Scary Santa

It's been such a busy December and I'm finally posting our Santa picture from this year. We went to see him after Thanksgiving with Ben's family. He kept telling us that "Santa is a nice guy" and that he wasn't going to be scared of him. When it was his turn, he totally froze and just stood and stared at Santa. Meanwhile, Jude was loving every minute of it. We decided to turn it into a family picture and then Sam felt more comfortable. When Santa asked Sam what he wanted for Christmas, Sam belted out "Toy Story and Buzz Lightyear!" just like he had practiced. Sam keeps telling me he was scared that day so he had to sit on my lap, but that he's not scared of Santa anymore.
A couple weeks ago, Ben arranged for a phone call from Santa to come for Sam (through Cincinnati Bell). Sam patiently listened to Santa's message and then excitedly reminded Santa that he wants Toy Story and Buzz Lightyear for Christmas. When Santa stopped talking, he told him "I being a good boy. I not being a bad boy!!!" Later that night, when Sam wouldn't try any of his dinner, Ben went upstairs and called our home phone using his best Santa voice. When Sam answered, "Santa" explained how he had been watching Sam and he saw that Sam wasn't eating his dinner and that he wanted him to eat 3 bites. I've never seen Sam eat that quickly in his life!

This has really been a fun Christmas season so far. We can't wait to see Sam's face when he comes downstairs Christmas morning!

Photographer Sam

Sunday morning, Sam asked to take some pictures. Here's some of his work:

He was pretty proud of his pictures. :)

Gobble Gobble

We stuffed ourselves silly on Thanksgiving this year at Neenee Sue's house! Although it was Jude's first Thanksgiving, he got the same old meal, of course. But the rest of us sure enjoyed the food! Sam got to sit at the kids' table with the boys, which he loved. His favorite part was probably playing football with his cousins, who were so sweet to him.

Jacob reading a story to Sam

Uncle Jim gets some baby time in.

Jude hanging out with Aunt Jane and Aunt Susan

Droopy Drawers

Jude's Baptism

We had another exciting event almost a couple weeks ago - Jude was baptized! He had a lovely baptism. Uncle Paul was his sponsor, and Neenee gave me Paul's baptism outfit for Jude to wear. It fit perfectly and looked adorable on him. Neenee thoughtfully gave him a beautiful little pair of white satin shoes and a little pair of white socks with crosses on them to complete the look! He looked like a little angel.

After the church service, we came back to our house for some barbecue and cake. Events like this (along with the upcoming holidays) remind us how blessed we are to have such wonderful family to support us and be there for these special occasions!

Halloween, Part 2

AAAHHHH! Crazed School Psychologist on the loose!!!

Halloween was so much fun this year! Sam really got what it was all about and loved trick-or-treating. We carved pumpkins in the afternoon and Sam helped us pull out pumpkin guts and decide whether to make our pumpkins "scay-we" or silly (mine was scary and Daddy's was silly, in case you were wondering). Sam did not love playing with the pumpkin guts and let Daddy handle most of that. He was really excited about his Spiderman costume he picked out, and had no qualms about wearing the mask all night, unlike last year, when the mask was ripped off before we even made if off the front porch! Jude seemed to enjoy it, too. He gotdressed up in Jackson's old pumpkin outfit, which was warm and snuggly for him. He enjoyedhis stroller ride down the street and back. The nice thing about Halloween is that you get to meet all the neighbors you don't normally talk to....we have many nice neighbors and quite a few had special treats for Sam, which was really sweet. Know what else is sweet? That Sam can't possibly eat all the candy he got, so Mommy and Daddy get plenty of treats,too!

Yeah....that looks icky.

Jude presiding over pumpkin carving

Giving our neighbor, Mrs. Bowman, a hug. I think Mrs. Bowman gave Sam 10 pieces of candy!

Halloween Festivities, Part 1

We had our 3rd annual visit to Hidden Valley Fruit Farm last weekend to find a pumpkin! We met up with Uncles Paul and Brett, Aunt Dianah, and Neenee and had a really nice time. Jude got to come along in the Baby Bjorn. I think he really liked being able to see all the action.

Mmm...forget apple cider. This Baby Bjorn is DELICIOUS.

Had lots of fun with Uncle Brett

Sam loved the hayride. He thought the tractor was really cool. Only sad thing was the lack of color because of the draught. It was a lot of brown trees and grass.

With Neenee on the hayride!

Sam made a little buddy while looking for a pumpkin. He had noticed a couple of pumpkins that had broken open, so he kept pointing at pumpkins and shouting "broken!" over and over. Even at the pumpkins that were perfectly fine. Madeline chimed in, too, and then they ran off. Sam's probably telling her that these pumpkins are "broken!" here.

