Christmas is Coming! / Happy Birthday Allen!

Christmas is so very close and we are EXCITED!!! We can't wait to see how Elizabeth is going to react to all the hubbub of Christmas. We already have our tree up and she looks at it in awe and will very barely touch it. She still doesn't quite know what to think of it, but she likes it, I think.

Allen's business is finally slowing down. He has about one more week of work and then he will just have the one job and we'll get to see him a lot more. We'll miss the extra paycheck, but we will enjoy the quality time too. He is still loving his job at the nursery. It was his birthday yesterday and they got pizza and made him a cake. It's nice for him to have a job he enjoys and have coworkers/bosses who appreciate him. Then he came home and I did my best to give him a special birthday. We had some plans with friends that kind of fell through, so Elizabeth and I were his surprise party guests. The surprise was that I actually made his favorite dinner and his favorite cake instead of the quick, easy dinner and the cake from a box that I told him he was going to get. Surprise!!!

Happy Birthday!! This is also my first attempt at making the Camp family's "Red Velvet"cake. I did it a little differently because I did a bundt instead of a layered cake, but it looked pretty and Allen liked it, so I'm pleased.

This is Elizabeth wearing the bib/shirt that Grandma Camp made for her. It's really nice because Elizabeth tends to smear her food all over herself, so this will help keep her clothes stain free.

We went to Idaho after Thanksgiving to go to the temple and to see family. We had to stop along the way for a diaper change and we decided it was a pretty good spot for a picture.

We take Elizabeth to a swim class every week. She loves it! She splashes and laughs and screams. It's so cute. She loves the water. She even "swims" to move towards toys that she wants. Of course I am holding her under he stomach, but she kicks her legs and strokes with her arms, so it looks like she is swimming on her own.

She has a pretty sweet set up with her toys. She uses one as a pillow and then kicks back to read a good book. (A good book is one that has pictures and is nice and rubbery for chewing on.)

Milestones

We have been very busy and productive the last couple of months. I have been busy with school, work, Key Club (to whom it may concern, I am the school's Key Club advisor which takes up a lot of extra time planning projects and getting teenagers to "voluntarily" serve the community), taking care of the house, taking care of Elizabeth. I am kind of finding a balance. Pretty much I've decided to just do the important stuff and not worry about the rest. Which is good in theory, but I am a worrier, so it doesn't always work.

Allen has been working hard at his landscaping. He only has a few days left of good working time before it gets too cold, so we don't get to see a lot of him. But when he is home, he is a huge help and pretty much the best thing ever as far as Elizabeth is concerned. As soon as he gets home she is all smiles, laughs, and squeals. She has learned that dad is great for fun and games. He never wipes her nose or makes her eat vegetables. He just plays with her and carries her around, except for rare occasions when mom isn't around to do the dirty work. :)

At any rate, Elizabeth is an excellent distraction from other things. She is tons of fun. She has certainly developed a personality. She can be very independent and determined. She will play on the floor by herself for an hour if she is in a good mood and has a mission to accomplish. Her favorite is to chase the cat. She is pretty good at sneaking up on Gizmo (the cat) but when she gets close, she gets excited and screams, thus scaring the cat away. She also loves remotes, cell phones, and lotion bottles. She knows how to make her own fun but sometimes she needs her mommy or daddy to play with her and snuggle her. I love when she wants to snuggle, which I have gotten quite a bit of, thanks to the teething. She's needed a bit more comfort.

It's easy for daddy to make her smile from behind the camera.

She also has matching mittens.

If you want to know why she only has a sock and shoe on one foot, you will have to ask Aunt Melanie.

She loves this thing. She treats that flower like it's a steering wheel.

Elizabeth has figured out how to get around. It seems to be a combo of an army crawl/tippy toe type thing.

Happy Halloween!!! Buzz Buzz

Elizabeth loved her first Halloween!! She was a good sport about me putting on costumes several times and taking LOTS of pictures. We went to the trunk-or-treat at the church on Friday and we did a little shopping on Saturday and she wanted to wear her costume around town so they could see the cutest little bumble bee ever!

A friend of mine has a little girl who is almost exactly a year older than Elizabeth, so she had a costume that was just Elizabeth's size. So even though she already had her bee costume, we just couldn't resist dressing her up as a flower too.

It's hard to tell in this picture, but the hood has little antannae on it. So cute!

I put a bow in her hair a)because it is super cute and b) so people around town would know for sure that she is a girl.

Queen of Hearts and Alice in Wonderland Costume Set GIVEAWAY!!!!

Queen of Hearts and Alice in Wonderland Costume Set GIVEAWAY!!!!

Growing Girl!

We've had a lot of milestones over the last couple months. Elizabeth is changing and growing so fast, I can hardly keep up. Every day I am surprised by the things she does.

It's hard to see, but this is her very first pig tail!!!

Her hair is even long enough for bow clips!

