Videos!

You'll notice over to the left there is now a link for videos! I have put up a few from March and April, and I'll get the ones from July 4 up as soon as I convert them, probably tonight. You'll get to see Sam walking and dancing in those ones! Yay!

Our Fourth of July was pretty good. We went to a small street fair in Mountlake Terrace over by where Lorelai goes to preschool. They had games for the kids and music and some booths. We put our blanket on the grass field and basically just hung out and ate hot dogs and Sam ran around in the grass and danced, and we had a lot of fun. Brooke and Dave and the kids stayed for the fireworks, but we headed home around 8:30 since we'd been there for 3 hours and Sam was starting to get tired. I put him to bed at 9, at his normal time, but there were about 30 people in our neighborhood setting off fireworks. He wasn't crying, but I could hear him making noises every few minutes because he wasn't asleep. Around 10, he started to cry a little. I think he was frustrated because he was drifting off and all the noise was waking him up. So I went in and picked him up and rocked him in his chair and he fell asleep. I ended up just bringing him in our room and holding him while I watched TV, that way if he got startled awake he would be right back to sleep. We kept him in our room until around midnight, when it was mostly over with. So, it went pretty well.

Sam has started to be able to get up on his own, but he doesn't do it that often. I have seen him do it a couple of times in the last couple of days, which is really neat. Later today I think we're going to head over to the Everett Children's Museum to play for a while.

New Roommates, Dancing and Summer Fun

I'm back! I'm sorry it's been so long since I've updated the blog - I really fell behind this time! But, I decided in the last week that I am really going to try a lot harder to keep up to date with my e-mails, messages from people, and keeping this updated with the most current info for everyone! I know how much I look forward to getting updates from my friends and family, so I want to be more regular about this.

Lots of stuff has been happening around here since the last time that I wrote! Sam is 14 months old now and doing wonderful. He got his first pillow two days ago - I was trying to find a smaller one and came across a travel pillow, which is just about the perfect size for his little boy head. He has been doing pretty well with sleeping, most nights he sleeps through the night or only wakes up once. He's pretty much down to one bottle a day at bedtime too, mostly he drinks milk and juice and water out of his sippy cups. He has been taking super long naps - sometimes up to 4 hours! I'm not sure why, but the great part is that when it gets to be about 4.5 hours after he woke up in the morning we can do some quiet time and then put him down awake for his nap and he will usually go to sleep pretty quickly. It's much better than just waiting for him to fall asleep on his own and him getting over tired.

Sam is a champion walker now - he barely crawls anymore. He does crawl when he falls and isn't near something to pull himself back up to standing on, but sometimes he walks around on his knees instead! Yesterday while I was out, Justin saw him stand up on his own twice, without holding on to anything! It's the first time he's done that, and once he gets that down I think he'll pretty much give up crawling for the most part! He is also good at climbing stairs somehow, even though we have our stairs blocked off. I let him climb up today and he is pretty quick! It's another story when it comes to going down the stairs though. He has no concept of how to do it, whether it be walking down or crawling down backwards. So, we need to work on that.

Sam has also started dancing! It's not too much yet, but he wiggles his butt back and forth when music is playing, especially the theme song to "The Backyardigans", which seems to be his favorite song aside from Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. He also loves Blues Clues and is very captivated by it, and dances during all of the little songs they do. It's so cute! We will try to get a little video of it soon.

Justin finally figured out the right way to convert the videos that I'd taken with our camera. It actually takes pretty good quality videos, which is nice because we can take short ones and then just transfer them to the computer when we transfer our pictures. So, I've will upload some videos from March and April onto my video page as soon as I figure out which website I want to use. I will put a link to our video website over to the right with the link to our photo pages. We also have a cute video of Sam walking all the way down the hallway when he was first learning, but I haven't gotten it converted yet. I also have a few random pictures from June that I just added to our Flickr page including some from our most recent visit to Bellingham, and some from the Science Center last week. Check them out for your Sam fix!

Up until the last couple of days (we think he might not have been feeling too well), Sam has been eating like CRAZY! I swear, he eats as much or more than Seamus and Lorelai, who are 3 and 5. I don't know where he puts all of it, he's so small still! His favorite food right now is hot dogs. He eats the fake Morningstar Farms hot dogs at home, and regular meat hot dogs if we're out somewhere that they're selling them. He finally got the hang of sippy cups and usually has one with him now. He has done really great with the transition to using a milk-based formula and to drinking whole milk, no stomach troubles or anything, which is great. He still won't eat peas or carrots, but I think maybe if they were fresh and not packaged he might like them more. Who can blame him for not wanting to eat microwaved, packaged peas?

