I'm 1!!!

I have been such a busy boy lately that I only update my blog once a month. Maybe I will slow down some this winter. Mama can only hope...

I turned one on August 19th. I think mom and dad find it hard to believe a whole year has passed by. They helped me celebrate by throwing a monkey-themed birthday party. It was a lot of fun eating tacos, playing pin the banana on the monkey (kudos to Abby who pinned the banana right at the monkey's mouth so it looked like he was eating it), and having fun with all of my guests. Then on my actual birthday, mama, dada and Grandma Linda took me to the Betty Brinn's Children's Museum where I got to play in the sand (I liked it this time!), learn about the digestive system, play with an ambulance, play several different musical instruments, and lots of other fun stuff. After the museum, we had lunch out on the river so I got to watch the bridge go up and down as lots of boats came by, including a tugboat pushing a load of coal. Mama also took me to the park later in the day.

I also had my 12-month checkup in August. As of August 28th, I was still not on the chart for weight (18 lbs, 3 oz), but I am in the 50% for height (29 1/2 inches). Mama says I burn off all the food I eat because I'm so active and that's why I'm such a little squirt. I also got tested for lead at this appointment and my initial test came back extremely high so I had to go to the hospital for a blood draw to do an IV blood test. Despite the painful experience of having blood drawn, at least this blood test came back normal so no lead worries. Phew.

One of my favorite parts of August was the week daddy had off. He stayed home with me on Monday and Tuesday while mommy was at work and on Wednesday morning while mommy was at the doctor. We also went to West Bend on Thursday to get some family pictures taken. It was just fun hanging out with daddy and playing together. Daddy also took me to one of his favorite places, Menards. I was a bit of a daddy's boy for the week after that and kept asking for daddy while he was at work.

Mommy, daddy and I also went to La Crosse in August for a family wedding. This was one of my longest car rides and I did really good. I slept most of the way there. However, I wouldn't sit still in church so mommy had to hang out with me outside and we missed most of the wedding. When we came home, we stopped in Madison and went to Ella's Deli for lunch. This is a restaurant with lots of fun things for kids like me to watch. There are lots of mechanical toys flying across the room, trains running around, games to play, etc. I was very entertained during lunch. But I also was wide awake for the rest of the car ride home and got a bit cranky about having to sit still for another hour.

I am not quite walking on my own yet. I prefer to hold somebody's hand (or sometimes when I'm cranky or tired, both hands) or walk behind my push toys. I can go pretty fast while pushing my car. Jesse better watch out as I am a crazy driver!

I got to practice my walking on the capitol lawn in Madison Labor Day weekend. Mommy, daddy, Jared, and I went to Taste of Madison last Saturday. While daddy and Jared had a beer and looked for more food, mommy and I walked across the capitol lawn and I got to watch other kids playing in the grass. I also tried daddy's jerk chicken and liked it and devoured some of mommy's pasta. Some days I eat really good and other days, like today at lunch, I'm rather finicky and just throw my food.

A few other highlights from the last month:

- I love mimicking mommy and daddy. One day mommy was itching her leg and so I came over and started scratching it for her. She thought that was pretty funny. I can also stick my tongue out like my daddy.

- I do not like the vacuum cleaner. When I was younger it didn't bother me, but when mommy tried to vacuum last week while I was with her, I just sat in the middle of the room and screamed. Yet when the vacuum was turned off, I enjoyed playing with it.

- I celebrated a friend's 1-year old birthday and then on the same day went to a pig roast and got to play a bean bag toss game with daddy and we won! I also went to a housewarming party last night and saw my girlfriend Bella. I have dibs on her and I think our mommys are ok with that.

- I am now drinking more cow's milk, but still am not quite ready to give up my morning bottle. Mommy tried one morning and boy did I make a fuss.

- I am taking one afternoon nap while still sleeping about 12 hours a night.

- My upper right tooth broke through last week and the tooth to the right of that (it's not the other front tooth; I think it's called an incisor, but my aunt Kali will have to verify) is also breaking through.