She gets more fun every day. She talks a lot more, smiles more, laughs more. She has even started feeding herself her little snack foods. I can just put her in a seat and put gerber snacks or rip up pieces of bread or something and she just sits there and has herself a snack. It frees me up a little more for cooking and cleaning. She can sit and see me and I talk to her, and she's completely happy. She's so FUN!!!

Attacking a piece of bread in her high chair with the new cover Grandma Camp made for her. :)

She knows what it feels like to have a monkey on her back.... :)

Thanks Grandpa Camp! :)

p.s. That's her "tough stuff" face. Don't mess with her.

She's a kitty!

I feel guilty that I haven't posted for so long, but such is the life of the working mother, I suppose. I have been trying to deal with the guilt that I feel for only spending about 5 hours a day with Elizabeth (excluding weekends of course, when I get to spend ALL day with her!). I feel a lot of jealousy that my sister gets to spend 9 hours with her. But I figure it helps make me a well-rounded mother and helps me appreciate the time I have with her more.

She's a very happy girl in the mornings. She is a good audience while I get ready for work.

She doesn't even mind getting strapped in to go to Aunt Melanie's house.

Anyway. Elizabeth has changed a lot in the last couple months. She now rolls over all the time, it's basically her way of getting wherever she wants to go without having to deal with that pesky crawling, which she is getting frighteningly close to. She gets up on her hands and knees and rocks. Or she will pump her legs but not move her arms, which somehow ends up making her scoot backwards. She has been getting stuck underneath chairs and things that are behind her because of it. I have to keep a close eye on that girl.

She does odd things with her legs sometimes. This is her idea of halfway between sitting up and crawling.
Look! I'm kind of, almost crawling!

She can sit up like a big girl!

She doesn't mind when mom gets her all dressed up.

Silly Baby

Last night, Elizabeth starting laughing hysterically, and I couldn't figure out why. Then I realized I had the hiccups and she was laughing at each hiccup. By the time I got the camera going, my hiccups were gone, so I faked it. It worked.

Sleepcapades

I came into her room the other day, and she was actually sleeping in this position. It looked even more awkward in real life.

This is how I found her when I thought she was taking a nap.

And this is how I found her this morning. She had woken up and was happily chattering to herself and testing her wingspan.

Getting All Dressed Up

I am not sure if there is any blogging etiquette, so I'm not sure if I am supposed to post by topic like I am doing, or if I should have done one, really long post. I like doing it this way because I get to come up with fun titles for each thing.



So... I've been on a headband making kick, and my favorite thing to do is to make headbands that go with her church dresses, so here are a few of my favorites.

Okay, so she's not wearing a dress here, but I had just finished the headband and wanted to see it in action. If you can't tell, it's pink lace with a pink flower.

This is a dress her Auntie Berkley got for her. Here we have dark pink lace with a purple clip on it. Doesn't exactly match, but she's cute so she can pull it off.

I bought the flowers for this one before I found the dress. It was fate.

Adventures at Grandma's House

A few weeks ago, we went to my Grandma Ludlow's house to pick raspberries. My sister Melanie came with her kids and a little girl she watches and I brought Elizabeth and my niece and nephew. We love going to Gma's house because she has cool toys that have been around for about 50 years. And we walked away with free, grandma-grown veggies, so, therefore, awesome.

Here is Elizabeth playing in a retro walker.

This is what she was doing while we were working in the garden. I just strapped her in, set her down, and she stared at flowers until she fell asleep. She's my good baby!!!

Rolly Baby

My baby officially rolls over! She has been able to roll over front to back for about a month, but she has been lazy about the back to front rolling. She would only roll to her side then go back to her back, but today she decided to go all the way! I left her on her back and walked into the kitchen, and when I came back, she was on her stomach playing with the edge of her blanket. All this time, I had been using the wrong bait, I guess. I wasted my time putting toys and books just out of her reach. It was the crocheted edge of her blanket she had to get her little mitts on. Since then she's been flopping over from front to back to front all day. She still pretty much keeps in the same general area so I don't have to worry too much about her. But once she realizes that she can get closer to me or toys by doing this, she's going to be rolling all over the place. It's fun to watch her learn how to use her body, but sometimes I miss when I could just put her down and come back to find her in the same place and position. I've had to save her a few times from rolling into the end table or on top of a toy. One time she even scooted herself on her back almost all the way into the wall and I saved her a couple inches shy of a head bonking. Once she starts crawling, I'm done for! Wish me luck!

Oh My Gosh, I'm Blogging

Look at me, I'm jumping on the bandwagon! I have been in awe of blogs for a long time and finally decided to give it a try. I tried to be creative with the title. I called it "arecamp" because our initials are "A" "R" and "E" for Allen, Rachel, and Elizabeth and our family is like "our camp", get it? :) I know. I am a genius at word play. So...in the future I will be posting fascinating and adorable things, primarily about Elizabeth of course, but maybe some day Allen and I will do something worth writing about.