Big Spring Jam

Hello Good People, I am back! I decided to take a little break from blogging to restore my sanity. What with eveything that was going on last week. Only a week late, here are the highlights from Big Spring Jam:

Self Portrait of Me & Cam. We were not 100% sure about taking Cam into the Jam, so we sat in the parking lot for the first act. We were still tossing around the idea of taking him home early and leaving him with a sitter, but we worried about re-entry. We were able to get a parking place right next to the Coca-Cola Stage so we sat out there for awhile.

We had a neat sheet spread out in the parking lot with toys for Cam to play with.

Then Grand Daddy took Cam for aride on the scooter up to the fence. Cam, of coure, has Dad's cane, aka "stick."

We finally decided to take Camden into the Jam and let him stay the whole evening. It was pretty loud so we attempted to get him to wear earplugs. That lasted for about 2 minutes. The orange box he is holding has baby bug wipes in it. Camden thought it was the neatest thing and would not let go of it all night.

Camden was doing some serious people watching. He gets that from my Mom.

Of course we had to buy the $10 light up sword - a fancy stick! I love that Camden is clutching his sword, kicking Daddy and eating his foot in this picture. He gets that mulit-tasking gene from Mommy!
It looks like Camden was screaming in ths picture, but he was really laughing. He & Daddy were playing a fun game of "take the sock off, put the sock on." I'm pretty sure Camden won.

Me & Cam dancing during Huey Lewis & the News

Cam loves to be upside down! Towards the end of the night, he was getting pretty fussy so we were using all manners of disraction to entertain him. He could hang upside down for hours! As soon as you pull him right-side up, he flips back over. All in all it was a really fun time at the Big Spring Jam and I'm glad we took Camden. He had a lot of fun. This was his second Jam. We took him on Sunday night last year, when he was just 5 weeks old. We sat in the same parking lot that night, and did not actually go in with him. Sounds like this will be a yearly tradition!

Bad Luck Comes in Threes, Right?

Before I bombard you with my run of bad luck, let me share a cute picture of me and the hubs. This was Friday night at Big Spring Jam. Boy did we have fun! We camped out at the Coca-Cola stage all night. We missed the rain and really enjoyed the mild weather after the storm. We also had fun eating all the festival food! We did take Camden with us Sunday night and he really enjoyed it. Huey Lewis rocked! I will do a separate post about the Jam after I recover some pictures. On to the streak of bad luck we seem to be suffering from this week. Monday, Dad, Camden and I went out to lunch at Big Rosie's and then headed over to the Kids Market. Dad agreed to stay in the car with Camden while I went in to shop. So I turned on the Shapes & Colors DVDs for Camden and headed in to get lost in the sea of kids clothes, toys, gear and insanity. Hillary's voice was echoing in my head from her recent post on tips to shopping the kids mart. I was amazed to actually see people pulling laundry baskets with belts strapped to them! I lost all concept of time while I was in there and the next thing I knew it was an hour and a half later and I had missed two text messages and a phone call from my Dad in the car. I rushed out there as quickly as the checkout line would allow to find one dead battery. Turns out you can't play the DVD for 90 minutes without the car being turned on. You would have thought my dad knew that, but I guess I'll cut him some slack. Fortunately, I had already bribed him to babysit bought him lunch, so that helped ease his "suffering." It seems that my jumper cables got lost when I got my new car and I was without. We called Brad to come out and save us but he was all the way across town. Luckily, a very nice lady came out who had a set out of cables and jumped us off no problem. We did enjoy the nice weather while we waited. So all in all, it wasn't terrible, but still an inconvenience.

