Campbell & Jack really liked the drums as the soldiers marched.

These two are just 3 weeks apart in age. Don't they just look adorable together? They actually really like riding next to each other. We walked for awhile and only had crying at the very end.
Jeff & Avy like playing together. Mr. Jeff (as Avy calls him) is always asked to play doll house with Avy whenever we go over to the Wade's. 98% of the time he'll play at least for a little while which might be one reason that Avy has a doll for her doll house that is named "Mr. Jeff". We think it's pretty cute!

One 3 year old and two 13 month olds + me = craziness mixed with fun!

2009-09-23T12:07:00.002-08:00

I'll try to post a few pictures tonight of this but Jeff, Campbell and I spent the last four nights (3 days) at our friends house watching their kids while they went on a short trip. I was excited to spend time with the kiddos as well as get the experience of watching 3 little ones. Things went really well - better even than I had anticipated. I learned a lot, the kids flexed with me as I needed them to and we really only had one night that was challenging at bed time. I'm now very tired but feeling proud, like I really accomplished something! :) That may sound silly but its true. Last night Campbell and I got home late and slept in our own beds. Today has been super low key with lots of cuddles. I'll post some pictures and tell some stories a little later but that's where I went for the past week...off to the land of 3 kids with no energy really to blog after the day was done. :) I'll end this post with this thought: you mom's of 2 or more kids and especially you mom's with multiples...you are truly rock stars in my book.

Campbell & my conversation today

2009-09-17T09:56:00.002-08:00

I asked Campbell at one point today:

"would you like to stop throwing a fit, please?"

and to my surprise she answered without skipping a beat, "No!"

Well, we'll keep working on the obeying thing. I just think it's funny when she answers my questions though. :)

Family room

2009-09-16T09:31:00.002-08:00

My mom helped us by sewing all the pillows and curtains! This is the room we live in as a family - it's Campbell's play room too. :) We love it!

Outside 2 weeks ago

2009-09-16T09:14:00.003-08:00

We have a fun time in our yard. Campbell especially likes to pick up rocks in our driveway and put them in her rock pile. :) She also likes to smell the flowers and try to pick them. I just thought she was cute in these! Enjoy!

Pink Baby UGG Boots!

2009-09-14T10:40:00.002-08:00

Grammy Pam rocks and got miss Campbell a pair of pink ugg boots for this winter. Our house is mostly wood floors and a little cold to walk on at times - especially when it's snowy here from almost the end of Oct. to April. So here are a few pictures of Campbell wearing her ugg boots which she LOVES. These now compete with the red boots - each pair gets put on daily. :)

Campbell loves playing on our bed and jumping and falling down into the pillows, etc. That's why you see a lot of pictures of her on unmade beds. :)

I found it!

2009-09-12T16:25:00.004-08:00

The charger to my camera battery.

It has been missing for at least 2 weeks and I almost gave up but I found it! So now my camera is charging and you'll get to see new pictures soon. :)

Love,

the Kirksey's

How we started our day...

2009-09-10T15:14:00.003-08:00

Campbell told her Daddy that his tie was pretty this morning. :)

She also told him " Li Love ooo".

Pretty special.

um...I think she's growing, what do you think?

2009-09-07T15:35:00.003-08:00

Tonight for dinner (over a 1 hour span of time) Campbell ate the following:

half a banana
1 tablespoon of carrots
1 cup of mac n cheese
1/2 a jar of baby food squash & zucchini
4+ Ritz crackers
1/2 cup of spaghetti
a handful of Cheerios
1 1/2 sippy cups of water
and an hour after all this was finished she drank a 6oz bottle of formula.

wow!

For a pint sized 1 year old she can really throw it down! :)*

And in the way of recording 1st events - Campbell had fun sticking her whole face in the bath water to try and blow bubbles tonight! She did it successfully once but tried repeatedly for about 15 minutes so she's not afraid of the water after sniffing it in a few times. :) Bubbles is one of her new words and one of her new favorite things!

A few Montana pictures...

2009-09-07T09:27:00.002-08:00

My beautiful Sister in law, Traci & her hubby Tony. We had a family get together to celebrate their marriage! :) It was fun to be all together and to watch all the little cousins play together.

