Hard Work

Yesterday Mike and 3 awesome helpers (Lon, Lee, and our neighbor Lynn) poured the rest of the cement (6 yards) that they started almost a year ago. Cement is really hard work, so we're very excited to have it done! Now we'll have lots more parking, so I'm sure Eric and Renee are happy too. Last year when they poured, it just happened to be on Halloween (it was really the only day Mike could do it). Mike sat outside for hours to make sure no trick-or-treaters played any tricks with our wet cement. I'm also very happy not to have that huge dirt area that was only good for growing weeds and providing dirt clumps for Sam to throw.

Will's latest trick is shoving both of his hands in his mouth and chewing on them. We're almost wondering if he's teething. Extra drool, lots of biting, some fussiness...this could be really sad for Mom. We haven't felt any teeth though, maybe it's something else. I have my fingers crossed.

Sugar Cookies!!

Sam was my little kitchen buddy today, and we made sugar cookies! We had a blast, Sam loved it. He made a bunch of cookies all by himself (I was quite impressed).

He even rolled the dough out without my help. He's in the fiercely independent stage (is it a stage? will he always be this independent?), so my help was requested only when the dough got stuck in the cookie cutters. Notice the wooden spoon handle in front of Sam. Why is there a wooden spoon on the counter, you ask? When I told Sam we were making cookies, he immediately opened the drawer and said, "I need my spoon!"
We made cats, witches, pumpkins, Christmas trees, sailboats, planes, and trains, of course. We made the shapes that Sam wanted, so we encompassed two holidays and transportation. Tomorrow we're going to deliver them to our neighbors. They're actually decent, so I hope they survive until then. The cookies. The neighbors too, but I meant the cookies.
Poor Will. Yesterday I ate a biscuit, a few pretzels, and an oatmeal cookie. Today I ate a sugar cookie, a biscuit, and a few cheetos. I'm evil. I've never gone on a milk/soy binge like that since I found out about his allergy. He's been paying for my sins, and he'll continue tomorrow until all the proteins are out of his milk. I tried giving him a bottle again today...no luck. He'll just puke a few more times and then he'll be fine. It makes me feel horrible though. On the bright side, I saw some pictures of me yesterday from when Will was about a month old. My face looked pretty chubby, but that's gone now thanks to my forced diet. And I found out on Saturday that I can eat fritos! I can eat taco soup too, as long as there's no cheese or sour cream, but it still tastes like a real meal! Life is good. You know, it's really the little things.

Yesterday when we were visiting Grandpa Gar, we met his roommate before we left. I don't know what his medical condition was, but it seemed that he had a sharp mind but couldn't speak very well (stroke maybe?). Sam kept talking to him and asking him questions, but he would just look at Sam with big eyes. Sam finally said (in a loud voice), "Don't talk with your eyes!"

Tonight Mike was getting Sam ready for bed, which proved to be very difficult after 5 cookies (I was the fun parent today!). Sam didn't want his jammies on, so after his clothes came off he yelled, "I'm a kitty, I need to be naked!" Where does he come up with this stuff?

Oh, and Emily's engaged. Charles proposed a few weeks ago, but I've been waiting to say anything until they've had time to tell everyone. Hope they have! He's a great guy, and Emily still has perma-smile. It's very cute.

Beautiful Music

Grandpa Gar

Tonight we went to visit Grandpa Gar in his new digs, a care center in Murray. We were quite a crowd with the boys and Eric and Renee. He was really happy to see us though. My aunt was there and she said she hasn't seen him that happy in a really long time. Sam played his harmonica and sang some songs, and Grandpa seemed to have a great time. He's 93 years old, so it's fun to be able to visit, especially now that he's a little closer to us.

After church we made egg mcmuffin type sandwiches (I got to watch everyone eat). I made some biscuits and I let Sam play with the last of the dough I was rolling out. There was a bowl of red hots on the counter. I think tomorrow we might make sugar cookies. As you can see, he'd be very good at it. I think the title of this picture should be (thanks to Mike) "This is my art. Understand me."

Sam has really started to branch out in his drawing. He told me that this picture is trees (from a book about some type of small rodent named Sprout that goes on a trip with his grandma to see huge trees in some forest).

