Home Sweet Home!

After being gone this past week on family vacation, I am sooo glad to be home! There is NO place like home! And speaking of home, here are just a few reasons I love our little blue house:

• It is the first house we bought as a married couple.
• It takes 3 minutes to get to Wal-Mart.
• The other houses on our street are well-kept.
• I(Todd) can vacuum the house from one outlet.
• This is the house we brought Camden home to from Minnesota.
• We can easily afford our house payment.
• We have lots of greenery and nice landscaping(thanks to the previous owner).
• We have a covered patio.

Todd's Famous!

THE WORLD THROUGH MY VIEWFINDER

Tuesday, June 28, 2011 

Fellow Coach and loyal reader of the blog

Today's picture feature one of my oldest friends, fellow Marine and football coach. Coach Todd Medley, a loyal and faithful reader of the blog. This is the picture of the day.

Todd was featured on his friend's blog. Todd and Dennis went to school together and then joined the Marines together. Now, they are fellow football coaches together at Herculaneum High School. Dennis took this picture during football practice. Gotta love Todd's straw hat!

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

This past Sunday, my parents celebrated being married for 40 years!! I love them both dearly and am so proud of them. They are an amazing example of a good Christian marriage. I am grateful for the sacrifices they have made and hope they have 40 more years of happiness! Happy 40th Anniversary, Mom and Dad!



Mr. and Mrs. John A. Melton



Happy Father's Day

This Father's Day, I am doubly blessed.
I am so blessed to be a part of our sweet little family of 3. I am in awe of the incredible daddy Todd has become. I always knew he would be a good dad, but he has surpassed my expectations by far. I am amazed at the relationship between Camden and his daddy already and know that the best is yet to come! I love you, Todd!

And I am also greatly blessed to have this man as my Dad. The older I get, the more I realize what a tremendous man he is. I am so grateful for the many sacrifices he made and continues to make for me. He is also a wonderful Papa to Nick, Emmy and Camden. I love you, Dad!

Yard Sale Fun

Last week, we had a yard sale. This has become sort of a tradition for us and a good way to get rid of "stuff" and make a little money. This year, we decided to have it both on Friday and Saturday and that was a good decision. Lots of people came on Friday and almost half our stuff was gone. Camden didn't enjoy the sale much. He kept saying, "I not want to sell this." At one point, he got in the box of stuffed animals and closed it up tight.

One looks a little more thrilled than the other to be helping at the yard sale

Oh, Mom, I am so sorry.....

for all those times Beth and I hounded you while you were trying to relax taking a bath, slipped notes under the door or tried to tattle on each other! Because I now know how you must have felt.
I subbed for kindergarten all day today. Now, that might not seem like a lot, but wow, twenty five year olds(some barely five and even those few not yet five) needing your attention all the time. Surprisingly enough, I actually enjoyed my day, but I am exhausted. Todd has football camp this week, so I picked up Little Man, came home and fixed us both dinner. Then, I hauled all of the garage sale stuff out of the garage and set it up for tomorrow. So, I was pretty hot and tired. I settled Camden down with a snack to watch Monsters and told him I was taking a shower. It was quite peaceful until I heard a little knock on the door and a voice calling, "Mommy?" and when I didn't immediately open the door,  it soon became a pounding and a repeating "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!!!!". And then, of course, my worrywart nature kicked in and I wondered if he really did need me. So, my relaxing shower became a race to get the soap off my body and see what he needed. And because, Mom, you probably need a laugh and I will too someday-when I opened the door and said "What do you need, buddy?" The reply was "I want to poop in a pull-up." AHHHHHHH!

Mommy's little stinker





What I am loving about summer right now...

