So apparently time flies!!!

So apparently its been about 6months since I posted last. As you can imagine a lot happens in that amount of time, especially with young children! Time flies!!!

Well lets start with the most important part of our family news and the part that brings me joy and laughter daily. Our precious little girls!

Mckayla will be turning 4 on Thursday! Hard to believe, but as I said "Time flies!"She is a very happy, very energetic and very bright little girl. She loves going to preschool 2mornings a week where she has learned so much. She is working on writing her names, she can spell her first and last name, recognizes most letters and can count to 50 (with help only for 30 and 40). She goes to a gym class once a week, which my mum takes her to. She recently started attending an class for slightly older kids, where my mum no longer participates with her as she did before. Mckayla loves when Grammy comes and picks her up and takes her to gym. She is also taking a beginning dance class  once a week, through the city, which she seems to really like. She looks so cute all dressed in her leotard/skirt, tights and ballet shoes running around with the other little girls. She also has swimming lessons at an indoor swim school once a week. She has a class with 2 other kids and this is her first swim class without Mommy or Daddy in the water too. She is doing great!She just learned to swim like 8feet on her own two weeks ago. My long time friend Caity, who teaches swimming lessons came to our house and gave Mckayla two private swimming lessons in our pool and by the second one she was swimming! Sure we still have work to do, but she can now swim a short distance on her own! Mckayla continues to be a great big sister who likes to watch out for Isabelle and enjoys making her laugh, while at other times she is bossy and has trouble sharing.But overall she just loves her baby sister! Mckayla has grown so grown and changed so much the last year!

Isabelle just turned one in April. Its hard to believe! She is a very busy little one. She learned to walk just before 11 months and has been non-stop ever since. She is quite loud and very adventurous. She enjoys climbing on whatever looks like fun. She has so many words or sounds that she makes that mean certain things to her. At this time she probably has 15+ of these words including- momma, dadda, doggie, banana, more, all done, nigh nigh, amen, down, up, baby, diaper, hi, bye bye, uh-oh, apple among others. She is a great eater and enjoys her food. We still give her some baby foods but are trying out some other foods as well- she LOVES bananas and if she sees one, she wants it! The other day while eating dinner at my mum's, we were having dessert which was bananas ice cream and chocolate syrup. Isabelle saw my mum put a banana on the table and yelled excitedly "Banana!!" Guess who had banana for dessert! Isabelle has been beginning to drink milk from a cup and we are starting to decrease how much I nurse her. She loves carrying around a sippy cup or straw cup and anytime she sees one (even if its her sister's drink)- she wants it. When we hand her a cup- she immediately gives us a huge grin as though she is proud of herself because she is a "big girl" with a cup! Isabelle has always really loved her big sister Mckayla. She wants to be involved in everything Mckayla does and likes to follow her around- which is sometimes not always appreciated by big sister. I am so glad they have the friendship and relationship they do- hopefully they will be close friends forever!

Life has been busy. We still attend our church in Gilbert but may soon try out the Tempe campus of our church as it is closer to home than the Gilbert campus. We continue to be involved in our small group that meets two Saturday nights a month.  Right now we are doing a parenting study. All the children (about 11-13kids) go to one house with a babysitter while the adults go to another house to do the study. Isabelle has just started going with the kids to the babysitter, she had been going with us and the adults but she is now at the age where she is too distracting and gets bored. She seems to do okay with the babysitter nd all the kids.

Anyway I will return to continue my post later- as we need to get ready for church!!

little one''s

More of our life!

So I have just written two posts of which both got deleted by this silly blogspot thing so this may be short.

We have just returned home from a nice dinner at my mum and Marshall's place and Mckayla is in bed and James is trying to get Izzy down.

At this point in life our lives pretty much revolve around our precious girls. We are truly blessed and love being their parents. They are such precious little girls. Work for James continues as usual. He still works where he did when we met. My work supervising certified occupational therapy assistants has been frustrating lately and at this point I no longer am supervising as all of them have either left the company or are in a slightly different position. I am hoping to begin treating some kids myself soon, but details are still to be worked out- hoping they will work out.

We continue to enjoy living here in the home I grew up in. Its so close to James' work, my parents and pretty close to our church.   We are soon going to be turning one of our bedrooms (that has been being used for storage by my mum and sister) into a playroom for the girls. I am so excited to finally have a playroom for them and get some of the toys out of the living room where they seems to make things more cluttered looking. 

Anyway I guess for now, thats all. Hopefully I can get back on again soon and post again!

our girls!!

So its been awhile. The girls are growing so fast.  Izzy is now 9months and crawling like crazy, pulling up to stand and even standing for a few seconds on her own. She is also saying "Dadda", "Mamma" and "Ma" which means "more". She is such a curious baby and usually happy unless she is hungry or tired.  She loves to explore everything around here and crawl off to wherever she can get to!

Mckayla is growing and learning so much. She loves being a big sister and really is good to Izzy. She is really loving her preschool this year. She is learning to write her name and also learning to spell her last name, as well as other words. Just last night she spelled Mommy with some foam letters in the bath tub without any help. She loves learning about everything and loves to do art, chapel, and cooking at her school. She enjoys being with friends her own age and continues to enjoy going to gym class with her Grammy on Wednesdays. Speaking of Mckayla-......she needs me, so I better go. I will have to return and post more later. My daughter needs me!

