Brock was due on December 24th.

He was born on December 13th.

Six years later...

Camryn was due December 24th.

She was born on December 16th.

December is our favorite and most crazy, not to mention most expensive, month of the year, and its not entirely due to Christmas. Two December birthday kids = two parties, two cakes and lots of ice cream. 

Don't even get me started on shopping for Christmas and birthday gifts simultaneously!

This year was a BIG one for us. With Cami turning ONE, we were planning on a big, family party in celebration. And in the interest of leveling the playing field, so to speak, it was also time to throw Brock his first "friend" party. And that's where the mind-numbing party planning began. 

First, it was Brock's Lego Star Wars party...

The kids played Freeze Dance to the Star Wars theme song, Pin-the-lightsabre-on-the-Lego-man and each child got to decorate their own lightsabre. 

Edible lightsabres (chocolate-covered pretzel rods; they're weren't pretty, but the kids LOVED them)

Decorate-Your-Own-Wookie-Cookie Station...

(I never realized how much a gingerbread man looks like Chewbaca!)

 Captain Rex cupcakes...

We also served Yoda Soda (lime sherbet and sprite) and Hans Rolos. 

A great time was had by all!

Brock's party was on a Saturday and his real birthday was the following Thursday.

We kept things very low key on Thursday.

Just as we were recovering from a big birthday week for Brock, it was time to start implementing mom's big plans for Cami's big day. 

The theme for Camryn's 1st birthday was: It's the most ONEderful time of the year!

We decorated with snowflakes!

Ordinarily, we try to keep birthdays on the small side in terms of guests, but when it comes to the first birthday, we go BIG. Well, as big as we can for our little house. 

Now that my children have been sufficiently spoiled and nourished on copious amounts of cake and ice cream and sugar, it's onto Christmas. The party through December continues.

Every year, we celebrate Thanksgiving with BOTH our families. This means two turkey dinners and a long day of juggling separate family events. Such a day can be chaotic, not to mention a wee bit stressful, as you can imagine. After all, we love both our families and can't possibly choose between the two (why should we?).

This year, however, we decided to do something a little different for Thanksgiving. 

Travel!

Along with Clarke's brother and his family and Clarke's aunt and uncle, we rented a 3-story beach house in Pacific City, Oregon!!

Thanksgiving at the beach. Fun stuff!

Our house was literally on the beach. As in, we had to walk down this little path on the dune and down to the ocean...

  Cami loved her first wagon ride...

  

Adorableness.

Brock went right to work, collecting shells.

Becca was next.

Ultimately, Rachel decided to entirely commandeer the wagon.

Holding a wiggly baby and manning a camera is tricky.

Cami was naturally curious and wanted to see what was inside the lens.

My little shell collector recruited the help of daddy and Abby.

Camryn grew wary of the wagon and I carried her for a while before Clarke swung Cami up on his shoulders. After a few minutes he stopped and asked me what Cami was doing.

*zzzzzz*

When Brock was about Cami's age, he fell asleep on Clarke's shoulders too, as we walked back to our hotel in the cold of winter's night in downtown Salt Lake City. It doesn't strike me as the most comfortable place to snuggle in for a snooze, but my kids disagree, apparently. 

She rested her hand on daddy's head.

BE STILL MY HEART!

(Clarke is giving me the 'do we really need 9000 pictures of this?' look. Yes, dear, as a matter of fact we do need 9000 pictures of this because it's unbelievably precious!)

(and for the record, I only took 62 pictures of the two of them!)

 By the end of our 1 mile beach stroll, Brock had collected quite a haul.

And Camryn had a good nap. 

Not a bad way to spend Thanksgiving morning. 

Thanksgiving dinner was great. We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, veggies, casseroles, salads, rolls and sparkling cider. There was football on tv. The kids were busy playing games and the adults spent the rest of the day in the traditional post-turkey coma, camped out on couches and in chairs to chat and watch tv. Later that night, we brought out the pies and watched 'Enchanted.' 

Just some random pictures...

Cami tried her first piece of salami. And her first potato chip.

And her second potato chip. And her third...

My girl loves chips. Who knew?! 

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!

