Camden's Birthday Party

What would a 1st birthday party be if we didn't celebrate with a some (little) friends?! Camden's little buddies Alex, Owen, and Karissa came over today to help him celebrate his first birthday milestone. The adults dined on homemade flatbread pizzas, while the kids snacked on their own assortment of formula, baby food, grapes, crackers, and napkins.

Conversation ranged from Cargill shop talk, fantasy football, Kim's pregnancy, to the variations in the ways mommy's and daddy's use the toilet.

Enough words...The pictures speak for themselves. Good times :)

Congratulations, Uncle Tony and Aunt Lisa!

Today is very bittersweet. Today is the day when Mommy's brother, Camden's uncle Tony, and his fiancee Lisa make their commitment to God and marriage official. Due to the fact that mommy is 37 weeks pregnant, it just wasn't the most prudent thing for us to be on the road 10 hours from home right now. It was tough not being there for Tony and Lisa on their amazing day. They were obviously in our thoughts the entire day. In honor of their day and the fact that they were serving cupcakes at their wedding, we had one of our own.


Since we couldn't be there, we sent a poem to be read at the reception:

This is the story of how Tony and Lisa met,
Thanks to Morgan and her tennis balls, all slobbery and wet.

For Morgan and her one good eye, it was love at first sight,
And before long it wasy always a Tony and Lisa date night!!

It was turning into love, this we knew;
When we heard Lisa say... Jeff Gordon, BOO!!!

The romance did blossom
For Lisa took to Nascar and Tony thought that AWESOME!!

Thanks to Lisa's cooking skills, Tony's tastebuds did evolve,
But his dislike for tomatoes and mushrooms she JUST could not solve;

We all grew to love them as a fabulous pair
A hope for a permanent union was a secret we all did share!!!

To many the engagement came as a shock,
But Tony did a great job, just look at that Rock :-)

So on your special day,
Steve, Camden and I will celebrate from far away;

But come November, we will celebrate at dad and moms
With the Sindt family tradition, Jaeger Bombs!

Congrats to my new sister and my wonderful brother,
We're so happy you've found one another!!!

Love Always!!
Kimberly, Steve and Camden

Camden's First, 1st Birthday Celebration

As mentioned in a previous post, mommy and daddy took the day off to spend the day with Camden on his first birthday. We had a marvelous day! We had a pretty full day planned and we were all excited to celebrate the day. After hanging around the house in the morning, we packed up lunch at one of the parks close to our house.


After lunch we spent some time playing on the playground. Camden loves to swing on swings. I'm sure once he's able to be more independent on the swings, he'll be more daring. I remember the days of swinging as high as I possibly could and then launching myself from the seat at the height of the swing and seeing how far I could fly. Yep, that'll be Camden, too.

Next, we headed to our local Build-A-Bear workshop. It was mommy's plan to celebrate the birth of a brand new teddy bear on the day that we celebrated the birth of Camden. (sidenote to those of you wondering about Kim...no we did not celebrate the birth of another child on the day we celebrated the birth of Camden). Camden "picked out" the bear he wanted and he watched intently as his new bear came to life. He kissed the bear's new heart for good luck. We went to the name book and I flipped through the pages in search of the perfect name. Camden pointed at a name he wanted and we went with it. He named his new bear, Derby.

After a little more time at the mall, then to the grocery, Camden was ready for a well deserved nap (so were mommy and daddy, actually).

Later we celebrated back at home with some specially made cupcakes. Here are a couple of videos that capture the moment and a few more pictures from the day:

Happy 1st Birthday, Camden!!

Today we celebrate Camden's FIRST birthday! It sounds so cliche, but it truly has gone so fast. It's been a wonderful year with so many rewarding and tremendous milestones. From the day we took Camden home to watching him take his first steps, having Camden in our lives has been a true blessing.



Mommy and Daddy have taken the day off to celebrate with Camden. We plan on taking Camden to a Build-A-Bear workshop today to build him a new teddy bear. Maybe we'll let him randomly point to a toy at Toy's R Us of his choosing too. A birthday party is planned for Camden and some of his (and our) friends this coming Sunday.


Help us wish our little man a super duper Happy First Birthday by leaving a comment to this post!

Mr. Happy

Final Layover

Our final stop on our week long trek was back in Chicago. This time, Uncle Tony and Aunt Lisa were around to meet up with us. Tony and Lisa have had a busy summer as they prepare for their wedding on September 6th. On the Sunday we met up with them, they had just returned from their home in Michigan where their wedding will be.