So, that is mostly what's been going on with Sam. Justin and I are both doing well, although Justin has been thrown off lately because of going back and forth between working at night and working during the day. The biggest change around our house is that we got a new roommate last week! Justin's friend Tim moved back up to Seattle from Las Vegas about 3 weeks ago. He was staying with us and looking for a place to live and after much discussion, Justin and I decided to clear out the office and rent it to him. It's a little bit of a change for me, but I am also trying to do something good for someone and help him out, at least until he gets settled in with jobs and stuff again. Now the desk is in our bedroom, and if he moves out we'll have a room for the next baby, whenever that happens. It's working out fairly well so far, and there are DEFINITELY perks. Like having someone to mow the lawn and take out the trash. Plus, last week Justin and I actually got to go to TWO movies in one week by having Tim stay here with Sam after he went to bed for the night! Woo hoo!

I am still loving staying home with Sam and going to regular playdates with our friends. I'm REALLY looking forward to the new Harry Potter movie and the new bok that cmes out in 2 weeks. Next week I'm volunteering M-Th to help out with the kids at Vacation Bible School at church, then on Thursday night Kira and I are leaving on a redeye flight to Atlanta to go to our Aunt Becky's wedding. We'll be gone until Monday, it should be a nice little break, and I'm really looking forward to spending the time with Kira.

So, that is what's going on with us. I will post again much sooner this time!

Yay! Summer!

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood! Okay, well, it is dark now, but it was a beautiful day! I got up with Sam today at 8:30, which was a little bit too early for me, but hey. We ate breakfast and then I got him dressed, and looked at the weather, which said it was going to be 77 degrees today! So I decided I needed to get out of the house. I got ready and we were off by 10:00 to go visit the zoo and finally be there in time to see the baby tiger. She's 6 months old now, so she's sort of like a 'teen' tiger, and is now the size of a medium to large dog. Very cute! We had a lot of fun looking at the animals, and then we played on the grass for a while. Sam was being funny pushing his stroller all around. Then we had a treat of some ice cream, and played in the zoomazium for a couple of minutes and Sam enjoyed walking around and banging the drums.

Yesterday was actually really nice too, Mom was down visiting and we drove down to Tacoma and had lunch with Kira and then went to a really, really cool toy store and then walked around Tacoma and came back. It was nice, although I almost fell over from walking up the giant hill, the last block was particularly steep!

Tomorrow Justin and I are going to go over to Brooke and Dave's and we are going to go and see the new "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie - Dave & Justin will go while Brooke and I watch the kids, then we'll switch off and the boys will take over while we go see it. Thursday we might head down to Juanita Beach since it's supposed to be really nice for the next couple of days, and Friday Kira is coming down to babysit Sam while Justin and I go out and use the restaurant and movie gift certificates she gave him for his birthday. Sunday I have book club, and then a new week starts, and soon Justin will be off to Mexico on the church mission trip! Crazy.

Making up for lost time

Sam is doing much better! In the past two days, he is finally back to his normal self, he's happy and energetic and finally playing on his own again! I am lucky because Sam can be a pretty independant baby, and when we're hanging out at home he spends a fair amount of time playing by himself. Usually he'll go off and play, then come back to me and we'll play together, then he'll go off on his own again. Well, during the time he was sick, that all went away. It was interacting with him, comforting him etc. 24/7, sometimes including holding him during his naps! It got exhausting after a couple of weeks of that! He was so happy today, just smiling and laughing and playing and talking a lot. It is wonderful!

The funny thing that's been happening in the last couple of days is that it seems like Sam is making up for lost time in a few areas...

Firstly, you know how he didn't eat much while he was sick? For the last couple of days he has been eating NON-STOP! He is eating regular sized meals, and snacking constantly, plus drinking lots of bottles. It's crazy! I can't believe he can fit all that food in him. Brooke said that a lot of times when they get sick or don't eat for a while they somehow even it out by eating like this. Who knows, maybe he'll have a growth spurt! I am curious about how he'll do and if he'll like it when we're finally able to turn his carseat around to front facing.

