Play Ball!

Camden discovered that he can do some fun things with round objects. There's a toy ball we have that he's never paid much attention to until Grandma Sindt re-introduced it to him. He picked it up, threw it around, and laughed and laughed and laughed.

Then we started playing with his little nerf baseball. More happiness ensued.

Baby Steps

Camden got to spend some time with Grandma and Grandpa Sindt this past weekend. Daddy took a trip with the boys to New Orleans, so Mommy took the opportunity to go back to the farm in Iowa. Grandpa Sindt was gracious enough to come pick Camden and Mommy up so that they didn't have to drive alone. The whole crew returned on Sunday, along with Daddy, and we were all reunited.

We continue to get that perfect clip of Camden waltzing across the floor, but as soon as we get the camera out it seems as if he forgets how to do it. It's obvious from other videos on his blog that he's not camera shy, so that's not it. We'll keep working on it, but in the meantime....more baby steps...

Walkin' and Talkin'

We're documenting this past week as the week Camden officially took his first steps on his own. It wasn't the moment I pictured or expected in my mind. Monumental for sure. Absolutely a tremendous milestone in our lives. But it was a little anticlimactic. Camden has been so mobile for so long now, I knew it was just a matter of time before this moment happened.

He's only taking a few steps at a time before he falls down. Maybe moving about 3-4 feet at a time. We're still trying to capture it on video, but for now you can see him walking with his truck as a crutch. We'll also try to post a video of him scaling the stairs, but it's a little difficult to catch that, hold a camera, and keep him safe at the same time.

The Turnipseeds

On Sunday, we went to visit an old co-worker of mine, Fernanda. Fernanda has one of the most interesting surnames I've ever encountered, Turnipseed. When I first met her, I called her everything from Greenbean, to Pumpkinseed, to Limabean. She was good natured about it. Fernanda and her husband Tre have a 4 year old (?) named Nicholas and they recently welcomed two beautiful twin boys into their lives, Enzo and Matteo. Needless to say, their lives are VERY busy these days.

By the way, Tre is one of those rare men that WANTS a minivan. When he realized we have one ourselves, he practically begged me to take it out for a drive. I suppose with a 4 year old and twins, a minivan is pretty much required.

Anyways, we had brought over some lunch and offered some extra arms to hold the babies. Nicholas helped us keep Camden entertained.

Nicholas playing tag with Camden.

Nicholas shows Camden one of his toys.

Nicholas let Camden take a ride in his Indy Car.

Keep your hands on the wheel, kid!

Daddy teaching Camden how to drive. This is the start of a budding career in NASCAR.

Chicks dig red sports cars.

Just chillin'.

Look Ma! No Hands!

It's only a matter of time before those legs start moving in step. For now, he's demonstrated his ability to stand in place. If only for less than a minute at a time, but he still likes showing off his new talent for the camera.

Camden's "Little" Buddy

Remember little Alex Franson? Well, he's all grown up. Born about 3 weeks after Camden, he seems like he's double in size. The kid is just solid. As a result, Alex has been a little reluctant to become as mobile as Camden. Each time we get the two of them together, Alex sits stationary while Camden crawls around Alex and climbs on him. Alex just sits there with a look on his face like, "What the hell are you doing? Don't know these big people will bring you stuff? You don't have to chase after it."

"Sindt-sational Summer Visits"

We've had several Sindt gatherings in the past two months, in which we've been delayed in getting posted. Here's a recap:

1. April/May Visit by Grandma and Grandpa Sindt.
2. May Visit Visit from Aunt Peaches (AKA Dr. Paige!)
3. June roadtrip to Uncle Tony's and Aunt Lisa! (Uncle Tony had a lovely wedding shower!)
4. June return of Grandma and Grandpa Sindt so mom and dad could go on their first vacation without baby!
   

Such wonderful times!! I will be sure to post pictures soon.

Pool Party II

Camden loves his baths and he seems to just love water. Whenever there's a faucet running, he enjoys reaching his hands out underneath the running water. So we decided to bring his bathtub outside and fill it up and let him splash around a little bit. I know, I know. There aren't any pictures of him actually splashing around IN the tub/pool. Don't ask me why. Just enjoy the pics :)

Mommy and Camden lounging by the "pool". Mommy is about 24 weeks pregnant.

Camden lovin' his outside time.

Camden reaching for Mr. Crabby in the "pool".

Hi Daddy!

Anything within Camden's reach is of interest to him these days.

Happy Father's Day!

