But he has taken to doing something that I don’t think Mara really did when she was younger. She used to write and practice her letters often, and Campbell does the same. What is different is that he is also beginning to write words at this point. Sometimes he asks for one of us to spell the words for him. What we have seen at times though is that he likes to just give it a go at writing his own notes independently. This results in some very funny outcomes. I have taken pictures of a couple of his writings.

The first is a sign that he made to hang on his door. If you can interpret it you are a little better than me. He just came out and explained it to me one day. “When the door is closed, you have to read the sign,” he says. When first looking at it you could easily just mistake it for random letters and scribble.

The second is a card that he made for me when I was away on a business trip. He started writing it, and then showed it to Mom. She advised that he copy one of the cards he had received for his birthday for the middle portion of it. This is the clearest item on there. The rest he originated himself. Can you read what it says?

Put your mouse over each picture to see what it says.

The birthday boy!!

He has so much fun going around and gathering tickets from the games and the machines. What might have been the best part of the day for him was getting a chance to go into the ticket booth where they blow the tickets in the air and you have the chance to grab as many as possible. At first, he acted scared, as if to say to the attendant, “you’re going to close me up in here?” Then his sister came to his rescue and dared to join him. Here is some video of their fun.

Fourth Bday Video

22.6 MB / Time 0:51

He was just all smiles in there. All in all he loved seeing his friends and having them there to share his special day with him. Thanks for coming to celebrate.

We have been putting winter to very good use so far. We went ice skating on Friday night for Christmas Eve. The kids LOVED it. Campbell did much better this time around versus the first time we went. This time it was even outside, but he lasted a little longer and didn’t get so tired so fast. Mara on the other hand just wanted to try on her own after a while and had a great time holding on to the side and going around.

Today, the day after Christmas we were at it again. After an afternoon and night of snow we were left with something like 5-6 inches (my guesstimate). It made for perfect sledding weather. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for bringing us some sleds from up north at the end of the season last year. We wanted to be ready to take advantage this year and sure enough we did. Check out the pictures and videos of us with the kids for their first sledding experience. What a great time!

Fun in the snow.

Nothing better than a little sledding.

Big snowball, or boulder

Sledding Video 1

19.5 MB / Time 0:11

Sledding Video 2

46.8 MB / Time 0:29

Howdy Woody!

More pictures of soccer are here, or even more at Scott’s website.

Q: What is your favorite thing to do with Lisa?
A: Play with her.

Q: If you could go anywhere with Lisa, where would it be?
A: H.H. Gregg.

Q: What is your favorite thing about Lisa?
A: She has a turquoise vacuum. She has funny jokes on her popsicles. She really does.

Q: How much do you love Lisa?
A: This much.

Q: If you were to give Lisa something from your room, what would it be?
A: Purple dinosaur silly bands.

Q: What do you think about Lisa and Mark getting married?
A: Her honeymoon jar. It has money in it.

Q: What is the funniest thing you remember about Lisa?
A:

Video

6.5 MB / Time 0:14

Q: How does it make you feel that Lisa won’t be your nanny anymore?
A: Sad. But, we can still see each other. I will miss Lisa.

Q: If you could give Lisa a present on her last day, what would it be?
A: The letter “o”. And a green sticker.

Q: What do you want to tell Lisa today?
A: I love you.

Mom went for a run with friends, so Dad decided to take Campbell and Mara to a local elementary school field. Sometimes when we just stay around the house there are too many distractions with other toys and things to get them to concentrate for a bit of time on one thing. We started with lacrosse.

Handling the sticks.

Unfortunately the attempt at lacrosse was a little disappointing as the kids thought it was too hot out and that killed any sense of concentration of putting a ball in the stick. We will have to try that one again sometime soon when it is a little cooler out. But then once we put the sticks down, the heat didn’t stop Mara from challenging Campbell to a race to the soccer goal. So all was not lost on the trip to the field. We did some racing around.

Then we went back to the house. Dad made a rule. They could do anything they wanted as long as it involved a ball. Eventually this led to playing some basketball.

This ball is bigger than me!

Campbell and Dad practiced some passing. Campbell is just getting to where he can catch the ball off a bounce. He also gave some dribbling a try and he did OK for his first time. Meanwhile, Mara was shooting on the lowered basket. When she made her first shot everyone was excited. Dad thought it was her first basket ever, but she confidently retorted, “I’ve made it before Dad.”

Although it didn’t end up as good for lacrosse practicing as Dad would have liked, it did end up being a good sports day. The kids had a lot of fun with basketball, and they especially liked topping it off with some dunks on the basket and hanging on the rim. Fun!