Grilling & eating outside in Jeff's parent's amazing back yard. It was so nice just to be with our family for awhile this summer.

A generations picture - 4 generations of Kirksey's: Steve (Jeff's Dad), Grandma Ann, Jeff & Campbell.

Kirksey family picture time! :)

I have so many pictures from Montana that I need to go through them and decide what to share. For today I just wanted to show you a few pictures of our wonderful family who we miss & love!

Kitchen

2009-09-04T03:30:00.000-08:00

12 month stats

2009-09-02T07:27:00.002-08:00

Hi Everyone!

Went to the Dr. today for Campbell's 12 mo. well appt. (yes, we're late with it because of the move). It went well - although I'm finding myself missing a couple of the doctors from the practice we just left. Dr. Leo, who we saw today is a really nice man and was good with Campbell. He let me ask all my questions and helped to answer them for the most part. I'm the type of person that doesn't just want the quick answer though, I want a thorough answer and I didn't feel like I got fantastic explanations for the "why's", but I walked away feeling like I know more than I did. I always have to chuckle after I leave the doctors office. I go in with these expectations that I'll have all my uncertainty's figured out by the time I leave but that's not realistic! There is just not one way to do parenting which is really great and sometimes makes it more difficult. Some times I'd just like someone to say, "oh that? This is how you do that."

Campbell is in the 75th% for height (I forgot to ask the inches number - the nurse forgot to tell me), and she's in the 25th% for weight - only 19.11 lbs. Confirmation that yes, she's still my little string bean! :) The doctor got to hear her tell him all the things he was looking at like her teeth and her ear and eyes, etc. He heard her talking and showing him and told me that she's extremely bright for her age - a smart little kiddo who is ahead of the curve developmentally. We already knew that but it was fun to hear confirmation! With this comes some fun side affects such as toddler sized tantrums and such that Dr. Leo encouraged me to be strict with. Campbell needs to learn now and consistently that she can't get attention for her negative behavior or she'll become an "out of control toddler" as he put it. No, I don't want that. And No, that wasn't a statement saying that she's out of control right now. Just exerting her independence. :) We have our work cut out for us. Time for me to make a new game plan on how to approach life with her a little bit since she's not a baby anymore.

Campbell had 2 shots today - her last Hep B & the chicken pox vaccine. She is now so tired from crying that she made it from the car to her crib still asleep and now she's hugging her blanket & bear while still wearing her tennis shoes and pacifier clip. I figured she just needed to recover so I'd do as little as possible to wake the poor baby up. Shots are traumatic!

That's it I think. Cam's is cutting her molars right now in a big way so there's lots of drooling going on and we got a prescription for fluoride. I'm trying to get her to eat her veggies which is hard right now. All she wants is noodles, cheese and fruit. Any ideas from you seasoned Mom's out there?

Here are the rest of the cute 13 month Teddy bear photo shoot. Enjoy!

thoughts

2009-09-01T07:40:00.004-08:00

Faith is found in the small things and in the things we do when no one is looking. Prayers for a friend in need, stillness before God, reading the Word, asking for help to love with God's love, patience and hope that come from deep within. I'm reminded today that God wants all of me - which at times seems overwhelming because of how sinful I am. BUT I am reminded of our hope in Christ and the grace that the Lord has shown us. Praise be to God that He is so mighty that He humbled himself. Praise the Lord for the hope I have, that in a moment of quiet He speaks in a still small voice. I'm thankful today for a God that is Love. And I'm thankful today that He gives me courage to continue to try - even when it's hard.

13 months old and one week :)

2009-08-31T06:39:00.002-08:00

Campbell turned 13 months old on the 23rd of August! Here's one of the teddy bear pictures we took. She has three security type items as of right now that she MUST sleep with at night. 1. Teddy Bear 2. Doggy 3. Blankie or in Campbell's words "bayieee". I love this picture because it's so cute and it shows how much love she has in her! She's very into hugging and kissing all her stuffed animals and babies. She likes to rock them too. She's a sweet girl.

We go to the doctor on Wednesday for 12 month shots & to check out her growth. We'll let you know how it goes and where she's at in the growth chart.

