Christmas card...

It wouldn't be a true Campbell Christmas if I didn't wait until the last second to do anything about Christmas cards.  I know that doing Christmas cards shouldn't be stressful, but I love receiving them and seeing all the pictures that it always makes me want to participate.  I always have really great intentions of getting good family pictures done…and then it never happens.  So then I attempt it myself.  Most years I've gotten lucky…but not without a few "out takes".  My biggest hurdle this year is that the boys had "nothing to wear".  And not like when I say it…when trying to dress them I realized that neither of them had anything "nice" in their wardrobes.  Whoops.  We are a jeans/sweats and t-shirt family, what can I say?!

So I finally grabbed the boys each a "nice" sweater (thank you target!) and got to work (also since this is their one piece of nice clothing this is also what they will be wearing for all Christmas parties, dinners and day.  Just saving you money Bri, wink)

 My next problem is that I do not know how to photograph at night.  I'm not trying to say I'm a professional during the day, far from it, but "auto" setting has got me covered for day shots, but night is a whole new can of worms.

Most of my pictures came out like this:  

 One great smile and one not.

When they boys started to get restless I brought down the our chalkboard because the quote I used seems appropriate.   But alas the lighting was off...

But the faces they made were AWESOME!

This one almost became our Christmas card, because come on, Owen's "singing" is just too hilarious.

A few nights before (and before I purchased sweaters) we tried a Christmas jams photo shoot.  Where Owen made this face the whole time:

Saying "cheese"…..see what I mean:

Then he smile….and Scott got silly:

So no, we didn't get a card shot that night.

Finally, a winner. 

After all that and extra dinero shelled out for rush shipping, they were still a day late arriving (tsk tsk tiny prints).  So they may or may not make it out on or before or around Christmas.  But it was the thought that counted right.  And who knows, maybe next year, professional pictures, in October.  It could happen.

So to your family from ours:

Merry Christmas!
Love,
The Campbells

Santa College and other Christmas happenings...

Somehow we are almost halfway through December and I have not been keeping up on posting…and I'm so behind on Christmas cards amongst other things.  But that's really not what this season is all about anyways.  So here is a little run down of what we have been up to….

Some Christmas crafting.  The boys had so much fun decorating these wreaths one night after dinner.  With every pom he glued on Owen would get so proud and excited and say "ooooooh" or "wow".

Lovin' his craft!

We have visited with Santa.  Last weekend Hilary and I met at the bookstore with all the boys.  We had coffee and they played with the trains and spent their gift cards (courtesy of Mimi and Papa, for the record Scott chose a superman book (of course, ugh!) and Owen chose a Thomas book (the first ever in our house, Scott wasn't too much of a train kid)).  Then we decided to go meet Santa in his cottage.  On the way Scott kept saying he was going to Santa College.  Hilarious!

On our way to Santa's College we walked by World Market and who did we run into coming out of the store?  Santa of course.  I wish I could have gotten a picture of the boys faces when they saw him.  They stopped dead in their tracks.  Totally frozen.  Santa was such a good sport and chatted with them and told them to be good…..they all nodded, biggest eyes ever.

We let Santa get settled and then we headed in to tell him what we wanted for Christmas and sit in his lap for a picture.  Owen wanted nothing to do with him.  Scott was happy to tell him that he would please like an "iceman" super hero toy.  (Santa is majorly stressing on this one…if you know where he can pick on up let me know….he's tried online and is not having much luck).  So this is what we got.  Technically no one was crying...

After Santa we figured why not have a treat, what's Santa without a little sugar after all (I mean we already had candy canes so bring it!).  They just opened a Sprinkles in our little shopping center and I had already checked to see if they did gluten free cupcakes on a previous trip over without the boys.  So we all had a gluten free red velvet….which went over much better than our picture with Santa.

 We have been decorating gingerbread houses.  Our sweet neighbors/friends hosted a little get together and the kids went to town…eating the candy. 

We finally cut them off and then Scott really got into the spirit of decorating.

His masterpiece:

Rewinding to the day after Thanksgiving, we decorated.  Scott had fun being my little helper too.

Ta-da!  All that's missing is a mantle.  Maybe next year….  Still cozy and festive though!

I'm kind of obsessed with chalkboards…here are ours all Christmas-a-fied:

This was the new book I picked up for the boys this year.  Its been really fun to read a page each night.

 Not Christmas related but Brian and I had a fun little date day the other weekend.  We bike across the street to meet up with some family for birthday drinks while the boys stayed home with a new babysitter (who rocked by the way).  So fun to bike ride for a glass of wine! Love our neighborhood.

