Christmas 2007

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. Sam loved the Christmas tree and presents, and especially loved the Christmas lights and decorations in peoples' yards. We toured another neighborhood, Spring Park, before Christmas. This neighborhood had a theme for each street, and the streets were competing for awards. Sam's favorite was the street that made train tracks out of Christmas lights, and had Christmas themed train cars in each yard with flashing lights that made it look like the wheels were moving. He kept saying, ooh and ah, and choo-choo.



Here are some more cute shots of Sam in front of our Christmas tree. It took several attempts to get a shot where he was looking in the general direction of the camera, centered in front of the tree, in focus, and not moving. Ultimately we had to use props to distract him.



This one is from a shopping trip to the Galleria. He loved watching the ice skaters and the Christmas tree lights in sync with the Christmas music.



We had beautiful weather Christmas Eve. We didn't have any last minute shopping to do so we got to spend the day around the house. We went to the park for a while. Sam had a blast climbing up the spiral slide (with my help), and then sliding down the tube slide. I think it was the first time that he'd been down the tube slide. It goes really fast, and he is generally not a daredevil, but he was signing "more, more" every time he went down it.



We went to Ian and Roya's house for Christmas Eve. We had a yummy dinner and watched them open gifts. Ian and Roya got Sam a rocking horse, so he spent most of his time going between that and their cats. We staid over there pretty late, so Sam didn't get to bed until about 10:30pm. Then Chris and I staid up pretty late getting everything ready for the next morning.



Sam was mesmerized when we got him out of bed on Christmas morning. There were so many new things to look at and his whole play area had been rearranged. He ran around and played with the big unwrapped things that Santa had gotten him before we sat down to investigate what had been left in the stockings.



This is a video of Sam with his Christmas stocking.



Sam playing with his new train on his new table and chairs.



Winnie the Pooh ride-on




Even Cleo got a stocking. Sam got a big kick out of giving her the gifts. I was surprised at how much Sam helped open the gifts. He was pretty much tearing the paper himself, and he was really getting into it by the end. He didn't play with the paper and bows like he did last year. This year he was more interested in the boxes and the bubble wrap. He even helped Daddy open his new camera. (Yes, Chris got a new camera. I'll let him do a post later on why he needed/wanted that!)




It took us three hours to open all the gifts. We had to stop and play with everything as it was opened, and we took a few breaks along the way. With the late night before and non-stop playing all morning, Sam was super-pooped. He took a three hour nap and woke up ready for more.



This is a video of Sam playing with some of his new toys. (Sorry about the audio ... we were listening to Christmas music and my camera only picked up the base.)



Chris took this picture of us getting ready for dinner with his new camera. I think he took the picture without a flash.



Some where in the sequence of shots, Sam showed us the new face he's been working on. He just started making this angry face in the last week or two. It's really hard not to laugh when he makes it because he looks so cute.



We went over to Roya's parent's house for Christmas dinner. Sam was a little shy at first, but was soon dancing a jig around the house for everyone's entertainment.



There were a few presents left to open, so Sam helped out by playing Santa.



My mom came to town the next day and we had Christmas #2. Sam was a very experienced present opener by that point, so he really got in on the action. He had even learned to ooh and ah, so that was good for a few laughs too.




This was the third night in a row that Sam staid up until after 10pm, so he was going strong the whole time. It's going to be really tough getting him back on his regular schedule after the holiday.




This is a video of my mom reading a pop-up book that Andrea got for Sam about counting cookies.



I found these picture on my point-n-shoot from Sam's 18 month well visit in early December. I'm not sure why they put him in this gown, but it was too cute.



Sam's newest trick is climbing up on the ottomans and then sort of jumping to us on the couch. I'm not a fan of this new trick. It means we have to keep a closer eye on him when he's in the living room. Melanie teases me about being sure to catch him when he jumps. When she was about his age, she was jumping off a chair to me, but I didn't catch her and she broke her foot. I'll never live that one down!

Happy Holidays

Wow! It's been three weeks since we posted! As you can imagine, we've been pretty busy with the holidays and our anniversary. Sam has been up to so much mischief. Thinking back three weeks, I swear I can't remember half of the things that he's done.

Melanie came back from Thanksgiving with a new haircut. She was growing her hair out to donate to Locks of Love. Before ...



After ...



Sam does a lot of "art projects" at day care. For Thanksgiving they made these Indian headbands. Sam doesn't really like hats, so we put it on Cleo to try to convince him that it would be fun to wear. Cleo just loved it! (ha!) Later Sam agreed to wear it for a little while. He mostly had fun taking it on and off.



We went to Jackson's birthday party the first weekend in December. Sam had a lot of fun. There were lots of kids and lots of new toys to play with. Jackson had a big monster truck bounce house. Sam doesn't know how to jump yet, so that scared him a little. He was very interested when Jackson started opening his presents, and got right in the middle of the action.



