Merry Christmas!

Here is a shot of our little Samantha last year and this year, same Santa. Last year he was clever and took her from behind for a few good pictures. This year he came through again. She did not like Santa at the Marshall party or the Mom's club Christmas party. But she got it in her head that if she sat on his lap she would get a doll, so we decided to try again. She kept saying no sit on lap, so I figured I would have to sit beside her and maybe slide her over. But he came though with a picture of Rudolph that distracted her enough to sit on his lap. You can tell in the picture that she is being about as brave as she can be. Not really a smile, but no tears either. What an amazing girl!

Things have been crazy. We drove down to Atlanta on the 18th. It was supposed to only rain, but we hit some heavy snow and ended up stuck for an hour and a half. But we made it in one piece! And have been going pretty much ever since. Nick and I played golf with my Dad, we have been playing a lot on the new Wii my dad got for Christmas, plus catching up with some great friends. Sam has had a couple of playdates and has been to the zoo and the pink pig. She is a bit under the weather today and we are hoping she did not catch what my mom seems to have. Mom has been a tough cookie through feeling yucky as Sam is Nana's girl and wants her to do everything. A wonderful and long needed break for me :) Other than Sunday nights which is Nick's night to rock Sam, I am always on tap. And I do most every nap as well. Samantha sure is lucky to have one really doting grandmother.

Sam also really raked in the gifts. She got books and clothes and dolls and all kinds of stuff. We may have to rent a uhaul to get it all back! I got spoiled as well. Nick got me a Keurig coffee maker and a nice ipod docking station.

My mom has also got her back on potty training. She went once before we left, but has been consistent with her potty gifts. She has even pooped twice, although I think those surprised her a bit. We will see how it goes when we head back up to Huntington. No rushing it, just giving her lots of positive experiences and praise. We even sing a song, which she likes a lot.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and has a Happy New Year! I will post a lot more pictures when I can download them.

One more...

I forgot this one from a few weeks ago, Sam has quite the imagination now and she is an expert mimic. She started putting her baby seat on the shopping cart just like we did with Baby Luke. She is so curious and is really starting to get some crazy logic. She has also started asking why, we are in trouble now!

Billy Bobs and other fun

It has been cold and rainy a lot lately, but that has not stopped our fun. Marshall had a Christmas party for families, so we went to that (1st Santa). Sam and I also went to the Mom's club's Christmas Party at Billy Bob's, think ghetto Chuck E Cheese. It is a bit expensive and some of the games do not work, but Sam had a great time on the rides.

She was a little unsure of this ride since it went kind of high.

She loved the carousel.
At the Marshall Party, she got to paint icing on a cookie, that was a big hit.

We had to get some of the Kelling presents shipped home. Sam has loved playing with her nativity set. She loves finding baby Jesus and the random chicken. Nick and I laugh at the roofless inn, saying the barn is a much better option anyway.

We finish finals tomorrow and have a few more parties this week.

Santa

So last year, we had a great Santa experience, this year not so much. The Santa last year was able to grab her from behind and we just got her to look at us. She did get upset when she finally turned around, but this year she will have none of it. She wanted to see Santa, but when we got in line she started saying, "No pictures, no pictures." And this is what she did at the Marshall party...

And this was at the mom's club party, she would not even go near him for a gift.

Here is a reminder of last year.

Winter snow is falling down...

So at midnight last night a 30% chance of flurries was predicted. We woke up to about 2-3 inches of snow. Many may recall the shots of Sam in the snow from earlier this year...

Well, she did not exactly cry this year, but she did not walk on the snow, either. She did like holding the snowballs Nick made. Here we are with a giant one.

She held a smaller one on her own.

Here is the family imprints. Sam would not actually step down, so Nick pulled her boot off to make hers.

The dogs actually enjoyed running around in the snow after Toby's initial hesitation.

More thanksgiving

So I had issues posting last night and did not get to upload all the pictures I wanted.

Here is Nick's Dad, Poppi, opening the gift Sam made at the paint your own pottery place in town.

Here is Sam with Nick's cousin, Megan, who was wonderful with Sam and even helped her open her presents.

Here is Sam eating a Popsicle. We were trying to get her to eat breakfast and I asked about a banana, cereal, etc and she said no to everything. And Poppi asked if she wanted ice cream, which of course she said yes. So I compromised and gave her some popsicle. Her very first one. She still is not a huge fan of ice cream itself because it is so cold. She will lick it and drink milkshakes, but no ice cream by spoon.

We took Sam to get her booster of H1N1 today. It was so sad, but she was a trooper. She would say something about I got a shot, leg hurts, etc and wanted to keep the bandaid. Glad we got that done. This time took only a couple minutes versus the 2.5 hours to get the first.

Thanksgiving

We went out to California for Thanksgiving with some of Nick's family. It was a whirl wind, including yesterday's 11 hours of traveling during which Sam slept only 20 minutes, beginning 5 minutes before we landed in Cincinnati. Here are some photo highlights of our trip, although I was too busy chasing Sam around to take many pictures.