• Watching Camden be successful at going potty
• No set schedule
• Living in comfy clothes
• No alarm clock to wake up
• More family time
• Meeting friends for lunch
• Evenings on our back porch
• Not wearing make-up everyday
• Thinking about my classroom and planning for next year
• Playing with Camden and not worrying about what has to get done 
• More time to cuddle when we first wake up




Morning cuddle time at 3 weeks old

 



 Morning cuddle time at 3 years old







Back to school shopping

Yes, you read that right! I did some back to school shopping. My economical and very like-minded friend, Michelle, once introduced me to thrift stores. And do I LOVE her for that! I don't have a lot of time during the school year to scour thrift stores, but I was able to really spend some time in a few this week. And I was so happy to be able to find some great deals!!
Here are the shirts I found:

The best part-none of these shirts was over $3.00! Now, I saved my very favorite for last and of course, I couldn't wait to wear it, so here it is(along with Little Man who wanted to be in the picture):

I also, found a pair of Banana Republic jean shorts and 2 pairs of Old Navy khaki shorts. Sweet, huh? I am hooked!!! 

Gratitude Journaling

One thing I have focused on in 2011 and also 2012 is to be more grateful. It is easy to go through life and forget about how blessed I am and I have found that these journals help me. They are also a way of recording the little things that happen in our everyday life. I got the idea last year from Monika Wright at http://iloveitallwithmonikawright.blogspot.com/. She creates amazing mini-books and journals and I am always inspired by reading her blog and love to "scraplift" her ideas!

A sidenote: Little Man is doing well at potty training and we are so proud of him! He tells us now when he has to go and has had no accidents in the last few days. He even wears his underwear at nap. Now, comes the hard part-pooping on the potty.....

Sweet Nieces

I had the privilege of fixing my two sweet nieces' hair this past month-Amanda's for her First Communion and Emmy Ann's for her dance pictures and recital. As everyone knows, I am a girly-girl and I LOVE being an Aunt Andrea to these two girls that I can be girly with!

Whittles Shortline Railroad

Yesterday was Family Fun Day #1. (I have a summer bucket list of places we want to go.) We went to Whittles Shortline Railroad and played with their many trains. Camden was in train heaven! After that, we picked up Papa at his work and the four of us had lunch together. What a fun day!

Baker Wedding

Grandma Becky has taught Camden that if he wants to talk, he should raise his hand rather than interrupting. A few Friday nights ago, we attended Abby and Dave's wedding. During the wedding, Camden was talking and I told him he had to be quiet. So, he simply raised his hand and was going to patiently wait his turn. Aunt Bef quickly took this picture.

After the wedding, we let Camden go on stage and "sing" with the microphone. He really wanted to play the drums, but we said absolutely NOT!

He also really enjoyed the candy bar at the reception-the green gumballs were his favorite!

Congratualtions, Mr. and Mrs. Dave Baker!!

Circus Flora

Papa took all of us to the Circus Flora last night. It was Camden's first time at a circus. This was a good circus for him because you are pretty close to the action. He liked the animals and the gymnasts, but he got a litttle bored during the tightrope walkers and the other balancing acts. Then, he decided to climb over the empty seats in the row in front of us and pretend he was a acrobat. :) Unfortunately, no pictures are allowed during the circus, so I couldn't document this great feat!

The 40 In May Club

Todd and I spent an absolutely beautiful Saturday with our dear friends, Matt and Renee. We were celebrating Todd, Matt and Renee all turning 40 in this May.
Matt and Todd have been friends since high school and Renee is now one of my very best friends as well.  They played matchmaker for us 10 years ago and our first date was actually a double date with them! We spent some time yesterday reminiscing about that time ten years ago and how much fun our friendship has been since then. They are amazing friends and we are so thankful to have them in our lives.
It was great to sit outside, enjoy the beautiful weather and scenic river view of Grafton, Illinois and just enjoy our friends' company. We couldn't have asked for a better day or better friends to share it with!

(And thanks to Aunt Mickie for keeping Little Man-he had fun!!)

Mr. Independent

Camden,
The most common words we hear from you are, "I do it by myself!" This can be so very frustrating at times, especially when we are in a hurry or we know that you will not be able to do it by yourself. On this particular night, you insisted you could put on your jammies by yourself. So, Mommy decided to capture this moment:

"I did it!

A little help was needed, but you are almost able to get dressed all by yourself!

Disclaimer-Camden does NOT watch Spongebob, but he did pick these out at Wal-Mart. I tried my best to convince him to pick Elmo, Thomas the Train, even Spider-Man, but these were the ones he wanted.