So we all met up and went to Egg'lectic Cafe‎ in Rolling Meadows, IL. If you couldn't guess by the name, the menu is full of egg dishes. Perfect place for brunch. While the adults enjoyed our breakfast/lunch combinations, Camden chowed down on his own version of brunch which consisted of peas, cheerios, and grapes. And after all the food was gone, of course we had to take some pictures.

Camden shows off the Sindt/Hill commemorative coozie.

Happy to be with Aunt Lisa.

"Mommy, I'd much rather ride home on this, than the minivan!"

Trouble Sr. and Trouble Jr.

An Eggsellent visit in Chicago.

Marsh! Marsh! Marsh!

We took Camden to Lebanon, OH to visit my good friend Evan and his son Blake and brand new daughter, Peri. Well, as brand new as Camden is. She's about 3 weeks older. Unfortunately, their mother, Mandy wasn't around but it was nice to see as many Marsh family members as we could. Blake is 4 years old and, as you can see in the pictures below, a Carson Palmer fan.

Peri is such a cute little chunk of a girl. Obviously, not something anyone should call her later in life, but it's an appropriate description of her at this stage. She couldn't be more different than Camden. Where Camden screams bloody murder when he wakes up from sleeping, Peri is content to just lay in her crib. Just patiently waiting for anyone to come get her. Where Camden is walking and on the go, Peri barely crawls and is happy to just sit and watch her surroundings. Where Camden is very communicative with his own words, Peri just charms you with her smile.

It'll be fun to watch Camden and Peri develop over time.

Left to Right: Evan, Peri, Blake, Daddy, Camden

Peri's beaming smile!

Camden sharing his ball with Peri.

Camden and Blake.

Playtime with Maxwell

During our trip back to Ohio, Camden finally got a chance to meet, hang out, and play with his good buddy Maxwell Myser (go to his blog and check out his pictures of Max in his tuxedo. Freakin cute!). It was long overdue, but I think it was a good age for both of them to interact with one another. Max is about 4 months older than Camden, but he seems like he's about 10 times bigger. It was fun to see Max and interact with him.

There were just too many good pictures to choose from. The sampling below is actually just a small subset of what we actually have. If you want to see more of them, you can always peruse the thousands of pictures in our Flickr photostream :)

Max offers Camden some advice in negotiating the staircase.

B and Camden. Reunited again.

Max is such a cutie.

Max celebrating his triumphant ascent to the top of the stairs.

Bigger, bluer eyes. Camden gnaws on a door stop.

"Man, that kid is huge!"

Daddy gets used to holding two kids at once. Camden's not sure about sharing his daddy.

"I got your nose!"

From left to right: Bethel/Scarlet, Steve/Camden, Mike/Max

Summer in Ohio with the Grandparents

The Nguyen family hit the road beginning the night of Friday, August 1st. My good friend Eric Myser was getting married in Columbus on 08.08.08 so we decided to make a week out of it. We left early in the evening so that Camden could sleep in the car and we could keep him as close to a normal sleep schedule as possible. Our plan was to drive the first six hours and stop somewhere near Chicago.

Katie did really well getting us to Rockford, IL on one tank of gas. Camden woke up at our pit stop and we took some time to give him a bottle and change his diaper. We packed him back up and went another hour or so to Schaumburg, IL just outside Chicago and found a hotel for the evening.

The next day, which happened to be mommy and daddy's 5th wedding anniversary, we departed Chicago with Dayton, Ohio being our goal. We made one stop at Purdue University just to get Camden out of the car for a bit during the day. We had a nice picnic on campus and got back on the road, anxious to get to Ohio.

Ong Noi and Ba Noi were anxious to see their baby boy. They got a lot of good bonding time with him as they discovered all Camden's new abilities. My parents' house is pretty spacious so he had a lot of room to roam around on foot and on all fours.

Camden discovered the door stops and just had a ball with them. I'm thinking we need to make some kind of toy that's a board with a bunch of door stops stuck to it. He would be entertained for days. Later in the week we took Camden to a friend's house and he was immediately drawn to their door stops too.

Overall, Camden had a great week with his grandparents. They loved seeing all his new developmental milestones and it was great to see him interacting with them so happily. The drive back was relatively uneventful. Except that the Chicago to Minneapolis leg took 9 hours when it should only take about 6. Parts of the interstate were shut down because of accidents, so that made it a little more miserable for all of us. All in all, the trip was a success. We'll post a few more highlights from the trip soon.