Cayson at Day Camp

Cayson and I in our Day Camp shirts. His was a little too big...it looked like a dress!

"I'm so tired, Mommy!"

On the slip-n-slide at day camp...

Wondering what in the world mommy has done to me!

10 months

My baby is 10 months old today. He's growing up so fast! (sniff, sniff) Seriously, the time has flown by. He's been such a blessing already. Although, he's a little hard-headed, like his daddy! Before I know it, he'll be a year old and walking around. As I'm typing this, he's standing next to the couch trying to pull the laptop screen down, so I better wrap it up! So happy 10th month birthday, Cayson!

Just for Jeff (and other Mac lovers)

Ok Jeff, I think we're one step closer to owning a Mac. Today Shaun and I were talking on Google Talk and I was trying to send him a file. However, it wouldn't let me for some reason. Shaun really needed the file because it was his church newsletter from June and he's getting ready to start the one for July. He finally got irritated and said, "Mac, here I come!" I figured he was just joking, but he later admitted that he had been thinking about switching. This is very hard for Shaun because he actually builds PCs all the time. So we'll see...

Cayson's Cinnamon Toast *crunch*

I finally have a new funny Cayson story. This happened Saturday, I believe.

On the weekends, well Friday and Saturday anyway, we like to lay in bed later than normal. Sometimes this is tricky because Cayson likes to get up. But sometimes, if we're lucky, our routine for a normal-stay-at-home Friday or Saturday goes like this: Cayson will wake up at about 5:30 or 6:00 am and Shaun will get him and bring him to our bed so I can nurse him. Then, most of the time, he will go back to sleep...allowing us to cuddle with him and go back to sleep. Then at about 9 or 10 we'll all get up.

This Saturday happened to be one of those "good" days. So at about 10 we got up and I made some toast and Shaun made cinnamon toast for himself. He was about to eat it when someone knocked on the door. It was a Morman missionary. So Shaun was out there for a little bit. When he came back in, he grabbed his plate off the coffee table...and noticed that one slice was gone! Normally if this happens it's our dog who is the guilty party. But not this morning. It was Cayson!!! He ate the whole slice...and loved it! I laughed so hard!

Amnesya

Yes, that is spelled correctly. For the past 2 days Amnesya has been my obsession. Supposedy, it's a super hard riddle that no one has completely solved. I have no idea how many levels there are...I'm up to level 37. You have to use a combination of photo editing software, audio editing software, Google, and more to solve the different levels. It is so addicting! And incredibly hard. I dare you to try it out!

Day Camp '07 is OVER!

I love kids. I love camp. I love when it's over! Whew! What an exhausting week, or half a week, anyway. It was fun, but I'm glad it's over! I think we had a pretty successful first year of kids' day camp. There were definitely things that could be improved, but it was a learning experience. For me, even. Like I said before, I was the judge. What was I thinking? That was the hardest thing I've ever done in regards to working with kids. I had categories in which to give the 2 teams points, but it is so hard to stay objective. We would award the spirit stick to the team who had the most points at the end of the day and after 3 days the team with the most total points got takeout pizza while the losing team got frozen pizza (that was cooked). Well, the way the points worked out the yellow team only won the spirit stick one out of 3 days, but they had the most overall points. That first day they just did a lot better. And I think the kids had a hard time understanding why that happened. I think next year we are going to have day camp all week, so it will be easier to pick a clear winner. This year, the blue team got a slow start, but they were getting there. If they had had another 2 days they might have won. However, they yellow team was more consistent. And they had the qualities I was looking for the most: servanthood, encouragement, and team spirit.

It was fun being the judge until I had to announce the winner. I hated seeing the faces on the blue team. They were so upset. Although I think they got the better end of the deal. The takeout pizza came from the Pizza Parlour...which is the most awful pizza I've ever had. It's cheese and sauce on cardboard, basically. But the locals seem to love it.

Now we're on to the next exhausting venture: Youth camp! We're going to Camp WOW (walk on water) in Stuart, OK. Several of the youth groups in the Fort Smith/Lavaca area have gone in together to create our camp: Authentic Faith. We'll have over 600 kids from this area there! And we are also doing the color/team thing. Our church is the Pink team. Yeah, and the guys actually wanted that! It's going to be a blast. Please pray for our group! Most of our kids have never gone to youth camp before. And pray for me...I'll have Cayson with me! HA. This should be interesting!

Re-form-a-tion 2007

I promise, this is the last post tonight.