Footprints

"Walk a little slower daddy," said a child so small.
"I'm following in your footsteps and I don't want to fall.
Sometimes your steps are very fast, sometime they're hard to see; so walk a little slower, Daddy for you are leading me.

Someday when I'm all grown up, you're what I want to be; then I will have a little child who'll want to follow me. And I would want to lead just right, and know that I was true; so walk a little slower, Daddy, for I must follow you"

Happy Father's Day Daddy!

That was the poem Camden gave to me for Father's Day with a picture of his footprints on it. Needless to say, I couldn't hold back the tears as I read it on my very first Father's day. We went out for breakfast in the morning and then Mommy and Camden presented me with my gift. They got me an iHome. It's perfect for the kitchen where we can dock the iPod and get music throughout the house. The rest of the day was very relaxing as I got to sit back watch the end of the US Open and then transitioned right into the Boston Celtics/LA Lakers NBA Final Game Six. Perfect.

I always looked forward to this day. I always remember honoring my dad on this day and I looked forward to having a child of my own that would look up to me. It's quite special to me. Happy Father's Day to all the Daddy's out there.

Mommy and Daddy Get Away

Back in February, Kim and I joined a few friends at a local Big Brothers Big Sisters gala in downtown Minneapolis. Part of the gala was an auction item at a resort at Blue Fin Bay in northern Minnesota that we all decided to go in together on. We won the auction and this past weekend was our weekend to go. So we asked Grandma and Grandpa Sindt to help us out and they came up to watch Camden so that we could have a little time to ourselves.

The resort was really nice. Right on Lake Superior. The picture above is the view from the back patio of our condo.

Grandma and Grandpa Sindt had Camden from Sunday until we returned on Tuesday afternoon. Just a quick little trip for us, but long enough for the grandparents to get their fix. By all accounts, Camden did everything on his normal schedule and kept his grandparents on their toes.



While we missed Camden while we were gone, we relished a little peace and quiet and being able to sleep through the night. Kim enjoyed some nice down time and a massage, while I took advantage a few rounds of golf with the guys and gals.

Dr. Auntie Paige

Dr. Auntie Paige made her first visit to see Camden in Minnesota as a doctor. Which begs the question, is it Dr. Auntie Paige? Or Auntie Dr. Paige? I say Auntie Dr. Paige because being Camden's aunt is much more important. In any case, she got a little taste of what it's like to be mommy and daddy. Camden knows how to welcome visitors with a 3am wake up call. Here are a few pictures from the visit.

Time for Baby Gates

I think we're in trouble. Camden's very adventurous and he's begun scaling the stairs. So it looks like it's time to equip our home with some baby gates. Which I'm thrilled about since they are so aesthetically pleasing and not inconvenient to open/close, open/close, open/close....Oh well, it keeps Cammers safe.

Note: "Cammers" is a little nickname that Kim has begun calling Camden and so far it has stuck.

My First Mothers Day - 2008!

Yesterday was my first official Mother's Day! I've been a mom for 8 months now and it's been a true joy ride. Mother's Day started with a huge morning of events. The first, was a sleep in for me! With Camden being such an early riser (5:00 or earlier most mornings) getting to sleep until 8:00 is a true treat.

My sleep in was followed by a babbling "Happy Mother's Day", as interpreted by Daddy, and many happy smiles as he was eating his breakfast. I took over Camden's meal and Steve set to task preparing a special brunch for me. We enjoyed crepes with strawberries, bananas & nutella. We also had the classics as well: eggs, bacon and OJ :-) The three of us brunched together (Camden settled for his cheerios). A mom can't ask for a more enjoyable start to the day!

Following the meal, I was given my gifts. Camden had already given me one of his cards at school, we had a Mother's Day tea party. See the card on the left above! I'll treasure the card and especially his signature handprint. Daddy and Camden had been shopping together and I was pleased to get a "World's Best Mom" card. My son is certainly one smart cookie, isn't he! I was also pleasantly surprised that Baby #2 had picked out a very cute card as well. (For those wondering, Camden will be a Big Brother shortly after his first birthday... we're going to have another busy September!) I got a video to watch with Camden, a Thomas the Train epidsode. Thomas is a favorite book that Camden and I read together, so it will be a lot of fun to see how he reacts to the video. Other than a Vietnamese children's video and a Sesame Street Sing A Long, we haven't done any "story" DVDs. The finale is a 3d ultrasound of Baby. It's pretty exciting that we'll get such a cool sneak peek at the little guy in just a few weeks!