On Tuesday I had planned to stay home all day and let Camden rest up from his big evening Sunday at the Jam, and his adventure in the parking lot on Monday. That was not to be. We had a personnel crisis at Dinner by Design and I had to hightail it down there to handle the situation. I was unable to find a last minute sitter so I had to take Camden with me. After 4 hours of unpleasantness, Camden and I returned home. I noticed when I was entering the house from the garage that the door was ajar. I was positive that I had closed it because I had to chase the cat back in the house before we left. But I chalked it up to a faulty memory and stress. I put Camden down for a nap in the pack 'n play downstairs and headed in the kitchen. I put some groceries in the fridge and turned around to get a glass.
This is what I saw:

Honestly, my first thought was "Oh My Gosh! The door is defective and the window pane fell out!" You know, cause defects like that don't happen in the first 8 years you live somewhere. I was pretty stunned. So I walked into den and saw the rest of the damage. The door is still in the frame, locked & deadbolted, but there's a BIG hole in the middle where the pane of windows used to be.

At this point, I'm thinking that maybe we had a break-in, but I don't see anything out of place or missing. So I walk into the foyer and look into my office and see right away that my new laptop is missing. It still takes me several seconds to process the fact that while it has been a rough day and I am very stressed, I am absolutely positive that I did not take my laptop with me today, and it is definitely not where it should be. So I call my husband and tell him I need him to come home right away and he says "Okay," and hangs up on me! What? Why did he just hang up on me? He claimed later that I hung up on him! So I call him back and tell him that I think we had a break-in and he tells me to call the cops. Its pretty obvious now that I was clearly not thinking straight because I hadn't even thought of that! Nor had it occured to me to GET OUT OF THE HOUSE BECAUSE SOMEBODY MIGHT STILL BE IN THERE! So I finally gathered my wits about me, called the cops, grabbed Camden and my purse and hightailed it to the neighbors house. Sure enough, they had seen two suspicious looking guys hanging around our house about 2 that afternoon. It sounded like one served as a lookout on a cellphone from the sidewalk in front of the house while the other one did the breaking & entering & looting. We think our neighbors scared them off. They were long gone by the time I returned at 4pm. Thank goodness we were not at home when it happened!

The cops came and cleared the house and took statements from the neighbors. They said this is happening everywhere, and that most frequently these types of break-ins happen in broad daylight in nicer neighborhoods. The cops' theory is that they went straight for our jewelry in the bedroom and then saw my computer when they were coming back down the stairs and grabbed that on the way out. They cleaned out our jewelry chest. Not only that, but they had the nerve to steal one of my pillow cases to put the loot in! So ultimately they only stole jewelry, some cash and my brand new computer with all of my pictures on it. They were nice enough to leave the crappy laptop and my camera and camcorder, all of which were on the desk with my Mac. That's another reason we think they got scared off, because they didn't try to steal more. I am so glad they did not trash the house. Of course the cops probably did think the place had been tossed, based on the array of toys, newspapers and dirty dishes laying around.

Unfortunatley, we lost some very valuable jewelry. We also lost some very sentimental jewelry that cannot be replaced like my pearls that my parents gave me for college graduation, my slide bracelet that took years to complete, and a silver charm bracelet that all my friends gave me for my birthday after Carsyn died. Originally we thought that they also got my wedding band, my grandmother's diamond ring and some very special gold earrings that my mother gave me, but we discovered they missed the top drawer in the jewelry chest and so I do still have those special items. The cops assured us that they would catch the burglars, but the chances of us getting our jewelry back are pretty slim. We might have a better shot on getting the computer back, but I'm not holding my breath. We did finally get our new back door installed today, so I can safely leave the house again. I guess my new hobby will be visiting pawn shops.

Meanwhile, I am stuck trying to blog on this 6 year old laptop that is just barely limping along, so forgive me if my posts are not as frequent. At least I still have a computer.

And here is an example of the critters that have been finding their way into the house while we were without a back door for two days:

Poor little lizard. I'm not sure what happened to him, but I did find his tail. And I think I saw Jasper licking his lips. The cats were traumatized too. They wouldn't come downstairs for almost a whole day. I don't know why that worthless Cracker couldn't have puked on the intruder! He sure likes to puke on everything else!

