Fall Clean Up.

When I say clean-up, I mean we cleaned up. And big time. Friday afternoon while the kids were napping, I raked the biggest part of our front lawn. The leaves had been there for awhile, just waiting for us to come and take care of them. There was a nasty wind storm that came through here last week and just about took care of the leaves on the huge tree in our front lawn (the only tree, actually). It took me about 45 minutes to do that, and I was all hyped up to take care of the smaller part of the yard. The part between our driveway and the neighbor's fence. That section of our yard is about 1/8th the size of the other part, but the leaves there were at least 4 inches deep. We started tackling that part on Saturday afternoon while the kids napped. We have never really taken leaf clean up seriously because never really cared about what our yard looked like. But this summer, we spent a lot of time and money re-landscaping our front and backyards, so we wanted to make sure we did a good job when dreaded the leaf pick up came around.

The following pictures are the leaves we raked between Friday and Saturday's sessions. Holy crap!

Part of the little yard.

Big yard and 3/4 of the little yard.

Another shot of the big pile.

View from the door. Ugh.

Needless to say, I am SO glad that is over with. Those leaves will be picked up sometime tomorrow by the city, and they will came back two more times before December 1st. We will likely have another (smaller) pile for them the next time and nothing for the 3rd collection.

In other news, today is Halloween, but we are not trick or treating. We decided to skip out on it once last time - while we can. Cameron is not crazy about dressing up in a costume and it's rather cold to take Hannah out, so we will be inside watching movies and (Cameron will probably be) eating M&Ms. We are excited for next year to roll around when he will have a better idea what trick or treating is all about. (And maybe he will actually be able to say 'trick or treat').

Tomorrow starts a 30-day challenge for me. One of my mommy friends, Ashley found an idea where you post about something different about yourself everyday for 30 days. The topics are:

Day 1-Introduce, recent picture, 15 interesting facts

Day 2-Meaning behind your blog name

Day 3-Your first love

Day 4-Your parents

Day 5-Your favorite recipes

Day 6-A picture of something that makes you happy

Day 7-Favorite movies

Day 8-A place you've traveled to

Day 9-A picture of your friends

Day 10-Something you're afraid of

Day 11-Favorite tv shows

Day 12-What you believe

Day 13-Goals

Day 14-A picture you love

Day 15-Bible verse

Day 16-Dream house

Day 17-Something you're looking forward to

Day 18-Something you regret

Day 19-Something you miss

Day 20-Nicknames

Day 21-Picture of yourself

Day 22-What's in your makeup bag

Day 23-Favorite vacation

Day 24-Something you've learned

Day 25-Put your iPod on shuffle, first 10 songs

Day 26-Picture of your family

Day 27-Pets

Day 28-Something that stresses you out

Day 29-3 Wishes

Day 30-a picture

I am looking forward to putting myself out there and for everyone to get to know me. It should be a fun and interesting 30 days! See you tomorrow for day one!

Blog (& picture) Overload.

I have issues. I get very bored with things easily, and love change, so it is no surprise that I am constantly thinking of ways to update my blog. This time around, I wanted something simple. I am not a professional, by any means, but I think this was my best effort yet.

The new pictures that are posted definitely help. We had a family photo shoot with Josh's aunt and uncle. They are the people behind Heystek Studios. These photos were meant to be used for a Christmas gift for our parents, and they still will be, but I am so excited about them that I have to share them with everyone now. These are just a few of the shots that they have edited, and I am in love.

Like I said, that is just a portion of the pictures they took that day. I am sure there are plenty more awesome shots to come.

Silly little boy.

I was cleaning up the house this afternoon, and had gone into the hallway to vacuum. I came back into the living room - with my back turned to DS while he watched Toy Story. I took my time, knowing he was sitting there, contently watching his movie. After about 5 minutes of serious vacuuming, I turned around and saw this.

The boy covered his face in lip gloss. The lip gloss was about half full, but a couple of years old, so I was looking up the cost of a new tube, and had left it on the end table while I was tending to Hannah earlier this afternoon. I should have known better. Cameron is the most curious kid I have ever met. He had the wand and was just rubbing it on his lips, cheeks and chin. He was so proud of himself!

