Summer Days

This summer was been such a whirlwind of summer camps, splash pads, cousins camps and lots of friend time. We didn't do much traveling, save for one big Western adventure that will be in the next post.

Darby did a sports camp with her best buddies for a month and loved it. The camp taught the basics to a lot of different sports. Darby's favorite? Bowling.

Best buddies

The sport of parachuting

While Darby was at camp, Calder and I did a mommy and me kayaking class on the river. It's hard to believe that he sat in the boat for 1.5 hours and didn't try to jump out, but he didn't. He was like little zen boy when he was on the river.

OMMMMMMMM

This was also the first summer that Darby was old enough to go to camp up at our house in the Poconos so I packed up the kids and headed up to the mountains for a couple weeks of nature!

"Here, fishy fishy!"

FREEDOM!

Fishing in only the finest, of course.

After two weeks of nature camp, it was time for our annual cousins camp at the lake! We are so lucky to still have this tradition going strong. It's getting harder to coordinate schedules with the older cousins who might rather be hanging out with friends and not with a 3 and a 1 year old, but they are great sports and we keep a pretty packed schedule so they don't get too bored. This year we went to the indoor waterpark, water trampolining on the lake, paddle boarding games, fishing (with a Frozen fishing pole courtesy of Grampie), ice cream nights, hiking and lots of cousin time!

Darby was pretty skeptical...as was I.

Pool rats

Swim suits all day long!

Cousins camp goes to the Jersey Shore!

Hiking action

Mama playing around on the board

Scoot, scoot Roo!

Grammie is the best

Summer with kids is so great! We lived outside most of the days and since we weren't traveling we had a lot of time at the lake house. I'm lucky that I'm able to hang out with these kiddos all day because it was just like summer when I was a kid (well, minus changing diapers and dealing with a 3 year old girls' mood swings.)

Calder is One!

The last year has been the fastest of my life. I never noticed how fast time went until I had kids, especially two of them. The first 4 or so months of Calder's life are a complete blur because I was desperately trying to just stay afloat and keep two kids alive (and find my damn wedding rings...which I did at some point). Somewhere around the 5th month I felt like we got into a groove and having two kids was the norm. Little Roo was not a good sleeper from the get go (and had a bad gassy belly), so sleep deprivation was a major struggle, but I introduced myself to coffee and that might have been the turning point. (COFFEE...where were you in college?!!!)

I obviously was over the moon in love with this little guy from the beginning, but having to spread my attention across two kids made Calder's newborn phase so different than Darby. There wasn't a whole lot of time to just stare at him for hours on the couch. I was more often than not trying to feed Darby lunch or give her a bath while nursing Calder while standing up. It's amazing how many things you can do at one time when you have to!

Little Roo was all over the place in his first year...Crested Butte, CO at 4 weeks, UT, Sandpoint, ID, Martha's Vineyard, Seattle and NYC to name a few. He is a tough plane traveler because even from the beginning he just didn't want to sit still. We bounced, we nursed, we passed him around, we tried everything and every flight I threw up the white flag and said I wouldn't do it again.

It seemed like it took a little while longer for his personality to come out (probably because his belly hurt for the first 6 months), but when it came out, we were even more in love. After having such a spirited kid like Darby I often joked that I would be ok with a dud of a kid with a mellow personality. We kind of thought that maybe that's what we got in Calder, but we have been proven wrong 100%. 

This little boy is social and loving to everyone he sees, has the best smile that makes everything ok again, is the most ticklish little squishy thing I've ever met and adores his family more than anything else. He is super independent and will entertain himself for hours...usually picking up balls and throwing or kicking them into things. Though even when he is entertaining himself he will come find me every 5-10 minutes just to give me a hug and then take off again. Heart melt.

He loves to chat all day long. I never feel like I'm missing human interaction when I'm hanging out with him because we talk back and forth all day long. He doesn't have any real words but his inflections are spot on and he waits for me to finish talking before he starts blabbering. Unless he's sleeping, he's talking or singing Twinkle, Twinkle (again, no words, just the exact sounds of the song).

Happy first birthday little man (a couple months late)! Each day with you has been such a joy and everyday is better than the day before.

Sandpoint, ID

When we first heard about Sandpoint, ID we knew it sounded right up our alley. An up and coming ski town situated on a huge lake (Lake Pend Oreille - "pond-er-ray")surrounded by mountain range upon mountain range. Our first trip was in the summer and we did everything we could do on the lake (with two small kids in tow)...swimming, cliff jumping, boating, paddle boarding, rock throwing. Indeed, Sandpoint proved to be our kind of town. So we knew we needed to check it out in the fall and winter to see how the vibe was in the different seasons and see how the population changed during the slower months. Fall was beautiful with the changing leaves and the great hiking. The water was deathly cold, but we still went for a few very quick dips!

Our Winter trip was planned around skiing and we lucked out by hitting it on an El Nino year and having some of the best snow we've had in a long time. We rented a great house in a small town 2 miles north of Sandpoint, called Kootenai. My dad flew in to help with kid duty so we could ski and that was a lifesaver with Calder.

Here are a few pictures from our adventures...

Touring around Spokane en route to Sandpoint

Darby and her "Poppy"

FREEDOM!!! IN SO MUCH SNOW!!

The mix between unbelievable snow, an amazing mountain to explore and free time to ski with Doug was enough to have me stupid giggling all day long.

Shredding the Gnar. Or at least turning without falling. 

D playing in the pillows.

Checking out the seating availability on the lake bed

Since we were on East Coast time and our kids are always early risers anyway, we were up a good 3-4 hours before the sun made an appearance so when it finally came out we went for walks on the frozen lake bed. The lake is dropped 10 ft in the winter time so we got to explore all kinds of cool things that are usually covered up. Like lawn chairs and shoes and stuff.