Out for a walk

2009-08-31T06:18:00.003-08:00

This pathway is behind our house and it's used by the Houghton Students to get from the apartments to campus. We like to take family walks on it in the evening some times.

Off to the Post Office to pick up our mail!

Family picture time! :) (we were excited about this one...these attempts at a self portrait of our family never turn out!)

Daddy's girl

Me & my Sweet pea

This is hysterical! Campbell likes to take her toys out of her toy baskets to sit in them and read and play. She did this while my friend Maggie and I were visiting in the morning last week.

This is my friend Maggie! :) She was driving across the country to get to her new job and was able to stop for the night at our house. It was so great to see her since it had been about 3 years since the last time we were able to see each other face to face. Maggie just finished her MA in Anthropology at a university in India where she lived for the past 3 years. It was so great to see you Mags!!! :)

On an unrelated side note...it's actually feeling cold here today! I'm glad for the fall!

Boots

2009-08-27T05:35:00.002-08:00

Campbell has a pair of red rain boots that her Nana gave her when she was little tiny (Thank you Janet!!!). Now they fit and they're one of her favorite things! Every day we have to have them with us at some point and every day we have to put them on. :) She says, "boos, boos" and heads to the mud room where they are. Her favorite way to wear her boots is running around in them and only a diaper on! Here are some pictures of the little red boots...

There is now officially enough hair to...

2009-08-25T16:24:00.002-08:00

rock the mini shampoo fohawk! :)

p.s. she is VERY interested in trying to drink from a cup like a big person so despite my constantly telling her not to, she drinks from any container in the bathtub that is remotely like a cup. She's holding the cup that I used to rinse her off with tonight, and she's actually doing pretty well at the drinking like a big kid thing. Just a fun fact for ya.

Sleep well!

A Year in Teddy Bear Pictures

2009-08-24T18:36:00.008-08:00

12 months old

11 months old

10 months old

9 months old

8 months old

7 months old

6 months old

5 months old

4 months old

3 months old

2 months old

1 month old

she was still so tiny at one month...this is my birthday last year - Aug. 22, 2008

I think she was about 2 or 3 weeks old here...so tiny!

3 weeks old

2 weeks old

1 week old

In the hospital - the day she was born

3 days old - right after coming home from the hospital (yes, I know this is out of sequence... :) )

Maybe 10 minutes old - our first family picture after 9 months & 24 1/2 hours of labor...

Campbell Ann Kirksey is the most amazing little girl and I can't imagine life without her. She is such a joy and I'm astounded at the blessing the Lord has given us through her little life. I can't wait to see how she grows and changes this next year and what the Lord teaches all of us through it! :)

talking like a 2 year old

2009-08-24T10:18:00.003-08:00

hello all! I'll give you a bit more of an update on Campbell later when I post her 13 month teddy bear picture, but I thought you should know that her verbal ability is blowing us away! At 13 months old Campbell can say around 20 different words including please, thank you, cheese, bottle, more, is working on "I love you", amen, etc. I'll put up the list of words sometime just to help myself remember. Jeff has been working on reading a first words book (Thanks Kyle & Christina!) and having her point to the picture and say the word and she's doing really well! She now can communicate to us when she wants something and when she doesn't. It's really fun to watch her learn! The picture above is her telling me something - about once a day she has a very serious conversation with me where she must communicate dramatically what she's thinking! I have no idea what it is...but it's adorable! :)

This is my beautiful baby that is quickly becoming a little girl...

She's slowly getting hair. :) I think her cousin Addison who was born a few days ago has more hair or the same amount of it that Campbell does.

We've had lots of visitors already in our 3 weeks of being in our house! We love it! Some of our friends from Geneva came up for a couple of days last week. Here's Campbell & Toby playing in the morning.

Not my favorite picture of me but it's good of the group. This is Sara Jensen & her two babies - Toby & Zoe, Joanna Sprague (Aunt Jo in our house) and Campbell & I. We had so much fun with them here! Definitely a fun time watching the kids all play together and figure each other out. Love you ladies!

We've found our new church home already and are pretty excited about it. We're going to the Wesleyan church here in our little town of Houghton. It's a really heathy church with a ton of families of all ages and lots of things for kids. Campbell is enjoying the nursery time while Jeff & I go to the worship service. We hadn't put her in the nursery at our church in Beaver Falls so it's been a new experience for us to go to church together again. :) We like it!

