july/august recap + news

I am overdue for a July/August recap for the boys!  I am combining the two months since I was gone for half of July at camp.  :)  And fyi, you'll wanna stick around to the end of this post!

One day I was out running errands around the same area the boys and their mommy were so I met up with them just to hang out.  We took the boys to McDonald's for a treat and both boys looved the ice cream and french fries! Of course!  :) 

We have been going on more walks again lately.  I am a chicken in the heat of summer!  But as it's been not quite as hot outside, we love to get out.  

 This is what we do every day - lots and lots and lots of playing!  Big Brother loves to "read" to himself...or to Little Man if he can get him to stay still long enough.

This was a really hot day.  So we stayed inside and did some "ice painting"...and tasting.  :} 

We've also just barely started working on our letters.  Big Brother is really good at pointing out the letter A now!

L: Little man has started making fish faces and they crack me up!  

R: The same day that BB did ice painting, LM woke up from his nap first so I let him play with a piece of ice too and it melted into a bit of splashing fun.  :}

LM found a girlfriend! ;)   And he loved playing in this box that was juuust right for his size.

So this is our latest trick...no longer is LM just sitting around like he is in these pics...

He is trying and trying and trying to stand all by himself!  He thinks practicing is great fun and when he almost falls backwards but Kiki catches him...he thinks that is just hilarious! Ha!  We're in trouble...he'll be walking before we know it! :}

He has also started giving a silly wrinkly-nose smile that I love. 

He could probably ask for almost anything with that smile and he could get it from me! 

So the latest news from my boys is that they are going to have a new brother!!  And not only that...they are going to have TWIN brothers!!

Well.  Almost.  Let me explain.  Their family is in the process of adopting two little boys from the same country that Isaac is from!  They are both about 17 months old right now although they are not biologically related and both have certain special needs and need surgery as soon as possible.  I can't tell you their names or show you their pictures yet, but trust me, they are PRECIOUS!!  If you happen to see me in person, you can ask to see their pictures...I might have both on my cell phone...  :}  And since I don't usually put "my" kids real names on here anyways, I already have nick names for them!  I wanted to get them each something from me so I found two Aiden and Anais blankets at a recent consignment sale (cuz seriously...those things in the store are crazy expensive!!) and one has monkeys on it and one has lions...so...Little Monkey and Little Lion.  :)  We are hoping that they will be home by about April...by their second birthdays.  But of course, if God wants to bring them home any earlier than that, we won't complain! :)

Anastasia and Daniel started the process this past April and were still in the middle of completing their home study (and being the nanny even I had to get fingerprinted, etc.!) when they were called with and accepted the match with Little Lion.  Before that, they had seen Little Monkey's profile online and had been praying over if this was their son or not.  After they were matched with LL, they still couldn't get LM out of their heads and hearts and prayed and prayed and finally decided to pursue him as well and let God close the door if He wanted.  Well, just this past Friday they got their pre approval for Little Monkey!  So...four boys 16 months apart...here we come!!  :}

I am loving getting to be this close to the whole process.  I loved walking with Rebekah through Caleb and Isaac's adoptions but this is even one step closer!  Someday surely it will be my turn!!  :)

So pray with us that God will keep our Little Lion and Little Monkey safe and happy and as healthy as can be until the time to travel to bring them home.  It's kind of funny to be now writing an "adoption blog"...from the nanny's perspective!  :}  There's a first time for everything I suppose!  (And really I'm sure I'm not the first...)   

letter to a fighter

My sweet Eli,

One year ago yesterday a sweet and spunky little girl entered our lives over at the Beck's house for a few months, but little did we know how very special that day really was!  It was your birthday!  How I have wished many times that I could take away the rough start to life that you had.  It is not fair that you had to fight so hard just to get to the day you were born...or that you had to miss three weeks of vitally important momma-lovin' while you fought hard in the NICU.  

But I have to remember that no matter what, God is still in control.  And He most definitely obviously has an incredible plan for your life!

He has obviously created you to be a fighter.  Most babies in the NICU like you have to stay for three to four months...you stayed just three weeks!

You had RSV this past winter when you were four months old and then after being in the hospital for eleven days and coming home for just four and a half, went right back for eight more with C-diff.  And even though it took a while, you fought hard both times and recovered.