We are starting Children's day camp at our church tomorrow. I get to be the judge. If you've ever been to Super Summer (it's a baptist youth camp) you'll get this. We'll have 2 teams, the yellow and the blue. They have to decorate for their color and wear as much of their color as possible. We'll have games, worship time, and swimming. And I get to judge the teams. Oh, my job is going to be so much fun. Especially since there is a category for "showing appreciation to the judge". More importantly, there are categories for servanthood, enthusiasm, games, encouragement, etc. It should be a lot of fun and hopefully a lifechanging experience for some kids! Be in prayer for us this week! And pray that I can be objective!

By the way, be sure and scroll down and check out the wedding pics!

More wedding

The groom and best man

Kelly, Anna's best friend and Shaun and Kevin's sis, and Ever, the flower girl

Reciting their vows

The kiss!

I have a new Sis (in-law)

Things went off without a hitch (mostly, anyway) at the Martin-Lloyd wedding this weekend. And now I have a new sister-in-law and Cayson has a new aunt.

Kevin and Anna Martin
Kevin, Keith, and Shaun Martin

Shaun and Kevin's dad actually performed the ceremony.

The cake
The groom's cake
Shaun acting silly, of course!

Happy Father's Day, Sweetheart!

I am so blessed to have 2 great men in my life...my wonderful husband and my sweet son! Shaun, you have blessed me and Cayson in so many ways. You are such a great dad. I love you!

Updates on the Martin Household

I haven't posted in a while; I'm not sure why. I just haven't had much to say that I felt like the world would want to listen to. Not that anything has changed much, but I feel a need to let everyone know what the Martin family has been up to.

Let's see...this weekend we are in Warren/Monticello for my brother-in-law's wedding. It's hard to believe he's getting married, even though he's the same age as me. But he's marrying a sweet girl that I'm proud to call my (future) sister-in-law. As part of my wedding gift to them I've been working on a family recipe scrapbook. I collected recipes from several of the women on on my husband's side of the family, including his mom, grandmothers, sister, and a couple of aunts. And, of course, me. It's the first scrapbook I've ever done, and I'm pretty proud of it. (For those of you who were wondering, our main gift is a talking microwave. Yes, you read that right, it actually talks! It tells you how to cook! We told them we wanted to get them a microwave and that's what they picked out.)

Cayson updates:
He is starting to stand on his own! I am such a proud mama! Walking is around the corner!

He has learned how to snort! He does this really cute nose scrunching thing and snorts at the same time. He thinks it's hillarious!

Teeth have got to be coming in soon. His top gums are so swollen.

He is getting into everything. Oh, and he discovered the stairs.

I guess that's it. Exciting things are around the corner for our family. I'm starting a girls Bible study on June 28, our students are going to camp the first week in July, and Cayson will turn a year old in August!

Goodnight all!

Another year older

Yep, today's my birthday. A big whopping 24. Yay. I found my first gray hair yesterday. Joy.

***UPDATE***
Today turned out to be a pretty good day. Shaun took me out to eat to Outback steakhouse. It was sooooooooooo good! Also, he took me shopping! And here's the best: he had a photo book made up with pictures of the past 9 months with Cayson. He called it "A Year of Beginning". It was so sweet, it made me cry. I love that husband of mine!

"Teach me to pray"

I promise, cross my heart, that he did this all by himself. Shaun was practicing with the musicians this morning before worship time, and I just let Cayson loose to crawl. Of course, he headed to the stairs. I whipped out my phone and caught him at just the right moment!

New pics!

The joy of fatherhood.

Cayson and his Mimi (my mom)
My 2 handsome men!

Adventures in Sippies

I probably seemed a little more frayed in my last post than I really was. However, this new phase of Cayson's life is getting more demanding! He's not even walking yet and he's everywhere! We already had a couple of latches for the cabinets, but we need more. And we have to get some for the drawers, too! And we now need a gate for the stairs. He hasn't discovered our stairs yet, but he has discovered the steps at church and was successful in climbing up. And guess what happened in the nursery Wednesday? Which wasn't his fault, but it's still funny. Megan, a first-time mommy of a 6 month old, walked in the nursery and noticed that Cayson had a sippy cup with milk in it. She knew that he was supposed to have juice so she asked the workers if they had put milk in Cayson's sippy cup. Of course, they hadn't. Turns out it was Braedyn's (Megan's son) milk...which was breastmilk!!!! Their sippies were exactly alike and somehow they got switched. How crazy is that?!

Oh the joys of Motherhood...seriously. And I'm lovin' every minute!