Cam in a Box

Guest Post from my sweet Hubby!

Guest Post from a Grateful Husband:

I do have to say that I am grateful and lucky husband. Melissa, my beautiful wife, continues to surprise me each and every day.

She is there for me no matter what is going on with work or our business. I know that I can call her whenever I am stressed out about whatever the emergency is for that minute and she will calm me down. If you know me, you know there is always some kind of drama going on!

As far as being a mother, she is hands down the best! Who else can take everything in stride and continue to do everything she does? I have to say that I got very lucky in finding this treasure! Who knew that such a good person would be hanging out at a bar in Huntsville? Sometimes I do not know how she does it. When I am alone with little Cam-Cam, I am often overwhelmed but when Melissa is there I know I have nothing to worry about. I know that Camden is such a happy baby because of her! She has been through so much in her life and takes everything in stride.

This blog is a great example of how she goes above and beyond the call of duty. This is a great way for my family to keep up with what it going on with Camden and our lives. I am not the best at making phone calls but when I do talk to my relatives, they already know the scoop on “what is new.” When she started talking about doing a blog I thought that there was NO way that it was going to last. That is what I get for not believing...the Littlest Lobo Blogspot has been up for over a year with over 150+ posts!!! Great Job Baby!

I only hope that I am as much of a rock for her as she is for me.

I love you Sugar Pop!!!

Elizabeth's Surprise Birthday Party

My friend Elizabeth's birthday was Dec. 11. We surprised her with a party at Phil Sandoval's.

Here is the birthday girl:

Liz & hubby Shane

Jeff & Brandy - who is now a brunette!

Tracie, Jeff & Brandy

2 very tired Lowes. I had just returned from Savannah the day before & Brad had just flown all night from Israel. Can't believe he was still awake at this point. What a trooper.

Liz, just after she saw all of us. She is wiping away a tear!

Tamitha, Me, Brandy, Liz, Sonia & Cathy

It was so much fun to surprise Liz. She really thought everyone had forgotten her birthday! This was only about half of the people at the restaurant. I couldn't get pictures of everybody because there were so many & our table was so big! They continued the party at the Nook, but we were just too tired to go.

Liz, Happy Birthday and I hope you have a wonderful year!

December Bunco

Our bunco group went to Macaroni Grill for our December gathering. We didn't get to roll the dice, but we did a super fun ornament exchange. Of course, dodo me left my ornament on the table & didn't realize it til after I got home! Oops.

The whole group:

Brandi, Me, Cathy, Natalie, Brandy, Tracie, Tamitha & Liz

Tamitha & Liz (I have no idea what they are doing!)

Cathy brought GiGi's cupcakes to share - YUM!

Brandi, Me & Cathy

Liz & Brandi

Tracie & Tamitha

Natalie & Brandy

We really had fun talking and laughing all night. We are all looking forward to another fun year of Bunco get togethers!

The Perfect Family Picture?

I thought I'd try to get a family photo the day after Christmas since I failed to do so on Christmas day. Dad came over to go take us to dinner so I recruited him for the job.

First Take - Everybody's smiling but nobody's looking at the camera. I have just ripped Camden's bib off and am trying to hide it behind me.

Second Take - Brad & I are smiling but Cam is crying & trying to escape.

Third take - Brad is still posing, Cam has made his escape & is trying to run off, and I'm trying to convince him to stay.

Last take - Brad's eyes are squinty & he's holding Cam's legs, I'm holding Cam by the armpits to keep him in the picture, but we are all looking at the camera and smiling.

In all these, the background is cluttered, the dirty bib looks like gym socks, the Alabama shaker is front & center & Dad's foot & cane are in the bottom right corner of the picture.

But I'll put this fancy matte around us and you can just pretend that Elmo, the shopping cart & the bib aren't there, and that we don't look like we are wrestling Cam to stay put.

Perfect Family Picture, Right?

Christmas Day

Once again I neglected to get a family photo, but here is Brad & Camden on Christmas Day:

I have so many pictures to post! Brad surprised me with a weekend trip to New York City for my birthday, so I scheduled a couple of posts while I was gone. I thought I would be home in plenty of time to stay caught up with my blog and posting all of our Christmas activities. Well, we got caught in the Blizzard of '09 and had to stay 3 extra nights in NYC! When we finally got home, we were busy celebrating my mom's birthday, my birthday, then Christmas! Busy, busy, busy! Since Brad was off work for several more days, I spent as much time as possible with him & Camden, which meant very limited computer time for me. I have been busy editing and flagging photos for posts, and now I can finally get back to blogging. I hope you are prepared for photo overload! Ha!

I will start with Christmas Day. We had a relaxing but fun day at our house.

Camden is checking out his stocking (Yes it's a gift bag. A giant tv over the mantle, a working gas log under the mantle & a husband concerned with unobstructed viewing pleasure prevented me from hanging the stockings by the chimney with care. They ended up tied to the banisters of the stairs.) You can see Camden's old toys in the background. We quickly moved those to the playroom as he was more interested in playing with those than checking out anything new. Plus we needed all the room we could get for the Great Toy Blizzard of Christmas '09!