Other times he just makes us draw pictures. On our way home from visiting Grandpa, we stopped by the Garden Center. Construction is coming along, it's pretty exciting! I'll be putting updated pictures on the Garden Center blog as soon as I can. Be sure and check it out!

Pass the butter

I made some french peasant bread to go with dinner tonight. It's brushed with butter twice, so my little bowl of butter was sitting on the counter with the pastry brush waiting for the bread to come out of the oven. I was holding Will and fixing food. When I turned around he had the brush in his hand (he had just dipped it in the butter), and was running into the living room as fast as he could. He saw that I saw him so he went even faster. I ran into the living room yelling stop (you know, that's where the nicer furniture is), and he was painting the table as fast and as hard as he could. From what I could tell, that was his third trip in there to paint. When I came in he screamed and ran out. He always knows when he's doing something naughty, but he just can't help himself. Argh. The "terrible two's" seem to last a lot longer than a year.

George the monkey

Sam asked me to draw a train on his magnadoodle thing, and then asked me to draw George the monkey in the train. I'm no artist, as you can tell, but Sam likes it. In fact, he read George a story out of the new Thomas book from the library, and even showed him the pictures. He made voices and made up what was going on, it was hilarious. When you hear, "I'm Gordon, the fastest engine!" in the deepest voice a 3 year old can muster, it's hard not to laugh.

Sam ate soap. I left him alone (I keep doing that) to wash his hands, and when I went in to see what was taking so long, I saw that quite a bit of soap was mysteriously missing from the bottle. It was all over the sink, on the counter, on the faucet, and, yes, in his mouth. He said, "Mom, I ate soap." and a big bubble cam out of his mouth. Poor kid. I couldn't get mad (1-because it was sadly funny, 2-because eating soap is punishment enough), but I sent him to sit on his bed while I cleaned up the soap. He fell asleep, as did Will, and I had nearly two hours of quiet. That hasn't happened in a long time.

Guess Who?

One is Sam, and one is Will.
By the way, I never put them to bed with a blanket covering their faces. They just like it. I'm sure they get that from me, I used to do that when I was little. I also used to tuck my thumbs in, as each baby is doing, which my mother told me my grandma also used to do. Wow, I passed on some weird traits.

Much Randomness

On Saturday I made the Costco trek with the boys. We were pulling into our parking spot when Sam asked if he could see the little snow man. I wasn't sure what he was talking about until I saw...
the little snow man, aka the Michelin man.

That evening was Nelson & Laura's wedding reception, and everything was gorgeous! I didn't have any free hands for picture taking until it was dark. Unfortunately, Will was asleep when we did this picture, and there was no way we were waking him up.

As soon as I get back over there I'll get some shots of the new patio and rock wall. It looks absolutely fabulous. I think Mike is just happy that he'll start having a day off again, he worked really hard to help get it done.

This is Eric and Renee, our new basement tenants. They made dinner tonight and I ate way too much.

They have a Nintendo Wii (so fun!), but the creepy thing about it is how you can make your little Wii players look like you, and Eric's really does...

Picture 1: Sam's project from church. No matter what it is, he always makes them draw pictures of trains on the back. These two trains are both Fergus (from Thomas). Picture 2: A skateboard with wheels. Picture 3: Sam said, "Take a picture of me erasing this!"

I stepped out of the kitchen for a minute while Sam was eating breakfast. He somehow managed to dump milk into the bag of Cheerios from his bowl. I'm a mean mom, I let the milk dry and then picked out the gross ones...can't waste a whole box of Cheerios. A few days before this, I did the same dumb thing. I was only gone for a few seconds, but when I came back he had pulled the jug of milk over to his place at the table and was putting cheerios in it. Yes, I fished them out and let him drink it. Luckily there wasn't too much left.
Today Sam brought me a can of applesause and the gravy ladel and asked if he could have some. I had just unloaded the dishwasher, so the drawer was full of clean spoons...

