Professional pictures

I found a wonderful photographer who is a friend of 2 good friends.  She took some amazing pictures, even though Sam was a little less than cooperative.  Here are a few.

Wonderful to be 3!

Sam had a great birthday full of presents.  We tried to spread it out quite a bit, but she got so much!  It was like the poor child did not have any toys and got nothing for Christmas :)

Here she is on Thursday, her birthday eve.  She wore her birthday shirt to school.  We took in cupcakes and they sang to her.  She had a great day, even eating some lunch!  She opened her wolverine toy after school. 

Nana and papa came in that evening.  She was so excited.  Group hug!

Nana brought some new dress up clothes.

Her actual birthday was full of eating out, which Sam is a big fan of and we do not do too much.  Often when I tell her it is dinner time, she asks where are we going and I say the dining room.  She is usually disappointed with that answer, so I figured it could be an all eating out day for her birthday.  Breakfast was at McDonald's, a favorite of Sam's.  We also ran a couple of errands, including going by dollar tree for birthday balloons.  For lunch she wanted chicken nuggets and french fries, so we went to Arby's.

For dinner we went to Hibachi.  She ate a ton of edamame and enjoyed the show, see the awe on her face.

After dinner was more presents.  My dad cut down a cherry tree and Nick made some blocks from it.  Here she is with the blocks.  They are a big hit.  What a wonderful and talented father Sam has!

Another huge hit was the take apart plane and truck.  We are big fans of this toy and have given it as a gift several times.  Now Sam has reached the magic age of 3 and gets her own!  What a great toy for the current and future engineers to work on :)

She had asked Nana for a precious moment before, so here she is with the one they got her.

Here is another early present of a puzzle.

The final countdown!

Lately has been full of fun and a bit of a cold.  

Here is Sam in a shirt I had bought and set aside.  I found it and wanted her to wear it at least once.  It says Daddy's girl.  She wore it when Nick was out of town on his job interview.  She does love playing with her daddy and missed him a lot.

Sam and I went bowling with the mom's club.  They had 6 pound balls, but no ramp.  So it was a bit rough, but the kids really enjoyed the first 5 or 6 frames.

I had my 36 week appointment today.  The baby is no longer breech, which is a relief.  And the measurements, although not completely reliable, were great at 6 pounds 5 ounces.  So everything looks great. 

Sam wanted in on the picture taking of Mama's huge belly :)

And the countdown to having a 3 year old is underway.  Hard to believe it is less than a week.  We let Sam have one of her presents today for being so good at school and to spread out the gifts.  She did really well at school, even eating snack and the bread at lunch.  She chose to get one of the presents from Sebastian and Luciana.  She loved this book of Luci's and they were nice enough to send her one for her birthday.  She was so excited.  Thanks Seb and Luci!

Tipp City

Sam and I made a quick overnight trip with a friend and her two youngest kids.  We went to visit a good friend who moved there this summer.  She has 3 kids and the youngest was a good friend of Sam's.  We had missed it when they came to town over the holidays, so I wanted Sam to have a chance to play with Caroline.  Since it is just a 3.5 hour drive we went up for one night.  The kids played so well, but lots of sickness emerged.  Hopefully Sam will stay well.  Sleep did not happen much on the trip, but she slept in yesterday (got up at 6:15 and I got her back to sleep until 9, what a miracle) and had a long nap.  I did not get any good pictures of all the kids. It was always such chaos :)  Here are a few from the Boonshoft Museum in Dayton.

You may notice in the last one that I broke down and trimmed the back of Sam's haircut.  I finally gave up on her hair growing in and the rat tail was bothering me.  She still has the self created layers from all the hair twirling, but I think it looks a lot better.

And I am now at 35 weeks and getting very large!  Here are a couple of pictures.

Here is how big I was a week later with Sam.

Carpe Diem

I learned the lesson that life is horribly short at a very early age, but it seems that each time I am pregnant I am reminded of what a cruel mistress life can be.  Obviously these events have nothing to do with my pregnancy and terrible events happen all the time, but it still makes me reflect a lot.  When I was pregnant with Sam, a fellow animal behavior student died in a car accident. She was young and recently married.  Recently there was the tragedy in Arizona, which is much more poignant being a mother and hearing about the death of a 9 year old.  And yesterday I found out a wonderful man who overlapped during some of my time at Ga Tech passed away.  I did not know him too well, but appreciated his wit and humor through facebook.  And I enjoyed looking at the pictures of his two beautiful daughters, who are 5 and 3, and reading his proud stories about them.  I know that their lives are forever marked by his untimely death and I cannot imagine how his wife can cope with her loss and help such young children through.  It reminds me to be thankful for all my blessings.  To try and not get caught up in the day to day hassles, but really enjoy every second I have with my amazing husband, incredible daughter, and everyone else I am lucky enough to call a friend or loved one.  Nick and I waited a long time to have kids given that there never was a good time.  I am so thankful that we finally decided that it was worth the risk and just hoped things would fall into place.  And things seem to work out in the end, one way or another.  We may not be entirely happy with our current situation, but it does allow great flexibility for me to take a semester to only teach an online course and make more money than I made with 2 in person courses.  Today I am counting my blessings and hoping for many more.  

