A safari, a visit from friends, and Bring-Your-Daughter-to-Work Day

Hello, friends.  Here's what's been up!

On Friday Whitney and Kamryn came down for a visit. Immy and I had been talking about it this whole week and she was beside herself with excitement as we awaited their arrival. See? :-)                  

The morning dawned snowily in Ch'ville...but happily, W and K were still able to make it! The kids played for a few minutes, then went down for their naps while the mommies ate lunch and had fun visiting.
After nap-time was over, more friends came over for coffee and the cookies I forgot about until right after Whit left (sorry!).  I wasn't able to get a good photo of the girls... but snapped a few when the handsome Mr. K wedged his way between the ladies.

'Ladies Man 24/7', indeed
(that's what his shirt claimed)

 We wanted one of girls only... so Court held them in her lap. 3 in a row! I think my daughter was crying because she wants to meet the new baby!

Anyway, it was a very fun day. Thanks for braving the weather, Whitney!

Saturday was a fun and relaxing day at this Campbell house. T got a new board game (Catanesque...so beware!), and we had fun learning/playing. It's a game that's still fun with only 2 people, so that was cool.

Sunday was a pretty, pretty day. After meeting we came home for lunch and then went to the park. Im slept in the car nearly the entire time, T played soccer, and I took a walk and visited with friends on the bench.

A Sunday morning shot of my wonderful family.

Sunday night D and L showed up on our doorstep to learn the new game (I mean, they were invited...and decided to show). So we had lots of fun and even more snacks...and someone had beginners luck. :-)

And now it's Monday again, with all new adventures in store!

Every morning after Im gets up, eats breakfast, bathes, and dresses, we go in to the office to say good-morning to Daddy. Here's a photo from that time this morning:

Oh, I love these two together!!

Im's wearing her first 'Threadless' tee. Courtesy of a few very good friends. I don't know if you can tell in the pic, but there's a bear that has tied little wings on his back...and he's asking a 'fellow bee' for honey.  T actually bought me this same t-shirt a few years ago... I need to dig it out!

Much love. And a good week to all!

The unanswerable question...

Ok, guys, just for the record... No, I do not know what a "duh-buh" is, but it's apparently something hilarious. Just ask my daughter. And the sound of my baby laughing is such sweet music to my ears that I'll pretty much say or do anything to hear it... even if that means saying (you guessed it) "duh-buh" 5000 times...in a row.
:-)

Make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh....

A mind of her own...

Here's my baby, wearing purple and working with Dad.

This girl is really something. She's really learning to want what she wants... hmm...wonder where that came from?  We've kind of worked to put her on somewhat of a schedule, which goes something like: eat, stay awake and play for awhile, sleep for awhile, eat, stay awake and play for awhile, sleep for awhile, ... repeat until bedtime.  Ok, so you notice that 'eat' comes right after 'sleep for awhile', so Immy is now pretty set on taking a nap before eating... even if it's been longer than usual since her last meal. I think she's hearty enough that sleep trumps food at this point. :-)

Also, she usually eats about every 3 hours... so occasionally when 3 hours rolls around I will attempt a feeding ... but she will hear nothing of it. She will cry and purse her lips tightly, basically saying "I...am...not...hungry!" (through tightly pursed lips, of course).  This always happens when she has skipped a nap... so if I can get her to sleep for a bit, she's usually hungry when she wakes up.

Semi-schedules (what I call what she's on) are great for predictability, but they make for some confusion on the part of the Mommy when there are days where the semi-schedule comes unraveled. Like, say, Sundays. But I'm learning to relax a bit (hopefully), and know that she'll eat when she's hungry and sleep when she's tired, and a weekly blip in the works really won't ruin anybody. :-)

In other really cool news, T's parents gave us Flip camera as a joint birthday present this year!

As you can see, it's a tiny camcorder, but capable of recording up to 2hours of video footage... perfect for capturing all of the smart and adorable feats of our little Chickadee!  We got the cutest clip of her laughing... I've got to figure out how to put those clips on the blog... T and I have watched it about 100+ times and we always end up laughing right along with her.  She's getting more and more smiley and will giggle when you play with her ('play with her' naturally means making very silly sounds over and over and over...).  So, hopefully I'll share a video with you all very soon.

