Party guy

1. Birthday guy, 2. The crazy crowd, 3. Dodgeball sillies, 4. The cake!!

Man did we have fun at Cam's birthday party. My goal was to have fun and I think we really did it. It was cold outside and I was worried the kids would feel too cold to stay outside. So I bought board games and crayons to keep them busy inside. It turned out that it can be cold outside... But if the sun is shining, the kids will play nomatter what. I bought bouncy balls for each kid to shoot hoops in the back yard. Instead, the party turned into a battle of dodge ball: Grown ups versus the kids. It was awesome.

As the craziness was winding down, Cam walks up to me and asks if it's cake time. The party boy asks.. The party boy gets. The cake was yummy. Even the parents had fun. It was a blast. I'm so happy the kids had fun, I had fun.

Why don't I sound stressed about it? I bought a ton of food from the grocery store and I was lucky enough to have two students come by to help. They are wonderful, fantastic and so dang sweet. They actually helped shoot video! So I could savor the moment, juggle other details. Randy took pictures. It was wonderful. Thanks Matt and Nikki!

Cam had fun. He told me that his favorite part was the dodge ball and getting a Transformer. His awesome friend Camryn actually brought him back a High School Musical baseball hat and a wall hanging. It's so cool. He's wearing the hat all around the house. The wall hanging is right over his bed.

To add to the silliness, the Easter bunny arrived the next day with gifts of new Disney underwear and a Little Einsteins toy. Sugar, sugar and more sugar. Cam was begging for sugar for hours. It was kind of silly. But I figured Halloween and Easter are two days where you're allowed to go nutty with the chocolate.

He's a star

I'm sorry I haven't been able to keep up with the rapidly changing world of Cam. First thing's first. He did a fantastic job in his show, "Curious George and the Puppies." I didn't get a lot of good shots, but when I have time, I'll download the video and post it online. By the way. Cam is in the top left hand corner of the picture. He had a grey and white doggie costume. I guess he could have been a wolf if he wanted.

It was very cute since I hadn't seen Cam in two days. So when I walked into the auditorium, Cam yelled hi and started waving his dog tail. Very cute. It was obvious he wasn't nervous, just excited. His class did a little dance. Then they performed the show. It was hard to hear some of the kids, they whispered. So it was hard for Cam to hear some of his cues. You could hear his director say: "Cameron!" to remind him to say his line. He crawled along the flood while he said: "He even saw a snake!" He climbed up on top of a chair to say: "One puppy climbed on top of a cage to watch the other puppies get into mischief." Very cute stuff.

After the show, the kids posed as a group (note the picture above). After that, Cam ran into the crowd of picture taking parents to hug Jordan who had come with me to take pictures. He was SO sweet. I don't know why. Maybe it was the 2 days away from him. But he looked so old, so grown up. I can't believe how he is maturing rapidly in front of my eyes. Maybe it's how we're growing his hair out. Maybe it's because he's going to Kindergarten soon. Maybe it's because he's reading up a storm these days. I don't know. But I'm already nostalgic for my little boy!

Cam and I had fun visiting the children's museum while we were hanging out in basketball bonanza world at his uncle's. Cam was fantastic allowing Jordan to play and patiently waiting from area to area so Jordan could enjoy fun too. He even helped her get down the little baby slide by herself! It was plain darling to watch him love her.

But a strange thing happened this morning. He woke up feeling icky. But Randy took him to school... and Cam promptly threw up in the car. YUCK. For the first time ever, Randy had to deal with the really messy mess. I went to a conference. By the time I got home, Cam was feeling better. We read some books together, we cuddled, he got a bath. Life seems back to normal again. I am really stunned by the simplicity of it all. Other than the periodic emotional outburst, Cam is just growing and working so hard to learn every minute of the day. He and I work on basic math because he wants to play with numbers. We read everything... He's sounding things out. He's making up stories. He's writing words with the magnets on the fridge. It's stunning to watch his brain grow by the minute. It's shocking to see how fast he's maturing. And best of all, I'm so proud of how caring he is of his sister. He's SO much nicer than I ever was to my brother (sorry Jon). I'm touched by his kindness and love. You should have seen him hug every kid her knew when we left his show on Saturday. He truly enjoyed his new friends.

Next big event: Cam's birthday. His High School Musical invitations showed up in the mail today. We're going to try to get them ready to go before everyone leaves town for Spring Break. The big party day is about two and a half weeks away! His birthday is a week and a half away!

WOAH. I'm going to have a FIVE YEAR OLD! I'm getting old.