At 1 week old, Cameron celebrated his first 4th of July!
My Mom came out for a week and a half to help out. I could not be more grateful for that help. Mostly she took care of Mack so I could get used to having a new born again. Man I forgot how little sleep you get and how exhausting it is to have a new born!

The quality of the pic is not great. But my 2 younger sisters also came out to visit and help and my older sister with her 3 daughters lives right here by me! They all came to meet the first boy of the family.

Every time Mack looks at her brother she gets happy and starts to giggle! We are just trying to teach her boundaries and how to be soft. She wants to love him like she loves us and it does not work so well!! lol This is quite the experience, having 2 kids so young, but it will get better!! Right??!

Better late than never!!

Cameron Reed Hopkins was born June 27, 2011 around 6:00pm. He weighed 8lbs 9oz (which is exactly the same as Mack's birth weight) and was 21 inches long. A healthy baby boy!

Proud father!

Tired Mother!

Mackenzie was so excited to see her baby brother! She already loves him so much already. I am biased, but I have to say that I have 2 super cute kids!!

Home from the hospital and both excited and nervous to start this new stage of life.

Apologies

Sorry I have not posted in a while. This whole 2 kids thing is kicking my butt. I will have to do some major catching up sometime soon.

Dress up!

I was going through clothes and organizing Mackenzie's room, now that she is going to be sharing that space, and came across some fun outfits. These are things I would never dress her it, but I thought they would be fun for dress up. My neighbor was over at the time so we got her son involved!

Little model pose! She is better at walking in my heels than I am!
He loved it!!! I have to say, he makes a very cute little girl!!!

20 months

My little girl is 20 months and going to be a big sister in under a month. I cannot believe it. She is going to be a great big sister! As you can see, she already loves to push her dolls around in the stroller. Let's just hope she does not treat her brother the way she treats her dolls!!
I had to get pictures today because this is basically my new favorite outfit of hers!

Out climbing the stairs. She was annoyed because I kept telling her to look at me and I was interrupting her climbing!!

Hangin with Dad!

We went out and got Travis an early Father's Day present. He has been wanting a bent bar and some weights for years. I finally gave in. Mack was just as excited about it as Travis was!

The two of them were getting a good workout with morning!
Of course she wanted to do it herself. It was so cute watching her try to mimic everything Travis was doing.

Mackenzie loved having her Dad read books to her. When he is home she never brings books to me to read, she always wants Dad to read them. I am totally ok with that! It is so fun to watch them play. One of Mack's favorite things to do is to dance with Dad. They go pretty crazy!

Random

Just a couple random pics!!

Mack must watch her mom give dad lots of massages because she sat right behind her friend and started rubbing his back!! lol Travis feels so picked on right now because now that I am in my 3rd trimester he only gets about 1 massage a week. Before he was averaging 4 massages a week. What other man ever gets that?!!
I watched my niece the other day and I thought they looked so cute chillin' on the bed drinking their bottles together! Yes, Mack still has 2 bottles a day. Not because she isn't ready to be done, but I love the convenience of it.
We have not been up to anything really exciting lately. Just trying to stay busy and get through this pregnancy. Baby boy will be here in just over a month!!

So hot...only April

A couple of weeks ago it was in the 90s for three days straight. I bought this tiny little pool so Mack could cool off and I did not have to leave the house!!

Ava came to play!
She is so cute and tiny. Mack LOVES her cousin Ava!!

Mack's boyfriend, Klein, also came over. They played in the water and had cookies. What a great afternoon!!

Easter

The other day I accidentally dropped our camera and the screen broke. The camera still takes pictures, you just can't see what you are taking a picture of. There is no hole to look through. We did an Easter egg hunt for Mackenzie and her friend Klein. We took some pictures and they turned out pretty good for not being able to see!

They could not quite figure out how to pick up the eggs and hold their baskets!
The first egg Mackenzie found, she opened and ate the candy. Then all she wanted to do was open all the eggs. It was difficult to get her to put them in the basket and save them for later.
(Luckily, I only put one or two jelly beans or raisins in the eggs!)