He had been begging me for a bath all day, and I was going to wait until bedtime tonight to do it. He must have known that if he got himself all dirty, mama would give him a bath. Smart little monster! The best part of this whole story is that I have blackmail pictures for when he is a teenager. =)

Cameron is 2!

It has been awhile since I updated, but for a good reason. I spent most of the last week preparing for Cameron's 2nd (cry) birthday party. More on that later, but let's look back at the life of Cameron.

Cameron Richard Heystek was born on October 24th, 2008 at 1:09 pm. He weighed 8 pounds, 1 ounce and was 20.5 inches long. His delivery was quite stressful on him, and he wound up in the NICU for 6 days after a pretty bad meconium aspiration. We finally got to bring him home on October 30th, and have been in love ever since.

The first picture of Cameron sans wires and IVs.

His first year was awesome. I loved watching him grow, watching him roll over and crawl, listening to his coos, noises and his first words. He took his time reaching his milestones, that's for sure. The crazy boy didn't crawl until he was 9 months old.

His first birthday was celebrated BIG time. We had a party for him where he received more gifts than we could have ever imagined. We joked for awhile afterwards that it looked like Toys R Us threw up all over our house. There is no doubt that this boy is seriously loved.

Birthday boy!

Cameron finally took his first steps in March of 2010. We thought we would be carrying him to kindergarten. Just as everyone says, days after he took his first steps, the boy was running. Soon after the walking came the attempt at talking. He still is not all that verbal these days, but he is learning! We would guess he learns a new word almost every day.

In July of 2010, he became a big brother - a job he loves. He is concerned when she cries, loves to hold her, and gives her kisses almost any chance he gets. There is no doubt that he and his sister will be good friends one day.

Cameron's 2nd birthday party was celebrated on his actual birthday this year. He was spoiled, once again, by all of those that love him. The boy has a super cute wardrobe for this fall/winter/next spring. He also got a new train set (Fisher Price Geotrax), and he loves it. We got him a remote control train with it, and he has been spending a lot of time driving it. His birthday breakfast consisted of cinnamon rolls (his favorite) with the bright blue frosting from the cupcakes I was making for his party.

Good morning, birthday boy!

Daddy gave him the spatula from the frosting. He was a mess.

These days, we have been working on potty training. Cameron has gone on the potty twice in the past week. I am working extra hard to try to catch him before he goes in his diaper. The first time was when he woke up dry from his nap. I sat him on the potty and he went pretty quickly. The second time was when he went in the bathroom and said "potty!" so I sat him down, waited for a few minutes, and as I was out in the living room grabbing a diaper, he had gone again. We are making strides! The pediatrician he saw yesterday told me not to worry if he is not catching on fast. It takes some kids until they are 4 to be potty trained. I absolutely do not want to be changing 2 diapers for the next 2 years, so here's hoping!

Speaking of the pediatrician, Cameron had a pretty uneventful 2 year exam yesterday. He weighs 26 1/4 pounds and is 34 inches tall. He is in the 25th percentile for weight and 50th for height. I don't remember the exact measurement of his head, but it is in the 95th percentile. Future genius? I think so!

Hannah is 3 months old.

Gah, I want to cry just typing that. She is growing up so fast. I don't have her stats, but you can see from this post that she is growing like a weed. She has started to 'talk' more, which I love. She coos and has the cutest little laugh (although it is not quite a belly laugh.. yet.). She hates tummy time, just like Cameron did. I don't know what it is about these kids of mine, but as soon as they are flat on their tummies for more than 10 seconds, a meltdown follows. Oh well, we continue to try.

She is currently wearing clothes that range in size from 3-6 months. Pretty soon I will be cleaning out her closet to go from cute, summery outfits to warm, cozy and comfy winter outfits. Cry. She has several headbands, but her head is growing faster than the rest of her body, and they are all too small by now. Such a bummer, she looks so cute in them! Now we will wait for her to grow hair so we can put cute little barettes and bows on her! =)

Every time Hannah sits in her carseat, she tries to sit up in it. We are certain that this girl will not take her time hitting her milestones like her brother did. (Cameron didn't crawl until he was 9 months old and didn't take his first step until he was 16 months old). She is a busy little girl!

