Here are a couple of pictures I took today... For some reason, the colors seemed off in them, so you get to see them in black and white.

Cam might be getting an ear infection... Ugh. Poor little guy! We'll see how tonight goes.

Hope all is well on the friend/family front!

Love to all.

We're Back!

Well, our computer got sick, and had to go to the doctor, so that's why I haven't posted in a few days. Not too much exciting to report....

Cam's got a potty chair (Am I the meanest mommy ever to post this picture? He's going to KILL me when I break this out in 15 years!... And I will. Hee Hee Hee!). I'm actually thrilled that he's down with sitting on it... My goal is to have him potty trained by the time he's 3, so we're taking it really slowly.

Also, the kiddos had their annual well-child checkups. Serayah was SO not down with the prospect of shots. She started freaking out. My dad's diabetic, and she sees him taking insulin shots all the time, so I told her that "Grandpa takes shots, and he doesn't cry... right?" That brought on even more hysteria... I was mystified. I asked her what on earth was wrong? She sobbed out "I don't want a shot!!!! I don't want to be old like Grandpa!" Anyhoo... she got her 2 shots, and wasn't thrilled, but everything's done now, and all is well with the world.

In case you're wondering, here are the kids stats from their appointments.

Serayah grew 3 inches last year.

She is 44 inches tall (99th percentile)

She weighs 47 lbs. (98th percentile)

Cam had a MAJOR growth spurt... at last check (about 5 months ago, he was in the 83rd percentile for height, and was 34 inches)

He's now 36.5 inches (95th percentile)

He weighs 31 lbs. (83rd percentile)

Looks like he's gonna be pretty darn tall too.... Of course, everyone knows that they get their height from my side of the family... right? We're guessing that Serayah's going to catch up to me height-wise when she's 10. Sigh. Oh well... at least I'm used to being a shrimp!

Are we in trouble?

Well, when we were in Oregon, I mentioned that Serayah rocked the photo shoot... we didn't think much of it. Today I was trying to curl my hair, and Serayah saw the curlers, and HAD TO have curlers too. It actually took quite a lot of convincing before she'd let me take them out. She proclaimed that "My hair is beautiful, Mama". I whipped out the camera to get a snapshot, and this is what I got!

The best laid plans....

Well, as most of you know, we took a trip to Oregon, and got back on Thursday. We'd been SO looking forward to getting back to where the land is green, and the waters are plentiful. We were going to spend 2 nights at the beach (my own personal happy place), I was going to try and go out with some girlfriends, we had lots of fun stuff planned. Uh huh.


The alarm clock was set to go off @ 5:15 on the 13th, so we could get up and head to the airport. At 3:30, Serayah threw up... followed by Cam doing the same at 3:55. We were hoping (deluding ourselves into thinking) that it was just something that they'd eaten the night before, and that they'd be fine. After Serayah got sick again at 4:20, I knew things weren't looking good. To make a long story shorter, I ended up calling the airline and having our flight switched to the next day. Fortunately, Cam was feeling better after about 12 hours, but Serayah stayed sick until Saturday night. Poor thing... she would take 1 or 2 naps a day (not like her at all), and didn't eat anything really until Tuesday.


The Thursday flight went really well (although I kept the air-sickness back at the ready). Cam slept most of the way, and Serayah just kept wanting me to explain all of the things she saw on the ground. She was fine until we left the Airport, so that went well. We got to the beach... I was SO happy. It was over 100º inland, so I was expecting temps in the 80's and a gentle breeze. Uh huh. What we ended up with were the 60's and 30-45 mph winds. We were on the beach for maybe 30 minutes, and had to go back in. The sand was blowing so hard that the sand was hurting Serayah's feet, and Cam was just not impressed at all. Sigh. To make matters even better, in the wee hours of Friday, I started getting sick. Yeah... vacation fun! Here are some pictures from the beach.














We got to Roseburg Friday afternoon, and any ideas I had of seeing any of my friends went out the window (for some reason, no one wanted to be within 20 feet of me), and on Saturday, our plans of everyone getting together at a park were shot too. Shiela was going to take our pictures then, (keep in mind that the weather was gorgeous on Saturday) but of course, didn't want to bring the plague back to her family.



Sunday was the birthday party, and Serayah & I were both feeling better. I applaud any of you who risked the germs to come out and see us. As far as I know, no one got sick from us, so that makes me really happy. The party was fun, and Serayah had the time of her life playing (although she still wouldn't eat anything...including cake). Cam had lots of fun too. All the presents were a big hit, and Cam's new Thomas the Train stuff has been going with him everywhere. We were thinking that things were looking up and that now everything would be sunshine and roses.



Sheila was planning on taking our pictures out at Cleveland Rapids on Monday morning. We woke up to rain. Seriously. We went to her house to get studio shots. Her flash wouldn't work. (This had never happened to her before). Apparently, that was our Curse's last attempt at us, and she got it working. The photo shoot went surprisingly well, and Serayah turned out to be quite a little ham (who would have thought?).