At Costco my checker (a guy) told me my baby was beautiful. At the grocery store today my bagger told me Will was cute. My mailman came to the door today to ask me something and as he was leaving told me my baby was a cutie. Women say that stuff all the time, but guys don't. Kind of funny. Obviously I agree with them, and while I realize I may be biased, I also realize that doesn't make me wrong. :) Will smiles for anyone, our social baby just loves people. He doesn't cry much, he's a great sleeper (about 11 hours at night most of the time, sometimes 12), and he's so happy. I'm so spoiled, and I love it.

Adventures around the block

We went on a walk today. Sam pushed his empty stroller and I had Will in my new Baby Bjorn (which I love, the old one was harder to use so I'm kind of glad it's lost). Every time we came to bushes next to the sidewalk, Sam would shove the stroller into them and tell me he was stuck.



Will actually did enjoy our walk, despite the look on his face. He spent a lot of time sucking on the fabric in front of his mouth. Gross. As you can see, he's lost nearly all his hair. It was very cute, so I hope it comes back soon. Sam was still bald by the time he turned 1, which doesn't give me much hope for Will.

Whew!

This last week has been a little nuts. My brother and his wife moved in to our basement, and my friend and I threw a baby shower at my house. Needless to say, there has been much cleaning done (and that still needs to be done).

Today, of all random things, I made grape juice. I'll be making more tomorrow. It actually tastes like it's supposed to...it's good. My neighbor has an insane amount of grapes, so she gave me tons and let me borrow her steam juicer. It's kind of fun, and I'm canning most of it so I can enjoy it over and over. Mike thinks I'm crazy.

Sam was a great helper, he loved washing the grapes. He loves anything to do with playing in the sink, especially if it involves pulling the faucet out and spraying stuff.

Sam's little buddy Ryan came over to play and stayed for a gourmet lunch of chicken nuggets and mandarin oranges. This is the friend who gave Sam the Thomas train for his birthday.


Sam stole my sunglasses, and when I pulled out the camera (with no prompting) smiled and said, "Cheese!"

Mike thinned the sycamore. Once again, we beat everyone when it came to debris piles for the city clean up. It almost rivaled the piles from the junipers.

I'm a girl, I have hair

Sam loves to play with his trains, and sometimes his trains like to talk to each other. My favorite Sam/train conversation went something like this:
Train 1: I'm a girl, I have hair.
Train 2: You don't have hair, you have a funnel.
Train 1: I am a girl, I have hair.
Train 2: No, you're not a girl. You have a funnel.
The new Thomas train that he got from his birthday party (not from me) is called Baby Thomas, not to be confused with Big Thomas or Little Thomas. The above picture is an extreme close up of Baby Thomas. Sam insisted I take a picture of it.

I think his imagination is really starting to blossom. He also likes to "make a house with bricks" by taking all the couch cushions (bricks) and stacking them on the floor. He then jumps on them and buries himself underneath them so he can go to sleep in his house.

We survived yet another trip to the pediatrician. Luckily this was just a checkup. Sam is still extremely tall for his age, and everything is great. He wasn't very happy about the shot he had to get, but he's set until kindergarten, yay! Sometimes I think shots are more traumatic for parents than kids (not more painful, just more traumatic...dealing with the sad/hurt/mad kid afterward, trying to explain why we let someone hurt them, etc). Our doctor's office has Thomas stickers at the checkout desk though, so everything was fine.

Party Animals

We've been partying all weekend because Sam turned 3 today! Papa and Grandma Tigger had birthdays too, so we've had lots of birthday cake the last few days. Yesterday I got a little crazy and made my first ever cheesecake and an ice cream pie to eat today. I took a little taste of the cheesecake (wish I could have had more, it wasn't bad), but that was all the dairy I could justify eating.
Sam's little friends came over on Saturday for a fun party at our house. He got lots of fun toys, most notably a Thomas train (it came with a whistle that makes Thomas go when you blow it), and a batman car that Sam calls his "fatman" car. Not sure about that one. We had a pinata too, and it was a hit! (ha ha)

Sam with a sampling of birthday presents from his friends.

Sam trying out the new 3 wheeled spiderman scooter. We sure love our Sam! Three years of fun behind us, we can hardly believe it's gone so fast!