We put up our Christmas tree that same weekend. Sam thought that was a lot of fun and decided to try to help. He got so excited. He tried really hard to get "in" the tree. We have a fiber optic tree, so it has little points of light all over it. Sam started swatting at the tree when we turned the lights on. He just kept hitting at it over and over again until he wore himself out. I was hoping that he would get it out of his system before we put the lights on.




Sam has done surprisingly well with the tree. He wants to see it as soon as we get up in the morning and as soon as he gets home every day. I put all plastic, wooden, and fabric ornaments on the bottom four feet of the tree so that I didn't have to worry about him hurting himself. He's only broken three ornaments so far, and all three were fixed with some super glue.



The tree has actually been a really fun learning game. We ask him to point to the angel, the star, the snowflake, Santa Claus, etc. He points to them and sometimes tries to repeat the word back. Melanie was trying to teach him to point to the Winnie-the-Pooh ornament and asked, "Where's Pooh." ... Sam pointed to his butt. We got a good laugh out of that one.




My mom sent us some champagne flutes for our 11th anniversary. They came in a big box full of packing peanuts. Sam seemed very curious so I put him in the box. It seemed like he sat in there for thirty minutes. We sprinkled peanuts on him like it was snowing, and then he threw big armfuls out every where.



Later that day we went to see the Trains at Northpark. It was about 3,000 square feet with more than 40 locomotives chugging simultaneously along 2,500 feet of track. They even had some trains with Thomas the Train as the engine. They had trains running at all levels, including overhead. They had some at Sam's level behind plexiglass, going in and out of tunnels. They had lots of different scenes: San Francisco, Dallas, Washington D.C., and New York. They even had tiny little people moving around. It wasn't crowded so we got to spend a lot of time there. Sam was completely captivated and didn't really want to leave. He even learned how to say "choo choo."



After the trains, we went to story time with Santa. We've been reading books about Santa, and pointing him out on the Christmas tree. We've also been practicing that Santa says "Ho, ho, ho." They had this large room at the mall set up for story time and pictures. It had a big fireplace, a big chair, and a huge tree. Sam loved the tree before Santa even came out. Santa told a story which required audience participation, so all the kids were really into it. We had so much fun. We considered getting his picture made with Santa that day, but it was 5pm and they said it would probably be 9pm before they called our number. We still haven't gotten his picture with Santa yet, and we have less than a week until Christmas. Yikes!



I think we started a new family tradition this weekend. We went to Highland Park in Dallas to look at their Christmas decorations. Highland Park is an old neighborhood with huge mansions. Sam was ooo'ing and aah'ing at all of the lights. They even have horse drawn carriages that you can reserve to tour the neighborhood. It was about 32 degrees this weekend, so I wouldn't have even considered that with Sam this year. I'm sure we'll have a warm Christmas soon enough.



We took Sam for his 18 month check-up the first week of December. He weighed 24 lbs (21%) and was 32.5 inches tall (49%). So, he is average height, but he's still pretty skinny. He had to get two shots, but one of them was a flu shot. Chris and I got flu shots too. I don't think Sam will have to get any more vaccinations until he's four. He's on track developmentally ... he's running and he knows a bunch of words. I'm concerned that the next motor skill he's supposed to work on is jumping!

Sam's diet is still 75% liquid. He still drinks a lot of milk all day, and a V8 every night with dinner. We've started giving him Pediasure drinks if he doesn't eat a good dinner. That has helped a lot. We've even gotten a few good weeks of sleep, especially since he's been healthy. He's even been teething his bottom canines and still sleeping well.



Did we mention that Cleo is one of Sam's most favorite things in the world? He is very interested in feeding her now. He had oatmeal for breakfast one morning and Cleo wanted to lick his bowl when he was done, so we showed him how to do it. We'll probably regret that one soon enough, but it was hilarious. He wants to help Chris feed her every morning and night now. He likes to take her food and feed it to her one piece at a time too. She is very patient with him. It's hard enough to try to get him to eat his food, but it's even harder to keep him from feeding his food to Cleo!



Sam has learned the difference between his toys and Cleo's toys, so we've brought Cleo's toys out of hiding. Sam is always trying to play with her and her toys, but she's not so sure about that. Cleo isn't really a "go fetch" type of dog. She's really a "tug-of-war" type. She's smart enough to know that she'd just pull him over if she tried to play with him. Poor Sam doesn't understand.



Sam is learning to say the sounds that animals make. I need to make a video of it because it's hard to appreciate just reading it. He knows that birds say tweet tweet, elephants trumpet (he even does the hand motion), but pretty much everything else says grrrr ... bears, dogs, monsters ... grrr.

Sam also loves to throw the ball. Even these little really hard ones that he had as part of a game. Honestly, Sam loves to throw anything that he can pick up (even his food unfortunately). It's very hard to get him to understand that he should only throw the really soft balls, and he shouldn't throw them AT people (or dogs)!