We ended up going out to the Safari and the kids had a great time... Cam was more thrilled about sitting up front and "driving" than the animals, I think. Here are some Safari pictures.... I know that most of you have been there a million times, so bear with the animal shots... I've told some of my friends around here about it and wanted them to get an idea of what it's like. Also, there are some pictures of the kids playing inside the walk-thru area. They had a blast.

The next day I was able to spend some time with my friend Amber, then we were able to go out for a couples dinner, which was terrific. We drove up to Portland on Wednesday, then flew back home Thursday morning (yet another great flight).

I'm happy to report, that Serayah is finally back to normal... All of her fish survived (I didn't think we had a shot in heck of coming home to survivors)... Cam is still obnoxious... and all is right with the world. I'm sure that we got all of our bad luck over and done with in this trip, ensuring that all future vacations will go smoothly.... :)

Mommy... Oh my Gosh!

That was Cam's reaction upon seeing me walk in with my short hair (He's just started saying, "Oh my Gosh!"... and uses every available opportunity to spout it out). I know... yet another picture of me... I promise... this is the last one for a long, long time. Some of you were wanting to see the "after" haircut, so I thought I'd post it for you. I'll be sending off my ponytail to Locks of Love tomorrow. Art thinks it's cute, so that's a plus (of course, being a guy, he liked it better long... but he didn't have to wash and brush it!).

We got back from Oregon, and I've got some pictures, but I don't have them downloaded. I'll put a lengthy post about our trip complete with pictures when I've got some time.

Cam

Here's a picture of Cam that we took today. Not much new to report, I just thought it was a cute picture.

New Glasses

I got some new glasses today. I got some pinkish ones (Serayah really liked them too), so now Serayah and I both have "Princess" Glasses... her words. Thought you might like to see them. Oh, and in case you were wondering, our almost 4 year-old daughter took the photo! Go Serayah!

Serayah's Newspaper Ad

Well, as you can see, Serayah got her picture in the paper for the first time. Here she is modeling the latest in fashion eye wear for her Optometrist's office. Thought you'd get a kick out of it... She sure did!

The Neiss Backyard Olympics

The Junior Jump (prelims)




The Darling Dangle
The Shorty Sprint


The Junior Jump (Finals)













The Gold medalist!





















Well, in spirit of the Olympics, here are our games of the day. As you can see... it was quite rigorous and hotly contested.

You can take the boy out of Oregon...really, you can.

Well, no pictures to post, but I just thought I'd add a note about Cam. You all saw from my previous post Serayah's joy in playing in the rain (while Cam was napping).

Well, yesterday we were all outside and it started raining. Serayah was estatic... giggling and running and happy as a lark. As soon as the first raindrop hit his head, Cam started freaking out and holding his hands over his hair... not pleased about the water from the sky stuff at all. In fact, if he would have had some wire-rim glasses on, he would have looked just like chicken little (he does have a big head... it would have been perfect).

We huddled him in the top of the playset with Daddy, so the tarp could shelter him from the dubious drops. That was OK until we had to run him back to the house, then the hysterics started again. Have there ever been two more opposite siblings born? We're really starting to wonder.

You can take the girl out of Oregon....

Well, we had quite the rainshower the other day, and Serayah was desperate to get out and play in the rain. She laughed, and ran, and jumped... but mommy's camera was getting too wet to stay out for the entire adventure.

Doh a Deer

Here's Serayah wanting to get in the act... her rendition of "Doh a Deer". Enjoy!

Hide and Seek

Here's Cam's "counting" when he and Serayah play hide and seek. I know the picture's grainy, but this is on my old digital camera that is meant for still pictures, but has a camcorder feature... it was handy. If you guys like these, I'll try and start getting good video on the camcorder... let me know.

Camden's face meets concrete

Well, the picture doesn't really look that bad, but man oh man does Cam have a goose egg. We were going to lunch yesterday before taking my Dad to the airport (Thanks again SO MUCH for coming, Dad!), and Cam pulled a Summer. In his joy to reach get to me on the sidewalk, he comes barrelling up the side of the car and doesn't notice that large curb-thingy that separates the parking-spot from the sidewalk. In his defense, he was really wanting to get to me (which made it all the worse, you should have seen his big 'ol grin as he was running to me with open arms)and was running with all the abandon his little almost 2 year old legs could produce. He hit so fast and hard he didn't even brace his fall with his arms. The head thud was not good.

You know, this kid can give Bart Simpson a run for the obnoxiousness award, and his tantrums can be on epic scale, but I held him for about a minute while he cried, then I asked him if he wanted to go in and eat... he gave me a sniffle or two more, then grinned and said "Nummy!!!" and that was it. Huh. He can go on for 15 minutes if Serayah doesn't give him what he wants immediately, but making a header into concrete, 1 minute of cuddling then the prospect of food is all it takes. Go figure.