Its also been crazy cold here.  One morning:

 This morning my car actually said 34 when we first got in.  Yikes.  Before you roll your eyes east coast/canadian friends just remember that us so cal kiddies don't buy boots and winter coats every year so when we see 30s we put on all of our sweatshirts we own, a vest, a beenie and hope for the best!

Last weekend we also a fun get together with some old friends (Brian's high school friends actually!!)  It was so great to see everyone and catch up for a little bit.  Its so funny to watch a group of friends go from being in their 20s and the kinds of things they do for entertainment, to their 30s when they play foosball holding one or more kids before the kids have to get in their jams and go to bed.  Wouldn't change a thing though...

And last weekend Mimi, Hilary and I also hit up the rose bowl flea market (as we do every december) for some good old treasure hunting.  And look who scored a bench for the entry way: 

Happy Holidays!!! 

Scott at School

First of all, we got our school pictures back.  I opened the envelope and nearly passed out from the cuteness….also he looks 14.

To say Scott has adjusted well to preschool is an understatement.  We have been at this school for a year now (we started half way through the year last year in a two year old classroom) and we continue to love it.
We have a handful of kids from our class last year that are in our class now which is fun.  Scott has kept his old friends and made many new ones.  It is so fun to watch him learn to play with others and be a friend.  I work once a week in his classroom and basically don't see him the entire time I'm there.  Its fun to be a fly on the wall, so to speak, and witness his day as a bystander.  He has a couple friends who are boys who he plays superheroes with occasionally, but lately he is all about the GIRLS.  He knows two of them from class last year but he has slowly gotten to know a bunch more and there is nothing you can do to entice him away.  He convinces them to play super heroes, they convince him to play wedding.  And it goes like this, back and forth and probably throwing in a few more games along the way, all day.
Scott brings toys that he wants to show/share with particular girls ("Mom I want to bring wolverine to share with Riwee (Riley), she'll like it a lot.")  And they "dress up" for him (Riley's mom told me she said, "Mom I want to wear this bow in my hair today because I think Scott will like it.")  The other day we had plan for Scott to go to Delilah's house for a play date after school (plans which were foiled by a monkey bar incident, story to come) and she told her mom: "I hope Scott comes over as Batman today, he's so cute when he's batman."  I mean you can't make this stuff up, so stinkin' cute these kids.
I love that Scott enjoys and plays well with both girls and boys and that he seems to find balance at school when he plays everyday.  I think some of it is that he LOVES all the attention from all the girls.  Lets face it boys don't swoon right?  HAHA.
Which leads me to Tuesday.  I was working at school that day and staying to work at picnic pals.  It was the last 10-15 minutes of the day and all the kids were playing on the monkey bars.  I was nearby watching and, I kid you not, thinking to myself:  how do more kids not fall off these things on their heads….BAM! Thought interrupted by Scott falling on his head.  The teacher ran for ice.  We comforted and checked and iced and checked and finally we were convinced he was ok and ready to roll.  So I started getting our stuff together to leave (because now school had been over for at least 10 minutes) when all of a sudden another THUD.  And everyone's running.  And its Scott again.  Falling off the play structure…on his head.  Well that's when I lost my sanity and freaked out.  I was upset, he was upset so that's when we decided to just call our pediatrician.  Here is where I should point out that my phone had been dead all day…super unhelpful.  Luckily Scott's teacher takes her kids to the same ped so she already had the number and was on the phone.  Then she called my mom from her phone (which was a sinch bc I had borrowed her phone earlier to check in on Owen, since you know, I couldn't be reached by cell phone….annoying).  Ms. Sandy got everything taken care of and organized while Delilah's mom drove us to the per.  By the time we got there I was quite sure he was fine, but you can't put a price tag on peace of mind.  We were sent home with a clean bill of health and we all felt better for it.  I came home to emails from Ms. Sandy checking in on us and other parents who had heard or were there.  I know I have said it before but I love our little preschool community.  It continues to surpass expectations of what we ever expected to find when we signed Scott up.  So the point is: he is fine.  But man we sure had a major adrenal rush that afternoon.  And just to add to his girlfriend saga, two girls that were there when he fell were sent to the classroom to bring tissues out.  They went and were gone a little longer than they should have been…the teacher was just about to go check on them when they came out with stethoscopes and doctor kits.  They said the wanted to make sure Scott was ok and his heart was still beating.  ADORABLE.  These two had, only a few minutes earlier had been fighting over who was married to Scott, overcame their differences to check on their friend!  I love preschool friends!

