Travis's 3rd Birthday!

We celebrated Travis's birthday with his very first "friends party" on March 5th (which was also his due date back in 2014). We had about 16 friends join us for a Blaze and the Monster Machines-themed bash at My Gym. Travis enjoyed all the activities, although sometimes his facial expression indicated otherwise. He was also pretty shy when we all sang to him. Nice highlight video from Nana below.



On his actual birthday, we started off with a couple gifts and a chocolate donut hole breakfast. He got special treatment at school, and in the evening we went out to dinner at Travis's choice of restaurants (Kerbey Lane) and opened the rest of his gifts. We gave him Pokemon cards, Blaze magformers, Moana action figures, Pokemon Hedbanz game, and a Curious George book with flaps.

We love our precocious, chatty, affectionate, imaginative 3-year-old Bug!

Travis's 2nd Birthday!

Our little bug turned 2 on Wednesday! There is a lot of personally packed into this little dude. He is always making us laugh with his funny faces, impressing us with his big vocabulary, and melting us with his affection towards his family and his multitude of 'lovies.'

We celebrated his birthday with some presents in the morning, more gifts after school, and dinner at a pizza restaurant followed by cake at home. Here are a couple videos:

Today we had a party for Travis with the family. We grilled out, played outside in the beautiful 70-degree weather, opened gifts, and had bug cake and homemade ice cream for dessert. Travis definitely felt the love from his Texas family! Below is an awesome video 'highlight reel' from the party, put together by our family videographer, Nana.
Happy Birthday my sweet boy!

Travis's 15-Month Check-Up

Travisy Travis is 15 months old! He popped in to see the pediatrician today and received 3 vaccines and a clean bill of health. He was pretty cooperative during his appointment and seems to be on track developmentally. We need to work on switching from bottles to cups, and I think we should cut down on his milk consumption a bit because apparently he's only supposed to have 20 oz max a day and he's currently having more like 25 oz. He really loves his bottles of milk! I also still nurse him about once a day (often in the middle of the night when he wakes up) and I'm not quite ready to stop that yet. I love our snuggle time!

Here are Travis' stats from the doctor:

Height: 31.5" (62nd percentile)
Weight: 25 lb 14 oz (88th percentile) - big boy!
Head Circumference: 48cm (82nd percentile)

The printout also listed a Smoking Status as "Never Smoker," which I found kinda funny.

Some recent pictures of Travis are below.

Words he can say: mommy, dada, JJ, kitty cat, doggie, more, all done, that, bird, Pop-Pop (sooo cute how he says this; sticks his lower lip out after the second 'Pop'), meow, woof, baby, car, hi, bye-bye, and belly.

Favorite foods:

• Goldfish crackers
• Bananas
• Yogurt (just started feeding himself with a spoon. Total mess.)
• Cheese
• Ice cream sandwiches (takes a hit off his brothers' treats)
• Blackberries and blueberries

A few things he's into lately:

• He can blow kisses and slap five upon request
• He's fascinated by Lucy and loves to chase her around the house
• He loves playing with his big brothers
• He's a belly addict. He can't pass by an exposed belly without blowing some raspberries, and he likes to show off his belly, too.
• He likes to swing, but usually only for a few minutes before moving on to the next activity
• He enjoys water (sprinklers, water table, pool) but was a little more timid about it and not quite as enthusiastic as his brothers were at this age.
• He's great at cleaning up and his teachers say he's a really good helper at school.
• He seems to understand most of what we're saying and can follow simple commands ("Travis, go get your shoes", "go find JJ").
• He nods his head and shakes his head for yes and no.
• He gets pretty tired at night and often is very ready to go in his crib without any coaxing. He gets in his face-down, butt-in-the-air position and settles himself to sleep. Sometimes he sleeps through the night, more often he wakes up once and has a snuggle session with me before going back to sleep until ~8am.

In summary, he is a really fun and happy kid and we all adore him!

Backyard Bash

Torrential downpours were the norm this Memorial Day weekend but we were very lucky to catch a break in the storms on Sunday afternoon / evening for our Backyard Bash. We had a great time hanging out in the backyard with friends and family! Here are a couple videos by Nana:

 Boy dance party. They were really "rocking" out.



 And so summer begins!

Frozen Birthday Bash!

JJ turned FIVE on Saturday, and tomorrow Wesley turns THREE! We celebrated with a joint birthday party at Hoppin' House on Saturday afternoon. The boys wanted a Frozen theme, so we had some Frozen-themed snacks, snowflake cupcakes, and Frozen cookies & Olaf hats for party favors. Around 28 kids joined the fun and JJ seemed to love every second! Wesley was overwhelmed at times but he had fun, too.

A nice video "highlight reel" below, courtesy of Nana.


It was a wonderful, gift-filled birthday weekend for JJ & Wesley!

We've got a crawler!

We now have 3 little boys on the move in the Campbell house! Travis started "inchworm-crawling" in early September and was able to sit unsupported about the same time. Here's a video taken by Nana that illustrates these skills (with cameo appearances of brothers!).

On September 19 he demonstrated what we considered his first true crawl. Nana took this video today that shows off his skills. He basically plays fetch with himself by losing control of toys and then chasing after them. Will his adorable chunky baby thighs soon be a thing of the past due to all this exercise?!

New house!

Shortly after we found out baby #3 was on the way, we got the ball rolling on having a new house built, just half a mile away from our old house. It was about a 9-month process, so in about the same interval that Travis was constructed, our new house was constructed :) Both processes had their ups and downs but we are very happy with the final products! We moved in this past weekend.

With the construction site being so close, we went by there pretty much daily to see the progress, and we knew Nana & Pop-Pop were checking it out frequently as well. But we had no idea Nana was also carefully documenting the construction! She put together a really neat video that will be awesome to show the kids when they're older.

Introducing the 3rd Campbell Brother!

Travis Cameron arrived on Sunday March 2 at 6:16pm. His birth weight was right in the middle of his brothers, at 9 lbs 2.6 oz, and his length was 21.5 inches.  He is adorable and perfect and has a dimple in each cheek. So far we think he looks more like Wesley than JJ but it's probably too soon to tell.

Here is a really nice video that Nana put together. All the footage is from March 3rd, when Travis was 1 day old.

Indoor Soccer - Winter 2014

Here is a video of JJ at his 3rd Saturday of indoor soccer.  They don't play actual games but have a lot of fun running around doing drills, like chasing the "fox tail" and "Red Light, Green Light."
(Thanks to Nana for taking the video)

T-ball, Fall 2013

JJ played his first season of T-ball this fall. The coaches were great and the emphasis was definitely on building confidence and teamwork (not on competition). JJ had fun at first, and he seemed to enjoy some components of the game week after week, but he was definitely not into playing the outfield.  When a ball would come rolling in, most of his teammates would race toward it while JJ stayed put and played with his glove.  But he learned how to hit the ball and run the bases and he especially enjoyed the snack and drink at the end of each game!  This winter we're going to mix it up and try indoor soccer instead.

Team huddle (They named their own team; half the team wanted to be called the Yankees and the other half voted for the Tigers, so their official name was The Yankee-Tigers.)

Playing in the outfield, with encouragement from Daddo

Running to 3rd

Mulling over his game strategy

Base hit!

Making it to 1st