Camping Mem. Weekend

Saturday night and Sunday night we went camping at Fort Hamby Park by Wilkesboro, NC. It turned out to be a rainy weekend. When we left the chance of rain was 20-30%. That changed overnight to 80% according to our RV neighbors with a tv. But most of the time the rain was a light, easy rain which was lessed even more by the heavy tree canopy over our site. So it wasn't so bad. It was just annoying that we couldn't hike much for fear of heavy rain and everything just felt so damp and sticky. But at least we bought our new tent that doesn't leak! It was SO nice to be able to take refuge if need be and actually stay DRY! And we did hike a few short trails in between rain, or sometimes in the light rain.

Here Maddox is putting rocks on Jessi. Jessi didn't care. She's getting more laid back about Maddox these days it seems. Maddox was perfectly content to play with rocks all weekend. Give her a toy shovel and a frisbee to fill and she's happy. What's up there? Not stars certainly. Trees?

Hey St. Joe-ers! Remember these? At Krug Park? Maddox loved them!

So did Mom . . .

Relaxing by the fire

So we had some excitement the first night there. It's kind of a long story so I'll leave out a lot here to shorten it. We were woken at 12:30 by someone running out of the rv across the street screaming and screaming so loud! I thought for sure he was just having a terrible dream and someone would come wake him and tell him it wasn't real. Well, it turned out he had been fighting with his step-dad and just lost it. He was a 16 yr old kid. He really, mentally, lost it. He was cussing up a storm F this mother f that, b word, c word to his "grannie". I mean I've NEVER heard so much language and screaming and yelling in my life. Not even in a movie! Grannie supposedly slapped him 4 times. He kept screaming, then sobbing, then sounding like he was having and asthma attack. Trying to leave, get someone to drive him away, and they wouldn't do it because he wasn't safe to leave with. Banging on cars, I thought on mine but it wasn't. Threating that if the police (whom he finally called himself) didn't come take his step-dad away he would f-ing slit his throat. If he had a gun (which of course we didn't know WHAT he had) he would have used it I'm sure. I mean, he LOST IT! We were scared to death! At one time I turned on the flashlight to find a number to call, he saw it and said something about it so I quickly turned it off. We were afraid to do anything but lie low and play dead. I was so scared he would have a gun and it would shoot us or Maddox accidentally. My car was blocking our tent a little bit but that didn't ease our minds. We just laid there for almost an hour and prayed so hard. Finally the cops came and arrested him (which he didn't understand why) and I got out to make sure they took him and go pee. We finally fell asleep about 3am. We found out in the morning when our nice neighbors came to check on us that they had called the police too after him. They said we could have come to their RV. Well, thanks a lot! We all talked to the park rangers the next day to make sure that he wasnt' coming back or we would have left. He couldn't be bailed out until Tuesday morning. Grannie came and apologized the next day,"Just remember what is like to be a teenager . . . you know how they can be . . .so sorry he scared you . . . wouldn't have let anything happen . . ." Yeah right. If he had had a weapon you wouldn't have been able to control it! So we made it ,the next night was uneventful, and we're alive. It was probably the scariest night of our lives so far! And more so because now we have this beautiful 1 yr old to protect. And a dog who got scared too!

Okay, so that wasn't much shorter, but a little bit . . .

We'll end on a good note. Today we're at the Bacons all day because Camden is sick so this video is from this morning. Maddox LOVES to read books. Have them read to her or read them herself. She'll sit around and read with her baby jabber like this:

As a matter of fact she's sitting in Camden's chair reading books again right now!

Oh yeah, a 15 month check up a couple weeks ago . . . 30" long (about 25%ile), just now 20 lbs (about 10%ile), and 17.5" head (almost 10%ile). She's little! She got a couple of shots which she had a reaction to the next day. Just a fever for a little over a day but it was really high for her. At the highest it was about 103.5 which is the most she's had. We forgot to have her iron levels checked again so we'll do it at 18 months. She still doesn't want to start using real words but she can identify all sorts of things when you ask: where's the cow, where the cat, where's the chair, where's the fire, where's the bears, where's the kittens, where's the balloon, etc. Can you guess what book I'm thinking of? She's also got 9 teeth now. All 8 front as of a couple days ago and 1 molar showing now as of a week or more ago. That other top molar is close and the bottom two are both swollen.

Whew! That's enough for now! Missy's ready for a nap after such a hard weekend of camping. Later!

New stuff for M

I just have a few pictures to update so I can clear my camera off and start all over again! Last Saturday Jeremy watched Grady and Maddox while I was at work. Two one year olds! Grady stayed the rest of the afternoon too so that's how I got pictures.

The neighborhood hanging around my door to see the babies. The one kid, Jacob, has his backpack on because he heard his dad say he was coming over to our house later for a couple hours then spending the night with his aunt. It was 2 hours later . . . but he was so excited that he got ready, got his bag, and sat outside the door.
My neighbor Susan found this car and a plastic slide somewhere getting ready to be dumped. I cleaned them up a bit and they work great for us! Free toys!
"Get outta my car woman!"

We set up a little makeshift, cheap sandbox for M last week. So far she loves to pick it up and throw it out of the box. Next time I'll have to put the box on a sheet and then dump it back into the sand when she's done. Otherwise we'll end up with a beach on our back porch.

Her cheeks are dirty from helping me dig in the dirt earlier.

Sitting in her little car.

This morning we went outside for our first fingerpainting session. Since she's now past trying to eat everything . . . . But she wasn't so sure what to do with it. She definitely did not like getting hosed off afterward!

Walking

It's been brought to my attention by a couple of people that I failed to tell you all that Maddox is walking! She pretty much gave up crawling a little over a week ago. She may fall, but she'll stand right back up and keep going. It's been hard to get used to! I put her down next to some boxes at Sports Authority while I was looking at tents thinking she could crawl around them and give me some time, and she took right off walking away. Oops, forgot she's mobile now!

This is her daily activity outdoors. She moves my mulch around. I sweep it back in and she moves it again. When I pick her up to go inside she screams her head off! She could play with her shovel and mulch all day long.

She also loves her "kitty kitty". Gabby has taken to sleeping on Maddox's changing table so when we go in to change I lay Maddox right on top of Gabby. Maddox loves it and giggles and smiles, Gabby meows annoyingly but won't move. I eventually have to push Gabby off. She's very tolerant of Maddox. She lets Maddox "brush" her with her toys and crawl over her and ocassionally yank on her tail. Hailey (my other cat I put to sleep last summer) would have never let that happen! I just took this picture because Maddox's new pj's are adorable. She loves the pig on her belly!

We were just having lunch and I just had a light bulb moment! She's had a runny nose for about week now so I figured she had a cold. She's also been a very picky eater at meals and agitated like grabbing her thighs and pulling the skin like she's got a crazy itch or something. Well, just now she screamed her head off while eating and I thought she bit her finger. But then I happened to think, maybe she's getting her molars . . . she is! Both sides on top have teeth pushing through! Maybe that explains a lot of these things going on!