Friday, Campbell and Mara got to go on a little field trip that Lisa setup for Campbell. She did all the legwork to find out where they could go to visit the city garbage trucks. Don’t ask me how, but she got connected to Mister Henry in City of Greensboro Field Operations, specifically the Trash Collection Department and he allowed them to come visit for a little tour. I have no idea if they do this normally or not, for school classes or what, but they did it yesterday for Campbell!

They got a tour of their garbage truck parking area and got to see all different types of trucks. Then they took a look at the garbage truck in detail.

Big driver.

Just like the pros.

Mister Henry showed them the ins and outs of a real garbage truck. Campbell got to see some of what he usually plays with as toys, in real life action.

Garbage Truck 2 Video
60.1 MB / Time 0:32

Here are two other videos of their tour if you are interested.

Garbage Truck 1 Video
26.8 MB / Time 0:14

Garbage Truck 3 Video
44.2 MB / Time 0:23

This has to be one of those times that you are just amazed at how nice some people can be to take time out of their jobs to make a special day for a little kid. Government connection or not, this was just superb service for any business to do. And many, many thanks to Lisa for the thought and creativity to create this experience for him. We are very lucky.

He just loved it!

Click through any of the pictures to see the whole set.

We were set on having a trash themed party for the little man and he was super-excited. When we went out searching for things to make the party theme at the typical supply websites, there was not a lot to see. Through some searching though there were a couple of websites that we found. Most actually read the same way as this post, saying that there isn’t much out there to guide you. We found this post at pinkpeppermintpaper.com especially helpful, and we stole some ideas. Some other ideas we borrowed and built upon. And some didn’t get used at all since she is too ambitious for us.

The day started out with Campbell discovering one of his surprises early in the day. Mom and Lisa made a shirt for him to wear with a big garbage can on the front. Luckily he found the 2nd shirt that was made, and his shirt for the actual party remained hidden. You will see that later.

Already getting busy in the morning.

The linchpin of the party was the blow up bouncer truck that we rented from a local rental shop (looked for a link, and can’t find a website). It was super cheap and super easy. They came and set it up and left it for hours and the kids loved jumping in it. We were fortunate to have wonderful weather so it wasn’t too hot for it either. It was a monster truck shape, so not exactly the right theme, but very boyish.

The other activity that we had setup was an I Stink Garbage Hunt. Through the week we collected the different items that you can find in the book
I Stink and had them thrown all over the yard. We took the kids easel and posted copies of the book pages on it so the kids could pick out what they were going to go hunt for. This one’s success was a little bit of a surprise since the kids not only did it one time, but went and did it repeatedly over and over.

Ready to find some garbage with the pickers.

Next came the birthday cake. Mom took a lot of time and a practice run to make this cake and it turned out fantastic. Campbell got free reign on this one to eat as he pleased. No, he didn’t eat the whole thing. One of the reasons he got it and we didn’t bother to plan to cut that up for everyone was the shear awkwardness of its shape, and the fact that we didn’t plan to make it big enough to have a piece for everyone. The intent was more to make the effect of it being a garbage truck. That was a success.

Yummy, yummy, yummy!!

So, since Campbell alone got all of the cake, what was there for the rest of the kids (and adults too)? Dirt cupcakes. This idea was a little bit from the dirt cups that you can get at Mimi’s Cafe from the kids menu combined with a regular old cupcake. The cupcakes were frosted as normal, but then crushed Oreos were sprinkled on top and a gummy worm stuck into the middle, popping out like out of an apple. Ewwww.

Yucky worms.

Lastly all the kids got to take home a little goodie. The hardest one was making bottlecap necklaces. Needless to say Dad made them about 3 times before the last trial of getting them about right. Still the process had something left to be desired and there has to be a better way. But, they ended up being a customized little trinket for each child and they seemed to like them. They also got to take a garbage can cup home with them which is the same cup that Campbell got to drink from at the party (not literally).

Personalized charms.

There are many more pics of the party. Since I tried to make this post with the built in WordPress media uploader, I am completely lost in how to simply link to the album. So instead, you get to see all the pictures right here. Not ideal and I hope to fix it.
Update: I went back to the old standby, Photopress, and reloaded the pictures and replaced them in this post. The built in WordPress Media Manager just wasn’t working well for me. I’m sure I’m doing something wrong.

Location of the album:
Birthday10

A little while ago we began taking some pictures of him next to his inanimate friends. I cannot remember if he was the first to ask for it, or we just started doing it. But, he rather enjoys it. Here are a few of the pictures we have shot.

Taking a break from kicking the ball around at the school.

On a hike at Pilot Mountain.

Photo shoot in downtown Greensboro.

If you want to look at all of them that are posted you can look in the album here. I expect that we will be shooting some more and adding them in over time (maybe).