Thanksgiving Week

Thankful for family time, thankful for vacation from work, thankful for friends, thankful for perfect weather and gorgeous California beach camping…just to name a few.   We had a wonderful week, I was sad to see it end, but we are excited for the Christmas season that is already upon us!

We headed up to San Simeon on Sunday afternoon before Thanksgiving.  Mimi and Papa had been there since Thursday and Hilary, Matt and Parker arrived Saturday so everyone was set up and camp was ready and waiting for us.

These two pirates were excited to see each other and didn't waste a second.  Instant pirate mode.

We set up our tent and headed straight for the beach.

The Campbells attempted a family picture.  Not bad, just wished Owen would have been smiling.

I was chilly but so clear and beautiful!

Papa told some pirate stories...

Then we headed out exploring...

And rock climbing...

And then we came upon a bottle that had "washed ashore".

We opened it and lo and behold: A PIRATE TREASURE MAP!

(No camping trip is complete without a pirate treasure hunt.)

Scott deciphering the map.

Owen dumping the sand out of the bottle.

The first bottle had a map that led us to the second bottle which led us to the first buried treasure.

That treasure chest was filled with goodies including pirate hats, spyglasses, gold dabloons (both edible and not edible) as well as another clue about where to find even more treasure.

We found a cave where 3 more small treasure chests were buried.  Can you believe it?  3 small treasure chests, one for each boy, those smart pirates!!!!

Oh and these two created a sea saw out of driftwood.  Of course!

After all that pirate excitement we were ready for dinner, a campfire and of course smores.  

The next day we headed into Cambria for breakfast and coffee.  Then the guys all went to the park so Mimi, Hilary and I could do a little antiquing!  #afewofmyfavoritethings

Hilary, Matt and Parker J. headed home from there when we headed back to camp.  We had a little lunch then spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach.  We walked, we collected shells and rocks (one of Owen's new favorite things is rock collecting!) and of course boogie boarded (despite the temperature…it did warm enough just enough mid day to made it bearable to watch Scott splash in the waves with just his board shorts on).

Back at camp having a drink and a snack in Mimi and Papa's van.

Playing trucks with his rock collection

Camping "toys" are the best.  Perfect rock quarry. 

Tuesday morning we drove a few miles north to see the elephant seals.  Scott was in a bit of mood so he probably doesn't remember this little excursion too fondly, but Owen LOVED it.   He kept signing more as we walked from group to group and listened to the rangers give us some elephant seal facts. 

The big black lump in the middle of this picture below is the biggest elephant seal we saw.  We actually watched him swim on shore and them lump his way half way up the beach.  The whole process took a while, he'd only move a couple of feet at a time before he'd stop to rest.  Pretty cool though.

After the elephant seals we picnicked at the beach and stayed down there until dinner.  We had dinner and of course wine and then went down to the beach after it got really dark.  Owen was asleep before we hit the sand (a 5 minute walk), but Scott thought it was pretty special!

Cheers Mimi and Papa to a great week of camping! Can't wait til our next trip!

Wednesday morning we drove back down the coast about an hour to Grandma and Gpa's house for Thanksgiving the next day.  We got all cleaned up and laundered.  Then settled in for a good movie.

Aunt Lynne and Uncle Taber were there for Thanksgiving as well which was such a fun bonus!!!

Thanksgiving day was spent mostly in the kitchen (although lots of prep had been done the day before, these two sisters can COOK!).  The boys rode the tractor, played with trains, went in the back yard, played cars and watched Christmas movies.

Before we knew it, it was dinner time.  And thanks for those lovely "smiles" boys!

Smirk.

Thanksgiving night we also celebrated Daddy's birthday (which wasn't actually until Saturday).  We sang and he blew out a candle on a pecan pie (one of his faves!).  Scott was thrown off by the whole thing because we hadn't told him it was daddy's birthday (because it wasn't) but he didn't like it being sprung on him like that.  Poor guy.  He came around when dessert was served.

After dinner the boys got into new jams courtesy of Grandma and Gpa (so naturally we had to have a photo shoot) and we headed home late that evening to avoid traffic and get back for a full 3 day weekend!

Scott did a great job smiling!  Owen did this:

He's saying "cheese" at the top of his lungs….which doesn't look a thing like a smile.  Every single time this is what I get.  HAHA!

We hope you all enjoyed your week and reflect on all that you are thankful for!