Here are a couple of pictures (we LOVE to take them monthly to see how she has grown) that I took this morning. The lighting sucks, but I am still learning how to use my camera (and lightroom).

Our 3rd Anniversary.

Well, it's technically tomorrow (the 13th), but I am feeling nostalgic right now. 3 years have passed - already. It seems like just yesterday that I was a ball of nerves, sick to my stomach in the dressing room, just waiting to get the ceremony part out of the way so we could celebrate being in love.

Our 1st anniversary was spent anticipating the arrival of our first born baby. I think we had dinner at the Olive Garden and called it a night. I was paranoid that the baby would come at any minute, so I know we didn't do much. (He came 11 days later).

Our 2nd anniversary is an even bigger blur. I can't remember what we did. I'm sure it was a dinner date somewhere, but I don't recall. I am awful. Around the time our anniversary came, I was hard at work planning a 1st birthday party for Cameron, and was pretty much focused on that for a couple of weeks.

I am not sure what this year's celebration will be. It kind of sucks that our anniversary falls on a Wednesday, so we are holding off our celebrating until Friday night. We will take the kids to their Grandma and Grandpa's house and go out to celebrate 3 wonderful years. I am excited!

Under Construction.

 

I am trying to decide how I want this blog to look. I can't be satisfied for more than a month with a layout, so I am in the progress of making it pretty once again. It isn't something that is high on my priority list at this time, unfortunately, so keep checking back. I am sure it will be pretty again in no time!

The first weekend of October.

Friday night kicked off the fall season for us. We headed to an apple orchard just outside of town. I had decided a few weeks ago that since we bought our fancy camera, I might as well try and take some shots of Cameron while we were there to use as his 2nd birthday pictures. First, we walked through the apple orchard. Cameron was not too fond of the apples at first. After about 5 minutes of walking around and looking at them, he started picking them up off the ground and holding them. He threw a couple, thinking they were balls.

After we got a few good pictures there, we headed to the corn maze. We did the maze last year, but that was before Cameron was walking, er running, so we decided not to do it this year. We watched a tractor ride by, pulling loads of people on a hay ride. Of course, Cameron loved every second of it. He loves tractors. We walked to the (tiny) pumpkin patch, and just as Cameron bent down to touch one, my camera battery died. Of course! Josh ran to the car to charge the battery for a couple of minutes, then came back to join us in the market. We bought some delicious apple-cinnamon donuts, a 1/2 gallon of cider, and a pumpkin shaped kids cup full of apple cider for Cameron. (To say he loved the cider is an understatement.)

As soon as we purchased our items, Josh went back to the car and retrieved the battery. We went back to the pumpkin patch, got a couple of photos, then went to the kids play area. They have a giant rocking chair, a bounce pad, a huge tube slide and a tiny corn maze, among other things. At this point, it was just about 7, and it was time for the orchard to close.

Saturday afternoon was spent in Mishawaka, Indiana. I had been wanting to do something different, so we decided to drive the hour to Mishawaka. They have a mall that is better than ours, a Chipotle (Josh is obsessed) and Chick-Fil-A. We went to Chick-Fil-A first (our first time!) and Josh went next door for his burrito. While Cameron and I were waiting, he had his first encounter with the C-F-A cow. He was terrified. His legs started shaking and he cried. The cow was pretty creepy. He followed kids around, even the ones that were scared of him. Thankfully, he didn't stay around us for too long. We did our (window) shopping, then came back home.

Sunday was lazy, for the most part. I did my grocery shopping, as always, and Josh stayed home with the kids. We had a late lunch with his mom and step-dad and went to Target to kill some time. The night was ended with a disappointing Bears game. At least I won this round in Fantasy Football! My record is now 3-1. Not too bad.

I am looking forward to more fun fall weekends! I have to enjoy them before it is winter and the snow is piled 4 feet high. Sigh.