the marker episode

   And....we're back!! After a long hiatus from blogging, I've decided to give it a try again. Starting with Saturday - and our adorable, sweet, innocent boy... 
   First, let me back up to Friday night...we heard some loud sounds coming from Camden's room (when he was supposed to be sleeping), so we decided to investigate. To our astonishment, our tiny boy had slid his entire bed across the floor. (It is only a toddler bed, but still...) He had perfectly good reasoning - he needed a boost to to turn on the light, so that he could play with his cars. And that's just the beginning of our weekend...
   Let me now fast forward to Saturday, nap time. This has become a current struggle within the McNew household - Camden refuses to sleep when it is still light out ("It's DAYTIME, Mommy!!"). Nevertheless, we still feel he needs some down time (Mommy & Daddy need it, too!), so we still go through the motions of settling him down for a nap.
   Finally, the boy was settled in for "nap" time, I went out for a quick run, and Steve was doing some things around the house. All seemed relatively quiet. Then, just before I jumped in the shower, I heard what sounded like sliding...he was obviously sliding his bed across the room. I decided to let it go for now (we obviously needed to have another "talk" about not moving the furniture around in his room), figuring I'd go in to get him when I got out of the shower.
    Well, after my shower, I tiptoed down the hall to his room - it seemed awfully (& suspiciously) quiet. As I slowly opened the door, I was greeted with a very happy, "Look, Mommy!" Camden eagerly showed me his hands - they were covered with black scriblbles. I nervously surveyed the room...his dresser, his walls, his door, his window, his bed sheets, his cars, his body - all covered with black scribbles. He had managed to dig through a dresser drawer to find a black permanent marker that I had once hidden away, long forgotten.
    I called in for reinforcement, and Steve quickly came to check the damage. He quickly got some goof-off to salvage the dresser, walls, door, & window, as Camden's giggles danced around in the background. We were NOT amused. The goof-off made the black scribbles disappear, but it also took a little bit of the paint off. We scrubbed Camden's hands, tummy, legs, and feet - and it was off to the bathtub with Daddy to finish the job.
    Whew, never a dull moment! The only regret of the day was that we didn't take any pictures to capture Camden's artistic masterpiece.
    Of course, the weekend of unfortunate events was not yet over. Sunday brought on another difficult naptime - this time, I walked in to find some of my Willow Tree Angels broken and shoved into the diaper pail. Our favorite little monkey had climbed up onto his bookshelves to retrieve some of the breakables we had puposely placed out of his reach. Sadly, he broke the one of me holding him as a baby, and even more sadly, he broke the one I had gotten for him in memory of my mother (a "guardian angel" with a small boy). We cleaned up the pieces, and hopefully I will be able to glue them back together again.
    And....the weekend grew longer with an unexpected snow - I mean, ice - day on Monday. We decided to break up the day by driving down to Hagerstown - this provided a nice way for him to fall asleep for his nap on the lengthy drive back up - it worked. :)    
    As crazy as our weekend was, it still is such a joy to be around such a happy little boy. He really does keep very high spirits, and he loves to play games and sing songs. One of his favorite songs to sing is "I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart.... where? ... down in my heart.... where? .... down in my heart...."  Love it!!!! :)
    So that's it for now....I hope I can be more consistent in keeping up with all of Camden's antics on this blog!
   

To camp or not to camp?

     So how do you keep a 20-month-old in your sights (and in your site!) when you're at a campground filled with laughing kids & barking dogs? The thought of Camden running constantly in an unknown place certainly had us nervous about taking him along to Harper's Ferry KOA. But we decided we had to try, and to our pleasant surprise, Camden was absolutely perfect through the whole weekend! (Well, as perfect as you can expect a toddler to be!) He didn't want to take a nap, but I really couldn't blame him with all the excitement going on outside the camper. He had a great ride on our hike through Harper's Ferry National Park. :)

     Toddler-hood is apparently a big time for imitating everyone around you. And of course, this carries over to the swimming pool, too...there was a great baby pool at the campground, perfect depth for Camden to splash around and climb in & out of easily. There were also a few older toddlers who were fairly competent divers. Camden picked up the diving thing very quickly, and soon he was stretching his arms up in perfect dive-mode and trying to get under the water. He even quickly grasped the idea of running alongside the edge of the pool, trying to jump in while in his diving position. Luckily, Daddy was a step ahead of him every time and was able to catch him as he forged ahead into the water. It was fun, fun times for Camden, but certainly lots of nervous mommy moments!!