Go for it now.  The future is promised to no one.  ~Wayne Dyer.


Spend the afternoon.  You can't take it with you.  ~Annie Dillard


Most of us spend our lives as if we had another one in the bank.  ~Ben Irwin


I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it.  I want to have lived the width of it as well.  ~Diane Ackerman


Every day you are alive is a special occasion.  Every minute, every breath, is a gift from God.  ~Mary Manin Morrissey


You don't get to choose how you're going to die.  Or when.  You can only decide how you're going to live.  Now.  ~Joan Baez


For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life.  But there was always some obstacle in the way.  Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid.  Then life would begin.  At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.  ~Fr. Alfred D'Souza

Singing and Dancing

Here are a couple of recent photos left from Atlanta.  The family I used to babysit for gave Sam some hand-me-down dress up clothes.  She loved this snow princess outfit.  Fitting given the 6+ inches of snow Atlanta got earlier this week that has turned to ice and will not thaw until this weekend.  Funny how I view snow so much differently after living somewhere that actually snows regularly.

  

My mom had this horse for Sam.  She enjoyed it, but I love that she got carrots out for it to eat.

When we got back to Huntington, there were even more presents.  My aunt sent Sam a great puzzle.  She needed some help, but I know she will soon be putting it together herself.  Thanks Aunt Eunice!

Sam started a dance class this week.  She has been begging to take dance and frequently dances around saying, "ballet, ballet."  Here she is before class.  She would not pose for a serious shot, but here is her silly face in a ballet outfit.

Sam's school planned a Christmas program that was cancelled in December when we got 6 inches of snow.  They rescheduled it for yesterday.  For the first part Sam was in, she just looked around for me and started crying when she saw me.  I let her come over and sit with me.  Then everyone went back to the room to put on white shirts to look like a choir for the finale.  I had to promise to watch Sam eat her pudding snack for her to agree to sing.

She did great in this one, singing and bopping along with the music.  She is right under the speaker.  I watched her eat pudding afterwards and watched her get a sticker.  She has been crying less, just at drop off and after I left after the show.  She ate on Monday, but not on Tuesday.  At least it is some progress.

Happy New Year's Houston Style

We had a great time in California, and then went to spend a few days with good friends in Houston.  Martin was Nick's roommate.  Martin and Sarah have two wonderful kids, Sebastian and Luciana (Seb and Luci).  Sam had a blast playing and we did even more fun things.

Here are Seb and Sam putting our Christmas card on the fridge.



Here is where we went bowling. 



Sam and Luci drawing on the floor.

We went to Rainforest Cafe, which was a hit with all the kids.

Here is Princess Sam with a foam light saber.  Seb loves Star Wars stuff.  I think Sam was using it like a hose because she sometimes pretends we are on fire and sprays us.  And she was making a water type sound.  She enjoyed it though.

Again, the whooshing water sound versus a light saber sound.  Pretty funny.

We also went to the children's museum, which is amazing but was very crowded.  Sam was in the last few weeks of being able to play in the infant/toddler area.  She was probably the biggest kid there, but she loved the mini ball pit.

Seb was too old for the toddler area.  So Nick climbed with him in this play structure.  It said adults were welcome to climb, but Nick said he had trouble squeezing through some areas.  Good thing it is not in Huntington :)

We flew back to Atlanta on New Years Eve, but we decided to celebrate a night early.  We shot off some quite fire works (sparkler cones and bottle rockets), which Sam and Seb loved.  Sarah also had these great hats.

We also decided we needed a picture of everyone.  This is how Nick tested the auto feature on our camera.

Here we all are. 

The last day Sam loved playing with this bike game.  She was not good at it, pedaling the wrind way a lot, but she enjoyed herself.

Sam wishes all our faithful readers a wonderful 2011!  I know ours will be busy and full of blessings.  May the new year bring everyone laughter and joy.