Mega Post - and the return of Chris's Thoughts.

We're back to posting once a month and I think that's pretty darn good! So in honor of our newfound consistency I give you a mega blog post complete with pictures and updates on everyone. We call this picture "Presents Overload" I used to think that if your birthday was in November of December you got jipped on on presents because of the holidays. This is not the case. Cami turned two on the 15th and she was quickly overwhelmed with presents at her birthday party.

Here's Cami and Carrie blowing out the candles on her birthday cake. I'd like to mention that the cake was made entirely by Dad...what a great Dad!

One of Cami's presents was a Little Einstiens sticker book. The book has about 700 stickers, 350 of which she immediately ripped out and pasted all over the house. The first to go were all the music notes. If you want to know what watching this is like just stare at this picture for the next two hours while repeating to yourself ," Music Notes!!! More Music Notes!!" In a toddler voice.

It was sudden and unexpected...but Carrie has been shrunk..

Clifford for Halloween. Thank you Grandma for getting her to stand still and put on her hood.

Cami update: As we mentioned above the Ciabatta Princess ( Carrie's nickname not mine) has turned two. I like to think that when you're two you are making decisions that you stick with the rest of your life. If this is true than Cami has decided to own a large red dog and become an Olympic swimmer.

I'm not sure that there is another little girl that asks for "Play in Water" and "Take a Bath" more than Cami. For her birthday activity we took her to Lawrence to play in their indoor kids pool. Even though we had to wait by the poolside for a half hour while they cleared some kids breakfast from earlier out of the pool, it was worth the wait because she was as happy as could be once she got in. ( And we stayed away from that part of the pool...Carrie always germ conscious, had to be told several times things like , "I think there's plenty of chlorine" and "I'm sure it was all over there, we're good")

The Clifford obsession continues. For those not familiar Cami watches PBS's Clifford every day. It's part of her morning routine, wake up, have some milk & cereal, and watch Clifford. I thought this was somewhat unhealthy until she started repeating the things the kids on the show were saying. Things like , "Thank you", "I'm so sorry" " Excuse me" and " I love you Clifford...the Big Red Dog" Between having a good Mom and watching Clifford we're raising quite the polite little girl, I'm very proud of her.

Carrie update: 36 weeks pregnant....exactly one month to go from today.....I don't like to often share the things I pray about with others but I pray almost everyday for this boy to come early. This needs to end. Their are great things about pregnancy, and baby is doing fantastic, which reminds me......

Mini update: Josh - 36 weeks along and the Diggins boy is healthy and going strong. We've had our baby name for a while now but for those who don't know or haven't asked our son's name will be Joshua Warren Scoville Diggins. Such a long name for such a small guy, but we'll just call him Josh for short, most of the free world will know him as Josh Diggins and nobody will suspect just a mouthful of a name lerks beneath. Josh keeps himself busy sleeping during the day and rolling around in Mommy's tummy at night. Normal baby things....and I'm sure he's dreaming of football right now, probably getting the basic of the spread offense down so he's nice and prepared for the game against Utah in 2032.

Back to the Carrie update: Anyway Carrie has been doing very well this pregnancy, but there are a few things going on right now that might kill her husband. #1 We're nesting on steroid...the whole house is clean, top to bottom. I've repainted four pieces of furniture and counting, our basement which was once all just storage is now a large room suitable for supervised toddler play. We have plans to paint two more rooms that I know of. Josh's room is set up and decorated, we have everything ready for him and a hospital bag ready to go a month away, I've changed out all the lights in the house and replaced them with the spiral kind because that's all anyone sells anymore. I keep thinking the projects will end and eventually we will be prepared, but I'm starting to see that end will never come. It's just a dream until the baby comes...please come soon baby. #2 Gestational diabetes. I'm not even sure Carrie is Diabetic during pregnancy. This time and with Cami we had it, and both times Carrie's sugars were fantastic almost everyday regardless of what she eats...I think the doctors just do this to her to make some additional money selling overpriced diabetic supplies and to torture her in the last two months of pregnancy just to see how she reacts. I think maybe she signed up for some sort of study where they see how far they can push pregnant ladies before they crack. Either way, meal time is alternately depressing and infuriating when you can't have sweets and your pregnant....or your trying to feed the pregnant lady.

On the positive side Carrie is still absolutely beautiful. Also she's been able to do some good graphic design work for her company and She's continued the project of digital scrapbooking the past five years of our life. It's looking great and the printed scrapbook so far is Cami's favorite book. We'll have to post those pages sometime....just not today.

Chris update/thoughts: Last week I was shocked to learn I need glasses. Just for reading.working/driving for long peroids of time. No you may not see the pictures. Events wise I pretty much keep to the work/home/church routine. So here are my recent thoughts:

I recently made a bet that will result in me running 13 miles in St. George at the end of march if I lose. I've never wanted to lose a bet as much as I want to lose this one. Sorry for the lack of detail, most people won't care and I'm not getting into the details with everyone. I just want to say that I want everyone who is reading this that knows Joe Dredge to ask him ,"What is it going to take to get Chris Diggins to run 13 miles?" Just do it...you'll be happy if you do.

I'm not a passive watcher of football, regardless if I am by myself or with others I usually find myself cheering or chanting along. Anyway, one of the positive side effects of this is that Cami has learned a great variety of cheers. My favorite is right now she does the Seven Nation Army - OOOO-o-o-o-o-OOOOO Chant. It's awsome. We get that rolling when Penn State is on Defense and things are going well. Very proud papa.

Speaking of football, somewhat boring season. This season is a lot like one of those years where nothing really bad or really fantastic happens. You're just happily living life and you're a little dissappointed that when it comes time to write the Christmas card there is not much to write that you think someone else would find very interesting. Still, you dodn't recall it being a bad year. Just contently uneventful. This college football season for Penn State was contently uneventful. They won the games they were suppost to win and lost to the teams that were better than them. They scheduled 10-2 and got 10-2. BYU pretty much the same with a few more ups and downs. The Oklahoma game is the best thing I can remember them doing...and then I watch the Florida State game, it it evens out. Solid achievement year after year, nothing to complain about, but nothing to write home about either.

Now for all the women still reading after the football paragraph, a word about So You Think you Can Dance and Twilight. Carrie and I started watching SYTYCD over the summer and we're hooked. I never thought one of these dance shows would do it for me, but this one is filling the American Idol void quite nicely. I'm pulling for Ryan and Ashley. They should both make the top 10 and I like Ryan because he dances like a man. If I had to call a winner right now I think it's Kathryn or Jakob. Haven't seen Twilight yet but hope to do so over the holiday. No Team Jacob or Team Edward here, if it's possible to be on team Volteri then I am on that team and I'm excited for seeing them come out in the movie. What most guys don't know is inside that soap opera/chick flik there is a superhero movie just begging to get out. I hope they get there due.

That's all for now. Until next month....