We could not force them to pick up the eggs after a while. Travis is trying to get them to pick up an egg and they wouldn't. There were about 100 eggs all over the grass. I don't get why they just quit?

Overall, I think they had fun! Now if Mackenzie finds an egg and there is nothing in it she gets upset!

Wild Animal Park

On Saturday we went with our neighbors to the San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park! It was about a super hot day, but we had fun!

We always found the shade to stand in. Mack loved the gorillas. They were facing the wall because someone came out and fed them from the top of the wall.

Mack pointing to the gorillas. She feels so big standing there on her own!

The zoo was smart and had all these misting things around the buildings, so we let Mack get some mist!

They even had a little splash park! After taking the African Safari Tour we let Mack run around the splash park. She was in heaven.

Thank you to Tamme for giving us tickets to the animal park and to our neighbors for coming! Instead of sleeping on the way home Mack just screamed the whole time! But she did end up sleeping through the night for the first time in a few weeks. The sleep was MUCH NEEDED for all of us.

Pretend city

Last week we went with Leah and her girls to Pretend City. We had a bunch of fun. There are so many things to do.

There is a grocery store. The baskets could not get any smaller, but Mackenzie enjoyed trying to fit things into it. As you can see, you can only fit a couple things. I was hoping they would have carts, but it was fun any way. There is a garden area where you can plant fruit and veggies and there is an apple tree and strawberry bush.

Mackenzie loved sitting in all the cars. This is her with her cousin Ava. They are only 6 months apart, but Ava is literally half Mackenzie's size. She is so tiny!

Another car!

The phone was pretty fun! She likes to talk to "Mimi", "Papa" and "Daddy"!

She is always a big fan of the water. I think she was unsure if she was going to get into trouble for playing in the water, but then she loved it!

We cannot go any where without Mackenzie finding something to climb. She was able to get up to this tall garden area because she wanted a carrot. She was a great example because within minutes after her 4 year old cousin, who can reach the carrots, started climbing up! It must look fun!!

Hopefully we get to go back soon, because this place is great!

18 month stats

We went to the doctor for Mackenzie's 18 month check up today. Her stats are...

Height: 34 " (100%)

She is right at the top line of the chart

Weight: 26 lbs (75%)

Head: 75%

Mackenzie is tall and active.

She can climb ladders at the park and she can get onto every counter in the house.

NOTHING is out of reach for this child.

She is learning new words every day.

She loves dogs and birds.

She is VERY social and has tons of little friends.

Her best friend is the little boy next door. They spend a lot of time together. They are just alike and get along so well. Below is a picture of them eating dinner together.

They tend to eat better when they eat together!

She LOVES reading. The other day she looked at books for a full hour!!

We are all loving California and the weather that comes with it! The beach and pool are tons of fun!

We have one happy, fun little girl!

One weird thing she has been doing lately is throwing up when we put her to bed. No idea why and the doctor has no answers for us either. Does any one else have a kid like this? She has no other sick symptoms and she ate different things each time. It is not every night. But in the last 2 weeks she has thrown up 4 times. I am getting sick of changing the bedding and doing laundry.

18 months

I have a beautiful little 18 month old girl today! Yesterday was perfect weather so I thought we would go to the pool and get pictures of Mackenzie in her new bathing suit. Her friend Sophia came with us and we had so much fun!

Playing in the pool with their shoes! Rockin' the little tube! She loved sitting in it and being dragged around the pool.

Just about the cutest thing I have ever seen!!!

The girls would go up the stairs and run down the wheelchair ramp over and over and over.

With her arms straight like this she looks like a gymnast (my opinion).

These two girls get along pretty well. They also fight like sisters!

Loving the pool!

All done with the water, just chillin' in diapers!

The girls helped me push the stroller home! They actually pushed so hard I had to hold the stroller back the whole time!

I love my little girl! This stage of her life has been my favorite. She is so much fun and full of energy. We will have doctor stats next week.