Sleepy boy

This is the reason I was able to get as many posts up as I did today.....
I love the way he sleeps with his froggie. That frog and "Good Night Gorilla" are the two things he's been dragging around lately.

Ball!

For Cam's birthday I found him one of those blow-up balls on a string. He already liked balls, this was a whole new world! He's such a cutie! {Sorry the pics are a little blurry, I thought they were fun enough to share anyway!} I had a video too, but it wouldn't let me load it :(

I wanna stair master... Oh wait, no....

By request of Uncle Ammon, here is a video of Cameron: Master of the Stairs! He figured it out all too quickly. He's a had a few tumbles, one of which scared me half to death! We put the gate back up one day while some friends were over and he just about lost it! Baby jail = Sad baby = Tired momma, so the gate has stayed down, and he's actually quite good at the now. He now roams the house at whim. It still makes to nervous, but it's soooo nice to not have to be one place anymore! And it made me love our house even more because I can hear him where ever he decides to go!

Surprise!

Kevin came home and surprised me with flowers a couple weeks ago. My favorite part was how much Cameron loved them! When the flowers were blown, I let Cam tear them apart. MAN. Good idea and bad idea.... he LOVED it, but it made a royal mess. There were petals everywhere. I'm such a sucker for that darling smile of his. I let him get away with wayyyy too much. :)

In case you didn't know, you probably shouldn't eat these......

Happy Birthday Cammypants!

Happy Birthday to my baby boy! I can't believe that it's already been a year since he was born. I will spare you of all my reminiscing. All I have to say is that he has been such a great little boy! We couldn't have wished for anything better! He is now 89% for height and 27% for weight, nothing has changed. :)  He is growing up so fast. He now has his two front bottom teeth and is cutting his two front upper teeth! He's on the move and has started walking too! I just hope I'll be able to keep up with him! I'm still too scared/ nervous to take down the baby gate.... hopefully soon though, it's sooo much easier without it!

Grandma and Grandpa Miller didn't know anything of the dinosaur trend, but the card they sent was perfect! haha. One of our friends in our ward makes puppets, and we asked her to make dinosaur hand puppet for Cam. HE LOVES IT!! {She custom made it from a picture in a book we showed her. She did an awesome job! Here's a link to her facebook if you want one as cool as mine! https://www.facebook.com/pages/MS-Puppet-Queen/197500286952414?ref=ts&fref=ts} Every time we put it on, he wants us to "eat" his hand. He has the best giggle and it makes me so happy! 

Apparently the doctors office got the memo too. At his check up, the day after his birthday, they gave him this book. Haha. 

It's party day and Cam is loving snuggling with Daddy on the couch.

He must know it's his party day because he's been awfully silly this morning!

He picked his birthday balloon and loved it so much that I think he made a hole in it on the way home... it has deflated a lot sooner than expected. But he still loves it and was sooo excited to play with it! 

The candle is bigger than the cupcake! haha 

Instead of blowing, he wanted to use his fingers :)  He was such a polite boy and wouldn't grab it... he mostly just poked it with one finger. He did eventually dive in a little though. :)

Pinata time! 

I love that look on his face, he's actually trying to hit it! Uh oh...

We let all the kids give it a whack! 

 The was somewhat still intact, so we had Cameron try it on, he didn't like it much, but it sure was cute.  I have a few more pictures, but it's not letting me load them right now :( 

It was so much fun to have so many of our friends over to celebrate with us. We even got lucky and didn't get rained out!
Happy Birthday to by darling baby boy. We love you Cameron! Happy Birthday!!

Dinosaur Pinata {tutorial}!!

We started planning a birthday bbq for Cameron's birthday, and then we realized that we didn't have much for kids in way of yard toys- so I started brainstorming what I could do that would be fun.... so I started browsing Pinterest and party ideas. I found a few posts on pinatas and thought I'd give it a try. Keep in mind that the last time I've done anything even remotely close to this when waaaay back in 5th grade making a paper mache mask, haha. Anyway, he's a quick tutorial of what I did. It's time consuming, but really easy to do!