Hope you're all well. How's the weather in TX? I can not wait until spring comes to Richmond!!! Taking the stroller out on a warm day is about the best thing I can think of right now.

Much love. 

Some days in the life...

Good morning, gentle readers.
We can start this post with star pajamas (and a baby who's reluctant to smile).

These past few days have been busy... and my girly has probably done better with all of the busy than her mom has! Here's the bullet list to get you up to speed:

• Tuesday we went to lunch (Nacho Mama's, yum) with a couple of Im's Aunties (they are also my little sisters)
• Wednesday night was meeting.
•  Thursday morning Kristy and Kipling took us out for breakfast and shopping (for my birthday), the babies did beautifully - just hanging out in the booth with us... and then taking hour + naps while we walked around in Hobby Lobby and Target (aw, our perfect kids :-).
• Thursday night was a men's mtg, so Immy and I (and Auty + her precious GIRL baby!) went to Aunt Tage's house for coffee and cupcakes... and the bouncing of a baby who was done for the day :-).
• Friday night we went to Imogen's Great Grandparents house for dinner and had a lovely evening.
• Saturday afternoon/evening we visited Grammi ,Granddad, and the Uncs.
• Sunday was 3rd Sunday... so we spent the entire day in Charlottesville.  We cracked out Im's meeting blanket (a gift from Heidi) during the morning meeting, and she lay for a good while on that blanket just looking up at the little Chick-Fil-A cow that I dangled above her (after stealing it from Kipling's stash). As always, it's so fun to see and visit with our out of the area friends... and be amazed by how much the babies have grown in just one short month!
• Monday morning Im and I set off for Fredericksburg. It was MLKJ Day, so the boys were out of school. We had fun visiting and having a little photo session (more on this later). It was fun to see Burke and Aden entertaining Immy as they all rode in the backseat. 

So, whew. There you have it. And now I'm looking forward to having a very quiet rest of the week!

And I mustn't forget to give a very special thank you to my very brave older sister for this:

Ahh. Short baby nails! (and I must admit that I hid my eyes while J was cutting Im's nails... and yes, that's because I am, indeed, a wimp)

Hope you all are doing well!  Much love from we 3.

A new Bumbo Baby!
She's still a little wobbly, so it'll probably be a few more weeks until she's totally comfortable in it.

The Baby Mani

Ok, folks, if you have a baby of your own you know that they really know how to grow fingernails!  It's amazing how fast they grow... and even amazinger how darn hard they are to clip!  Actually, how would I even know? I haven't even been able to clip my daughter's fingernails for fear of taking the top of her finger off with the clipping.  Fine. Call me paranoid. I did attempt it once, but got a bit of skin... and that was the end of that.  So, I've just been cleaning them out (for the life of me I can't understand how stuff gets under these tiny baby nails!....what is that stuff, anyway??) with a fingernail file and then filing them down. Granted, this can only be done when Im's asleep in my arms... which is happening less and less frequently these days....a fact that both makes me want to smile (she's getting really good at falling asleep unassisted), and frown (aww, I love rocking my baby!).

Sooo, how do you do it? And will you (whoever you are) give me classes... or just do it for me??

Much love.

The visit.

Immy McImerton is 10 weeks old today.  Pretty unbelievable.  She is amazing and adorable. I will prove it with a photo taken this afternoon:

(hat courtesy of Grammi. bracelet courtesy of Nona)

Today she had her "2 month" (even though she's 10wks) check-up. Im's weighing in at 12lb. 12oz. and 23 1/4" long.  Dr. Tull gave her stamp of approval. Shots aint' no fun...not for baby or mommy. She seems to be fine, though -  she ate right after her jabs (2) and I gave her some Tylenol drops. Now we're home and she's sleeping peacefully.

So, I guess that's about it.  Imogen's doing really well with all the things she does (sleeping, eating, napping, talking, being adorable, etc.), so life is good in this Campbell house.

Here is the link to the Jan. Picasa Album: http://picasaweb.google.com/anya.seven/ImogenJan2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCOiRs6D92um7Ag&feat=directlink

Happy New Year!