Tutu Terrific Party!

Things have been crazy again. We had Sam's party and my parents here, which meant lots of preparation and fun. Plus I had an interview at the Detroit Zoo, which went well. But I may not hear for a month or so.

But thanks to everyone who sent presents for Sam's birthday. I had Sam's pictures made and am holding some thank you notes until I can include a picture.

Here are the pictures from Sam's party. She had a great time. She is so amazing, even now starting to label emotions. It was very cute as her first guest arrived, she ran over to the door yelling, "I'm so excited!" We put her tutu on (I made each girl a tutu) and she did a cute spin and then went to watch at the door.

Standing with Papa waiting for her first guest.

Drawing with Jada. I printed out some animals and Sesame Street characters with tutus on and gave the girls chalk and water to draw with.

There was lots of food and the girls grazed and played with all Sam's toys. Everyone had a good time and no fights broke out. Here is my dad playing with one of Sam's friends who usually is very shy, but loved my parents.

I made cupcakes with sprinkles in them and iced them with several choices, including swirled with pink to go along with our theme.

Hard to believe two years have flown by so fast. Sam really has added so much to our lives. As the quote says, she filled a hole in our heart that we did not even know existed. We enjoy (almost) every moment and look forward to many more exciting days.

Snow Day!

One of Samantha's favorite toys is an old school (circa 2002) Elmo chicken. It sings and dances and she loves it. Even Samuel loves it. Well, it stopped working and a battery replacement did not fix it. Nick had to cut it open and solder a wire back together. What a wonderful dad! I also helped by sewing it back.

It snowed around 4-5 inches yesterday. We had some family fun in the snow. Even my mom suited up and went out to play.

Nick built Sam this really cute snow woman. She loved it.

Here is Sam with her snow woman.

Birthday girl!

We had a pretty eventful day, and not just birthday related. I went to teach and Sam played with Nick for a bit. Then she went over to play with Samuel, who we swap off with each week. When I got home Nick was investigating an odd odor in our house. It was sickly sweet, so not the normal rotten egg smell of mercaptan, but we thought it might be a gas leak. Lots of drama added to the day. It turns out it was a stuck valve or maybe too much mercaptan which burns with a strange smell. But Sam and I hung out at Samuel's house. Sara, Samuel's mom, did throw Samantha a party with cake and ice cream. She loved that. Then when it seemed like all was ok, we went back home for her to nap. When she got up my parents were already here with a ton of presents. And she loved Hibachi.

This is a tutu bear from a friend of my parents. So appropriate because her birthday party theme is "Tutu Terrific."

This is what comes from asking her to hold it up so I can take a picture.

Later it was "crying" so she had to soothe it.

Love for papa. Love for Nana.
So why do we have a picture of my daughter with a $100 bill you may ask. The bank my mom has is a pennies from heaven bank I got her. It is kind of a joke that my brother sends pennies and my mom collects hers and puts them in the bank for Sam. It just turns out that my brother thought Sam needed something more than a penny. That's right, it is found money.

My dad made Sam a wooden 2. But there was too much to do to really pause for a good picture.

Sam is a big clifford fan. The books more than the show.

This is the picture Nick took at the minute Sam was born. Again, too much to do to smile or cooperate.

After dinner, being silly.
All of us at dinner.
We went out for Hibachi. Sam loved the show and wanted more fire. They brought out a deep fried cheesecake. Sam was super excited. Not sure if it was the singing, the cake, or the anticipation of getting to blow out the candle. She seems to think these birthday things are pretty cool. Good thing there are many more to come!

Almost 2!

Hard to believe my baby girl is almost 2. Here are a few facts about the toddler.

Favorite color: Green...she tends to pick a color and everything is that color. The color she has chosen for a long time is green. She really does seem to like it.

Favorite food: Fruit snacks (some call them gummies). She would live off of them. But in general she loves fruit, mac and cheese, and all the traditional toddler foods. But she also will eat celery, green beans, salad, and many other veggies. Just depends on her mood. She is a much better eater now though.

Favorite show: She is still a huge Elmo fan, so lots of Sesame Street. But she also loves Imagination Movers and is starting to like Little Einsteins. We try to keep it somewhat educational or at least not junk and she seems to like live action a lot better.

Favorite Super hero: Spiderman

Favorite Book: She likes most all of them, and recently she has been enjoying the Fancy Nancy series. We got her the quintet for Christmas and get some from the library. But a big favorite seems to be Apples on Top.

Other facts: She loves to be outside whether it is at the park, riding in the stroller, splashing in puddles, or writing with sidewalk chalk. She loves reading books. She has memorized large portions of them and "reads" them to herself. She has quite a memory. She also loves to sing and has memorized large portions of songs. She will also play her guitar or keyboard and sing along, generally the ABC song, but she will even make up songs. She has quite an imagination, pretending to do all sorts of things like comfort changing diapers or making us food. Everything in our house cries a lot and needs comforting, which was particularly funny when it was the plastic Spiderman.

This is Samantha in February 2009.

She still fits into the same sweater. Crazy, huh? Here she is standing on one foot. She is a bit of a ham at times and will ask me to take a picture of her.

Here she is with her brand new kid tough camera from the Pabons. Thanks! She loves it. Although we see that we need to pick up some more rechargeable batteries.

And Samantha loves to boss Samuel around and try and get him to do things her way. Mom says she is practicing to be a wife. Here she is helping to feed him.