So Bad Luck comes in threes, right? Cause I'm sure ready for this streak to end!

Making Lemonade

Yesterday Brad put Camden up on the kitchen counter where he discovered our lemonade pitcher. Brad is addicted to Crystal Light lemonade and drinks about a pitcher a day, so it's pointless for me to put the pitcher away. If I did, Brad would just be asking me where it was, cause you know men can't find anything. But, I digress. Camden thought this pitcher was the best thing since pancakes!

He also grabbed the dish scrub brush and wouldn't let go.

This kid sure does like household cleaning tools!

He was too intent on the pumping the pitcher handle for me to get a good face shot.

Up, down, up, down! Who knew a lemondade pitcher could be so much fun!

Speaking of the dentist, (we weren't? oh well, we are now) Camden had his first dentist appointment this week. He tagged along to my regular cleaning. He was so good! He sat in his stroller and watched in fascination as I had my teeth cleaned. Then the dentist looked at his teeth and discovered two new ones! We thought he was teething because he was drooling like Niagara Falls and he was chewing on stuff in the back. Both his upper and lower right cuspids have broken through. Then last night I was feeling his gums and discovered his upper left cuspid is also coming through. Wow! We are so fortunate that Camden does not get fussy when he is teething, and that his teeth emerge quickly. At the rate his teeth are coming, Camden will be eating steak and corn on the cob by the end of the year!

We are headed to the Big Spring Jam tonight, and plan to take Camden along for at least part of it. I think he is really going to enjoy the music and the people watching. I will be sure to post pictures tomorrow!

I'm going to be a Firefighter when I grow up!

Oh, the cuteness. 

On.

Off.

On.

Playing with Nana.

"Shapes are in my cookie jar..." 

Camden is getting really good at putting the shapes in the cookie jar. This is one of his favorite toys and he plays with it everyday. We definitely know that blue is his favorite color, because he always fishes out the blue square and carries it around with him.

Lo Mein

Mr. Hollywood! Camden has always been obsessed with glasses. If you have 'em, he wants 'em! Only recently has he started wearing them, oh so briefly. What a movie star!

We ate Chinese food the other day and this was his first time eating lo mein noodles. He love fried rice, hot and sour soup, crunchies (that go in the soup), general tso's chicken & fortune cookies. So it was  no surprise that he also love lo mein! It was pretty amusing watching him eat it.

Camden is still a very good eater, and seems to like spicy food. He's over blueberries, though. I think the last batch we had was too tart. 

Mommy's Little Helper

Camden is becoming quite the little helper with housework. Thank goodness, because I can't stand to do it. But really, who does enjoy washing endless dishes and cleaning toilets?

Camden really enjoys sweeping with the Swivel Sweeper. If I could just get to focus on sweeping up the trail of Cheerios instead of playing with the handle.

"I think it's full. Let me dump it out right here in the dining room."

Camden's newest trick is to help with the dishes. What a relief!

Hey, wait, are you loading or unloading? Those dishes are dirty!

No, that's not quite how the silverware goes in.

Camden is also very helpful with cleaning the bathtub. He takes his toys out of the tub and gives them to me! One by one! 

Or just throws them on the floor if my hands are full. Thanks!

He's getting very useful at beer fetching. Now that is handy!

I didn't teach him that. Granddaddy did. 

Yup, he's the littlest minion!

Well, I've been doing all the talking for awhile now. I would love to hear from all you readers! Leave me a comment and tell me why you read my blog or how you found me!

Dance, Dance, Dance!

Camden is really showing off his dancing skills lately. He loves to bop up and down along with the music, whether he's sitting, standing or being held. He loves all the little songs his various toys plays. Here he is dancing with his activity mat. I was just getting ready to pack this away when he started pulling up on it and dancing! I hope he gets his Daddy's rhythm, because Momma ain't got none!