My big morning ended with an in home spa treatment. Let's face it, a nice relaxing bath is hard to come by these days and I certainly enjoyed a long soak in a true "Calgon, Take Me Away" fashion. I hope every Mother's Day is like this one!
The day progressed with Daddy getting a quick nap in and Camden and I played with a variety of toys he's got. He's a busy little guy and his energy never ceases to amaze me. Since it as still "my day" everyone readied themselves quickly when I said I wanted to go to the mall to get a couple things done. We headed out on a relaxed family adventure and returned home all tuckered out. I think everyone got another nap in after the mall outting. Finally the day ended with many hugs and kisses from all the men in my life! Soon, Camden was tucked in bed and Steve and I were calling our own Mothers and wishing them a Happy Mother's Day. I'm sure they look at us, all grown up and now parents and wondering where the time went. Much in the same way we look at Camden and think "what a whirlwind 8 months!". I know for both of them it's an extra special Mother's Day as they now have a such a wonderful grandson to enjoy and spoil so much!

I will always treasure all the memories of this special day and have to give Steve a huge Thank You for doing such a great job yesterday! He's a great partner and having his love and support eases the challenges of motherhood and certainly multiplies the joy in being a mom! I think the secret to such a a great mother's day is really about appreciating all the blessings there are in being a parent and having such wonderful mom's to look up to! Happy Belated Mother's Day to all mom's who are reading this post!!!

Having Fun With Camden

Daddy Caved

Pigs flew, hell froze over, the Cubs won the World Series, Michigan beat Ohio State, and we bought a freakin' minivan. Yeah, daddy caved. Kim finally talked me into it. It was a sad, sad day. I even remember one of my friends calling me while we are the dealership closing the deal. It was a turning point in my life really. I knew he was calling me to join him for happy hour with our cool, young, hip friends. Meanwhile, I'm getting ready to put pen to paper and officially drop cool, young, and hip from my reputation. I didn't even answer my phone. I was too embarrassed to explain to him what I was doing and why I wouldn't be making it to happy hour that night. We were purchasing a Honda Odyssey.

We traded in the Mazda Tribute and now I drive the Toyota Camry, which we call "Earl" because the letters on the license plate are "URL", and Kim drives "Katie", who got her name from her license plate who's letters are "XKT". So it's been a few weeks with the beast, as I like to call her. Katie's not all bad. I've sort of come to grips with it.

Katie is silver pearl metallic. She sports a sunroof and a spoiler adds to her sportiness. The dual sliding doors add a level of convenience that we've not had before. I have to admit...It's quite nice. Even though the van is bigger in size, it feels like we're saving space in our garage because we don't have doors that swing out when we have to put Camden in.

On the inside, gray leather was our interior of choice. Normally, we're not leather people, but we went with it on recommendation of others in order to combat the high likelihood of spillage in the vehicle. The nice thing with leather of course, are the heated driver and passenger seats. Almost a must in cold weather climates. The spacious interior has enough room for 8 passengers and there are about 55 cup holders spread throughout the vehicle. It is also equipped with a rear entertainment system and wireless headsets so that passengers in the back can listen to or watch something different than what the front passengers are listening to. Often times, you'll find Camden and me chillin' in our captain's chairs in the back watching a DVD while mommy chauffeurs us around. Actually, Camden sleeps. Daddy watches a DVD. It even has a video hookups in the back so we can bring our Wii or Playstation along on long trips. Not sure how the Wii will work in a moving vehicle, but we're bound to test it out I'm sure.

The rear seats fold flat into the floor which is a super convenient feature. Or at least people that have owned an older minivan tell me it's a convenient feature. I'll take their word for it.

How I Drive a Minivan....and Live with Myself

Visit from Ong Noi and Ba Noi

You may remember a Vietnamese lesson from the "So Much Love" post back in September. Ong Noi is Grandpa and Ba Noi is Grandma in Vietnamese. Just thought you might like a quick refresher. Anyway, they were both in town to visit a few weekends ago. A quick trip to get their Camden fix. And it couldn't come at a better time. Camden is still learning how to sleep through the night and getting up at least once a night.

Usually, he'll get up around 3am or 4am. It was helpful to have Ba Noi around and WILLING to handle some of the late night and early morning shifts. It's just nice to have a break now and then and we were thankful for the help.