Secondly, he has been walking like CRAZY! We got a really good video today of him walking all the way down the hallway and into his bedroom upstairs. We are trying to figure out how to compress the videos so I can get them up online soon for people to see, especially this new one! He suddenly exploded with adventuresomeness - he is much more confident and walks all the time. I can't wait until he gets more adventuresome outside the house and starts walking around. He also did take his first steps in front of other people this week - we went to a playdate and he walked from one place to another a couple of times. It's so exciting, he's going to just be running around any day now!

Yesterday we went over to Tara's for a playdate with Courtney, Kelly, Brooke, Tara and all the kids. It was fun, and nice to get out of the house after being cooped up a lot in the last couple of weeks. This morning we went and saw "Shrek 3" at the Mommy Movie in Bellevue. We enjoyed the show and Sam actually sat with Justin in his lap for longer than we thought he would! He didn't seem interested in the movie really, he would look over when something particularly action packed was happening, but that's about it. He was more focused on all of the snacks we were feeding him. We just gave him a bottle at home, and saved breakfast for the theater! Towards the end of the movie he got squirmy so just took him over to the aisle at the side of the theater and he just played and climbed up a couple of the steps and did great. Oh, and the movie was quite good too!

Tomorrow we are headed down to Tacoma to go to the zoo with Brooke, Dave, Seamus and Lorelai. The weather today was beautiful, and it's supposed to be 74 tomorrow, I am so excited it is finally warm out! After the movie today we drove home a long way, and it was so nice just driving with the windows down and the sun shining and Sam napping peacefully in the backseat.

So, that's what has been going on around here! Everything is lots better since last week, and getting back to normal. More news soon!

House of Blahs

So... I ended up taking Sam to the doctor yesterday morning after all. He still has a bad runny nose (although that part is improving a little), and a really yucky wet sounding cough, and had a little bit of a rash on his stomach and chest. Plus he felt warm when he woke up yesterday. So, I called the doctor and took him in. And the results are.... Sam has an ear infection :-( He hasn't really been acting like his ears are bothering him that much, but he has been having a little trouble sleeping on his side. As soon as the doctor started looking in his ears though, especially the left one, you could tell it was bothering him. He cried and didn't want to hold still. The doctor prescribed Amoxicillin. He asked me if Sam had ever been on it before and I said, "No, he's never been on anything", then the doctor said "Oh" in this surprised voice, as if it was strange that he's never been on medication. I thought it was odd. The good thing is that the medicine is pink and flavored like some sort of weird bubble gum or something and I think Sam thinks it's a treat. He sucks on the syringe and smacks his lips. Good thing, since he has to have it 3 times a day. He's been a little clingy the past few days, but he's getting a little better. You can still tell he's sick. Hopefully the antibiotics will clear everything up and he'll finally be better - he's been sick in some form for almost 2 weeks I think. Poor little guy. I'm trying to be really positive though and not think it's "the first of many", but that it's just a random thing. I know Justin had some ear problems and tubes as a kid, and I didn't, so hopefully Sam will take more after me in that area.

The unfortunate news is that Justin has been sick since Monday with a cold and the last couple of nights my throat has been feeling funny and today I've had off and on stomach aches, swollen glands, and am very drowsy. Sigh... so, we are a whole house full of sickies at this point. Blah. Send all your "get well" vibes this way!

In other news, I think Sam is sort of moving away from eating baby food anymore. I think he just wants to eat regular food more, he has been sick, so it's a little hard to judge at this point, but he seems to be rejecting it a little bit. Today he had scrambled eggs for lunch and ate an egg and a half! He even used his fork - I stuck the pieces on for him and then he would grab the little fork and put it in his mouth. Pretty cute!

We have a one year old!

Well, once again it's been too long since I updated! Two whole weeks have gone by since I posted an update, and there is a lot to talk about!
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First, of course, Sam turned one the day after my last post! I just can't believe that a whole year has gone by already. Sam is getting so big. We didn't do a lot to celebrate on his actual birthday, but I did take him to the mall and get some picture done, and they turned out well. The one to the left is my favorite one, but I posted all of them on the flickr site, so if you haven't seen them already, click on the photo link over to the right and check them out! I didn't like the place at the mall as much as Babies R Us, but that's why I went - to try it out and compare. So, we went to the mall and he got to play in the kid area and then we got some ice cream, which he thoroughly enjoyed!
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The day after that we went to the Children's Museum at Seattle center with Tara and Nate. I'd never been there before, and it was really neat! In addition to all of the cool stuff they have, they have an area specifically for 0-3 year olds, and Sam had a lot of fun crawling around and playing with the various toys. They have a little theater, a couple of restaurant areas you can play in, and lots of other stuff. I didn't get to explore completely because we left after playing mostly in the 0-3 area to go outside and have snacks and enjoy the music and the fountain. We had a really good time, and discovered that Nate LOVES the little puffs that Sam has been chowing down on lately.