- Football season has started so like last year, I'm hoping to watch the games with daddy. However I doubt I will snuggle and fall asleep in his arms while watching the games like I did last season.

Last, but certainly not least, my favorite highlight of the month is I found out I will be a big brother sometime in April! Right now I'm excited about it, but I'm sure once the little bugger is born and hogging all of mommy and daddy's time, I won't be nearly as thrilled. I'm hoping for a brother so I don't have to worry about my sister trying to date all my friends when she is a teenager. But either way it will be fun to have a constant playmate who is more my age than mommy and daddy are.

Love,

Cameron

Last of the WA Pics

Pictures from my Aunt Kali's graduation from her dental hygienist program are featured here. I am so proud of her! I have also included a bonus picture of me helping mommy with the dishes once we got back from vacation. Finally, a big happy birthday to Grandma Linda. I am taking her out to lunch today to celebrate.

Love,

Cameron

More Pics Part 2

Per my message below, here are some more pics from my trip to Washington. In this batch, you will see me swimming at the hotel pool with mommy, with my Great Grandma Miyeko, and two pictures with mommy and daddy. One at our family orchards in Maryhill and the other in the Ice Caves near Bingen, WA. Finally, I have included a picture of me sitting by myself in the grass at the Maryhill Museum. I saw lots of peacocks roaming the grounds there. Enjoy!

Love,

Cameron

More Pics from Washington

Hello again. Grandma just gave me some more pics of my time in Washington and there were a few more I just wanted to share. In this batch, you will see me with my cousins, my great grandparents (and the remote, one of my favorite things to play with), my Uncle Tom, and my first kiss Lyla. Oh yeah, there's also a picture of me and mom by a pig in Ellensberg, WA. We stop here at a bakery on our way to Great Grandma and Great Grandpa's. Grandma has a sweet tooth and we can't seem to travel to Eastern Washington without stopping at a bakery. Or two.

Love,

Cameron

Me at the Beach

Here are pics of me at the beach in W. Seattle. Thanks Kimly for sharing these all the way from London! Gotta love technology...

Love,

Cameron

More pics from the Great Northwest

I couldn't fit them all in my last post so here are some more pics to go with my vacation tales.

Love,
Cameron

The Great Pacific Northwest aka Catching Up Part 2

Here is the final part of my "catching up" entries. As I mentioned in my last blog entry, I am a bit behind on sharing my vacation with everybody. So here goes...

Mama, Grandma Linda and I flew out to Seattle on June 20 (dada joined us on June 27). This was my first time visiting mama's home state. It was very beautiful. Lots of mountains, trees, water and sunshine. Except for when we went to Moses Lake and Ritzville on the east side of the state, but more on that later.

We stayed with Uncle Tom's parents and they had lots of fun toys to play with including a rocking horse, safari truck on which I could ride while people pushed me around (and it made lots of safari noises), and lots of Little People toys. Thanks to all their great toys, mama took me to lots of garage sales once we got home to get me some big boy toys. Thank you Bea & Bruce for helping my mama make the transition from baby toys to big boy toys.

Our first night in Seattle, we visited with longtime family friends, the Conrads. Their son Jason is mama's age and their daughter Kylie is close in age to Kali. Jason and his wife Toni weren't at dinner, but Kylie, her husband Adam and their 20-month old daughter Lyla was there. Lyla and I hit if off right away. It probably helped that I like older girls. We played a little with her toys and then when we thought nobody was looking, we kissed. Yep, my first kiss! And it was a wet, sloppy one as I of course had my mouth open. Those who know me will say I have my mouth open a lot so it was only fitting that my first kiss was a french kiss.