I started trying to make a basic shape of that I wanted it to look like. I was going for a dinosaur. Ya, I know, probably not the best thing to start out on, but whatever. I used 2 balloons, 2 empty toilet paper for the legs (I only had one, so I actually unrolled half a roll to get a second one, might have helped if I planned ahead, haha) and then just rolled up paper to make the hands and tail. (I wouldn't necessarily recommend this because it does get wet and soggy really easy, but it did work). I used masking tape to tape it all together.

Step 2: I fashioned some feet out of an empty cereal box. {again, the planning ahead thing... I may or may not have had to finish off a box of cereal in order to do this....}

Step 3: I gave a third balloon to my son because he wanted to two I was using :) 

I used the cereal box again to create the face and body shape. This doesn't have to be perfect because it is really easy to add detail when you're covering it.

Now the fun and messy, time-consuming part! Making the goop! Super simple recipe: 2 parts water to 1 part flour. 1 cup flour 2 cups water. If its too runny just add a little more flour. I like it more on the runny side because it dries faster.
Get a good chunk of newspaper {also failed on this too, garbage day and I threw mine away... thank heaven for friends who have a stash! wow, this is making me sound extremely unprepared....} and cut it into strips, I'd say about 2 inches wide, whatever you find works best for you.
Dip your newspaper into the goop and get it all covered and coated. Then, run your fingers down it to squeeze or wipe off the excess. The less of the goop left on the paper, the less time to dry. It does all need to be moist though or it won't stick.

This is what mine looked like with one full layer. Make sure your work around the object that you are covering evenly.... if you don't it will tip over. I even knew that, but I was reminded the hard way.

Do a couple layers. This is one is my third layer. This is where I added in more of the molding features. It's all just newspaper just like the layers, I just bunched it up to make the shape I wanted. Then, I added a layer over the top so that it would be smooth.

Way back in 5th grade, we painted our masks or used crate paper and made them look all frilly, but I didn't want that, I wanted a dinosaur! So, I used tissue paper and modge podge. It really doesn't get any easier. I cut my tissue paper into small square and starting gluing them on. I didn't take care to make them perfectly smooth because it didn't need to be, but you could if you wanted to. It does take quite a few layers of tissue paper to make it non-see-through. Again, didn't care too much, seeing that is was going to be destroyed in probably less than 5 minutes and it had already taken hours so far. At this point you can see that I left the top uncovered. Here is where I cut a hole for my string and cut a hole to stuff candy in. Just make sure you patch it up really good and then cover it the same as you've done the rest.

 

The end product!! I added a few more details, still out of tissue paper. I know it's not the best pinata I've ever seen, but I thought it was pretty good considering! Cameron loved it and stick his hand in it's mouth all the time. It took a while to make, but it really was fun to do.

Silly Billy Boy

I love our silly little boy. He loves it when we put his pants on his head. He swings them around like floppy ears, then when he tries to pull it off, he pulls it down over his face, but then he figures it out and it's all good. I just love the way it scrunches up his face! I love my little boy! He's growing up too fast!

Visit From Grandma and Grandpa James

Grandma and Grandpa James came to visit! Kevin didn't think that he was going to be able to borrow the tesla for an afternoon, but everything worked out! He surprised his dad by driving it home instead of you know... our '90 little civic, haha. This little car was sooooo much fun! {I think the red one looks so much cooler than the green one we drove the first time, just sayin'} Kevin was really excited to be able to sow it off to his parent's when they came to visit too! We're not sure how much longer they'll be around, so hopefully we'll be able to get it when the Miller fam comes out! ;)  

Cameron loved trying to help Daddy and Grandpa install our new window seat :) The sound of the drill scared him a little, but he still wanted to be right there. Our project is still incomplete, but it is usable! We are currently painting the shelves and need to add on the trim. It has been soooo great to have!

It took a little coaxing to get him to go in here, but now it's the only place he wants to be! ... that may be due to the fact that that is where the computer now resides.... It's a wonderful place to sit when the air conditioning is running! Smart little guy!