You have been back to the hospital more than once since then but each time you just keep fighting.  :)

Thankfully you now have a mommy who is also a fighter and a family who will help you with anything you need as you grow up and who will, above everything, help you find your identity in Christ so that you will always know that...

You are loved.

You belong.

You are His.

You are precious.

You are fearfully and wonderfully made.

And you are one of my heroes.

I love you, baby. :)

HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY, ELI!!!!
(click on the picture above to see Eli's birthday photo shoot)

after school pick-up

While the boys were at the beach last week, I got to pick my kiddos up from school one afternoon!  I love love surprising them and couldn't wait to hug them and as usual they were ecstatic to see me.

mr. happy says hi!

lol

silly boy. :) 

We stopped by one of our old favorite places - Pet Smart. I'm so glad my kids are still so easily entertained! :} They were watching two small kittens wrestling with each other and were cracking up over them. :) 

The fish are always fascinating to watch!

It was a quick afternoon, but I would take that any day over not seeing them for three months!!  :}  

We'll do it again soon guys.

Luv u.

kathryn kamp, week two

The second week of camp is usually much busier than the first week.  And I usually have 8 big girls to count on to help me out with the littles but this year I only had three!  We managed but I was missing one of my big girls in particular!  Here's a glimpse into our week this year...

Water bottles come standard with k.kamp.  They just do.  With the hot weather outside I like to know my kids are staying hydrated.  

This week, each day had a theme with one big activity planned by me...my three big girls had to come up with activities that were part of the same theme and led up to the big activity.  The first day was a photo shoot, so the girls did all the makeup, manicures, and clothes everyone was going to wear and I helped out with some of the hair.  Then we trekked down to the spring area for the shoot.

We may or may not have had 12 people in my little car... but hey, this is camp in the country...it's just what we do!  lol

Calli, Kailey, and Alaina

This is Karis.  She completely cracks us up because she has the best facial expressions EVER. Ha! And she took her modeling very seriously.  :}

Lydbug

Abby 

Emily 

Claire

This is Kendall.  She was my youngest this week and was an absolute doll.  :)  She got homesick several times but you couldn't blame her...2 is really little to be away from mommy all week!  :\  Thankfully she adored Calli and would usually calm down and stop crying when Calli would pick her up and whisk her off to play somewhere.  :)

Kendall, Kirsten, and Emily

It was almost Kendall's naptime, thus the lack of smileage in these pics...  :}

I gave each of the three big girls one day where they were responsible for cooking both lunch and dinner.  We had those who weren't cooking vote on it.  They were all judged in three categories:  taste, presentation, creativity, and overall.  

This is Kirsten's lunch - hot dog octopus, green noodles, gold fish, and applesauce.  This meal got pretty high marks!  However, in the end, chef Emily smoked her competition and won!  :)

Wednesday we had "cupcake wars" and each team made and iced and/or decorated their cupcakes.  But somehow I have no pictures of that!!  I have some video...no pics...sadness.  :-p

Thursday was water day.  Kirsten did a great job of entertaining the littles in the morning and even got them to wash my car for me!  After lunch and since all the boys were on a canoe trip, we headed down to "big camp"  to borrow their field and a couple of other things.

Abby led the games down here.  The big red water slide looked fun and they all loved it!

Next we did something never before done in the history of K. Kamp!  We went to the lake to let everyone swim!!  I have never taken them before because I always felt like I had too many kiddos to keep an eye on safely, but since I had big girls and half the kids live there and swim there all the time anyways, I decided this year was the perfect time. :) Especially since I timed it just right and Kendall got to go up to the house with her aunt and mommy for naptime while we were swimming.

This is one of those camp things I would have been annoyed do have to do...but I am not the one who has to do them now lol and they had fun for a while.  :}

That is just a very small glimpse into our week.  I am never ready to leave by the end and the countdown has already started for next year!  :}

Can't wait!

kathryn kamp, first week

So how am I supposed to share about my two weeks of camp when I have 754 pictures to choose from?!  Lol!  I will try to narrow them down and not bore you to pieces.  :}  Here is a glimpse at my first week.