We took lots of trips while in Washington. Our first trip was to eastern Washington where we picked up Great Grandma and Grandpa Heimbigner in Moses Lake and went to Ritzville to visit mama's aunt, uncle and one of her cousin's family. It was unseasonably cold (in the 50s and wind) that day so we couldn't play outside. Despite being stuck indoors, I still had so much fun watching Tyler (4 1/2) running around and big sis Lauren (10) leading the way. Tyler kept bringing me toys to play with and I got lots of attention from everyone. Lauren sure holds her own even though she is the only female cousin (mama's cousin Ryan has two boys). We stayed with Great Grandma & Grandpa that night and because I go to bed before everybody else, I ended up having to sleep in the bathroom. Don't worry, I had a portable crib so I didn't have to sleep on top of the covered bathtub like Great Grandpa suggested. I'm a pretty good traveler so it didn't bother me a bit to have a slightly non-traditional sleeping location.

We came home from eastern Washington the next day and spent some time in Seattle because my Aunt Kali graduated from her dental hygienist program on Wednesday, June 24. I am so proud of her accomplishment and was so excited to attend her graduation even though it started close to my bedtime. But I was a little angel at the ceremony and played with a couple toys and crawled on the ground between Grandpa, Grandma and mama. This was the start of my late nights in Washington. I regularly would stay up until 7:30/8/8:30 instead of my usual 6:30/7 bedtime. To compensate, I napped really well in the morning - sometimes as long as 3 hours.

I also got to experience a lot of new foods. Aunt Kal shared her cottage cheese with me and I enjoy it. I especially like picking up each curd and eating it like finger food. I was also exposed to several southwestern foods including black beans and guacamole. Aunt Kali, her best friend Kimly, mama and I went to West Seattle the Friday after Aunt Kal's graduation. They wanted to have lunch and then take me to the beach since I had never experienced sand or the ocean. The ocean was ok, even the seaweed that washed up onto my feet. However, I was not a fan of the sand. I stood there and made my scared pose (my arms tense up and shake). At lunch , I tried some guacamole from this great restaurant (Cactus in case any of you make it to Seattle). Well mama thought the chunk in my guac was an avocado chunk, but it was really an onion. So I had an onion in my mouth for a good 5 minutes without mama realizing what I was eating. I didn't mind the onion as I kept it in my mouth, but mama took it from me when she saw what it was. Oh well, it was a fun food experience while it lasted.

But my favorite new food experience happened after dada arrived. After dada got to Seattle and we had a party for Aunt Kal, mama, dada, Great Grandma Miyeko, Grandma and Grandpa and I all packed ourselves into the rental Suburban and drove to Vancouver, WA (near Portland, OR) where Great Grandma Miyeko lives. Mama and dada took me to a park and we watched a Little League baseball game and we drove all around Vancouver. I think mama is trying to convince dada and me to move there sometime in the future because she sure was trying to sell it. You can see three different mountains (Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens and either Mt. Rainier or Mt. Adams - I can't remember) from the Washington State University campus in Vancouver. I think mama envisions herself working there someday. We also drove around Lake Vancouver and into the port of Vancouver and saw a few parks, the mall and a few other sites on our drive. Now I missed most of it as I fell asleep right after the college campus. Anyway, Vancouver was our first stop on the way to Hood River, OR and Maryhill, WA.

Grandma Linda grew up in Maryhill, WA, a small (e.g. most of the residents are related to us) farming community on the Washington side of the Columbia River. We drove to Maryhill where I got to meet some of my cousins on Grandma's side of the family. I also got to see the family orchard and watch some of the cousins tending to the vineyards. Part of the orchard is now vineyards since one branch of the family has their own winery. The peaches, apricots, and cherries fresh from the farm where the best fruit I have eaten in my short, but full of fruit, life. Did I mention that these days I don't like much other than fruit? So I have had a lot of fruit in a short time and the fresh from the orchard fruit cannot be beat. Yet that still was not my favorite new food experience (partially because only the apricots were new to me).