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That Friday Sam had his one year well baby checkup and got four shots. He dealt with the shots really well - he cried a lot during them, but was fine by the time we got out of the building. We were lucky he did so well because we accidentally left the diaper bag in the driveway at home, so we didn't even have a bottle to give him to soothe him! Before his shots, he'd had a runny nose and a yucky chest cough, but it had mostly cleared up. Well, since he had the checkup he has actually gotten sicker and sicker, and this past weekend was kind of crazy. More about that later. Sam is 30.5 inches tall, which is still in the 75th percentile, but still only 19.5 pounds! He is still only in the 5th-7th percentile for weight. He's just a skinny little bugger! He is right on track with everything developmentally and everything, and he is eating, so the doctor isn't worried about his weight. I was only in the 5th percentile until I was 5, then I caught up.

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Saturday the 5th was the big day - Justin and Sam's Cinco De Mayo Birthday Fiesta! I went out in the morning to the store to get some drinks and stuff and then came home to get the house ready. I was a little stressed out in the morning thinking about so many people coming over, but everything was ready in time and I was able to relax at the party and just visit and have a good time. Actually, since so many people were here I got to visit with people a lot since they were all eager to hold and play with Sam! Sam did great despite having his shots the day before, he wasn't as bouncy and upbeat as usual, but he was happy and loved his birthday cake! So many people came, Mom and Paul, Rob, Susan and Maggie, our neighbor Nora and her son Lucius, Jamie and Scott and their daughter Brenna from church, and Laurie and her girlfriend Gerina - and lots of other people! It was really great to see Laurie, we had not seen her in a while, and Gerina is so nice! Brie and Kyle and the twins came - they are getting so big! It's funny, they don't look alike anymore, Roman looks just like Kyle and Ginny looks a lot more like Brie, except for her eyes, which are definitely Kyle's. We all just hung out and had LOTS of food, then we had cake - shaped like a sombrero made by Brooke - the master of cupcake cakes! It was actually a four layer brownie cake in the middle with two rows of cupcakes around the outside. Then we had a pinata, which was mostly fun for Seamus and Lorelai. Then we opened presents. Sam got some really cool stuff - he got a walker that turns into a wagon later that he can push around the basement from Laurie, and he got a Leapfrog music table from Justin's Mom. He loves the table, and it's actually kind of funny because he pushes it around the basement too. We had a great time, and there are lots of pictures posted on the flickr page, so take a look!

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On the Monday after the party, we headed down to the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma for Brayden's third birthday party, which was fun. On Tuesday I went out and went to dinner and saw Edward Scissorhands at the 5th Avenue Theater. It was really interesting, I didn't really know what it was going to be like, but it's actually sort of ballet-ish - I think they called it 'dance theater' or something. There were no words or singing, just dancing! It was pretty good. That Friday was Justin's birthday so we went down to Tacoma and went to the Point Defiance Zoo (twice in a week!) with Justin's Mom and Stormy and the kids, and went out to dinner. And just our luck, Grandma Deanna took Sam home with her for the night so we got to go to a movie then hang out and celebrate Justin's birthday. He got back on Saturday and we headed up to Bellingham to go to the Kulshan Chorus concert.

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Sam had been getting sicker throughout the week, and on Saturday he started getting hot and by the time we were at the concert he was burning up. We took his temperature when we got back to Mom's and it was all the way up to 102.7! Argh! So we just gave him some tylenol and made our way through a rough night. He woke up a couple of times, and the second time, we ended up leaving him in the bedroom and moving to the living room - me on the couch and Justin on the floor. At 7 the next morning he woke up again and Mom came to ask if we wanted a break and took care of Sam for a while so we could get a couple more hours of sleep. His fever was down by the morning, but he was still cranky, tired, and obviously sick, but having trouble sleeping. So when we got home his fever had gone back up and we took his temperature around 6 or so and it was 103.5!!! He was a little dehydrated, but not too bad. So we called the doctor, but it took forever for them to call back and she recommended taking him to the ER if he was getting dehydrated, but by the time she called and gave us the recommendation he had drank a whole 8 oz bottle and his fever was down to 101.5, so we decided to just see how things went. He hasn't had a fever since, but yesterday he took 6 hours worth of naps, and then slept all night. Today he was doing better, but he's still clingy. He's starting to eat a little food, but he's mostly been eating yogurt and bottles, and some puffs. He has a little bit of a rash and still has a runny nose and cough, but we are hoping he'll just continue to improve. It's been a tough couple of days - it's just been hard with him being so clingy and dependant, it's funny how much that can tire you out!