Cam decided a closer look at his stocking stuffers was necessary. Santa brought those cardboard building bricks. Santa and his helper had an awfully hard time figuring out how to put them together. Cam did like knocking them over after Daddy piled them up, for about 2 minutes. Then it was on to bigger and better things.

Like pulling ornaments off of the tree.

I got Cam this really cute cleaning toy set at Costco. I knew he would love it because a)he loves any and all cleaning products and b)I let him play with it in the store and he couldn't stop pushing the buttons. When you push their noses they say cute things like "I'm Playful Patty! No Wrinkles! Ironing, Ironing!" And "I'm Sweeping Sam! You missed a spot! Oh, that tickles!" Cam was pushing the buttons like crazy while I was trying to get those suckers out of the box. It literally took me 30 minutes to untwist-tie all 5 pieces.

Of course, Cam discovered it was more fun to twirl the broom around than to actually sweep with it!

Paula & Mike gave me this beautiful Arthur Court grapevine silver tray. I love AC and I love silver trays! You can never have too many silver serving pieces.

Brad, Paula & Mike (& Cracker's tail!) putting together Camden's busy town airport.

Camden's favorite part of the busy town airport was the umbrella. Go figure. He was content to watch Daddy open several of his presents.

Despite his unimpressed look, Cam really liked this musical table. I think by this point he was on toy overload.

This shopping cart from Nana was one of Cam's favorite toys of the day. He immediately took off with it on a trip around the house. He also loves loading it up, then dumping it out.

Cam thought the box was just as fun as the shopping cart!

Dad opening some of his gifts. He scored big on clothes, but I think his favorite present may have been a case of beer (Milwaukee's Best Light, of course!) from Paula.

Dad wrapped up Camden's DVD player so he could open it on Christmas Day. Cam was happy to see it again. He was really excited to see all the Elmo videos that GrandDaddy got him! It was so funny to see him recognize what they were! He immediately picked one out and handed it to me to put in the DVD player. It's amazing how quickly he picks up on things like this.

We gave Paula this cool red purse from NYC. She loved it! She immediately transferred all her stuff from her old purse, and was excited to have enough room to smuggle in snacks to the movie theater later that day.

Dad & I, enjoying some of his Christmas beer!

Brad, enjoying relaxing on the sofa after tons of present opening and toy assembly!

These are just some of the highlights of our Christmas Day. We all received many wonderful presents. For the first time, I was more excited about Camden getting presents than about what I was getting. We tried to be more modest in our gift giving this year, but of course, we still ended up with too much. I love all my presents, though, and I'm not giving them back! Ha! Our house now looks like FAO Schwartz, but I have been dispersing the toys around the house and packing up baby toys. I'm thrilled to be passing those things on to friends with new babies.

We also enjoyed yummy snacks and a delicious turkey dinner cooked by Paula. It was a real treat for me not to have to spend any time in the kitchen fussing over a big sit down meal. It was an even bigger treat for Paula & Brad to do all the dishes! Yay! That's what I call a Christmas Miracle!

We truly had a wonderful Christmas and we all delighted in watching Camden open and play with his many toys. I hope everyone else had an equally wonderful & special Christmas.

Merry Christmas!

I hope you all had as wonderful a holiday as we did! Merry Christmas!

Savannah

We ate out at a lot of wonderful restaurants on our trip to Savannah. This was at A.J.'s Dockside Bar & Grill on Tybee Island. We asked and it is not related to A.J.'s in Destin. We sat on the deck so Cam could have free run. He loved that! He also loved licking the tops of all the salt & pepper shakers he could get his hands on! I had to go around to every single table and move all the condiments away from the edge! I had fried scallops & oysters here. Yum!

This was at Sting Ray's, also on Tybee Island. Cam insisted on standing in his highchair while watching Elmo and attempting to stab himself in the eye with his plastic fork.

He also kept licking the hot sauce bottle. We kept moving it out of his reach but he would just come at it from a different direction. That kid's got long arms! I ate fried group sandwich and Dad had the low country boil again.

We ate at Uncle Bubba's Oyster House. Bubba is Paula Deen's brother.

Camden couldn't wait to get in there.

I had to hold his hand to keep him from running off the sides of the bridge into the creek.

Once we got inside, all Camden wanted to do was watch Elmo.

He got his own little corn muffins and devoured them.

Dad & Cam. The food was delicious, but it took a long time, and they were not crowded at all. Thank goodness for the dvd player & elmo!

I had the bacon wrapped shrimp. they were stuffed with crab and topped with crab bisque - WOW! I can't remember what Dad had but he enjoyed his too.

Back in the RV, Camden got silly and started spraying apple juice all over his face. He thought that was the funniest thing! I did too until I realized how sticky he was!

See how wet his face is? Silly Boy!