Happy New Year, Merry Christmas, Happy Thanksgiving, etc.

So...there's a reason I've been quiet. I swear! It's called holiday madness plus awesome-but-wild-and-crazy-being-a-parent. From Halloween on we were sick, then we were teething, then we were sick, and teething some more! Add the holidays and busyness that creates - and well, I just never got to the computer to upload pictures. Why why does it take so long? Sigh.

Anyway, here we are! So, for updates:

We all had a special treat in November - Brad's cousin Chris, his wife, and their daughter Gracie (a month older than Samuel) were close to Austin for some training, so they joined us for Thanksgiving.

Then, we cut down our own Christmas tree! We got a Cypress tree so we didn't have to worry about the needles with Samuel eating everything he can.

 For Christmas, we got to see some very special people - like these guys!

 And Samuel also went to the zoo for the first time. He had a blast!

 Samuel still loves to eat and now feeds himself anything that doesn't have to be spoonfed. He can even eat apple off of the core! Those 6 teeth he has sure do help. I keep thinking the 7th one will make its appearance, but I haven't seen it yet. Although he just broke his two hour nap streak for a 45-minute nap today, so who knows?

He decided to skip crawling altogether and can walk pretty well on his own! He can even sort of run with help. He loves being mobile and gets more bold every day.

He loves being outside, and we go to the park just to run around sometimes.

Oh, also! Of course, he got some awesome Christmas presents - like this!

We hope you all are doing well!

It's a Love Child Spaghetti Western

How's this for a Halloween costume!? This is our love child, Samuel. Library storytime had a day for Halloween, so we dressed up and went. Most other babies Sammy's age were in little one piece zip up costumes, like bears, tigers, puppies (oh my!). Nico was a monkey (his mommy was a banana tree!), and Dylan was a puppy. There were even two yodas. It was hilarious to see all the kids tugging at their costumes.

Later that afternoon, we were in the car and heard Samuel throw up. It was everywhere! And everything. He did it again later that afternoon. I had given him a different food in the morning, and since he seemed fine otherwise, I thought he was having a reaction. Until Saturday...when I started ...ahem... getting rid of everything myself. I did not have the luxury of keeping one morsel or one sip down. It was awful. We also passed this virus to our friend Laura, nanny Heather, and daddy, too! It just might take over the world, so watch out!

Sunday afternoon, I was barely feeling better (and Brad hadn't gotten ill yet), so we carved our pumpkin to get ready for our Halloween block party. Samuel loved sticking his hand in the pumpkin top, but he wasn't so sure about the slime inside. He ate pumpkin this morning for the first time and wasn't crazy about it. We're going to try again tomorrow and add the miracle-yummy-seasoning --> cinnamon!

Here are the hippies with the love child! Heh. The block party went great, and we met several new people. We're praying that we didn't get them all sick! Daddy did the tie-dying on Saturday. Groovy.

Tonight, guess what Sammy Sam had for dinner!? Eggplant parmesan (minus the parmesan crust - it was just eggplant ground with the spagetti). Yup! He now truly belongs to this family. He really seemed to enjoy it. Now that he's older, we're letting him try more and more foods. It's a lot of fun. He's lengthened out (again), so his rolls are just a tad smaller. We can't have any of that small-roll stuff going on, now can we?

October flew by - and apparently it took the warm weather with it. I'm enjoying the lovely chill; in fact, Brad is making hot cocoa right now!

Fun tidbits

• Samuel is attempting to feed himself. He's gotten bits of apple, mozzarella, and spaghetti in his mouth by himself, but mostly he just throws it everywhere else.
• So we started some finger foods, like mozza and turkey (did I mention we're getting ready for Thanksgiving!?). The first day, he ate them really well, but since then not so much. He's thrown up the mozza a couple of times, so I think I'll table that for now.
• He's a lot stronger on his stomach now and can push up in the plank really well. Unfortuantely, he still hates it, so there hasn't been much more progress towards crawling, and I wonder if there will be...
• Because he's pretty much cruising now. Yeah. Like, walking with help. So there is no more getting anything done while he's awake because all he wants to do is stand and walk! And of course he can't do that on his own yet. Not to mention that we're so not babyproofed.
• Samuel is throwing massive fits when he doesn't get what he wants, which is often. He also makes this intense grunt when he's seated and really wants to stand - like if he just pushed hard enough, he'd do it. I wonder where he gets this tenaciousness from. :)
• He started clapping! We do lots of clapping at storytime, and he loves to hold my hands when I clap. The other day, he was holding two of his little people, and he raised them above his head and starting smacking them together. It was hilarious, kind of like they were kissing!
• Sammy Sam got his two top teeth last weekend. We hardly had any crankiness that we noticed, praise the Lord. They're coming in pretty well by now and super cute.