During the day this first week I had 5 year old Lucas, 4 year old Gilliam, and 1 year old Sophie.  On Tuesday, my sweet friend Rebekah came and brought her troop to join us for the day like she has for the past few years.  I love getting the chance to see her and her kiddos and was SO excited to welcome Isaac for his first k.kamp experience!  We did several fun activities while they were here - mostly from Pinterest thankyouverymuch.  :D

Hey moms out there - ever feel like this picture describes most of your waking moments??  lol  :)

Sophia was asleep during most of our activities that day but I made sure she got a chance to try out the shaving cream fun later.  She thought it was great and only tried to taste a tiny bit once and quickly learned that it is only good for squishing...not for eating.  :)

Lucas was gone for the day Wednesday so it was just Gilliam and Sophia so we pulled out my baby pool and played for probably two hours in it.  :)

Sohpia loved Gilliam and would pat his head when she stood up.  :)  He liked to make her laugh.

Thursday we always have a special treat of some sort for working hard to earn pompoms for following the rules, being helpful, etc. This year I made "dirt cake".  The picture in the middle above is their "we're about to eat DIRT??" look.  :)  But really they thought it was pretty great.  :)

I usually have k.kamp tshirts although this year we did bandanas like this instead, but I decided Sophie needed her very own first k.kamp onesie (right David?).  :)

This year's first week went well.  The two boys got along really well and Sophia was one of the easiest one year olds ever.  She only had one issue...

She was TERRIFIED of dogs. i mean completely and totally 1000% scream-bloody-murder-stiff-body-wide-eyed-cling-on-to-me-and-bury-her-face-against-me TERRIFIED.  And that was when Calvin (who is a pretty small dog) was out on the back deck looking in the glass door through the office and into the living room!  So we worked hard on just sitting with me and talking about the dog and how nice he was and how he was far away outside. :)  Eventually she got to be ok with him being outside and would say "hi dog!".  Then we moved him inside and started over. lol :)  By the end of the week this picture above is how she reacted when Calvin would walk up to her.  She was still a little nervous but about 1000% better than the beginning of the week!  :)  Way to go brave girl!  ;)

(if you haven't seen enough of her cute little self, click the picture above to see the mini photo session of her on my photography blog. :)

10 years of k.kamp!

This summer, 2012, marked the tenth summer in a row that I have carefully planned and packed craft and game supplies and two weeks worth of clothes and headed across my beautiful state to exit 19, which is when I begin to get really excited to see some of my favorite people and arrive at my favorite spot on earth.  If you have never heard the story about how Kathryn Kamp got started, click here. (Let me just clarify...I did NOT name it after myself! lol The kids that I first had started referring to it as that and it somehow kinda stuck.  Just fyi...)

I will get to pics of this summer's camp, but first I just had to take a minute to look back at how my k.kamp kids have grown over the years. (And just a warning...some of the pics are from older cameras or "borrowed" from fbook so the quality isn't the greatest on them. Oh well.)  There are a few who came for the first time last year and I will introduce you to them in the next post, but for now, let me introduce you to my k. kampers!

Abby is one of my "almost nieces".  I have known her since she was kicking her mama's belly. :)  She has her dad's personality and can be quiet, loves to read, and goes on a walk alone at least once every year just to get away from everyone for a little while and recharge. :}  She is very careful to never take advantage of anyone and is kind and thoughtful and always reminds everyone to say thank you for anything anyone does for k.kamp.  She and I are completely different in most everything we like - music, movies, celebrities, our personalities, etc. But we have found our bond in photography - she is an excellent photographer and has even entered and won a prize for one of her photos!  I love her to pieces. :)

Em is happy and cheerful and not dramatic at all (...).  She is a faithful k.kamper and promises she will never leave me. (I hope not!!)  She is amazing in the kitchen and makes a killer apple pie that won in a competition over a "real" chef! (Thanks to her aunt's pie recipe!)  She is wise beyond her years sometimes when it comes to topics like boys, modesty, and her faith....but she also knows how to be silly and goofy and makes me laugh!

This is Clairebear. She may not really like being called that anymore, but I can still get away with it once in a while.  :)  Claire is spunky and also happy almost all the time.  She is one of my two girls who are sort of in the middle age-wise so since she is the youngest of three girls and gets bossed around a lot of the time, she enjoyed this year having the job of keeping the kids occupied during meal prep times and bossing them around for a change!  :)  

