Mother's Day, etc.

We went to The Blue Fish sushi for Mother's Day. We got the tempura shrimp and veggies for Sam, but he wanted to try everything. We eat smoked salmon at home, so Sam especially wanted "the orange ones."



He was taking tiny little bites until I realized that he didn't like the rice. He took big bites and yummed it up once I took it off of the rice.



Sour lemon face! Yes, he ate the lemons from our water glasses. Both of them. With the rind. Yuck!



One of the neighbor kids had a birthday party in the middle of the week, so I took the day off of work and kept Sam home with me. We had a full day: birthday party with bounce house, McDonald's playland for lunch, trip to Wal-Mart, swim in the neighborhood pool, sidewalk chalk and paint out front, sprinkler, playset, and tricycle ride. We had so much fun! I think he was asleep before his head hit the pillow.



Sam loves this sprinkler because the balls spiral down and then shoot out the top.



He's not so crazy about the water though.



Creative use of shutters as shelves.

3 year checkup: Sam had his 3 year checkup last week. He weighed 32.6 lbs (60th percentile) and was 37.5" (40th percentile). At his two year checkup he was 40th percentile for weight and 60th percentile for height. His doctor said he's basically right in the middle and it just depends on where he is in his growth cycle when we check him (growing out or growing up).

First Soccer Class

Sam had his first soccer class last weekend with SoccerTots. It's actually a class where they sort of trick the kids into learning soccer skills. They play a variety of fun games to develop balance, movement, and motor skills as well as listening to instructions. The great news for us is that it is taught indoors! When I thought of soccer, I thought we'd be out there in that Texas heat this summer watching a bunch of three year olds run around aimlessly. I checked around and some of the soccer leagues do actually start at three years old, but it didn't seem like any of them had a summer league. Allen actually doesn't start them in leagues until they are five which doesn't sound like a bad idea.



The instructor is trying to get Sam to tell her his name. He loves to say his name, and always says his fully name: Sammy Conner. I think it's cute that he says Sammy instead of Sam or Samuel. His new thing to say is "I'm Sammy Conner. I'm three years old. I'm big and strong."



The instructor asked all of the parents to leave. Apparently they start classes at 18 months with parent participation and this is the first class without parents. Some of the parents were actually coaching their kids from the sidelines already.



Sam did a pretty good job listening. He had a hard time with the concept of not touching the ball with your hands. He had a lot of fun too. He was especially excited that Hagen was there.



Check out the cool Greece soccer jersey. They got stamps after class was over: a soccer ball on one hand, a baseball on the other, and a heart on their chest. Later in the day a little bit of the heart stamp had rubbed off and Sam lifted up his shirt and said, "my heart is broken."



Here's a video of a few of the games they played.

Gymnastics Recital

Sam had his gymnastics recital last week on his birthday. He was very proud of his medal.



Ms. Amy teaches gymnastics once a week at Sam's day care. There is one other boy in the class, but he was on vacation that week. I think Sam is the youngest one in there.



Once he realized that I was there he got a little shy and kept wanting to run back and sit with me.



Sam's favorite trick is a somersault, which they call tip-overs. He does them all over the house.



This is a video showing some of the skills he has been practicing.

Sam's 3rd Birthday Party

We had Sam's birthday party last weekend. He was so excited that he could hardly wait for everyone to come over. He was especially excited when we started bringing out the presents. We had some Thomas the Train stickers as party favors and Sam put the extras all over his presents.



Chris took this picture of Sam playing outside before everyone came over.



Cleo has been very happy since we started spending more time outside.



Sam greeted everyone at the door with "Hey! I got presents for you!" We played inside for a little while, but soon ended up outside.




The ESPN Better Batter was a huge hit.





Sam let us know he was ready for cake and presents.



Sam selected the Thomas the Train theme (surprise!) so we got a Thomas cake. We got it from Hands On Design in Allen. I thought the cake was wonderful. Sam wanted to eat Thomas' eyes (strange).




Sam had a little cold so he blew out his candles on a cupcake.



PRESENT TIME!!!




Front row seats







Of course as soon as all the presents were open we all had to test them out. Our living room was a wreck for several days, but we didn't mind because Sam was having so much fun playing with everything.



Sam and Hagen ran all over the house either pretending that the monster was going to get them or that they were in the river and a crocodile was going to get them. Then they sat down for a snack, but were still hamming it up.

Nighttime Nautiness

Night before last we heard a bump upstairs about an hour after we had put Sam to bed. Chris went upstairs to check on him, opened the door, and died out laughing. When I got up there, Sam's room was ransacked. His floor lamp was laying on it's side on the floor, he had tons of books and diapers all over his bed, and Sam was standing there with only his pajama bottoms on (inside out and backwards). Anything that was in Sam's room earlier that evening was now in his bed. He kept saying, "I changed my diaper. I changed my diaper." (He still wears pull-ups at night.) First we found the missing pajama top and put his bottoms on right. Then I realized he had extra pairs of pajamas laying on the floor and he was wearing socks. We had not put him to bed wearing socks. He was actually only wearing one sock. The other one was in his hand. When I got it from him, I realized it was wet. Then we saw wet wads of bathroom tissue on his floor. Strange. We started pulling all the books, etc. out of his bed and realized that he had an entire box of diapers spread all over his bed. Strange. We start putting the diapers back in the box and realize that some of them are wet. Apparently while reading books in bed, Sam had decided he needed a cup of water, spilled said cup of water in the bed, attempted first to soak it up with bathroom tissue, and proceded to mop it up with an entire box of diapers. Wonderful. Chris and I were laughing so hard we were crying. We had to strip the bed, get everything cleaned up, and get Sam back in bed.