My favorite new food experience came while we were in Hood River, OR. Hood River is on the Oregon side of the Columbia River, maybe halfway between Portland and Maryhill so it was a great location for us to stay at while doing daytrips to Maryhill, Mt. Hood, and other nearby areas. I had never been to a mountain before this trip so it was really neat to see skiiers and snow in July. Plus, the scenery and the view from the mountain were amazing. The drive up to the mountain was beautiful too - we would wind through orchards and forests with glimpses of the mountains and the arid hillsides on the Washington side of the river. We even stopped at my Great Grandparents favorite cannery to get some cases of canned Rainier cherries and apricots. This way I can enjoy my fruit back in Wisconsin.

We hung out with cousins on my mom's side and mama, dada and cousin Bryan went fishing (well he fished since mama and dada didn't have their license), we went out for a few miles, and got caught up. Cousins Bryan and Amber recommended we visit some ice caves up in the mountains and then stop for huckleberry pie or smoothies on our way back. So the next day we did just that. We didn't get to explore much of the ice caves - the warning sign posted advised we should have headgear with a light, shoes with solid grips and lots of warm clothes. We had none of the above and as soon as we got near the bottom step down into the cave, we saw why those recommendations were made. The bottom two steps were icy and the cave itself was a solid pack of ice. And the temperature dropped at least 40 degrees by the bottom of the steps. It felt refreshing for a few minutes and then we decided to go indulge in the huckleberry goodies as grandma was worried the place might close before she got her pie. Good decision as that is where I had my favorite food experience. Mama is not a big pie person but she loves smoothies so she went to the smoothie shop while everybody else hung out at the pie cafe. She brought back a huckleberry smoothie and I was very curious about the straw. Thinking that I wouldn't be able to figure the straw out, she let me stick it in my mouth. Next thing she knows, I'm sucking her smoothie right up the straw. It was delicious and I got to use a straw for the first time. That is why I loved that food experience. Now mama lets me drink smoothies at home and use a straw for lots of different drinks. I'm much better at using a straw than a cup.

On our way back from Hood River we stopped at Multnomah Falls, one of the tallest waterfalls in the world. The two pics not starring me are of the upper and lower part of Multnomah Falls. I actually was asleep during that stop so grandpa stayed with me in the car while mama and dada hiked up to the bridge and grandma watched from below. Finally, we did some sightseeing in the Seattle area. We visited Pike Place Market and as Heimbigner family tradition dictates, I had to get my picture taken on the pig in the front of the market. I was not a huge fan of sitting on this pig while everybody was watching, but I at least cooperated enough to get the obligatory picture. Grandma and grandpa watched me our last night there so Uncle Tom, Aunt Kali, mama and dada could go out together for some "adult" time. From what I heard they spent the evening in Kirkland down at the waterfront eating cupcakes before their dinner. So why can't I have dessert before dinner? Heck, why can't I have dessert ever except for special occasions? Adults and all their rules!

Before I wrap this update up, here are a few other interesting things I saw or did out west:
- Learned a new superhero pose (where I reach up high and stick my arm out like superman)
- Touched lots of different plants in Bea & Bruce's backyard. I was very gentle with them.
- Crawled away on mama when she tried to give me a bath in the big boy bathtub (ed. note: that would be a regular bathtub since we didn't have his baby bath with us)
- Laughed at Harley, Aunt Kali and Uncle Tom's tiny dog. I'm bigger than Harley, but she definitely let it be known that she is boss. She would purposely go the long way around so she could crawl over me to sit on Aunt Kali's lap instead of just jumping up from the other side of Aunt Kali. But she was still real gentle with me.
- Climbed into a box and had fun playing with it.
- Rode a rocking horse
- Exhausted my Aunt Kali after spending the day with her and mama. And she wasn't even my primary caregiver that day since mama was with us. It will be interesting when she and Uncle Tom have a baby because they both sleep more than my mama. But I know they will adjust and be fine. Tired, but fine.

I had a great time seeing the Pacific Northwest and now I know why mama loves it so much. But it sure was nice getting to see my doggy again when we got home. And now you are all caught up.

Love,

Cameron