In general, Camden has become so interactive with people. Ong Noi and Ba Noi were so happy to engage with him and make meaningful eye contact with him. He smiles at the mere sight of them. It's so fun to see. Even though they weren't able to stay long, it was very nice to have them around and have some home cookin'.

More Video

I love the video bar on the left and love that I can post videos to YouTube and just have them pulled through to the blog. The problem I haven't figured out yet is how to control what videos show up there. So, I thought I'd post some of the more recent videos in this post.

Movin' and Shakin'

We've gotten some feedback from friends that we need to be better at updating Camden's blog. I agree, wholeheartedly. Lots has happened in the past month that we need update everyone on. We'll probably break things down into smaller, shorter posts over the next few days. Where do we start...Camden had his first official photo shoot right around Easter. You can see some of those pictures scrolling on the left. He's had lots of practice in front of a camera, as you can see from this site and from our Flickr account. He did great. He even got to get his picture taken with a real live bunny!

Daddy really likes the pictures of Camden on the reflective mat. He really enjoyed looking at himself in the mat. We were lucky to get a few shots of him actually looking up at the camera. Unfortunately the CD of pictures they gave us were the raw pictures that don't have some of the imperfections edited out. For example, in some of the pictures you can see the edges of backdrop in the background. I haven't had a chance to edit that stuff out yet. The printed pictures we got look much cleaner.

Camden is quite the talker. At least in his own language. Lately, he's been saying, "ba ba ba ba ba ba baaaa baaa ba ba" quite a bit. In Vietnamese "ba" means "father." So his first word was daddy :) He'll often wake up in his crib in the morning just jabbering away. Sounds of "aaaah baa baa" and random squealing are commonly heard now.

He also laughs at very random things. Like fake sneezing. I'm not sure why that's funny, but if you're a parent then you know to latch onto those things and sometimes rendering those things unfunny. Well, fake sneezing is still funny to him, so we'll keep doing it for awhile. Camden wanted to say something to all his faithful blog readers:

Did you get all that? There's a message in there. We'll translate for you in upcoming posts...

Easter Weekend

The Nguyen's hit the road again this past weekend taking the little man back to Iowa for Easter weekend. We left shortly after work on Thursday evening for Kim's hometown of Holstein so that Grandma and Grandpa Sindt could spend a little extra time with Camden. Camden did great on the drive down, barely making a peep. And when he did stir, his mommy plugged him up with his nook.

It was nice to see Grandma and Grandpa Sindt. As always, they spoil our little man. On top of that it was nice to have some night time relief. The grandparents were very willing to take the late night shifts with Camden. It was especially helpful because Camden doesn't sleep well on the road and in unfamiliar places. We had a heck of a time getting him to sleep in his pack and play. He was awake every few hours.

The kid is quite remarkable in that he can have a rough night, by our standards, but then be happy and playful and giddy the whole day through. Camden is rolling back and forth, sitting up strongly, laughing, giggling, and just being a generally happy baby.

On Saturday, we drove across the state to Iowa Falls to meet up with Aunt Lisa and Uncle Tony and visit with some more relatives. This was also Camden's first opportunity to meet Great Grandma Daleske. So we stopped in and saw her for a bit before Camden started to make signs of needing a nap.

Later that evening, we met up with some more extended family for dinner. We got a chance to see Kim's cousin Kandace, her fiancee Mike, her parents Kevin and Jane, and her grandpa Carrol. Kandace and Mike are expecting their first child in June, Addison Marie. We're very excited for them as they prepare for a busy year which is capped off with their wedding in late September.

The weekend ended with Easter service on Sunday morning. Camden sat quietly throughout the service except for the one time when he farted. It wasn't that loud, but loud enough for the girl in front of to turn and look at me. I pointed at Camden and said, "It was him!" Kim busted out laughing uncontrollably. During a couple of the songs he squealed cheerfully as if he was singing along with the congregation. It was really cute.

The drive home was uneventful. He slept during the entire 3 hour drive. It was a fun weekend that flew by. We look forward to getting Camden back into his normal sleep schedule. He's already adjusting back. Last night he went to bed at about 730pm. He woke up a couple times before midnight, but then slept till 530am. Tonight he went to bed around 7pm. Let's hope he has another good night's rest :)

Editor's Note: Daddy got a new camera this weekend and took over 350 pictures, over 650 MB worth. So there's an influx of pictures to Camden's online album. If you're EXTREMELY bored, check them out. Somehow, in all the pictures taken, there isn't one of both Grandma and Grandpa together with Camden. I'm sure that problem will be rectified during their next visit.