Pops Visit

Pops came for a quick visit week before last. It was a nice surprise since we didn't think we'd get to see him again until summer vacation.



We went to Big Easy, our favorite spot for Sunday brunch. Sam was really hamming it up and posing for the camera. It's hard to believe from the picture above that this was the scene just a few moments earlier ...



Sam has started fighting us on going into his carseat. It started out that he wanted to climb up into the car/truck and get into the seat on his own, but pretty soon he just started climbing past the carseat and wanting to sit on seat with us. It's funny how you can't explain to a two year old the logic behind his carseat.



Melanie slept on the couch while Pops was visiting. Cleo took advantage of the free pillow and settled in for a good nap.



Pops had a new camera with him on this visit. He was learning how to use it so Sam put on a good show for him.





Melanie and Sam have been best buddies lately. Melanie has really been helping us out by watching Sam while we do stuff for the houses. She decided that Sam should start calling her Mimi instead of Melly since he pretty much refused to even try to say Melly. There were a few days where Sam was a little confused, but now it's "Hey Mimi", "Bye-Bye Mimi", "Night-Night Mimi."



Sam has started having definite opinions on which shoes he wants to wear. I had to take his Thomas the Train swim shoes away from him a few days in a row. On this particular day he insisted that he wear one green shoe and one brown shoe. After this, I got him a pair of Thomas the Train sneakers that light up. He's been wearing them every day since.



Sam has started climbing everything! He's getting stronger and can pull himself up more with his arms now. He climbed up the outside of his crib the other day. He didn't actually get his leg over the side, but we're going to have to think about moving him into a big boy bed soon.



Picture of Sam wearing Mommy's shoes



It's been a few weeks since we took this picture, so I'm not exactly sure what was going on. I think we were cleaning the house, and Sam snuck off to play in his room. When we checked on him, he was pulling out things from the drawer under his bed and trying to fit into his cool new hiding spot.



We wanted to get out of the house last weekend so we went to a Owens Spring Creek Farm. I think Sam had gotten a little bored with all of the house things we've been up to so he's been really cranky.



He had a really good time petting and chasing the animals. There were lots of baby goats that had gotten out of there pen, so you could really get up close to pet them. We were also trying to get Sam to practice saying the names of the animals.



When we went to look at the draft horses, Sam climbed the fence. Once of the horses came over and took Sam's shoe in his mouth and started pulling. I would really say that he bit Sam or anything, but Sam would tell you a completely different story. He kept saying, "No, no, donk, no bite!" the rest of the weekend. We kept trying to tell him it was a horse not a donkey, but that didn't really matter.

It seemed like Sam had a language explosion after this. He's been learning a lot of words lately (like rain, tattoo, and blue), but he wasn't pronouncing them very well. Some of them (like Sam and rain) sounded more like a growl than a word. But, all of a sudden this weekend, he started pronouncing things more clearly. He's also been putting a lot of "two word sentences" together (like Mommy outside, Sam bike). He's even attempting to repeat new words after us. I swear before this week he would just look at us like we were crazy half the time when we were trying to get him to learn a new word.

Sam is learning his colors, though he still says most things are blue. This morning he was coloring and he started saying "baby" something. I couldn't really understand him so I said, "Yes, Sam, you fed the baby goats." He got frustrated with me and said "no" and started looking through his colors for something. He had one orange color and he pulled out another. He said "baby" again, and I realized he was talking about the color. I had accidentally bought the skinny crayons instead of the fat crayons the last time, and he was pointing out that one orange crayon was smaller than the other one.

It's been really fun trying to see what he can say and do over the last few days. He's even starting to sing the words and do the motions to "The Wheels on the Bus." The bonus has been there haven't been as many fits. This evening he was whining and pulling on my pants because he wanted to see what I was doing on the kitchen counter. I asked him to use his words and he said "up please."

Now if we could just get him to sleep through the night! ....

Quick update on the houses ... we had the new house inspected last week and only had minor things to report. We expect that the builder is going to fix everything that was found. The buyer's lender had our current house appraised today. We may not hear the results for a few days. This appraisal is the last thing that needs to get done before closing. Both closing are scheduled for the same day in mid-May. We're ready to be in the new house!