Start of Summer

We are enjoying the start of summer here in LA! It's warming up a lot more and we have even been to the beach twice! We have been enjoying going to the school park across the street, too. 

We are full on running now! :)

Trying out the swing for the first time.

Baby sized picnic tables! Always wanting to take other people's snacks and water cups.

Imagination

We officially have an imagination!

Words Words Words

This week has been full of fun, new challenges now that I have a toddler, but I'm going to share with you some of the exciting things that have been happening in Camden's world recently instead of boring you with my dronings of tantrums and discipline woes.

It's absolutely amazing to see all of the light bulbs going off in his little head, now. He's connecting some many words to the actual object/person/animal, etc. A few weeks ago, he started saying car and pointing to the cars outside. I don't think that I had made a big deal about showing him cars when we were out or anything, but if you are around us for more than 5 minutes, you will no doubt hear the word car at least 10 times. I bought him a race track for Easter and a little red car he can ride in outside. He absolutely loves it and plays with his cars all the time. I have even let him watch 15 minutes of Cars the movie at a time and we finally made it all the way through the other day. I don't think he could believe that they made a full film just about cars! 

He also has a lot of animal noises and names. Here are some favorites:
mooo for cow
quack and duck
aerrrr for elephant (with trunk motion)
Hoo Hoo for Owl
Bird

Some other favorite words:
Tuck for truck
vroom
beep beep
car for milk because he has it in his cars cup...that gets a little confusing sometimes.
mama
dada
mum mum for more food
No (not my favorite)....but he will say no and point to things he's not supposed to touch. He will also say it if he doesn't fancy doing something.
Ball

My favorite:
Night Night
He says it when he gets tired. I think that it is in reference to wanting his blankie because he always reaches for it when he says night night. He runs in to his room to grab it off his bed. He will usually go down pretty easily after saying night night, too. My mom told me that I always did that when I was little. I would just disappear and then they would find me asleep in my bed. It's been a bit more of an issue as of late because he knows he's tired but doesn't always want to stop playing. :)

Disneyland!

We got to go to Disneyland this past Saturday with our good friends Lindsay, Gwen, and Firat. Lindsay works at Pixar and can get us passes for free so we thought we could go and see how Camden liked it. Well, he loved it! There were surprisingly a good amount of little kid friendly things to do!

Here are some pics from the day:

 After a long day of play...looking a little spaced out!

 Camden held up his new toy to cover his face from the photo!

 look at the parade!! So excited!

 loved pointing at everything!

 petting zoo! who knew

 Ship in mickeys toon town. There's Lindsay, Gwen, and Firat, too!

 Water ball!

 Not real sure about the plastic eyes that dont move

 He loved the carousel!

Ladybug tea cups. They went a little faster than anticipated! He laughed for a minute, them was looking at me like, are you sure, mom??

Hope you enjoyed the pictures! I'm looking in to a year pass for Cali residents just to go for the day here and there. :)

A Quick Update

There's been a lot going on out here the past month since I posted anything. My Uncle passed away 2 weeks ago unexpectedly so I took a trip to Texas last week with Camden. It was such a nice trip even though it was filled with many tears and heartbreaking moments. My Uncle Herman was one of the most intentional, loving, caring, supportive, and encouraging people I have ever known. I am so blessed to have had him as an uncle. It was so incredible to hear all the stories of what a great man of faith he was as well as an incredible lawyer, husband, friend, father, grandfather, and role model in his community and church. Remembering his life inspired me and I know so many other people to live out more intentional lives while here on this earth.

In other news, we've really been enjoying watching Camden learn and change so much since we moved in to our duplex 6 weeks ago. Even in the last week, I've seen how much better he's getting at different sounds and words. Here is a little video I took of him while I was teaching him to say "mumble"

He also said "car" for the first time today and pointed to the car when he said it. He's making more word associations to certain objects now too instead of just saying them. 

Here are a few recent shots:

My friend Kimberly took this one today...We call him our smile boy

2 days after we got back from Texas, our dear friends from London (Dave and Jo) and their daughter Bella came to visit us. They are currently still here and this is a pic we got of the two kids outside the other day. Camden was so cute trying to reach out and hold Bella, so we just plopped her on his lap!

This was from Texas last week with Camden's cousin Carson. They had a lot more fun playing this time since Camden could walk!

We are going to Disneyland tomorrow (Camden's first trip!) with a few of Jared's college friends, and I can't wait to post pictures from our day!

<3

Finally settling in

So here we are at the end of February...over 2 months since we left England and we are finally settling in to our lives here in LA...well, sort of!

The last 3 weeks have been so hectic with moving out of Katie and Andrew's house and into our own place. We held out for a duplex that our old landlord's friend was buying and all of their paperwork finally went through and we got to move in on the 6th of February. It was a little weird that first Saturday just the 3 of us in our new home, but we absolutely love it. Before we moved in, we all had a round of sickness, and then the day before we moved in, I went to the doc and had a sinus infection, and then the day we moved in, Camden had a high fever (teething related...last molar coming through) and I had to take him to the doc to make sure it wasn't an ear infection. All the while dealing with the crazy doctor situation because we didn't have our member number but had coverage...long story but I'm glad it's over!
We finally got well and my mom came out last week to help us unpack and we got everything in it's place for the most part aside from waiting on a couple pieces of furniture. The night she left, I came down with a stomach bug and then the day after I got well, Jared came down with a virus with a high fever and is just starting to feel better today. Camden still has a little cough (a lingering cold) and I think our bodies are just so run down and we need to REST! So I feel massively out of touch with the world, but I've been learning a lot to just slow down and not worry about all of the little things of life (dishes, laundry, tidying up the house, etc.), but rather enter the Lord's rest.

Hebrews 4:10 for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
I feel like this is a continual lesson I have to learn here on earth bc of my personality and how I'm wired, but I know it must be important to rest that even the creator of the universe needed to take a break! So, if any of you have any good ideas on how to enter rest, let me know!


P.S. Camden is literally running everywhere now! He's starting to make a little more sense when he "talks", too! Here is a short "dance" video Camden wanted you all to see, too!

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