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Friday, October 31, 2008

Happy Halloween



Sam was Diego for Halloween. We could only convince him to wear the vest by saying it was the only way he could get candy. Here he is in his vest and rescue pack with baby jaguar in hand. He's even got Diego light up shoes. He held baby jaguar all the way to the first house, and kept rescue pack on until we got to the next one.

I took him up and down one side of the street while Chris handed out candy and then we switched places. By the time they got back home, Sam didn't even have his vest on any more. He just doesn't like wearing costumes.

He did a really good job saying Trick or Treat, Happy Halloween, and Thank You. A few of our neighbors were in costumes handing out candy. One lady was dressed like a witch. Sam didn't want to go to her door. He said, "That witch not get my candy." She promised that she wasn't going to take his candy, and said she was going to give him more candy. He approached her very cautiously and didn't turn his back on her as we were leaving!

When he got home he started sampling all the candy. He would open one sucker, take a few licks, and move on to the next piece of candy. He got a box of Nerds, which he called Merps. He put a whole box of milk duds in his mouth, and seemed to like them until he realized that they were stuck to his teeth. It's going to be a challenge to try to get him to eat something other than candy this weekend!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Big Boy Haircut


We got Sam's hair cut last weekend. It was a huge screaming fit like always. This time the stylist suggested that we use clippers since he was thrashing around so much.

I love it. It's super cute. We even bought some hair gel for kids and can spike it up a little in the front. Sam is not so crazy about the gel though. Chris loves how easy it is to was Sam's hair when it's this short.

Here's the before and after ...

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Sugar Cookies


Sam and I made sugar cookies a few weeks back.  I made the cookies ahead of time because I've never rolled sugar cookie dough before and I wasn't sure how successful I was going to be transferring the cookies to the cookie sheet.  It was of course harder than I thought it would be, so it may be a while before I share that part with Sam.



I let him pick the colors for the royal icing.  He picked pink and blue.



Here's Sam stirring the pink icing.



Here are the cookies before we iced them.  We made planes, trains, and automobiles, plus the circle of left over dough.



I forgot how Sam likes to keep his hands clean.  He wasn't very happy when the icing got on him.



He quickly figured out that he could just throw the cookie in the bowl and Mommy would fish it out.


He tried one or two on his own.



Then it was back to throwing them in the bowl.



Here are a few of the cookies after we iced them.


And here is Sam sampling the cookies later that day.  I obviously got bored with the pink and blue and made purple too!  The cookies were really yummy, and they were a lot of fun.  I'm hoping to get around to making some Halloween ones too.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Potty Training


We started putting Sam in pullups about three or four weeks ago. He had been doing a really job about going to the bathroom on his little potty chair, but he was having problems getting the old diapers off.


I was ordering some other clothes when I saw these cute underwear. I ordered a set of dinosaur ones and another set with bugs on them. Sam really didn't know what to think the first time I put them on him and he wanted them off right away.


Later that day we convinced him to try a different pair. He kept those on for a while until we had to leave the house and we put him back in pullups. We put him in underwear the next couple of weekends while we were around the house. He had a few accidents, but did pretty well overall.


Then last week Sam's teacher at day care surprised me. She said that he had been doing really well going potty by himself consistently at school, so we could start sending him to school in underwear. Seriously!!! We went out this weekend and bought him a bunch of underwear. We mostly got the generic white or solid color and stripe ones, but Sam picked out Thomas, Diego, and Elmo underwear too. We also got a bunch of thin jersey pants that would be easy for him to pull up and down ... not to mention the fact that he'll probably need plenty of changes of clothes throughout the day. He's been wearing underwear to school the last two days and he's only had one accident each day.

At home he has a little potty chair that he sits on. He doesn't really like standing on the stool in front of the potty. When he finishes peeing on the little potty chair, he jumps up and says "My pour out.  I be careful."  He has to pour it out and flush the toilet all by himself.

At school they have a little potty that is very low to the ground, so he pees standing up (tmi?). When I picked him up from day care on Monday, the teacher asked him if he needed to go potty before we left. He said yes, and when in the bathroom all by himself, did his business, flushed the toilet, and came out like it was no big deal.

He's still taking naps and sleeping at night in pullups.  I'm pretty sure that he'll be doing that for a while.  Most of the time he doesn't tell us that he has to go to the bathroom.  We just take him in there once an hour and he always has to go.  

Now, to clarify, and sorry if this is gross ... we are only talking potty trained when it comes to pee. He is still pooping in his underwear, so we will be throwing plenty of pairs of underwear away.

--Emily

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Kodak TMAX


Emily at the old house

I sent five rolls of 35mm film along with the 120 film from the Holga to Dwayne's for developing. In the pack was a roll of Kodak TMAX black and white film. Emily got this for me on my birthday last year. This was before I had collected all of the old 35mm SLR cameras, but Melanie let me borrow her 35mm Canon to shoot the film. It took while to shoot the whole roll. I supposed we got busy with the whole house buying/selling thing and then we lost track of the film until we cleaned up the garage last week.

