Ladenia

I saw this recipe for Ladenia on Kalofagas and thought it would be a lot of fun to try to make it with Sam.

Sam is a great helper, especially in the kitchen. He wants to do as much as he can. He mostly measures, pours, and stirs. This becomes a challenge most nights for dinner since I don't want him any where near the stove or a knife yet. It does give me a wonderful excuse to make desserts though.

The recipe was pretty easy to follow. It is similar to pizza, but it is definitely not pizza. I would say it was a cross between focaccia bread and pizza. We added feta cheese to ours and had grilled chicken breasts on the side for dinner.

Here's a close-up of the finished product mostly eaten.

Rainy Day Memories

When I posted about Sam playing in the rain last week, I mentioned that I used to love to play in the rain. I ran across this picture this week and thought I'd post it. It's me and Andrea with our cousins Caren and Chance and our neighbors Marcus and Justin. I'm the one on the far right. Andrea is on the back left. I think I was about six and Andrea was about three. We're sitting in our cousins' driveway which just so happened to be across the street from our house. My favorite thing to do in the rain was splash in the big puddle that always formed in Aunt Ruby's driveway (our neighbor, but not actually our aunt).

36 Weeks - Almost There!

I'm 36 weeks along and feeling extra large. I was doing great until a month ago, but I think I've put on 10 lbs in the last four weeks. You can really see it in my face. My hands and feet started swelling this week too, and that was one milestone I was hoping to avoid this time around.

We're naming the baby Benjamin, but we plan to call him Ben. Sam really seemed to get a different attitude when he could start calling him Ben instead of "the baby."

I'm sitting here on the couch and Ben is doing somersaults. I swear Sam didn't move this much. We're convinced he's coming early, though we really don't want him to come too early. It looks like he flipped the last time we went to the doctor, so the doctor doesn't think he's breach any more. We are scheduled to be induced on Monday, October 19th (Pops' birthday). The original due date was Saturday, Oct 24th.

We drove past the hospital after Sam's soccer class a few weeks ago.
Me: Look Sam, there's the hospital where you were born.
Sam: It is?
Me: And Ben is going to be born there too.
Sam: But, Ben is in your tummy.
Me: I know, but he's going to come out in a few weeks.
Sam: But, he will break you!
Me: (after laughing) I'll be okay, Sweetie.



We've been getting things ready for the baby for a while now and Sam has really been helping out. Here he is helping Chris build the cradle.



We decided to have a cradle and changing table in our bedroom since we're in a two story house with the nursery upstairs and our bedroom downstairs. I don't really have any interest in going up and down the stairs for every feeding all night long. I took this picture with a wide angle lens so it makes the cradle look larger than it is.



Sam also helped us build the swing. He loves playing with the swing. I keep walking by and finding new toys that he's put in the swing: cars, alligators, etc. He especially likes to turn on the music and sing along to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I've also caught him trying to climb in the swing which is not so great. I really like this swing because it has an AC adapter, and when it is plugged into the wall you don't have to reset it every seven minutes to keep it swinging and playing music.



After we got through putting the swing together and taking a few pictures, Sam crawled under one of the dining room chairs and started crying. It was the strangest thing. It was like it finally clicked that we are going to have a baby and everything won't be about him any more. He calmed down pretty quickly when we started telling him stories about when he was a baby and showing him pictures of him in his baby swing.



I had one last lunch out with the ladies for a baby shower last weekend. We had so much fun, the food was great, and I loved all of the cute baby gifts of course! We were sitting around the table doing the normal talk about babies and it hits me -- I'm really about to have another baby in a few weeks!



Later that evening Chris was taking pictures of my big belly when Sam wanted to get in on the action.



Of course Mimi had to join in too!



When we did Sam's nursery, we went all out and put up wainscoting and chair railing and painted the whole room. With this house being so new we really didn't want to start any remodeling projects. I compromised with a few color blocks to make things standout from all the beige.



I taped off the wall, but the paint tends to bleed a little since the walls are textured. I'm a perfectionist so I had to go back and touch it up.



Mimi kept Sam entertained while I painted. He pulled out all of the baby books and got Mimi to read them to him.



