Just Hanging Around

We've spent a lot of time hanging around the house lately, especially with Labor Day weekend. It's been nice to relax and spend a lot of time with Sam. He knows the word "weekend" now. I always tell him it's the weekend on Friday night. We say that means all-day Mommy, all-day DeeDah, and all-day Sam tomorrow. He always goes to bed without a problem on the weekend. Sam's favorite things to do are bounce house, play-doh, paints, markers, books, Dora and Diego cartoons, trains, balls, singing, chasing Cleo around the backyard, and taking Cleo for walks.



Play-doh with DeeDah.



Colored pencils with Mommy.




Sam has graduated from simply jumping to jumping off of things. At this point the only thing he's jumping off of in the house is the last stair on the staircase. It's his favorite game right now, and he wants us to jump with him too. He's tried jumping at the top or in the middle of the staircase too. Thankfully we've always been holding his hand because he never actually lands on his feet. He usually overshoots it and slides down a few stairs on his bottom. When we're out and about he'll jump off anything he can, like the curb or even just an uneven sidewalk.



Here's a video of Sam jumping. He likes to count before he jumps. We usually get a 1, 2, 3, but sometimes we also get an 8, 9, 10. Sam has been counting for a while now, but he really doesn't care for the numbers 4 through 7.

On this particular night, it was getting pretty late. I yelled from the living room to the office to ask Chris if Sam was getting a bath that night. Sam answered, "No, I not take bath tonight!"



This is a picture of Sam in his cute new hat and overalls outfit that Yiayia got for him. He loves the hat, and he roars when he sees the lion on the overalls. I'll have to get Chris to take another picture the next time he wears it. I took this one with Chris's camera not realizing that it wasn't on automatic mode. The picture was completely blown out. I did my best to salvage it with post-processing, but pretty much just ended up with neon grass.



See, he loves the hat. He's been wearing it around the house all week.



Just hanging out with DeeDah in the kitchen. Sam loves to help Chris in the kitchen. He'll do anything ... grind coffee, make banana bread, unload the dishwasher. He loves being DeeDah's helper.




We went swimming a bunch over Labor Day weekend. Sam had a blast. The last several times that we went to the pool, Sam just wanted to run around the sprayground. They adjusted the spray heads so that there aren't any dry spots now, so Sam preferred to stay in the pool. He really seemed to want to be able to swim on his own. He kept pushing me away. I'd let him sink a little, and he's grab me when the water got to his ears. He really liked swim chasing DeeDah around the pool.





Of course Sam mostly wanted to jump off the ledge. He put his hand in his mouth every time that he jumped. That's not going to work out so well when he starts jumping on his own. I really wish we had swimmies or a life jacket that day. He really wanted to jump by himself. There were a bunch of kids at the pool that day that were three or four and were doing their own thing. He wanted to be just like them. They were hanging off the ledge so he wanted to do that too. Of course he didn't want me to help. He would let go a little and start sinking in the water. He would freak out as sook as the water hit his ears though.



We always change Sam into dry clothes and get a snack before we go home. Sam was making goofy faces at DeeDah.



Sam is quite the little talker now. He loves to sing too. He can even sing his ABCs. He usually says "K,K" instead of "J,K" and "eh, eh, eh, eh" instead of "L, M, N, O". I love it.




Lulu sent Sam some Thomas the Train "destinations" this weekend. Sam was soooo excited to get a present. He was ooooo'ing and ahhhhh'ing the whole time we were opening it. I can't wait for Christmas! As soon as he saw the blue and red box he said, "Thomas!!!!"



One of the destinations was the Sodor Engine Wash. You drive an engine up to the blue foam grips and turn the red knob. It lights up and makes sounds while the train is going through: wash, rinse, dry. Then you push a button which makes a ding and pops the train back onto the track. Sam got all his trains out and wash them all weekend. "M'on (come on) Momma, m'on DeeDah, wash trains!"





Here's Sammy playing on his favorite perch with the oven mitts. He's covered in red sauce from Spaghettio's. He's eating really well now, as long as you don't expect him to sit at the table and eat. He eats on the run. He's pretty much too busy to feed himself so we pop bites in his mouth when we can.