EP is my nick name for Evan.  Always has been.  Probably always will be. :)  Evan, as you can see, was just 6 months old the first time I came for camp.  My baby.  I can remember staying in his room with him in a crib.  In the mornings he would wake up and see me "asleep" in my bed and start talking to me.  I would keep my eyes shut as long as I could stand it (dude would wake up at 6am and I am NOT a morning person!) until I couldn't hold in a giggle anymore and would get up and bring him back to bed to snuggle with me.  He would lay there happily for 30 minutes or so while I woke up. This summer since he didn't technically stay for k.kamp but instead worked with the big guys around camp during the day, I wondered if he was too cool for me now.  He asked one night if I would save him and another boy some of the dessert I was making.  I told him I would if he gave me a really big hug! He save me a wimpy side hug with one arm and I told him that did NOT count so he stopped what he was doing and - in front of his (slightly older) friend - came and bear hugged me tight.  Melt my heart! He still loves me.  ;)  He and I bonded this year over the animal planet channel in the evenings - we both like the show River Monsters and a couple others. I think he thought it was kinda cool that I liked those shows too. :)

Claudia is a cousin of the above kids.  She has gone from a cute little girl to a beautiful cheerleader.  She was my first "extra" k.kamper and made a great addition to my little group at the time.  Since then she has been a great helper.  She and the other cousins who you will meet in just a minute didn't come this year and were definitely missed! (This is the problem with working with kids...they grow up on you! :-p)

I only had Tyler for a few years. (Right photo here and below borrowed from fbook...and Kimberly...you need more pics of your boys!! I had to steal these from TKZ's page! lol)  His family now lives at camp and oversees the Potter's house ministry.  He is all boy and of course has to maintain his cool guy image...but I discovered last summer that he is a total softy when it comes to little kids!  He came over on his own a couple afternoons last summer and instead of hanging out with the other four boys I had that were closer to his age, I found him in the girls room playing with my little girls - letting them climb all over him and making them crack up laughing.  :)

Jax is Tyler's little brother.  He has always been a trouper at k.kamp - I have gotten him to willingly do things I really didn't know if he would - like wear a purple k.kamp tshirt and be on a team with a girl for one of the longer games we played.  Since he now lives at camp, he works with the big guys during the day and stays at his house at night...but I still get to see him around camp.  :)

Kaitlynd, Bethanie, and Laurel (bottom photos borrowed from fbook) are three more cousins of my original four kiddos.  Kaitlynd was always sweet and kind. Bethanie is passionate. And Laurel is a sweetheart. 

Kirsten is precious!  She is kind to everyone. She might tend to get kind of embarrassed kind of easily and it might be kind of fun to tease her a little bit sometimes... ;)  (a particular small child's bath comes to mind...)  She's always a good sport about it though.  :)   

Lyd is my other "middle" child.  She is a lot of fun to hang out with!  She did an excellent job with Claire this year entertaining the littles for us at times.  She has the happiness of her birthday falling during camp every summer and this year she is officially a teenager!  (and Lyd...I still love that headband...it's just so cute on you!) :)

Tug. Oh my. He is ALL BOY!! But he is very polite and always remembers to say yes ma'am and no ma'am.  He is very empathetic and one year I just had him and Evan and Ev was missing his parents and started crying one day...and Tug felt so bad for him he started crying right along with him!  :)  Tug's family also lives at camp and his parents are the caretakers.

Kaileybug is brave and outgoing.  She first came to k.kamp when she was just 2 - it was scary to be left with people you don't know in a place you aren't familiar with! But after a few initial tears, she was good to go and has loved it ever since!  

Sweet Sophia is the daughter of my friend Jewel, who was my co-counselor when I was a camp counselor in highschool!  Last year was her first year at k.kamp and is officially my youngest k.kamper ever but babies change so much in just one year that I had to add her to this list.  :)  She is completely adorable and so much fun!  (and yes, that is her in my blog header at the top of the page.)  

So these are most of the kids I have every summer!  Like I said, there are a couple more I will introduce you to in the next post.  I also have had Lauren come and help me for the past few years but if you have read this blog for very long at all then you already know who she is.  :)

After both weeks of camp were over, Abby had made a "10 years of k.kamp" slideshow and we all watched it together.  She did an awesome job! and if I could get it to upload anywhere, I would share it with you, but it is 22 minutes long and no where that I can find will let me upload a video that big! :-p Oh well.  After the video, I got a very sweet gift! Check it out...

On the other side of the heart it says 10 years.  They also gave me a small jewelry box but I don't have a picture of it.

Yup. That's about right.  :}

**have a comment about all my cute kids?? just post it below instead of leaving it on fbook!  it's more fun to find it here! lol**