Life continues on

Another month has flown by and the girls continue to grow and love life! We sure have two very happy children who enjoy the life they have. Izzy is now 7months, sitting up (once placed in position), eating baby food (and loving it), almost crawling and working on her first word ("up".). Izzy's best friend and favorite for of entertainment is her big sister Mckayla. They are so cute together and Mckayla adores Izzy too.

Mckayla continues to keep busy with preschool and gym, both of which she loves. She now counts to 39 with no help and 50 with only help for number 40. She  is learning to write her name and draw stick people and loves to sing and dance (especially in the bathroom!)

Life flies by....

Things here continue to just fly by. Things are so busy with two sweet little ones. Cannot believe our "big girl" is now 3 years and 3 months and our littlest girl is 6months old already! I don't have a lot of time to update right now and hope to come back on tomorrow. Mckayla and Izzy have a sweet sister relationship and its been so fun watching that grow and emerge. Mckayla loves to help with Isabelle and loves to play with her and make her laugh. Isabelle adores Mckayla and watches her every move. Often when Mckayla comes up to her Izzy puts on such a smile for Mckayla. Even when no one else could make Izzy laugh (except by tickling) Mckayla could make her really laugh without even touching her! I hope and pray their relationship continues this way and they have a lifetime of great friendship. We love our sweet girls and thank God that He chose us to be their parents! I will post more tomorrow as its getting late and both girls are sleeping, which means I too, should head for bed!!

The Crazy Busy Life of the Camping Family

Oh what a busy life! Its been awhile since I posted. I believe I have only posted once since baby Isabelle was born. Things have been very busy but going well. I am constantly realizing how very blessed I am. I have an amazingly, loving, understanding and generous husband who will do anything for his wife and girls. Life can be stressful and challenging at times but with him by my side its immensely better! I just love him and our sweet girls!

Mckayla is 3 now and has just started at new preschool- its a Christian preschool thats been around for years but just recently the church where its located merged with our church- so now its owned by our church. They do all sorts of fun things and have a much stronger academic focus than her other preschool/daycare. At this point she is going two mornings a week from 9-12. We were talking about names one day and she told me "My name is Mckayla. Its M...c....k....a...y....l....a!" I had no idea she could spell her name without having the letters written in front of her. She sure is growing up. She continues to go to her gym class most Wednesdays with her Grammy (my mom) where she does all sorts of things (jumps on the trampoline, swings, climbs, runs around and so much more). She did swimming lessons this summer- a parent assisted class and passed. She will move on to an independent class next time we do swimming lessons (likely next summer). She has just started a sports class in which she will be introduced to a bunch of ball sports. We thought maybe this would be a good way for her to get familiar with some different sports so she can see if there is one she wants to play.

Isabelle is growing like crazy- it does not seem like she will be 5 months in two days. Time sure flies! She is a very happy baby, as long as she is not tired or hungry. If she is tired or hungry she will let you know by her very loud and upset screams/cries. she is also very loud , even when just having fun. She just recently started rolling from her back to her tummy (she has been doing tummy to back for awhile now) and can hold herself in a sitting position if propped up using her arms for support. She has just recently started baby rice cereal and then 7yesterday started eating baby food peas and seems to like them. She absolutely adores her big sister and big sister just LOVES her too. I think they will grow up being good friends , like my sister and I did.

Work- James is still at the same job as he has been since before I met him. He continues to be kept very busy. I am not currently seeing clients of my own in my occupational therapy job, but rather just supervising two OT assistants. Most of this I can do from my computer at home and it only requires me to be working outside the home two hours a month. Its great for me because while the girls are so young I prefer to be home with them.

We still attend the church we have been at since before Mckayla was born. Its a large church and continuing to grow. There are now three campuses around the valley Mckayla enjoys her Sunday school class and comes home telling us the stories she has learned. Isabelle has just begun attending the nursery, as we could not keep our very noisy (but happy) baby from yelling during the service and distracting people. The staff in the nursery say she is does well. We have just started attending a small group this summer which we enjoy. There are 6 couples who attend. Every family drops off their kids at one home and then the adults (and babies- there is Izzy and one other baby just 3 weeks older than her) go to another home where we chat and do a study. The current study is a book called "Crazy Love" which is about God's love for us.

Here at home, we continue to try to get more and more decluttered and more organized- but this can be challenging when trying to take care of two little ones at the same time. So its a slow process and I always feel like I have a never ending to do list. But thats the way a busy life with children is

My goal is to .blog an update at least once a week- sp people can keep caught up with what's happening here. I make no guarantees I will be able to follow through consistently- biut I am going to try.

I will close for today with some photos of our sweet little one's enjoying each other's company!

                                               Mckayla helping Izzy with her musical turtle

                                                 Just having fun together on the floor

                              Mckayla decided she need to lay next to Izzy while she went in her swing!

                                                                      Giving hugs!!

                                                           Playing on the floor together!

                                      Mckayla just adores her baby sister and loves to hold her!

                                                                   Our happy girls!