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.