Jeff & I already have plans to get involved in men's & women's bible studies and we attended a welcome potluck that was a lot of fun yesterday. People have been very friendly and warm towards us and by the end of our time yesterday night Campbell was already getting passed around because she wanted to go to everyone else! :) That's our social baby! It also means she felt safe, so it's a good thing. Another plus of our church is that it's about a 2 minute walk on foot to get there. We can see it from our front porch. For us who are always about 15 minutes late on sundays because we usually leave when we need to be there - the location is perfect! :)

Kyle & Christina's new little one - Addison Grace Welstad

2009-08-22T04:33:00.006-08:00

Addison Grace Welstad

born yesterday - Aug. 21, 2009 at 6:32am

6lbs 10oz with a head full of hair!

She's so beautiful and we are SO EXCITED to have her here!!! Now Campbell has a cousin and Kyle & Christina are awesome parents already. Jeff & I are sad to not be close but we're living through picture updates. These pictures my Mom, Dad & Kyle have sent me. Enjoy meeting the newest edition to the Welstads - my beautiful niece!

Christina looks so wonderful after having go through a long labor - :) Great job Sister!! You look like a Mom in love!

In this picture I can see Kyle in her...

In this picture I can see Christina in her...

How wonderful - my brother is a Daddy!!

Welcome to the world Addison Grace - I know the Lord will use you in awesome ways! We love you so much!

This is Campbell meeting Addison for the first time! :) She got really excited, wanted to touch her and said "Hi!" & "Baby!" a few times. So sweet! She loves her cousin so much already!

mmmmm...blueberry pancakes :)

2009-08-18T05:26:00.001-08:00

Campbell's room - cute lady bugs

2009-08-16T12:25:00.002-08:00

My Mom helped me so much while she was here the first week & a half to set up our house. One of the things she did was a few different crafty sewing projects. I didn't get the sewing gene like my Mom & sister so I rely on them or my friend Christy any time I need things like pants hemmed or curtains made. :) We used some cute red ribbon and a funky red button to tie back the curtains and we sewed lady bug buttons on the top. I love how her room turned out and Campbell loves it too! She gets excited to go to it & play in it. She's also sleeping really well in there, despite how hot our house is with the summer heat right now.

More rooms to come... :)

Minnie!

2009-08-14T17:18:00.003-08:00

Please excuse my sweaty grossness - it was super hot & humid here today! I had to show you Campbell's favorite thing the last two days - her Minnie Mouse towel! She LOVES this thing and says "Minnie" when we see it and wants to put it on. She giggles when she sees herself in it after she takes her bath. It's pretty fun. We got it in Disney World when we went in May. Very fun!

Have a good night!

The places we've lived in the last 2 months...

2009-08-14T04:52:00.004-08:00

I'm going to try to share some of the last couple months in as much chronological order as I can. Here are a few pictures of the places we lived. Jeff was in Houghton working all of June & July when Campbell & I were all over the place. The college put Jeff up in different on campus housing as it came open during their conference schedules. We were very grateful for this because it took about 2 1/2 months to close on our house which is very normal in NY - not sure about anywhere else. We had no idea the process would take that long or that we'd be homeless for that long. The Lord completely provided for us in our transition though and we are so thankful.

So Jeff moved between three different places in Houghton - our friends the Wade's let Jeff & our whole family at times live with them off and on for a few months (THANK YOU FRIENDS!!!) We laughed about how normal it started to feel to all live together when Avy - Scott & Jill's little girl, started waiting for Daddy & Mr. Jeff to come home from work every day. :) Mr. Jeff also has a doll named after him that Avy plays with in her doll house. Too cute! The other two places Jeff fluctuated between were a big old campus house and an apartment. It was a two weeks here, two weeks there, one week another place and switch again process that took constant moving.

While Jeff was in Houghton consistently, Campbell & I were in Beaver Falls at our Geneva apartment packing up, then in Houghton, then in BF, then in Houghton, back to BF - yep. We did that drive three times one week because of house stuff in NY & packing in BF. We also visited my family in June for a little over a week and then spent two weeks with Jeff's family in July in Montana. We traveled a lot and I can now say I'm very confident at traveling by myself with a baby. Campbell always did really well.

