La Familia

Happy Birthday & Halloween in one shot!

Samuel portrait Sept 2009

For some reason this looks like he's a news anchor or weatherman.

QOTD

Scene: Living room.  Mother and son are building a spindly lego tower.  Tower breaks and falls down.

M: Oh no!

S: What happened?  Did you go big yuckies in your pants?

2 boys

I'm happy to say Luke has graduated from the baby tub so there is now more room for splashing so less water gets on mom.



Although fully able, Luke does not want to sit.

This photo depicts circumstances that led to the inaugural "Naked Time Out." Samuel didn't really deserve the time out he got, but I didn't know what else to do. I said "Yes, you can play in the rain," not realizing it meant a gallon of mud would be smeared all over the house. So we disrobed in the backyard and went straight to timeout. Here's a link to CPS. Nevermind.

QOTD

After he threw up at a restaurant at lunch today, I rushed Samuel outside to clean him off. The first thing he said was, "Those flowers are pretty."

Then when we got home he asked, "Can I sit in your lap and throw up and watch a movie at the same time?"

It's good to be home from YW camp, even if Samuel is sick.

This week...

Laundry and two little causes of laundry. We did six loads without the dryer this week, thanks to the drying racks (you can see them outside the kitchen window).

We cooked in the solar oven twice - ground beef and potatoes. Last week the highest temp noted was 175, but yesterday it was almost 250 degrees. Here's the ground beef and the solar oven. I have been very pleased with it so far. The banana bread didn't turn out very pretty, but it was cooked. And it was a partly cloudy day too.

Today while we were on a bike ride Samuel said, "Mommy, do you know blueberry birds eat blueberries? Because blueberries are blue just like blueberry birds."

His latest thing is pointing with his feet. It has improved his balance - he pointed to and counted the seven birdhouses he built and he didn't knock over a single one. But it's not so nice when he is pointing at your face.

For FHE we took Samuel to one of the Beehive's middle school orchestra concert. He was very well-behaved and we tried to only whisper. "Mommy, what's this song about?" "Pirates." (It really was; it was called Pirate's Cove.) "Where are the pirates?" It was almost as bad as a book with no pictures.

Here's the boat safety lesson from Samuel's swim class, just before the teacher helped Samuel fall out of the boat.

Samuel at breakfast today

Row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream,
Merrily, merrily
Like's a box a stream.

"Mom, how was your day?" (It's 7:30 a.m.)
"Good, how was your day?"
"Good, I just have lots of crocodiles under my bed. When I get working I don't have a place to put my birds."


The "birds" started with 3 baby bluebirds that fell/flew from a nest in our tree. Last week at Joseph's soccer game Samuel picked up two imaginary baby birds and ran around with his hands cupped for about an hour. I can't help you because, to quote from Jack Handy's Deep Thoughts, "Sorry, got these sacks," or birds in this case.

I pulled for his breakfast today an MRE applesauce out of his 72-hour kit. I wanted him to eat one and see that it's good so that in case of emergency, MRE's won't be foreign material. I am opting for mostly MRE-fare in the kits so I don't have to rotate everything annually.

New "Snowman" lyrics

Couldn't find the video camera, but here's a transcript:

"Did you know that song?

Once there was a sowman, sowman, sowman,
Once there was a sowman, snall, snall, snall.

Once he painte, painte, painte,
Once he painte all blue."

Thanks Samuel. Now I know that song.

A reason to go to the mall

Northwest Mall's one redeeming feature: the train layout!

When it's remodeled to be a fancy outdoorsy mall, I wonder if the train layout will still be a feature. I hear Memorial City Mall has a train layout too...maybe another day.






Mesmerized. This was the best I could do at getting Samuel to look at the camera.

We had to keep a close eye on Samuel because the trains could clip your nose if you leaned in too close.

Intense about trains!

Family Photos - Valentine's Day

This was a happy moment for Samuel to hold baby Luke.

Then mommy took Luke away.
Zoom out for the result.

Our first family foursome foto. What a delight!

Samuel at a Rockets game

I don't remember who won the game, but Joseph caught a freebie hat! When does that ever happen? (I guess when you have any ticket better than a nosebleed seat your chances go up.) Eventually we convinced Samuel to try it on. Since our 5th row tickets and parking were both free, we let Samuel have a bucket of popcorn and a gigantic soda for dinner. We shouldn't get into the habit of buying food at arena events, but sure enough, when we went to Monster Jam at Reliant a few days ago, we spent even more on food. Oh well.

Happy Birthday Samuel!

Samuel celebrated his 3rd birthday on October 29th by skipping a nap which threw off the train schedule and required me to simplify the cake design.

We held a party with Aunt Elizabeth and family, Uncle Paul, and Grandpa and Mumsie.

He got some Sunday shirts, books, trains, cars, dumptruck, elephant figurines, a Thomas video, a sit-on-bouncy ball, and a Sam the Tank Engine cake. After 11 tries he extinguished the 3 candles and chose to eat 2 wheels.

He has done little besides play with his new trains and cars. We tried to take his 2 new elephants to the zoo (baby Mac has the same birthday as Samuel) but we left them in the car by accident. We will be sure to take his elephants to visit the real elephants when we go to the zoo again.

The Potty Chart

After our first stab at potty-training I thought eight stickers per prize was too steep. We gave up after three stickers. Now we're on our second go-round. After one week of no day-time diapers, eight stickers is a breeze. He almost gets a prize a day. I should have stepped up the sticker increments for each prize after the first few.

The naked toddler approach took some friendly fire at a recent girls' night out, but I must say it has worked for us. Our only accident was while wearing underpants. While naked he hasn't had a single accident.

He also doesn't mind that we are using flower stickers that I've had since I was 13. It's about time I got rid of them. What was I saving them for? Not this.

Samuel's Carousel Seat

There's not much competition, but this is where you can find us. I think the bench makes it more like riding on a train. He won't sit anywhere else.

Who's been in the kitchen?

When I finished baking, Samuel still wasn't done yet, so I gave him a cup of flour and a sifter with 2 bowls. Samuel's so covered in flour, he just blends right into the wall, as you can (or can't) see below.

Things I love to hear Samuel say...

This past week we had a family reunion here in Houston. It was great to see the whole family. On Saturday morning we all went to the temple to get an extended family picture. Our assignment was to pick up the donuts and kolaches on the way. Because Mary and Lizzie were in our car I put the boxes of donuts in the trunk of the car. When I got back into the car here is the conversation I had with Samuel:

Samuel - I want tem.
Joseph - What do you want?
Samuel - Donut, I want tem.
Joseph - Where do you want them?
Samuel - I need tem in the Happy Car
Joseph - Why do you want them in the car?
Samuel - So as for I can eat tem!

Another awesome thing he said today as we were having lunch. Samuel was sitting next to Stacia and leaned over to take a crouton (which he loves).

Samuel - Yoink!

And here is a cool piture of Samuel asleep that Stacia took the afternoon she came home from camp. After a week away she was too excited to not see him. Notice the toes around the bars.

All done

Here mom, take this away now that I've bitten all the frosting off.
Also note his new haircut - not bad for my third try on a moving target.

Playdough

Samuel played for hours on 3 consecutive days. I tried to avoid mixing colors, but my attention span wasn't as good as his.

Cake anyone?

This is how I found out that Samuel was able to open the fridge. He came to me hugging the cake Isaac's mommy left us. I guess that's not the best hiding place anymore.