Its Warming up!

Today is pretty warm, high in the low 40's. The snow is melting in spots hit by the sun. The better news is that we finally got the HVAC guy to come out and work on our heat. We had heat in the den and dining room, but had to run space heaters in the bedrooms. The back room was usually about 40, making that bathroom almost unusable. Turns out the last time they came to fix the pips that burst for the bathroom, which were not insulated, they did not hook the ducts back up. Just left them crushed out of way. So they guy hooked them back up and we have heat, albeit weak in some cases, throughout the house. The back room is a balmy 52! Upstairs seems a bit better too.

Here is Sam in a hat I got for Christmas. She put it on and said, take a picture.

Sam got a new doctor's kit for Christmas. She loves doing check ups. Here is Phoenix's turn.

And Nick's. It did seem to help when she went to the doctor for her bronchitis.

Sam loves having pigtails, and Nick always asks when I am going to match. So I did.

We are trading some child care with a neighbor and fellow Marshall adjunct. Samuel comes to play on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. And Sam goes to his house as well. Wednesday had two tired, teething kids. It was rough, but mostly they play together well. And Samuel seems to inspire Samantha to eat, which is nice.

We still have not been going out too much. But the other evening was warm enough that we decided to do a quick walk in my new (to me) jogging stroller my parents got me. Sam loved it and did not want it to end, but we did not want her to get too cold. I think it was about 38 or so.

Here is our house covered by snow.

This is a video from Atlanta with her Elmo chicken dance toy. She has a good time dancing and it cracks us up.

Happy New Year!

We are back in Wild and Wonderful WV. Poor Sam has the end of a nasty cold. Her fever spiked last Tuesday at just over 103 and stayed in the 99-100 range for a bit. We had to take her in today to the doctor because she had such a nasty cough and she is now on antibiotics for the first time ever. She did weigh in at 10th percentile though, despite not eating well for this week. The drive home was a bit rough with the sick toddler who wanted out of her seat, but we did not want her exposed to germs or infecting anyone. So she only got out for a diaper change. Lots of elmothough. And she really wanted to be rocked, so a nap did not come until 4:40. But she was happy to be with her old toys and ran around a lot when we got home and she woke up. She (and we) sure do miss nana and papa though. And our house was freezing when we got home. The upstairs was below 40. The back room was about 34. It never stays too warm upstairs because furnace is too small, so we run ceramic heaters. But it appears that the filter, which we replaced maybe a month ago, got clogged and the downstairs was even around 40. It took a long time to get Sam's room warm enough for her to go to sleep. But she had fun playing.

I took a ton of pictures, and are some highlights.

When Sam felt bad she did a lot of snuggling, the only true benefit to a sick kid. Here is some snuggle time with Daddy.

One of my mom's neighbors, "Miss Jo", gave Sam an umbrella with her name on it. It was a big hit and we all had to take turns pretending to run to get out of the rain. Since she was the only one with an umbrella, we had to pull coats over our heads. It was fun for the first 10 minutes or so, then we had to trade and get someone else to take a turn.

A close up with the umbrella.
Drinking a shake out of a fun straw from a breakfast friend of my parents at Krystal.

She and I rode the pink pig. I used to love it as a kid when it was downtown. Mom says whenever someone mentioned Christmas I would say, ride the pink pig. We tried to go on the 23rd, but it was a 2 hour wait or so. We went on Tuesday and that was when Sam started seeming not herself and ended up with a high fever. Glad we got it in, though. She had a blast.
Mom and I spent 3 coupons worth at Macys and found this cute coat for Sam. My mom also wanted to get cowboy boots for Sam because she and I had loved ours. The shoe store had these, but they were on clearance and not part of the buy one get one half off, so we passed them up. I got my new hiking boots and got Nick some, but he did not like his, then we took his back and got my dad some, those did not fit, so we took those back and the boots were on sale then, so many crazy trips to the store and we finally got the boots. Glad my mom thought to check them.

Sam loves them and they get lots of compliments.

Sam loves these tiny babies that are $1 at Walmart and she keeps moving it around the house. So I got her 4 for Christmas in her stocking. She came in with two in my crocs, calling them boats. It was pretty funny. She has an impressive imagination for an almost 2 year old. Makes us be her baby, she is our baby play with a doctor kit, the umbrella game was all her, etc.

And these were a hand me down that she likes, but she also actually came into the room with them on her chest and said look at my bra. Again, imagination strong, but may lead to embarrassment.

This is part of a hall game where my dad and nick would take turns saying I am getting away, she would run over and catch them and then pat them back to sleep. They were both her babies, but they got to rest while wearing her out. She had a great nap that day.

Christmas was a present fest. She helped open everyone's and could not always decide where to go next.

Standing among the goodies.
Cheek to cheek with Papa.
My mom bought plastic ornaments and let Sam decorate this tree. She never would stand still by it, so this is the best I got.

Hugging Nana. She sure was Nana's girl this trip.

Right before picture with Santa. She loved this stuffed dog last year, too.

More of present fest. She did well opening this year.

Riding the carousel at the zoo.
Petting goats with Izzy.
She loves the pigs.
Wearing Papa's coat at Krystal.
Hanging out with Papa.

And Nana.

Hope everyone had a nice new years and has a great 2010. We hope for wellness, heat, and new jobs!