     At the start of this summer, Camden & I took a trip to New York City to visit with Aunt Bethy while she was there for a conference. Other than losing the GPS signal when driving through the city, it was a fabulous trip! Camden loved running up & down the piano in FAO Schwartz w/Aunt Bethy!!

 

We spent a lot of time in Central Park, and Camden loved the Central Park Zoo (especially the Children's Petting Zoo!). He loved petting the black sheep, but his favorite thing to do there was looking through the screen at the ducks. One of the ducks really liked Camden and came up to give him a few pecks!

       

     

We wrapped it all up with a fantastic feast at Five Napkin Burger...YUM!!

 

     We also had the chance to take Camden to his 2nd baseball game to see the York Revolutions with Grandma & Grandpa. Another event where Camden had to stay in the same place for a long period of time. We took along a booster seat that strapped onto the stadium seat, and Camden was so well-behaved! I'm sure the french fries and ice cream helped with that, too. We were so proud of him!!

This weekend, we're off on another camping adventure for July 4th. Here's hoping for another successful trip! :)

Camden: November 2009 (85 photos), by Steven McNew

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Camden's "Birth" Day (35 photos), by Steven McNew

I'd like to share my Snapfish photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.
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So close! :)

Yep, so close to the due date, but still no signs of our little Jelly Bean arriving any time soon! This picture is actually from last week - my belly has dropped even more! This time is so exciting yet a little scary at the same time.

We have set up labor induction for next Friday, Oct. 30, if he doesn't arrive before then... so no matter what, it will only be a week or less til our little bundle of sunshine is actually in our arms! :)

My students at school threw a surprise shower (thanks to some kind parents & an incredibly thoughtful teaching partner!), it was so incredibly sweet! It was so fun to see them so excited about this. We got some really cute stuff, including PSU gear for the little tyke. I had my students guess the date/weight/name for the baby, it was precious to read their responses (3 ounces, 1 pound...etc....). Too cute!!

Today was actually my last day teaching - it is so weird to walk out of my classroom with nothing to take home to bring back. I am so happy that the long-term sub is exactly who I wanted, I feel very confident leaving the class in her hands. The sad thing is, I am really enjoying this class a lot, so it is very hard to leave them. But I'll be back in January...

I've been trying to find ways to speed up Jelly Bean's arrival - my friend Katie took me for a pedicure on Tuesday, it was so relaxing and so generous of her. :) Now it's on to the raspberry tea and lots of walking (which I've been doing all the time with teaching, anyway) and hmmm, maybe some other things to speed it up... :)

I don't know if I'll be on here again before our Jelly Bean arrives, but I'll be sure to update as soon as I can with pictures - pictures of him will be much cuter than pictures of me with a belly! :) Here's hoping for a quick labor and a healthy baby boy!! :)

Baby McNew does PSU :)

Since Baby McNew has been heading up to Happy Valley so much, we thought we'd post a picture! :)

And, the Daddy-2-B celebrated a birthday up there... :) Thanks to Sam & Maegen for the yummy cookie cake!!

critter chatter...

It's so hard to believe we have less than 3 weeks to go!!! We have put the final touches on the nursery, so I thought I'd share some pics. I LOVE the "critter chatter" theme - I think it turned out so cute!! Each animal block has a different texture (fuzzy, corduroy, felt, etc.) - wish you could feel the different textures through the pictures! :)

The paintings above the crib were done by a teacher at Steve's school, they are so adorable!! They match our 2 favorite animals (the dog & the frog) perfectly. Gotta love the dog ears!!

Another one of Steve's co-workers put the loops on our comforter so we could hang it. It looks so nice on the wall!

My wonderful co-workers at Lurgan threw a shower for me, so the first pic is from that. Note the big bags of Panera bagels (I eat a bagel every day for lunch!) and the PSU theme!! So thoughtful & creative!! I'm very thankful to have such caring & supportive co-workers.

Enjoy the pics!!