Sam got to do something new this year - ride a pony! He was so excited, and not scared at all, which really surprised Ben and me. This is one of the pictures I got of him trying to smile. I think it's hilarious because you can tell he really was a little nervous.

More halloween pictures will be coming soon!

Transitions

We've hit another one. The transition from the miraculous Miracle Blanket (and it's counterpart, the wonderful Woombie) to just plain old wearable blanket. This straight-jacket-like product has a large role in ensuring blissful sleep-filled nights for my boys when they are newborns.

But there comes a time when binding babies like little caterpillars no longer works.

FREEDOM!!!!

A friend who used a Miracle Blanket after I used one with Sam asked me how I knew when it was time to not use it anymore. Well, it's when you go into your baby's room in the morning, and he or she looks like the above picture. For his morning nap today, I put on Sam's old Cloud b blanket. Check out the arms. I remember with Sam, we had a couple bad days/nights while he got used to it, so here goes! Wish us luck.

It's FINISHED!!!

I FINALLY finished Sam's photobook that I've been working on for so long I can't even remember when I started. It feels so good to have actually finished a project! It's part of the reason I haven't put much on this blog lately....naptime has meant Photoshop Scrapping Time lately. Now, I've started Jude's and have vowed to keep up with his so that I'm actually scrapping whatever month he's in. We'll see if it lasts, but I'm totally committing to it. At least for now. We'll see what happens when I go back to work.......

Anyway, you can click on the link in the lower post to see the book. I can't wait till it comes in the mail!

Sam's First Year Photobook

Click here to view this photo book larger

I Am In Love With This Baby!

The Dude is fantastic. 10 weeks now and we just really love him to death. Like a lot of moms probably do, I really could not fathom loving another baby as much as I love Sam. Those worries went out the window as soon as Jude was born, of course. He is such a sweet little guy and is as much of a cuddle bug as Sam was. And he's even a better sleeper - the best part of all! (Now that we survived a little rough patch a couple weeks ago, anyway.) My favorite time with Jude is when it's just him and me after his morning meal. If Sam's at school, I just feed him in our bed and afterward, he just lays there and smiles at me. Take it from me, it's adorable. I didn't catch a smile this time, but it's still pretty cute:

"Geez - stop taking pictures of me, lady!"

Here's a scene from right before bathtime in our house....

Caught one!

So far, Jude still has blue eyes. I checked some old pictures and Sam's had changed to brown by this time. We'll see if they stay!

Last Days of Summer

Maternity Leave makes me feel like doing this:

Sam's thinking - "Mom's lost it."

I'm on Week 9 of 16 of my maternity leave. Now, I really do feel so lucky to have a job I love 98% of the time and get about 9-10 weeks of vacation time and get paid a decent amount to do. AND I have a husband who also has that time off with me. But I'm definitely enjoying my time off with the boys. We've done a lot of fun stuff over the last month. A lot of going to the park, library, and so on, and it's been really nice.

Last week, my friend Emmy set up a little visit to the Norwood Fire Station to visit a firefighter we know there. Doug showed Sam around and was so sweet to him, but Sam was still pretty terrified. He would rarely let go of my hand. Of course, after the day was over, he talked non-stop about it like he had the time of his life. The other day he picked up a little toy fireman and told my sister "This looks kind of like Fireman Doug." He's his hero (after Ben, of course)!

A couple days ago, Sam decided to pretend his Smurf was baby Jude. He carried him over his shoulder, burped him, and fed him:

Sam thinks that Jude gets milk out of my belly.

We had a special visitor on one of our recent trips to the park - Nana! We had a picnic, played on the playground, and walked around the gardens. Our favorite part was the butterfly garden. Mom and I had a blast with her super duper camera (I'm dreaming of owning one myself)! She even caught a hummingbird mid-flight with it. Here they are in the butterfly garden.

Took some on the playground, too....

Mom caught Sam giving me a kiss. These are hard to come by now because he's such a busy little guy. :(

On Saturday, we traveled down to Louisville for Jackson's 5th birthday party at a soccer club. Jackson had a lot of fun with his friends and Sam had a great time, too, even though he was younger than most of the kids. Ben helped Sam join in.

Jackson doesn't look like he's having fun at all here.

Had a great time and it was fun staying at Rachel and Gammon's lovely new house. Sam had so much fun at the soccer club, he didn't want to leave. When we were heading out, he had ventured back into one of the darkened soccer fields. Ben went in and told him we were leaving. He looked at Ben and excitedly said, "I just want to run SO fast!" and took off down the field. I'm thinking track may be in this kid's future!