Robyn's parents were there to watch Luke and Isabelle while she worked. They stayed through Thanksgiving. Their dog, pictured here, is named Sammy. Got a little confusing when someone yelled "Sammy, no", Samantha would be like what did I do.

Samantha had a great time playing with Isabelle's toys which Isabelle was great about sharing. Although the concept of not hers was not fully formed.


Luke is quite strong. Here is a little tummy time.

Hugs for Uncle Terence.

On the way out from Huntington to Cincinnati the pilot let her go up front for a picture, but she was not having it.

Happy Almost Thanksgiving!

A lot has been going on, so here are a few highlights.

Here is Sam waiting for her first concert, The Imagination Movers! She had a blast for the first bit and then wanted a snack.

Here she is eating a gogurt, gotta love blue yougurt mustache.

Here she is pushing her tricycle.

Here she is actually riding it.

This is from the top of her new box house (see video clip below).

Sam keeps entertaining us. She loves to sing. Here she is playing the guitar and singing.

Nick got an early Christmas present of a large tool storage drawer thing. So Nick made it into a new cardboard house out of it. We told Sam she had a surprise and here she is seeing it. Nice that even in this economy some people are upsizing :) She loves it.

More leaves

Here is a picture of Sam in a shirt given to her by the Klers who were neighbors on much loved Mount Royal. The blue really makes her eyes pop!

We had a cake for my dad when he was here as an early birthday. Sam was eating a bit that was leftover. we let her feed herself and this is what happened.

Nick raked up our leaves into a pile and we went out to play in them. Sam loves jumping in the piles. Notice the ND jacket.

Happy Fall everyone!

Finally caught it!

So Sam had a little fever and some congestion this past weekend and we had to skip some of our planned activities. It never went too high and may have been related to her two new canine teeth. But she does have a slight lingering cough, so we have played it safe given swine flu and such. I hated to miss Jr. Spook :( But she did get to wear her costume a lot, I think it came out to like $2.50 a wear.

Heere are the Halloween related shots. Here she is in cute pumpkin jammies from Grammy.

Here we are right before trick or treating. She had a great time. We went by a friends house to hang out a bit, but she did not want to skip any houses that might give her candy. We got home and she got to have a tiny herseys bar and a small pack of m&m's. A first for both of these, although pumpkin candies and tootsie rolls have been a regular as rewards for using the potty.

This is a shot from Nick's phone when we were in toys r us.

And another.

This is a shot from my phone when we were in a mall for a kids sale. She loves sitting on these things, but is not a big fan when they move, which I do not mind since it is better in the budget :)

I also remebered the other funny word she said. For a long time whenever she saw an elevator she would say, "'Gator!" But now she can say elevator.

And the grand finale. Sam has been counting to 10 and can almost say her ABC's. Of course she will never do it for the camera, but I finally caught some ABC saying. Of course she said it perfectly right before I grabbed the camera and then not as well, but she still gets close.

Autumn leaves are falling down...

We had a fun filled week with Nana and Papa here. Nick came back on Thursday as well. Nana and Papa had to leave yesterday, so we will miss them. But this week is packed with Halloween events. I think we will set a record for wear your costume events. We did one a couple of weeks ago at the book store. This week she is to wear her costume at music class, story time at the library, to an event at Marshall, Thursday night for a "safer" beggars night, snd then on Saturday to a special Jr. Spook at the art museum. I think that covers all of them.

Samantha still continues to amaze and delight us. She now can count to 10+ and gets really close at saying the ABC's. She also likes to sing a lot, which is pretty darn funny!

She is funny about how she says a few words. When I was a kid, I could not say smoke, I would say fonk, even if I was helped to say sss, I would say sss-fonk. Sam has a few of those. One is pool, she always says we are going to the cool. I cannot remeber the other common word she says funny. One she used to do was say 'tar for guitar but she says guitar now. And she still has her Boston accent, saying park, car, and such like she is from Boston.

And a really funny story. My dad was helping with bath time and the bottle of soap fell in. He said, "Oops, sorry." And she said, "That's okay papa. Knock yourself out." I know she got that from Nick, but it was too cute.

Here she is being Miss Hollywood.

We took her to the park yesterday and when we were leaving she walked right over and grabbed this and started hanging there with her feet off the ground. We thought my dad might have taught her on their park outings, but he said he did not. Guess she saw big kids doing it and decided it looked fun.

Being silly.

It is not all fun and games. Here she is in a time out, crying crocodile tears. Being a toddler sure is hard.

She loved my dad's watch so much that they bought her one at dollar tree. Here she is showing it off while watching football next to papa.

Another new toy from nana and papa is this awesome grocery cart made by Melissa and Doug. Sam loves it. She pushes it around full of stuff. It even has a seat for her dolls. She has wanted one ever since we went over to a friends and she had one. It is so cute.

Here she is with the pottery piece (actually a soap dish but we thought it could be a spoon rest) she painted. Nick taped a stencil on it and she went wild. Then we peeled it off and it stayed like a cupcake. So much fun. Sam is an expert. She made a mug for Nick for Father's day and has been a few times.

Here she is waiting on the cart to be assembled.

Miss Hollywood cooking pretend chips.

Miss Hollywood with the Halloween bears after swimming class.