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."

Favorite Chew Toy

Guess what Samuel's favorite chew toy is??

Yeah.

Last Thursday, after posting my blog entries (especially touting that Samuel sleeps through the night), Samuel woke up yelling in pain. At least Brad was smartly asleep; I hadn't even gone to bed yet! We were up until almost 3:30 Friday morning trying to console the little teether. We had night-wakings the next couple of nights, too, and a growth spurt on top of that! But, we finally have a payoff for the missed sleep - a tooth has broken the great gummy barrier! It's the bottom-right tooth, which is a complete surprise because we have not been able to feel anything on the bottom. But now, if you rub your finger over the gums, it feels like a little piece of glass is lodged in there. I always wonder what Samuel is thinking; he must be especially confused about this little tooth jutting out.

I've decided I'm not so fond of being his chew toy anymore. That little tooth is quite sharp!

System Failure!

Brad and I had an epiphany the other day: WE CANNOT DO THINGS THE WAY WE USED TO. Uh... yeah, we're a little slow! Before Samuel (B.S.! OK... let's not use that abbreviation ;-), if something needed done around the house or an errand needed run, most likely we would just wait until Saturday and try to get it done then.

We realized early on that using Saturday as the random-task day was not going to work, but we really didn't come up with anything that worked better. So at random times, (like 10pm at night, say), and when our energy was already sapped and expectations were not clear, I might say, "I'm going to clean." Now, Brad knows me, and he knows that means that I expect him to clean, too. Guess what happens next? Frustration, crankiness, word-slinging, tempers, bitterness, and on and on the crazy cycle goes! 100% of the time it ends in my being all huffy wanting to get something, anything, accomplished and Brad thinking I'm a crazy person who should just go to bed.

Finally, though, we decided we actually needed systems in place for all those things that used to just fall to Saturday task-day. So, we're trying some of these systems out, such as cleaning the house on Wednesday night and rotating tasks, checkbook upkeep/budget-checking on Mondays and Thursdays. Saturday is the only day of the week our family has together, so that's family fun day, but it's also understood that if I need to get some baby food made or something cooked to freeze - or anything else that needs my undivided attention for a bit - I can usually get an hour or so to do that Saturday afternoon while "the boys" play. We are so relieved to have a plan finally. It's already taken a lot of burden off of the mental to-do list. Now, we'll see how our little systems pan out. I'll try to update in a future post. In the meantime, have you ever found systems important to set up in your home (like with roommates, singles? Or with spouses, marrieds? Or with kiddos, parents?). If so, what has worked best for your family that I could steal and try?

In the meantime, here's a goody:

Go Big Red!

I couldn't resist the title what with Football season here and so much Huskers attire in the 7 month photos. =D

Big updates from this month so far: SAMUEL FINALLY SLEEPS THROUGH THE NIGHT!!!! Ahhhhhh!!!! It's so wonderful! And yet I still stay up late trying to get things done, like baby food making, posting on our blog (heehee), laundry, cleaning, bills, work.

Samuel loves eating, no big surprise there. Right now, his food choices are: bananas (favorite!), rice cereal, oatmeal, egg yolks, papaya, apples, pears, peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, acorn squash, yogurt, and avocado (loves!).

Samuel started sitting up this month, and loves to play "catch" with mommy while seated. He also started pushing up when on his tummy. You know what that means!

He is teething hardcore, and it will be any day now for the first tooth to pop through.

He finally started giving us some good ham pictures for the camera, so I have a lot of favorites from this month so far:

We took a trip to Seguin for the first time with Samuel. Here's a pic with Uncle Ryan and Naunie and Grandpa Pete.


Playing with daddy and mommy.

Loves the bouncer Grandmama got him!!

My blue-eyed boy!

"Catch"

Pics from our trip to Houston for Ryan and Melissa's Housewarming...

Until next time!!

Worst Mother IN.THE.WORLD.

Ha! Don't all moms think this at some point? The title is indicative of the type of morning we had. I was going to try attending a bible study at the church that planted our church. After dropping Samuel off in an unfamiliar place for the first time, I felt very uneasy. People were talking to me, but I wasn't hearing. I was saying things, but I don't know what. Finally, Becky Moore looked at me and asked, "Do you need to go to the bathroom and cry?" "Yes." That's exactly what I needed to do. I felt a little better. About 30 minutes later, the little childcare pager buzzed and read, "PLEASE COME." I RAN I tell you. Samuel was beyond upset. He was so upset that I didn't recognize his exhausted where-in-the-world-is-mommy cry. He was shuddering for at least an hour afterwards. I choked up and tried not to lose it as I gathered his things and got him home. He was fine the rest of the day, but anytime I left his sight, he started to cry or whimper. A very anxious day for my little man.

Since I haven't posted on the blog in...forever...I thought I'd just post a few pictures and highlights from Samuel's life so far.

1 MONTH OLD - lots of visitors and love and milk and sleep!

With Naunie...

And Grandmama...

And Daddy in my first snow!

2 MONTHS OLD - still lots of milk and visitors! This was the lots-of-crying and impossible-to-get-to-sleep stage. That stage continued for a while... Started smiling at week 5 and 6. That was awesome!

Easter basket from Naunie and Grandpa Pete!


Easter with Grandpa Pete...
Too cute... his eyes were always this wide - trying to take in everything around him. It reminded me that to him, everything is brand new.

3 MONTHS OLD - Still impossible-to-get-to-sleep. N.O.T.H.I.N.G. seemed to work. And everyone had lots of suggestions, haha! Growth spurts seemed to come every other week. We enjoyed every minute (other than going to sleep time) with him.

Being dedicated to the Lord...

Getting started early on the important stuff...
Hangin' with my little man!


4 MONTHS OLD - As you can see, growing by leaps and bounds. Started breaking out of the swaddle at night, so we got rid of it and started sleeping like a big boy. No sleeping through the night yet, though. He wore 6 month sizes at this age and sat in his bumbo when we were hanging out.

Daddy bought him a pool, and he LOVED it!

A rare pic of all three of us - this is at Hula Hut.

Just chillin'...

5 MONTHS OLD - For July 4, we went on a road trip to Houston. Samuel got to meet his uncle Tony and his Great Aunt Dawn and second cousins Austin, Caraline, and Gabby. He slept over at Uncle Ryan and Aunt Melissa's house! At the end of the month, he had another growth spurt. He would be desperately hungry all the time, so we decided our not-so-little man needed FOOD.

With Ryan and Melissa at their new house!

Great Aunt Dawn and the second cousins...

With Uncle Tony...

Avocado!!!

Loves bath time. :)

6 MONTHS OLD - For Samuel's half birthday, we took a family staycation. We went to Sea World with Jenn and Steve and Hudson (a year older than Sam) Garcia. Samuel had a great time and loved looking at the ceiling and napping during the Shamu show. ;-) Samuel also got to meet Grandpa Capasso. We survived without Brad while he was in India for 10 days. Mom came to help me on the weekends (thanks mom!).

Sea World...

Grandpa Capasso! Can you tell we were all up early?

Almost sitting up...

I'll post some pics from this month in another post.