Mr. Big Stuff

Sam is changing so much every day now. He's getting so independent. He definitely knows what he does and does not want to do. I think his favorite word is NO.

Sam sat in a booster seat at a restaurant for the first time this weekend. We'd never really thought about trying it before. He's pretty much been using a booster seat at home since we've stopped using the tray. He's been climbing down out of his seat at home for a while, and we've stopped clipping him in, so it wasn't much of a stretch for him. He got a big grin on his face though. He did really well and didn't try to climb down while we were eating.



One of Sam's other favorite words is YEA! Any time he does anything the he's proud of, we all say yea and clap. Now he just likes saying it and says it a lot. Melanie thinks that this is most hilarious and encourages it at every opportunity. This particular day he was practicing jumping. Then he got his monkey pillow to jump. He loves his monkey pillow. When he doesn't think we are watching, he'll "feed" his stuffed animals or show them how to do things like color. It's like now that he knows how to do it he wants to teach someone else. It's just the cutest thing ever.

We were sitting together the other day practicing his words. He goes back and forth between signing and talking. He signed cracker, then train, then he signed something that I knew I should recognize, but I didn't. I was talking to myself out loud and said, "and what is that one?" Sam answered, "ball," clear as day. It just catches me off guard when he answers me back now.

One day this week I was dressing Sam for school. He doesn't like getting dressed because he knows that he's about to leave for day care, so I always try to make it fun. On this particular day I was putting him in a long sleeve button down shirt. He loves buttons on our shirts or his shirts. He can even say "button." I was telling him to look at all the buttons on his shirt and that Mommy didn't have any buttons today. He reached over, pulled up my shirt, and pointed to my belly button. I died out laughing, but had to agree that I did indeed have a button. Then when I was trying to button his sleeves, he started fussing. I asked him if he wanted his sleeves rolled, and he said "roll," which he's never said before. It was funny to me though because that's the way Chris wears his long sleeve button up shirts too.



We've all had sore throats over the last week or so. Chris even ended up with Strep throat. He is sick of taking his antibiotics. We're all feeling better, but Sam and I are still coughing a little at night.

Chris and I took vacation Friday through Tuesday (today). We needed some recovery time, but we also had a lot of stuff to do around the house. We are planning on trying to sell our house and buy a new one in April/May. While we were off we rented a storage shed and cleaned out the garage. We made a dent in it, but we have sooo much more to do. At least we were able to give Melanie a little more space in her room. The garage door opener died in the middle of everything, so we're getting Home Depot to install a new one this week. It's going to be hard spending money on the house getting it fixed up because we know it's not for us to enjoy at this point. We love our house. We've been here for nine years. There are several things that are exactly the way we want them. It's going to be hard to leave, but we are just out of space.




Melanie got a new car this weekend. It's a 2007 Hyundai Sonata. It's only got 22K miles and it looks brand new. She had to test drive cars in the rain. The salesman said that the rain brings out the serious buyers. Chris and Melanie both said that they had a good experience with CarMax. Chris said we will probably look there first when we need a new (used) car. Melanie drove her car to work for the first time today and said it drove like a dream.