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Sam is doing great other than being sick. He is talking a lot now. He still doesn't say many words, although we have heard him say "hi" several times, and he still says "bap" for clap. But he has been talking a lot and it's changed so that even though he's not saying words, he's talking in a purposeful way, like he's really saying something. He hasn't been walking much the last few days since he's been sick, but he is starting to be able to cover longer distances - he walked almost halfway across the basement the other day! It's so exciting to watch him walk and he gets excited and we tell him good job and he claps his hands. He knows "hi" and "bye bye" now and will wave his hand to say hi or goodbye to people.

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Mother's Day was all right, not too eventful since we had a sick baby, but Justin bought me a cross necklace that's white gold with rainbow colored sapphires, it's really pretty. I got a really nice bouquet of flowers from Dad and Helene and Lianna that are sitting on the dining room table right now looking pretty and smelling good! Justin also took care of Sam that morning and Mom and I went out for a nice Mother's Day brunch together at Skylark's in Fairhaven, which was delicious!

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Well, that's about all for now! Hopefully I'll manage to get on and update in less time this time around, but I always mean well! I've got to get to bed so I won't be too tired when I get up with Sam tomorrow!

364 Days Ago

364 Days ago we were given a very special gift - a tiny, blonder than blonde, snuggly little baby. Tomorrow, that little guy is going to be one years old! I just can't believe that it's been a year already. I can't believe how big Sam has gotten, and all of the things he's learned to do.

Yesterday Sam was ecstatic for most of the day. It was awesome and adorable. We played downstairs and he just talked and laughed and squealed. Then, in the afternoon, I took Sam out and we went to the party store to get some stuff for the party on Saturday and went to the mall. My original purpose for going was to pick up the pictures I'd sent online to get printed for Sam's photo album of his first year, but they weren't ready. So we just walked around, and Sam was so cheerful! Then we went to the play area and I let him crawl around. He gets so excited - he will screech with happiness! He really likes going through the tunnels that go through the different climbing equipment.

We're getting jazzed up for our Birthday/Cinco De Mayo Fiesta on Saturday! It is going to be a Fiesta themed joint birthday party for Justin and Sam. I haven't really started freaking out about it, but I also haven't really thought that much about how there are going to be 30+ people at our house! I'm really excited about the people that are coming - a cool mix, and I invited our neighbors who have the 1 year old and they're going to come too!

Today we are going to babysit Seamus and Lorelai for a couple of hours, and tomorrow Justin and I have a babysitter coming so we can enjoy a night out without the kid. Yeah, I know, tomorrow is Sam's real birthday, but he is too young to know the difference, so maybe we'll consider it a "Congratulations us on getting through the first year" celebration!

Sam loves to clap and the only "word" he'll consistently say is 'bap' for 'clap'. If you say "yay!" he will start to clap his hands, and he's started doing it sometimes when he sees people clapping on TV. He is also starting to make noise by putting one hand over his mouth and moving it off and on his mouth to make a "wa wa wa" sound.

Sam has figured out some of his toys! He loves his Drop and Roar Dinosaur even more than before now that he figured out how to put the balls into the holes and get them to play the music and go out the mouth and tail. He has another toy that's like a ball ramp spiraly thing and he likes that one too. He is interested in putting things in and taking them out. He also stuck one of his Roll-a-rounds balls into the round speaker whole on the subwoofer for our DVD player and it won't come out.

We've started giving Sam whole milk with his meals sometimes instead of having him only drink formula. He seems to enjoy it and it hasn't caused any digestive problems at all so far, so that is great! We love the Gerber little graduates pastas - raviolis and pasta and cheese.

Not much else exciting news around here! I will post again soon, and will get up more pictures soon - maybe this weekend after the party.