This is a traditional black and white film meaning that your local lab probably won't develop it. There are plently of places around that will do it, and a lot of black and white film lovers will develop their own film at home.

I'm not sure what I think of it yet. I think I like the Fuji Neopan film from the Holga better. The TMAX is easy to scan, so that's a plus. Two of these images came from my home scanner. So much of film based black and white photography is based on development and that's out of your hands once you send the film off to a lab.

Emily (foreground) and Andrea watching a movie.

S-t-r-e-t-c-h

Sunday, October 12, 2008

2008 Texas State Fair


We all went to the fair last week when Chris and I took off of work.  We decided to pickup Sam early from day care and go to the fair in the evening so it wouldn't be too hot. It was dinner time when we got there so we headed straight for the corny dogs.  We took all of these pictures with point-and-shoot cameras.



We got there just as Melanie was getting off of work, so she decided to meet us there and join in the fun.


After dinner we headed for the rides.  I was excited that there were lots of rides Sam could ride, and many of them by himself.


This was his first ride.  These little dragon boats went in a circle like a carousel.  I'm surprised he was so brave because he didn't even want to sit on one of the animals on the carousel at the zoo a few weeks back.


This was the second ride and was actually the ride that he wanted to do first.  (We had to test him on the safer one first though.)  On this one the canoes winded through the "river" then went up a hill, through a cave, and then down a hill.  He loved it.


The plane ride was a big hit.  Sam loved that it went up and down.  Chris had to cram his legs in there though.  He said he had to turn his feet out to the side.



Mimi rode with Sam on the Wacky Worm.  I was really surprised that he was brave enough to do this one.  He couldn't wait though and took off running when they opened the gate.  By this point we were getting a lot of "my do it."  He didn't want us to help him onto or off of the rides.


Here's a shot of the whole Wacky Worm.  You can see Melanie in the front car, but Sam's just a bit too short to see.


Sam wanted to ride this swing ride because it had Diego, Dora, and Boots on it.  This ride actually made me the most nervous.  I don't think I ever liked this ride as a kid either.



Sam kept wanting more, more, more rides.  They mostly let the adults ride for free.  It can get quite expensive very quickly.  We decided to do one more ride and then head off to the ferris wheel.  Sam seemed a bit daring so I thought he might want to ride another roller coaster or maybe some race cars, but he chose this little whale ride instead.


I suggest that you actually watch a ride operating before you decide to get on.  It seemed like an innocuous little ride at first glance.  Imagine the motion that whales make jumping in and out of the water.  Then imagine a little fair ride trying to emulate that while going in a circle.  I really thought I was going to get sick.


Here's a little montage of Sam on the fair rides.  


Next we were off to the ferris wheel. The 212-foot Texas Star Ferris Wheel has been the largest in America since it debuted in October 1985.



A group photo at the bottom.


Sam and Mommy at the top.


Mimi and DeeDah.



The Dallas skyline from the ferris wheel.

Sam loved the ferris wheel.  He pays attention now when we are "high in the air" - like when we go over a highway overpass he says, "we go high, Momma,"  which is always followed by, "more high?  more high?"


Sam up on DeeDah's shoulders walking down the midway.


Of course we had to stop and watch the trains at the feet of Big Tex.


We staid late to see Illumination Sensation.  It was billed as a Vegas type light show with music.  


Sam was glad to sit down and rest.



And then the "light show" started.  We somehow missed the pyrotechnics part of the description.  It was quite warm sitting that close.  There were fireworks, lights, and music too.  There was also video projected on a huge screen.


Sam was doing great and was even dancing along to the music, but then he got scared.  He climbed into my lap and buried his head on my neck.  He kept saying "I scared."  He talked about how much it scared him for about a week, but now he keeps asking to watch the "fireworks" video over and over again.  I'm glad because we thought the show was going to be mostly fireworks, and I didn't want him to be scared of fireworks.



We had to walk back down the midway to get back to our cars, so we stopped to let Sam play a game.  He wasn't quite sure what to do at first.


He had to pick two ducks.  All the ducks had S, M, L, or XL written on the bottom, which determined which prize you would win.


Sam got to pick a prize off the wall.  I thought he might be upset that he had to give back the rubber duckies, but he was happy to get this ducky instead.  We keep talking about how he won his ducky at the fair.


Melanie wanted to try a fried s'more before we left.  We tried to find one, but we found out that there was only one booth that sold them and it was way on the other side of the fairgrounds.  She decided to try a fried Oreo instead.  The batter was like funnel cake, and they put chocolate sauce and powdered sugar on them.  They were pretty darn good.  

We took a few last shots of the ferris wheel as we were leaving ...




We had a blast at the fair this year!  We got to do a lot more things than I thought we would.  Sam was very excited but he stuck by us pretty well.  I think going on a week night was great because it wasn't very crowded and it wasn't hot.  I can't wait to go back next year.  Maybe we'll go a little earlier and try to see some of the animals too!