Only ripples on the water and attitude on the 3 year old.  

Big stump, little girl (who thinks she's big)

Poor Darby came down with strep throat while we were there so we made friends at the local urgent care and got her taken care of. This is the 4th time in 2 months that she's had it, so we're pros at knowing the signs of it by now and usually catch it pretty early before it totally cramps our style.

Snow ghosts on Schweitzer Mtn.

Timer photo...5...4...3...2...1.

Another adventure in the books! The adventures are a little different these days with the two kiddos in tow, but we're determined to show them the world and drag them along everywhere with us.

Life

As most parents say, time is flying by. I guess it's not so apparent when you don't have kids because you're not documenting every month as a milestone. It's hard to believe that Calder is almost a year old. The first year seems to fly by...maybe because the first few months are tough and then the fun ages start and you never want them to end. Calder at 10 months is pretty much a dream baby. He is happy 95% of the time, he adores his sister, he adores his mama and he just brings so much life and happiness to our family. The other 5% of the time is the middle of the night and I make him cry in hopes that he will put himself back to sleep and he usually doesn't. He makes me want to have more babies just to prolong the having a baby in the house phase.

Goofy grin always on his face

The reason I don't plan to have other babies is because I have a 3 year old. Kidding. Kind of, but not totally. It really is such a fun age because of the curiosity, the independence, the ability to speak and have meaningful conversations, the sense of humor and the lack of self consciousness. But, all of those reasons are the same reasons that 3 year olds can be sooooo difficult. Darby is a "spirited child" so every one of those attributes is more dramatic than in a non-spirited kid. I know that her tenacity and her passion will serve her well as she gets older, but man, it can cause some fights.

Calder Frost Jamison

Better late than never. Here's Calder's birth story...a mere 8 months late.

It's clear that my babies like my womb. Darby was forced out 11 days after her due date and as we approached the due date with #2, I figured the scenario wouldn't be much different this time around. On my February 19th due date, Doug and I went to the doctors office with a plan. Since it was my second pregnancy my doctor was much more willing to take measures and induce earlier than she would with Darby. I told her that I would like my membranes stripped that day (Thursday) and that if my body didn't respond by going into labor on its own in the usual 24-48 hrs then I wanted to schedule an induction for Monday. Luckily she agreed and went ahead and "aggressively stripped my membranes"...youch!! Unfortunately, that didn't do much other than leave me uncomfortable and antsy to get the show on the road. So, the induction was scheduled for 12am Tuesday morning, the 24th, meaning that if all went well, I should have a baby before noon! Well, we got to the hospital just before midnight on Monday and got to sit in the waiting room until 2:30am while we watched women in labor come in and get priority over lame ducks like me. Our doctor finally sent us to a hotel and said to come back at 9am. We got a few hours of sleep and then made our way back to the hospital with a new outlook and an adjusted timeframe of meeting our little peanut. When we got there, the waiting room was still full, even with a few of the women that I was sitting with until the wee hours of the morning...bad sign. My doctor came out, said it shouldn't be too long and then we sat, and sat, and sat. Every once in a while a nurse would come out and say that a room had just opened up and we were next and then a woman in labor would come through the doors and take the room. I cried every time it happened. It was so mentally exhausting to psyche myself up for labor and then be told to wait again. This went on until 1pm when I was finally taken into a room.

Get this thing out of ma belly!

When my doctor came in to go over a plan of action I immediately told her to accelerate everything because I was going to have a baby on Tuesday. So, she put in 2 foley balloons and cranked the pitocin like water and I went from 2cm dilated to 5.5cm in 1.5 hours...wahoo!! With Darby, that process took 8 hours. From there we kept the pitocin going, but it had to be turned down because the doctor had to do an emergency c-section and couldn't risk me going into labor while she was in there.

This is what birthing balls should be for. I definitely was not coordinated enough to sit and bounce on it without slipping off...multiple times. I blamed the socks.

Darby came to visit while I was "laboring"

After slowly laboring for quite a few hours, my doctor came into check me again around 8:45pm and I was dilated to 7cm and said that she would come back in a few hours to check me again...whaaaa?! I felt so defeated and was sure that I wasn't in fact going to have a baby on Tuesday. So, Doug decided that he was going to go grab a slice of pizza (you know, watching labor for hourrrrrrrs is so hard and taxing). He left and I was in the room by myself and all of a sudden I started having some serious contractions and (excuse me if this is TMI but it's the miracle of life we're talking about and it's messy:) even more serious butt pain. I texted Doug to get back ASAP as I thought things were starting to happen. He got back at 9:13, ran and grabbed a nurse, who grabbed the doctor and shit got real. Everyone was scrambling around trying to get gloves on and prep the room while I was desperately holding my butt hoping the baby wouldn't come out yet. Once prepped and semi-ready, I gave 3 of the longest, most dramatic pushes of my life and at 9:45pm, out came the peanut! I would have 15 kids just to have that feeling of total exhaustion and total elation balled up into one crazy moment. Doug announced that it was a BOY and then cut the cord and laid him on me!!

IT'S A BOY!!!

Calder Frost Jamison - 2/24/15 - 7lbs 12oz

We spent the next few hours hanging in the delivery room, getting to know the little guy and then luck was totally on our side when the nurses wheeled me up to a private room...which is very hard to come by in NYC. 

My dad brought Darby in the next morning and she got to meet her little brother and couldn't have been more proud and sweet about it. 

I spent a couple of days in the hospital and then basically hit the ground running once we got home. Life with two is certainly a far cry from the early, slow days with only one. Our family of 3 is now the perfect little foursome and feels very complete with our little buddy Calder.