We miss and love you all and can't wait to see everyone for the holidays.

What Samuel Would Look Like With Hair

Fun with Friends and Family!

We had a very stressful end of the week due to some life circumstances (not worth blogging about), but God still gave us time for some fun and family!

You've seen Samuel's play area - well here it is decked out with the toys, too! Happy boy!

On Thursday, we met our friends Monica and Dylan (left) and Valeria and Nico (right) at the Round Rock library for storytime. They set out a fun parachute for the kiddos to sit and play on. So cute!

 You can see the parachute in this picture. A nice mommy offered to take one of the two of us since you never have pics of baby and mommy, of course! Samuel must not have been impressed by her.

 On Saturday (Family Fun Day), we went to the park and had a picnic. It was so lovely in the shade. We didn't want it to end - except for the green beans and poo poo. Enough details there.

I included his pic below because you can see the teefers (if you look really close).

Other highlights from this week:

• "Da-da-da" is now the favorite babbling! Samuel still doesn't know who Da-da is, but we're trying to teach him!
• Samuel has been getting up on hands and knees and rocking his tushy a little. Yep - one of these days, he'll be tearing around the house on all fours.

Non-Samuel news:

• Daddy preached at church on Sunday! It was awesome and even included an interruption by the very loud crying of our own little one!
• Mommy booked a national commercial for Chevy!!
• Have you checked out mommy's new blog? It's about living as a disciple of Christ and as a pastor's wife!

Lots of Reading

Apparently, this was reading week around here. Samuel and daddy did some reading in Samuel's new play area:

And on Tuesday and Thursday, we went to the Cedar Park library for storytime. Look how many babies attend! Those moms are super duper. There are babies as young as 2 months old all the way up to walkers. We sing songs, read a book, say rhymes, learn sign language, and have playtime! I have to watch my little man's sticky fingers. All he wants to do is pull full heads of hair! Here's a pic with our friend Nico!

Samuel is getting so big so fast! Look at him! Here are his new and favorite things right now:

• Anything not human that moves. When Samuel sees the trees sway or a dog or car, he smiles and wiggles and gets super excited!
• Saying "ba-ba". We think he's getting close to saying "da-da"!!!
• Standing. Holy cow. We were out with the neighbors, and while I was holding him, he took STEPS towards Dooley, the dog! If we had a dog, I think he'd already be walking.
• Balancing. I start to say "1....2...", and Samuel smiles and gets a determined face while he tries to balance. By "3!" I let go and see what he does. He can stand for 2-3 seconds sometimes. Oh boy...
• Eating. Of course. New foods this week were mango (loved it this time!) and broccoli. Next up: tofu and ground flax seeds.

Family Visits - and a Toofers update

The weekend was preceded by some more 3:30am wakeup calls for teething. The second tooth on the bottom has cut through, and now we just need to sleep through the night! Mommy and Daddy are busy taking naps whenever possible to catch up. Samuel likes to spit out his tongue to feel his new teefers.

We also set up foam floor mats in the breakfast area (which we don't use for anything else). This will be Samuel's play area when we're cooking or in the kitchen - which of course is always! He already loves it! He still loves his jumper and playing catch. He's now starting to put his forefinger and thumb together in the "pincer" grasp. ... This means finger foods are coming! His first one will either be tofu or scrambled egg yolk. Speaking of food, Samuel's new food last week was tahini. This week, we're going to re-try mango. It bombed in one of the first few weeks, so we'll see!

Guess who came to visit this weekend!? Grandmama and Grandpa Kevin!!! (Guess we missed a pic of Kevin...)

Grandmama brought Samuel some fun new toys - including this cool car. Samuel has already pulled off the trunk and figured out the gears.

We also had a surprise visit from Uncle Leroy. He brought Sam some more Disney movies - Beauty and the Beast and Bambi!! Leroy promised some gangster movies later in Samuel's life. ;-)

It was fun to hang out with everyone.!!



Enjoy Me

Samuel likes to multitask when he has his milk. Sometimes he will scratch his head, or grab my mouth, or yank on my shirt, or pull on his pantleg. Often, he'll grab his little piggies and pull them up high. Today, I was feeding him, and I was trying to read something on my phone when this little (or big!) foot was right in front of my face. I stopped and looked at it - so small but so much larger than the 5-day-old footprints on the wall. It was like that foot was saying, "Stop. Enjoy Me. I will only be this size for today."