Hard to believe that Sammy is turning one today! We are so blessed to have him in our lives. Mema is in town, so the five of us spent a nice evening celebrating Sam's first year. He really enjoyed the cake and the wrapping paper. He also enjoyed the cars his Aunt Dub and Uncle Ed sent him. Right now the Thomas the Train set which his Mema gave him seemed to be a bigger hit with Lizzy - however, we are sure that soon he will grow into it!
It took Samm only a couple tastes before he was diving into his cake with gusto! It was great! :)
Following the cake mess a quick detour to the bath tub occured!
Sammy was more interested in the wrappnig paper and tags, than the gifts themselves. Here he is trying on his new winter coat - even though he looks handsome, it is the tag which he is most interested in!
Saturday morning we went to the train park to celebrate Lexi's third birthday. We had a lot of fun playing and riding the train and carosel.
Lizzy and the birthday-girl pose with their balloons.
Lizzy and Isa enjoyed the train ride.
Sammy tried to eat his cake with a fork. After a while he became frustrated and started to use his hands.
Sammy looks like he is ready to take on all the "big kids" at the mall play area!
Lizzy is strapped in and ready to take the jeep for a ride. Too bad she needs to wait 13 years...
This is one of Lizzy's favorite acitivities - she is the "teacher" and "reads"
her books and teaches "bible verses" to who ever will listen. Here Daddy is her "student."
Liz and Sam are starting to play quite well with eachother. Here is a very funny video clip of something that they came up with on their own - honestly, neither Tim nor I had any part in coming up with these antics!
Grandma Sharon visited over Labor Day weekend. So while she was here we had a 5th party for Lizzy's 3rd birthday! Both Lizzy and Sammy enjoyed opening the presents - but Lizzy's favorite gift was having Grandma Sharon here and spending the weekend with her.
Above: Lizzy and Grandma Sharon at the Mesa Kid's Museum
Below: Lizzy at the Mesa Kid's Museum
This is a video of Sam after walking for only one day on his own. It shows his "Frankenstein" walk a bit - but it also shows how much Lizzy loves her little brother!
Here is a video o Sam after about a week of walking. He is getting pretty good! This video also shows his love of our dogs. I am bummed because right after I turned the video camera off he said "Duug!" really loudly!
After a few weeks of almost letting go, Sammy finally took his first solo steps at home with mommy on Tues Aug 31. This was only three days after turning 11 months. At first he walked very slowly and jerkily with his arms staright out in front of him. The ladies at daycare joked and said he looked like Frakenstein! They also say that in 14 years they have never seen another baby walk like that. Well, a mini-Frankenstein or not, we sure think he is super cute! (But we have to admit that this extra mobility has increased his trouble-meter exponentially!) However, in the last week he has managed to improve quite a bit and he now walks fairly steadily at least 50% of the time. The other 50% he still crawls because he is much faster on all fours!
Aunt Deb and Uncle ed were here for a week at the end of Aug. Because it overlaps both of their birthdays, we started and ended the week with birthday celebrations - on Tues one for Deb and then Sat for Ed. While here, Ed made sure to enjoy the biking trails, while pregnant Deb spent the days with us (or working - boo). It was nice to have them here, and sad to see them leave.