Unfortunately the story does not end there. We heard a bump upstairs again last night about an hour after we had put Sam in bed. This time the room was not exactly ransacked, but every single light was on. Lights that Sam cannot reach. And nothing looks out of place, except the stack of books in his bed, so we are not sure how he got the lights on. We scold him and put all of the books away, tuck him back into bed, and say goodnight. We then went into the media room to watch a show or two. When we were leaving to go downstairs to go to bed, we see that Sam's lights are on again (at 11pm). Wonderful. This time all the lights are on again, but there is more of a sign that he is climbing on things to reach them. He looked like a zombie he was so tired. He had tons of books in his bed again and other random stuff from around his room. For example, we have these plastic "frames" on his wall which we use to display photos and his art work from school. He had removed all of the photos and paper from these frames and had them in the bed too. I told him he was in trouble and that he wouldn't be able to play on his playset the next day since he wasn't minding (I knew it was going to be raining today, and that he wouldn't be able to play outside any way, but Sam didn't know that.) We checked on him several more times before we went to bed to make sure the lights were staying off.

When we got up this morning, same drill - all the lights were on and tons of books in the bed. Again we get, "I changed my diaper. I changed my diaper." Really? Then where is the old, wet diaper? We looked everywhere: garbage can, bed, diaper box, drawers. Again, wonderful. Maybe he didn't change his diaper. If not, he's still got on the wet one and we need to put him in underwear any way. I take off his diaper and realize what has happened. He put the new clean diaper on top of the old wet diaper. Yes, he was wearing two diapers. Wonderful. We do the whole talk again about how he's supposed to stay in bed and leave the lights out, blah, blah.

Fast forward to tonight. I put him in bed and give him the speach, and make him repeat it after me. "Sam is going to stay in bed with the lights out. It is not time for books. It is time for sleep. Sam's birthday party is tomorrow and he needs sleep so he can have energy to play. Mommy and Daddy will be back to check on you in a few minutes to make sure the lights are out." I'm downstairs for maybe ten minutes before we hear a bump upstairs. Chris goes up to check and Sam already has all the lights on. So, he got the speach from Chris. Again. I've been back to check on him again twice so far - no lights yet. Crossing my fingers that it stays that way.

Baby #2 is on the way!

We brought a souvenir home from Snowmass. Baby #2 is officially due October 24th. I'm 16 weeks pregnant now. The sonogram picture above was at 12 weeks. We'll have another sonogram in 3 weeks and should find out if it's a boy or a girl then.

I'm starting to show a little. I'm in that fun stage where my normal clothes are too small, but maternity clothes are too big. With Sam I was pregnant in the Winter and Spring, so most of my maternity clothes were long sleeve and pants. I'm really excited about buying maternity shorts (ha!).



This is some video from the 12 week sonogram.



This is a picture from a sonogram at 7 weeks.

I'm past the first trimester so I'm feeling a lot better. I couldn't even think about food for three months and Chris had to sneak cologne in the bathroom with the vent on. It's been a little harder the second time around. When I was pregnant with Sam, I could take a nap any time and didn't have someone who wanted to play 24x7. The good news is that I don't have time to obsess with every detail. Even though the first trimester is over I am still extremely tired, so it turns out that I am anemic already. I was also anemic with Sam, but it seems like that came much later.

We've told Sam that he's going to be a big brother. He seems excited, but I don't think he quite gets it yet. One night at dinner he pulled up his shirt and patted his stomach and said "this is my baby belly." Then Chris, trying to poke fun at Sam, lifts up his shirt, pokes his stomach out, and says "this is my baby belly" in a funny voice. Sam got wide-eyed and said, "Oh, DeeDah has a BIG baby belly!"

Sam's Birthday Present

We got a Woodplay playset for Sam for his birthday. He's got tons of energy lately and he loves the park so we wanted him to have something fun to do in the back yard.



The whole project started with getting approval from our HOA to put the playset in our backyard. This is the drawing that was approved. We have a 15 foot setback on our property so we had to be very exact when placing the playset so that it was the maximum distance allowed away from our house. We also had a hard time finding a playset that was long and narrow like this and still allowed for proper safety clearance for swinging and sliding (and running in circles around it).



We'd had the installation postponed once by rain already last week, so we were hoping that the rain could wait long enough to get it installed. We didn't tell Sam that it was coming, so he was extremely excited when it showed up. He helps Chris build all of the Ikea furniture that we buy, so he wanted to help "the guys" build the playset. We could not pull him away. He kept walking around the backyard, jumping up and down, and clapping.



Here's the tower going up. We have a pretty good slope to our yard, so they had to dig in on one side and raise it up with a beam on the other. We hope to regrade the yard so that it is more level, but that is another project for another year.



Sam found ways to play with the playset before it was even finished. The neighbor kids where in their backyard. They had climbed the fence to watch the playset going up.



It was short-attention-span theater when the playset was completed. Sam went from one thing to the next and only stayed on one thing for about 15 seconds before moving on. He couldn't really get the hang of the trapeeze so we put the belt swing on for him to try out. I think the belt swings at most parks are too high, so he still likes the safety of the toddler swing.



The climbing wall is Sam's favorite part of the playset. The angle is a little too steep for my liking based on the slope of our yard. I think we are going to try to build it out a little more to get a safer angle on it until he gets a little older.



Sam has a racing wheel, a telescope, and a periscope in his fort.



This is, without a doubt, the fastest slide that I have ever been on. If you launch yourself off with the beam above the slide, you will fly off the end of the slide, and you have to be careful not to go into the fence. Sam doesn't have that problem at his size - he just flies off and lands on the ground (and laughs). I tried to talk Sam (and Chris) into getting one of the slower slides, but those daredevils wanted the fast one.