With Sam's nursery, my arts and crafts project was the Latin and Greek alphabet border. This time we wanted something much less permanent (we used Liquid Nails to attach that border to the wall). After thinking about it for way too long I decided to copy a series of canvas paintings from the Pottery Barn Kids catalog. I might have even ordered it from the catalog if I hadn't waited until it was out of stock to decide it was what I wanted.



Here's a picture of the finished nursery. The theme is ABC's and 123's.



We still have the same nursery furniture. We just changed out all of the bedding.



I spent many hours in that rocking chair for two years. Here we go again ...



Here's the changing table. The bathroom is to the left and the closet is to the right.



This is a close-up of the chick hatching series of paintings.



Here's a close-up of the toddler quilt which we are using as a wall hanging.

First Day at New School

Sam started a new preschool last week. They opened a new day care and school at the entrance to our neighborhood. It cuts 20 minutes off of our drive time every day, so it is very convenient. It is a Montessori school, so it's more like a preschool than a day care at Sam's age group.

We went to the open house the week before last and Sam was immediately interested. They have separate rooms for music, art, science, library, and computer lab. Sam's favorite was the computer lab of course. He started asking the next day when he could go to his new school.

When I dropped him off the first day, he went straight for the library. We told him it was time for class, but he said, "I need to read a story right now!" It was the same drill when I picked him up at the end of the day. He took me straight to the library and picked out three books for me to read. The teachers told me he didn't have any problems adjusting and that he didn't have a shy bone in his body. Since the school just opened, the teacher to student ratio is very low and Sam is getting lots of attention which he loves of course.

I haven't been able to get much info out of Sam as far as what he is doing or what things he likes. He's being really silly lately and answers questions with nonsense phrases like "tooter, scooter, booter." They have parent observation and teacher's conferences next week so hopefully we'll learn more then. They are having a parents' night at the school tomorrow night so that we can learn more about the types of things they do in the classroom.

Some other interesting things about the school include uniforms and school lunches. It will be a few weeks before the uniforms are in so Sam is just wearing his normal clothes for now. I wonder what it's going to be like when he picks out his clothes in the morning and realizes he can wear this blue shirt or that blue shirt or that blue shirt, etc. Making Sam's lunch has been fun so far. The added benefit is that I'm making lunch for Chris and me too at the same time. Ask me how much I love it a few weeks from now when the baby is here and I have sooo much free time!



Sam says ...

Sam: Mimi, I love you so hard!


Sam also says ...

Chris: Sam, what happened to your socks?
Sam: I left them at school.
Chris: Why?
Sam: Because I am three.

Chris Turns 36

I turned 36 on Saturday. As busy as we've been, the last thing I wanted was a big event.

We bought chocolate cake from Mozart Bakery in Plano. Ian and Roya turned us on to this bakery a few weeks ago when they brought a cake over. It was gone in a day, a good sign.

Thankfully the cashier didn't give me 36 candles to put on the cake. No need for a bonfire.

Of course, no 3 year old boy can resist taking part of two of the most wonderful things: playing with fire and cake.

Sam went for the trifecta and tried to use a toy whistle to help blow out the candles. I had to hold him back a bit.

Sam approved of the cake.

Costas got me a Sypderco Tenacious knife. I've been wanting a different knife recently after carrying a Swiss Army knife for the past 20 years. The knife is smaller than what it looks but it is very sharp. Excellent for opening boxes!

Melanie got me an Aerolatte. It's a little battery powered whisk used to froth milk. I was surprised at how well it whipped up a batch of milk.

Mary Lou got me a bottle of Caron 3rd Man cologne. One night I ended up stumbling on something about fragrances/perfumes while playing around with the laptop. Three books and many samples later and this is one of the men's fragrances I really liked.

Costas got me an Aeropress coffee maker. This thing is like a small french press with a filter. It make an excellent cup of coffee. I wanted it for the office because the coffee stinks there and I don't want to make a full pot of coffee. The milk in front of me was whipped up with the Aerolatte.

Sam has thrown some huge fits lately. Thankfully he's slowly growing out of these and he's started to respond to some friendly ribbing about them. Melanie set him straight before we cut the cake.

Clownfish

Sam's Nemo Book: Dory is a Blue Tang fish.

Sam: Nemo is an orange fish.

Mommy: Nemo is an orange Clownfish.

