Bump Ahead

I documented my pregnant belly with Spencer every.single.week. I was so fascinated, nervous, excited, you name it. It was all so new and I was anxious to read about what baby was doing each week while growing inside of me. If you look back at my posts from 2010/2011, I feel I did a great job at documenting the entire nine months. 

Fast forward eleven months later. In March 2012, after a few months of kinda trying, we found out we were expecting again. We were thrilled and it was all part of our "plan".  

The same emotions took over again, but this time was very different. I knew what to expect, so that focus wasn't completely there. Having an almost walking baby also took a lot of that focus away. The second time around I was so much more relaxed with the entire experience. Unfortunately, I did not have the time to document my belly each and every week. Instead, we captured "the bump" about every five weeks. I wanted to be sure this documentation was in my blog, so here goes... in pictures, of course:

10 weeks

15 weeks

20 weeks in The Keys

25 weeks

28 weeks

30 weeks

32 weeks in Captiva Island

my two boys at 32 weeks in utero

35 weeks. Last pic before Cam surprised us.

Fall back

One of my New Years resolutions was to stay current on my blog. I appreciate each and every one of you who actually take the time to read this and especially look through my many pictures. I know I can go a little overboard at times. However, I don't really keep a blog for followers. It's more for personal use and to document life's happenings. At times, I find myself going back to 2010, when I first started this blog, to read and see about our past. Especially comparing my first pregnancy to the second. If I'm going back and reminiscing two years in, I know I'll look back at this twenty years from now. And hopefully the boys will too. This is our own personal (electronic) book of life :o)

That being said, I've got to make up for my slacking, aka being a busy bee, aka a mother of two. I know I'm going out of order, but I failed to post about Fall 2012, one of my other favorite times of the year.

Since Cameron surprised us much earlier than expected, I didn't even think twice about a Halloween costume for him. Actually, I'm lying. It did cross my mind, but of course Rich didn't feel it would be necessary to have one on hand. Ya know, just in case. Boy, were we wrong.

Picking out Spencer's costume last year (2012) was a chore. He was going through the phase where he refused hats. So after three costume returns later, we found one that would make due. A costume where even if he didn't wear the hat, you would still recognize the look he was going for.

fighting the hat

ahh, much better

When Cam surprised us by showing up on October 17th, this mama had to rush ship a costume for our baby's first Halloween!

2 weeks old!

still can't get over how small he was

And of course, my attempt at both boys on Halloween:

Spencer hosted his first Halloween party. He had his friends Atlas, Blaise, Ruby and Ellie over, and of course their parents. We snacked, drank and trick or treated. I may have been an overachiever since Cam was so new, but we had the party plans for some time. We made it work out and all of the kids had a great time.

The weekend before Halloween, we visited a local pumpkin patch to choose the perfect one. I was 1.5 weeks postpartum and SO happy to get out of the house for fresh air.

As you can see, someone took a bad tumble from having too much fun. Not only did we pick our pumpkin, but Spence even got a mini one of his own.
That same weekend involved carving our pumpkin and some crafts.

Then there's Thanksgiving. Nothing more to tell other than we ate, drank and spent quality time with family. This year (2012), Libby was here visiting. My parents came up hosted our dinner. Cameron was so new that I wasn't willing to travel anywhere with him. Next year will be different though. I failed to take many pictures, but I did manage to snap Spencer enjoying his new baby brother, us at Turkey day dinner, and my dessert table spread:

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Christmas 2012!

My last post was also about Christmas and the activities we did, but that was with our entire family. This post is more about the four of us and our personal Christmas Eve and morning.
While spending time with loved ones during the holidays is what the season is all about, the personal and extra time I get with my boys is even better.

Last year, Spencer was eight months old and wasn't too sure about ripping paper off of presents. This year, Spence was 20 months and Cam was two months. It's a given that Cameron hadn't a clue what was going on, but Spencer on the other hand was SO much fun. Not only did he enjoy the seasonal decorations, lights, and Christmas tunes, he was thrilled to tear into the paper that wrapped his gifts and to find what was awaiting him. He was in heaven. And of course, spoiled. Cameron had a more toned down version of Christmas, but still got everything he asked for :)

Since we have our own little family now, creating tradition is important to me. While this time of year is so busy for us since family is out of town, we travel, what feels like, a lot. Luckily our families are awesome and agree to push everything up by a few days. This allows us to be in Orlando and in our own home on Christmas Eve and Morning.

Christmas Eve this year, we met up with our neighbor friends, The Semescos, and walked through our 'hood to take in the Christmas lights. Our other neighbor down the street had Santa and Mrs. Claus visiting so we got a sneak peek at Santa before his busy travels. The kids, and their parents, really enjoyed it.

Christmas hugs

The Condons and The Claus'

Spence and Ruby enjoying a wagon ride

After our Christmas Eve escapade, we went home and put on our Christmas jammies, drank hot chocolate, watched Rudolph and Elf on the Shelf, and put out Santa's milk and cookies before bed.

Then waking up on Christmas morning to see Spencer's face was priceless. We had so much fun with him and I'm sure next year will be even better. Santa definitely remembered to stop at our house!

my boys

More of Christmas can be found on my Flickr page. (click the link)

Firsts

My goodness do I have a ton of catching up to do. Things have been so busy I haven't had the opportunity to do much. Caring for our two boys, then the holidays really snuck up on me. We've been busy indulging into the holiday spirit. Having children makes it so much more enjoyable, which I why I tried to cram everything we could possibly do into a very short window. But we managed, and memories were created. Mission accomplished :)

Since Cameron graced us with his presence a month early, he's had a lot of "firsts" in 2012.
I guess I'll start with Christmas...

We took the boys to Sea World to enjoy their Christmas display. They had Christmas themed characters all over the place, Santa Claus and The Polar Express, snow and lights everywhere. We went in the evening so we could enjoy it to the fullest. It was really pretty to see and Spencer had a ton of fun. Sadly, this was our last visit as our annual passes expires already. We went more than a handful of times throughout the year that I feel fulfilled. I can say we did fully utilize our passes.

Another activity we did was drive close to an hour to Lake County for a train ride to the North Pole. We boarded a functioning wooden train and took a ride to see Santa and his elves, all while singing Christmas carols, drinking hot cocoa and eating cookies. Spencer was in heaven! His one of many obsessions is trains. He stuck his head out of the window for a majority of the time. The rest of the time he was dancing and clapping away to all of the songs. He enjoyed this so much (minus the Santa) that we'll definitely be back next year!

We also drove around many of neighborhoods, and walked around ours almost nightly, to look at Christmas lights. I'll spare you those pictures as you know what lights look like. Spencer has really enjoyed them this year, especially while riding in his wagon to view them. I have been wrapping Cameron up and wearing him. He usually just sleeps, but next year will be so different for him.

I heard through my mom's group about Celebration Town Center and their festivities they put on each year. So of course, we had to go see what all the fuss was about. Surprisingly, it was really awesome. Not only do they have snow (Florida snow = soap suds) each hour, but they also had horse drawn carriage rides, caroling, and a train! Not to mention the Kilwan's hot cocoa and Columbia restaurant we had. Yum! A few shots from our fun, cold night...

Last, but not least, we made the typical Florida triangle trip for Christmas this year. Our first stop was Port Saint Lucie to spend a couple of days with my side of the family. Spencer and Cameron were spoiled, of course. We had a hard time fitting everything into our SUV. 

Then from there we always head up the coast to visit Rich's dad and Sandra in New Smyrna Beach. Papa Cork got Spencer his fist "bicycle", a Radio Flyer Tricycle. It's pretty awesome!

It's so amazing what one year can bring :)