We closed on our house and then moved in August 1st - a glorious feeling to be sure! :) It amazes me how intuitive Campbell is about how Jeff & I are feeling. She slept HORRIBLY over the two months of moving around but the very first night in our new house she slept through the night and woke up a happy girl the next day. I think she knew we were stressed and tired. We are all so happy now in our new home and Campbell has a ton of room to run around, explore and climb. The glory goes to God - He is an awesome provider and we have been so blessed by the amazing friendship we've been shown by so many people that have literally taken care of us the past two months.

Here's miss Campbell wearing her new Houghton onesie in the big campus house in NY.

not much to do in student housing but play with Daddy's shoes. :)

Taking a bath in the claw foot tub in that house was fun - it got her ready to take one in our claw foot tub in our new house!

Helping repack her suitcase (yep - she has her own - I couldn't resist how cut it was!) as we were on one of our many trips back to Pennsylvania.

Hello from NY!

2009-08-13T07:04:00.008-08:00

Hey all!

So sorry for such a long blogging break. We have traveled across the country twice, lived in about six different places over the past two months, celebrated Campbell's 1st birthday, Jeff & my 6 year anniversary and bought and moved into our first house! I'll have more time later to blog tonight - we literally just got Internet about 10 minutes ago and I just couldn't wait to get online to say that we're still here! :)

Our apartment at Geneva all packed up the day before our move...

Our new house!!! (pictures of the inside to come very soon...)

Our family on Campbell's 1st birthday in Montana - it was pretty special because Campbell shares her birthday with her Papa Steve & Great Grandma Welstad (Granny) and they were all there together. We were very blessed by all of our family that day!

L-R: (bottom row) Grandpa Mike & Grammie Pam (my parents), Campbell, Nana Janet & Papa Steve (Jeff's parents), (top row) Granny & Papa Welstad (Roy & Yvonne ) my Grandparents & Campbell's Great Grandparents, Grandma Ann Kirksey (Jeff's Grandma - Campbell's Great Grandma)

Our 1 year old who is ready to take on the world! :)

Lots more to come!

The plant incident

2009-07-05T20:18:00.002-08:00

Our friend's whose house we have been staying at these past two weeks while they were on vacation, have a lot of plants. Campbell found two different ones that she particularly liked to get into. We had many many many "Campbell - No!" and "we don't eat dirt" conversations over our time here. One day it got really quiet and all the sudden I thought, "oh no! what's she into?" The answer to that question was of course a plant. My Mom always told me when I have kids there will be times that I could either get mad or get my camera - so I got my camera to document. Then I told Campbell "no" and tried to get some of the dirt out of her mouth thus creating the meltdown. Here's my little dirt lover...

Caught in the act!

The evidenceAfter the meltdown

I think its safe to say we wont have any big potted plants inside our house for awhile.

Angelica, NY

2009-07-04T12:48:00.006-08:00

Angelica, NY is a small neighboring town to Houghton - the town we live in. Our good friend's the Wade's live in Angelica and we really love the town so I decided to take some pictures of it today as we walked around for the Lavender Festival. This first view is from the Wade's back yard. The rest of the pictures are on main street in town.

Happy 4th of July!

2009-07-04T12:36:00.003-08:00

We've had a fun day so far! Ryan being here has been a wonderful gift for our family - Campbell keeps wanting to go to Uncle Ryan instead of Jeff or I which is fun! They read lots of books together and Campbell cuddled Uncle Ryan last night. :) Today we spent the afternoon at Angelica's Lavender festival. It was great! Small Americana town at it's best. I've got lots of pictures to post but for now I thought I'd just share the ones of us from today! Blessings!

Uncle Ryan is coming to visit!!!

2009-07-01T12:36:00.003-08:00

Campbell, Jeff & I are so excited because our dear friend Ryan Holt (who Jeff worked with the last 3 years at Geneva) is coming up to NY for the July 4th weekend! Yay! It just wouldn't be a holiday without some family to celebrate with, and we consider Ryan to be family. To celebrate this weekend I'm going to make homemade apple pie and potato salad to go with our meals. Should be tasty! We hope you all have a great weekend!