Busy weekend

We have been keeping busy this weekend with a lot more fun to come!  I wanted to share this picture.  Sam was just drawing and said, "Look Mom, I drew A."  I thought it was an impressive one!  She has taken "up, down, across" to heart.

September already?

Sam has been doing great with preschool.  She cried for 3 mornings and then it shifted to a quick goodbye and off to play.  I am so impressed with her adaptability.  We do not know much about what all she does other than eat and play with dolls.  But she is excited to go on most mornings.  Luckily she is also excited to see me when I pick her up, too.  She has not been napping too well after school, though, which has been rough.

These are actually from August 13th, but I just scanned them in.  I had the PAPP-A test done and it included an ultrasound.  Here is a profile view.

And I thought this was too funny since it looks like the baby is doing a fist pump and Sam recently started doing that.

We have been keeping busy beyond unpacking and such.  Sam and I went to a princess party at the library.  We only stayed a little while though because it was insane and she was cranky.  

We also went to a baby and kids expo that had inflatables and a princess party.  She loved jumping and had it all to herself.  Here is an action shot.  I find it amusing because this is the same dress she wore last fall to jump at the ribfest.  It is much shorter now :)

She loved seeing the princesses, but Tinkerbell was her favorite.

She likes putting on our clothes.  Here she is in Nick's socks.

And she has been loving getting in and out of boxes and tubs.

Another cute story with no pictures I want to share.  The other night Nick was working on fixing our ottoman.  He told Sam to leave his tools alone, so she went and got her plastic play toys and came to help.  It was adorable how she hammered and offered her tools.  I did not take a picture since I figured getting the camera would ruin  the moment and I was elbow deep in dish duty.  I am so blessed to have such a wonderful kid and husband, who is a great father too.

Preschool!

Nick got this one with his phone at Home Depot.  Sam knows where she came from :)

Today is her first day of preschool.  She woke up at 5:30 and so was back asleep at 7 when she needed to get up,which lead to some reluctance.  She figured out we were not staying and got upset and did not want to go to the point of much crying.  She finally came around some and let me get a smiling picture after no cooperation for a few pictures.  It did involve Nick doing a silly dance.  What a great dad and husband!

She said she was ready and we got everything together and got a quick picture.

                                      

She jumped right in and started playing.

                                    

Here she is with a friend from Music class and library.  One of the friends who came to her birthday party.  Her parents decided to send her at the last minute and they ended up in the same class.  We are very excited.  

                                      

Sam did great until she realized it was time to leave.  Then she started crying and trying to cling to my leg.  We went with the rip it out quick method and just handed her off.  Her teacher is sweet (well both of them are, but only one held her) and had her mostly calmed by the time we got outside the building.  I called an hour later and they said she was doing great.  We will pick her up at 12:45 so she can get a good nap at home.  I do not think she is ready for a rest time at school since she still takes a long nap and needs it.

Tomorrow we are heading to the splash ground again for a lot of fun.  And we have a few things planned for this weekend.  Then everything is back up and running next week.  Nick and I start classes next week.  It is going to be a crazy semester!

Water, water everywhere!

Sam really loves her new car bed.  Of course, we moved upstairs because of the water and so she has just been on her mattress on the floor.  But here are some pre-storm pictures.  Here she is pretending to sleep.

And here is a shot with the whole bed.  

We did not take too many pictures while my parents were here just because it was so crazy.  But we got one right before they left to prove they were here.

And although we have been battling water in our house, Sam has been having fun keeping cool in water.  Mom and I took her to a splash park with the moms club.  You can hear one of my friends talking about a snake in another friends' house.  But you can also hear Sam's giggles of delight.  Some of the other kids were timid with the fast water and noise, but Sam loved it.  

And we got a slip n' slide in Atlanta and set it up for the first time here.  The slide part did not work too well with no incline or raft type thing to slide on, but Sam loved running through the sprinkler and playing in the pool at the bottom.

Water and Power

So no move of ours seems to not have some drama.  I posted about the 11 hour drive.  We were doing well getting organized, then last Wed at 4 am a scheduled power outage woke Sam up.  I ran into the door frame trying to get to her while half asleep.  She then was wide awake from being scared and took hours to get to sleep.  She then slept horizontally while using my back as a drum for her feet.  Then Wednesday evening it started to rain, a lot.  Streets all over town were flooded, including ours until Nick and a neighbor unclogged the sewer drain.  And water, lots of it, came into the basement, which is where we set up our bedrooms.  The 2 bedrooms upstairs are small, so we thought downstairs would be better giving us more space for furniture, including a crib.  Nick and my dad worked hard sucking up the water.  We had to move upstairs until everything dried out.  We went to bed planning to get to work in the morning, but we again lost power at 4 am.  It did not come on again until around 11 am.  It seems to be getting there and does not smell as bad anymore.  So we are hopeful that it was just a deluge and will not be repeated at the next rain.  This landlord seems much better.  He came and pulled up the carpet and removed the pad.

Sam starts preschool next Thursday.  We have an open house next Wed.  She will probably do better than I will.  I am sure it will be an adjustment on all sides, though.  This summer flew by!

And some more details on baby #2.  I am due February 21st.  We had originally thought about a summer baby, but we thought it might be better to not have a newborn if we did relocate next August.  But we also wanted to allow for the possibility of fall interviews.  There is never a good time, but we did want 3 years (2.5-3.5) between kids to allow each one to have time to be a baby so it is pretty ideal given our situation.  I had a lot of morning sickness this time.  With Sam it was mostly early morning, I would throw up and be much better for the remainder of the day.  This time it started at 4.5 weeks, just after I found out, and although I threw up less, it lasted most of the day. But I am doing much better now thank goodness, so it is not lasting as long as with Sam.

Changes Big and Small

We made it to Huntington on Thursday after an exhausting 11 hour trip.  We had to deal with a lot of traffic, including 1.5 hours stuck because of an overturned tractor trailer.  We have been unpacking and reassembling things since then.  Our dishwasher is broken, so that has added to the fun.  But it is a much nicer house than last year and Sam is doing well in her car bed.

In other news, Sam is going to be a big sister.  She is a bit confused why she cannot see the baby yet, so hopefully the remaining months will not seem too long for her (or us).  I think she will be more excited as it sinks in.  We waited to tell her until things seemed for sure just in case and because 9 months is very long for someone who has lived only 30 :)

I will post more later as we do not really have internet yet.

Halfy Birthday!

Sam is now officially 2.5 years old.  We had a couple of those microwave desserts to celebrate.  She has been able to say she is 2 for a long time, but just in the last month or so has been able to hold up 2 fingers to show that she is two.  She is very proud of that skill.

                                      

I thought I would also tell a story from the Providence Zoo.  We walked up a hill and I told Sam to checkout the camels.  Nick asked her how many humps they had and she said, "One, so it is a dromedary camel."  We had to search around to confirm, it sounded right but we wanted to be sure.  Indeed, it was a dromedary camel.  She sometimes remembers the most astonishing facts from the books she hears.  It is always a good day when your 2.5 year old knows more than you do when you have a PhD in that area. :)

We are heading back to Huntington this week.  Wish us luck with our move.  Sam is very excited about the new house and her race car bed.  But I know she will be very upset when my mom has to leave to come back to Atlanta.