Brock lost a tooth the night before we left for vacation and the tooth fairy visited him at the beach house! 

Sweet.

IT'S A THANKSGIVING MIRACLE!

Proof that people are truly good at heart.

 See the picture below? I don't post it because it is cute--in fact, I probably would NOT have posted it, except that it is PROOF that during that obscure part of the beach, we still had possession of Clarke's car keys. Or rather, Camryn had possession of daddy's keys. You probably can guess where this story is going...

 

It wasn't until we were ready to shop on Black Friday that Clarke realized he didn't have his keys. He looked EVERYWHERE! We both did. But no worries, I had my keys in the diaper bag. 

Or did I? Dumping out the diaper bag proved fruitless. Then, Clarke remembered two things.

1st: My keys were in passenger side door of the car. LOCKED in the car.

2nd: Camryn had daddy's keys while we walked the beach the day before. 

This is the part where we panicked. 

Clarke couldn't find his keys in the wagon. We searched his brother's truck. No keys.

Oh. No. Oh. No. Oh. No! No! No!

Could they have really been dropped somewhere on the beach?

We had been walking in the wet sand and they had probably been washed out from shore and re-tracing our mile-long walk from the previous day would have been a waste of time.

We called a locksmith, resolved to the fact that this would be a very expensive lesson for the two of us to learn. Talk about supreme frustration! Last time we visited the coast (in May), our car trunk broke and we had to bungee it shut for the rest of our trip. And now this??? 

LUCKILY, I have a very resourceful husband. He's downright clever!

Clarke began trying to jimmy the lock on the Camry door.

No luck.

He tried for quite a while using several tools from the beach house's garage.

(Fortunately, no one called the police to report some big guy breaking into a Toyota Camry!)

Then, Clarke had a brilliant idea...

He could see my car keys and the key fob (with the buttons that lock and unlock the car) was facing up. If he could only get a wire hanger through the window, he could push the button and unlock the doors. 

Guess what? It worked!
 Holy cow! It really worked!

WHEW!
Clarke is genius, I tell ya!

We cancelled the locksmith and were now in possession of one set of car keys.

But that's not the miracle.

Clarke decided to run an errand and left in the car. When he returned he had a big smile on his face.

He had driven into town and started visiting some of the local business along the beach front asking if anyone had turned in a set of keys. It was, admittedly, a long shot. Many shops had a collection of lost items found along the beach. But no keys. There was only business left to visit. And sure enough, they had Clarke's keys.
PRAISE THE LORD! 

Some super, amazing, wonderful person found the keys on the beach and turned them into a local business. They didn't have to do that. But they went out of their way to help out a total stranger.

We don't live in a world where people are always kind or considerate and sadly we don't expect that kind of behavior in strangers. Which is why it is such a huge miracle that someone turned the keys in and that Clarke got them back in the end.

***

Our last day at the beach...
We bundled up the kids in THEIR JACKETS (forget coats--it was nice outside!) and we headed down to the beach for an early morning stroll.

The beach is gorgeous by morning light.







One of my very favorite images...

We tried in vain to teach Cami to walk, but no luck.

Early morning = bed head. :) He's cute no matter what.

This exchange is priceless.


I wildly applaud my husband's photography skills.
This is the best picture taken of me in a long time!

This boy has my heart...

Our last day at the beach was also spent climbing the giant sand dune. Sounds like a sissy feat, until you're the one climbing and climbing and climbing and every muscle in your body is burning and you struggle to catch your breath. Only to realize that you're only halfway to the top. It was a monster dune to climb, but the view from the top was phenomenal.

Brock, Rachel & Becca race to the top of the dune.

Clarke carried Camryn all the way to the top of the dune, on his shoulders!
I married Superdad! Here, our little group takes a breather after tackling the enormous dune.


This is the view that you have to climb the dune to see.
You can't see this from anywhere else on the beach.
Stunning, isn't it?!

Cami with cousin Becca.

He's a boy, which is to say, he's a climber.

Brock may have a cousin crush on Becca. He ADORES her!

And Becca is so sweet with him.

While we desperately missed our families back home, spending Thanksgiving on the coast was a very cool experience.