Sam: But he doesn't have a red nose!

Bye Bye Diapers

We said bye-bye to diapers a week ago! Yay!!! A four week break or so before we get to start all over again!

Sam has been potty trained for about a year now, but he's still been sleeping in pull-ups at night. We noticed about a month or two ago that he was mostly waking up with dry diapers, so three weeks ago we told him if he could make it two weeks without wetting the diaper at night he could start sleeping in underwear. He was really excited and asked every day if it was time to sleep in underwear yet.

Sam is very proud of himself, and of course we are proud of him too. He reminds us every morning that he doesn't have to pick out underwear because he's already wearing them.

We're lucky to have a bathroom connected to his bedroom. He's been getting up in the morning and using his stool to turn on the light and go the the bathroom by himself. That actually prompted the other new bathroom news ... Sam is also learning to wipe himself. That's kind of a scary proposition, but he's been doing fairly well.

We've gotten four straight days of rain. Not the thunderstorm/tornado type storms we usually get in the summer, but a nice constant rain, like the kind I remember playing in when I was growing up. We got these rainboots and umbrella for Sam for his birthday, but this is the first chance he had to play in the rain. He didn't quite get the concept and tried to get on the swing with his umbrella. Next time we'll have to find some nice big puddles he can splash in.

Here's a shot of Sam licking the beaters after helping me make an apricot nectar cake for Melanie's birthday.

Catching Up

It has turned out to be a very busy month at work, and that always translates into no pictures and no posts. We've taken a few pictures along the way, so here's what we've been up to ...

This is me two weeks ago at 30 weeks and feeling large. I don't think I've gotten any bigger and the measurements and scales agreed when we went for the 32 week appointment. The baby is moving a lot and kicking me in places that aren't very comfortable. I'm guessing that's because he's still breach, but we won't know until 36 weeks.

We took Sam to Teddy Bear Camp a few weeks ago. It was a class for 2 & 3 year olds at the hospital where we will deliver. Sam brought Doggy Bear and the instructor talked about what it would be like with a new baby in the house (how babies eat, cry, sleep, look, etc.). Then we took a tour of the labor and delivery ward. They showed us a couple of places we could take Sam to run around and play when he gets tired of being stuck in the room. They also took us past the nursery and showed all the kids what a newborn baby looks like. All the kids wanted to hold the baby.



After the tour we went back to the room for a snack and arts and crafts. Sam made a door hanger for the baby's room. They also taught him how to tell which toys are big enough and safe for the baby to play with.



Here's a picture of Lulu reading a book to Sam. This was from the week that Sam had his surgery. We had the follow up appointment with the ENT and Sam's hearing is better. The really good news is his ears aren't hurting him any more.

Sam has been taking swimming lessons all summer. He was pretty scared of the water when the summer started, but he's fearless now. I feel better when he swims with the noodle though. He likes to swim back and forth between Chris and me with no floaties and under water. It makes me very nervous because he can't exactly raise his head out of the water to take a breath. He's even jumping off the side of the pool for us to catch him.



I couldn't get any good videos of Sam swimming because it takes two of us for him to swim between, but here's a quick video of him playing in the water.



Sam LOVES puzzles. He takes the same puzzles apart and puts them back together over and over. I can't even remember the last time he played with his trains.



Sam has been throwing some horrible fits lately. It seems like most of his fits are about TV so we've been trying to limit how much he watches. Who knows what this particular fit was about, but he wore himself out doing it. We were telling Mimi about his fits the other day, and when she looked at him he just shrugged and said, "I don't know why I did that!"



Sam still likes to help us cook. He asks for pancakes most mornings, but we only make them on the weekends.



Chris and Sam were making banana bread here.



We've been going to McDonald's after practice on Saturdays. Sam is still in soccer, but Hagen is playing baseball now. They don't seem to mind so much that they are in different class as long as they get to play at McDonald's. Notice the matching buzz cuts.



The last couple of weeks have been Lego cars and that has been a big hit.



Of course the daddys have to put on all the stickers before the boys can play with the cars, but the boys love to "help".



We've discovered Paciugo Gelato and it is wonderful! Sam picked Black Raspberry for his flavor. I'm sure the store owners were regretting the white leather seats by the time we left!