We’ve been busy at the Campbell house…

Doug spent the weekend cleaning the grill and sealing the deck.  He even has the sunburn to prove it!  On a more musical note (ha!), Doug bought the Rock Band game for the Wii and enjoys playing lead guitar.  His vocals ain’t bad, either!

Erin heads back to work full time this week.  The biggest headache so far is getting everyone out the door on time… with no crying or whining.  Nora seems to be adjusting ok with daycare so far, so that’s a relief. 

Molly is still talking a mile a minute!  One of her recent quotes: “When I cry, my tears come out to play.”  How poetic and adorable!  She is exerting her independence by doing things all by herself… which includes picking out clothes.  Mommy has to guide her selections!

Nora is almost 3 months old already.  She lifts her head up pretty well and is becoming more content with sitting and staring at us for entertainment.  She loves to watch Molly and Doug talk to her!

Make sure to check out our August album.  We’ve attached some highlight photos here:

Molly is talking A LOT these days, and has started to ask “Why?” to just about everything we say.  It was cute at first, but now it’s getting a little ridiculous. 

Molly, it’s time for breakfast.  -Why?  Let’s brush your teeth. -Why?  Pick up your toys. -Why? 

You get the idea.  A coworker told me that it will fade away, but then she’ll start asking “Why?” again when she’s a teenager and you need some good answers then!

Molly is also in love with a PBS Kids cartoon called Super Why.  It’s a cute and educational show that helps kids learn to spell and read and it has a theme song that will get stuck in your head!  I sing along to it every time we watch the show and I think it’s starting to annoy Molly.  Too bad! 

So we finally got June and July shots posted in our online album… check ‘em out!  I especially like this picture of Molly in the day lilies.  She’s been my little watering can helper all summer long!

Also, Nora went to the doctor for her 2 month appointment today.  She got five shots AND a rotavirus vaccine she had to drink.  I think she took the shots pretty well, considering.  Nora’s head circumference and weight put her in the 75th percentile for her age group, but she’s a bit on the short side at 22 inches long.  Molly was 22″ at birth, so Nora has some catching up to do!  We joke that Molly will probably take after Doug who was always tall for his age, and Nora will follow in her mother’s footsteps, destined to be short until late in high school.  Time will tell!

Last night, Doug and I went out to see the Get Smart movie.  (A big thank you to Heather B. for coming over to watch the girls for us!!)  We’ve wanted to see this movie ever since we saw the first trailer for it, and it did not disappoint!  I hadn’t laughed that hard at a movie in a long time.  I especially enjoyed the airplane bathroom scene where Max Smart keeps harpooning himself.  And we also liked it when he says, “Missed it by that much!“  Good times!

~ Erin

 Nora is two months old today!  Hooray!  I thought it would be fun to compare her picture to Molly when she was the same age.  I think they have the same nose and mouth, but Molly definitely looked more mature… that hair really throws me off! 

 Molly has been amusing us with knock knock jokes lately.  None of them make sense, but she makes us laugh anyway!  Here’s a recent one:

Knock knock! Who’s there?  Paper.  Paper who?  Paper… (pause as she looks around the room to think of something to add) …spoon!  (Then Molly breaks into insane laughter, which causes us to laugh, too.)

And here are some pictures I took of Nora today, officially at 2 months old.  Let’s just say she’s a much happier model than Molly was at that age, thank goodness!  (That almost makes up for all of her recent fussiness…)

Time for another Campbell update…

Nora is still colicky off and on.  It’s kind of like sitting around waiting for a ticking time bomb to go off, but you don’t know when it will happen.  Needless to say, some days are pretty stressful (like yesterday) and some days are absolutely fine and normal (like today).  Hopefully she’ll grow out of the fussiness in a few weeks.  Thank goodness she’s never fussy in the middle of the night, because I think that would probably throw me over the edge!  Here are some recent pictures of Nora and Molly:

I’ve been addicted to dramas set in earlier time periods lately… watched the first season of The Tudors, season 1 of Rome and thankfully found out about the AMC channel’s original series called Mad Men.  Season 2 of this show starts on Sunday night, and I got caught up on all of the season 1 episodes just in time!  Set in the 1960s, this show is about a Manhattan ad agency.  Check it out!!  It’s so well written and acted… very rare to find a show like that these days!  Plus, the opening sequence is just cool.

~ Erin

That’s what they call people who aren’t green thumbs, right? Yeah, I’ve finally come to the realization that gardening just isn’t my thing. I was woefully aware of this yesterday when I noticed my neighbors - from either side of our house mind you - in my pathetic garden pulling weeds. They decided to give my garden a fighting chance since I wasn’t doing it! Chris and Julie said they didn’t mind, that the weed-pulling was actually therapeutic and stress relieving. Let’s just say they relieved A LOT of stress yesterday! I guess I was a little ambitous thinking I could do a garden this summer. Taking care of Nora doesn’t give me much free time. I do have some potted flowers on the front porch and thankfully have just enough time to water those!

Nora is 7 weeks old… she’s still a bit fussy in the evenings but not as bad as she was a couple of weeks ago. She has started to smile at us and we can hear a coo from her every now and then. It’s nice to hear something other than crying!

Molly goes to her first dental appointment tomorrow and Doug is taking her to her first swimming lesson tomorrow night. Should be a big day for her! She’s a non-stop talker and reminds me of my sister Amanda. And best of all, she says mommy is her best friend!

~ Erin

Update: Tonight Daddy was Molly’s best friend. Strange how fast these things change.

Our fridge is stocked to the brim with leftovers from this past weekend… Erin’s family came out for a mini-reunion of sorts to celebrate her dad’s 60th birthday and Nora’s baptism.  The weather was perfect and we had a lot of food, hence the blog title!

We were fortunate to have Steph and our one-year-old nephew Xavier come out a few days earlier to help prepare for the Robbins onslaught.  It was fun watching Molly and Xavier interact and we can’t wait until Nora is that age!  Steph made a delicious french toast souffle for breakfast on Sunday morning, and we’ve posted her recipe here.  Steph also created a very cool photo slideshow for Dad featuring pictures from his past that we will try to post soon.

Erin’s brother Nick was on leave from his mission in Kyrsikstan (sp?) and he, Karla and the girls drove from Washington state to come out for a visit… Molly had a blast playing dress-up with her cousins and I hope Ava, Laina and Dani had just as much fun as she did! 

Doug’s sister Chris was also able to join us for Nora’s baptism on Sunday, so we had a full house for lunch!

Doug’s recent actions reminded me of one of my favorite movie lines from Dumb and Dumber, after Lloyd trades in the dog van for a moped:

Just when I thought you couldn’t get any dumber, you go and do something like this… and totally redeem yourself!

In the previous post, I dissed Doug for his poor clothes-matching skills… but then I found this super awesome onesie sitting on the table when I came home today:

Totally redeemed!

We’re having some technical difficulty posting pictures into our photo gallery, but looks like I can embed images into our blog posts, so here we go! Here are some pictures of Nora at 1 month old, along with Doug’s attempt at dressing Molly…

Note from Doug: In all fairness, Erin asked Molly to make a scared face before she took the picture. But yeah, that was an ugly outfit. Who bought those clothes anyway….ERIN?

Response from Erin: I do not buy ugly kids’ clothes… but certain combinations can be disastrous, as seen in the image above.  Doug is now officially banned from dressing the children without my supervision!