Christmas is almost here!

Ok, Christmas holidays + Thanksgiving vacation + being sick + crazy work schedule = no posting for a really long time! We have over a thousand pictures that we took at Thanksgiving which I haven't even started looking through yet. I'm hoping to have a few days off during Christmas to catch up on some of that.

My mom is in town visiting and we took Sam to see Santa last week. We told him that he had to tell Santa to bring him toys for Christmas and that he needed to tell him what he wanted. We had him pretty excited that morning and he kept telling us that we were going to see Santa. We went to the new Village at Allen shopping center and there was no one in line to see Santa! It was great! I took Sam's coat off and he started walking up to Santa really slowly. Santa got up and picked Sam up and put him in his lap. He started asking him what he wanted for Christmas. "Do you like cars or trucks or trains? Do you like Thomas?" Wow! How did he know that? So Sam was still a little scared and shy, but the lady taking the picture started making funny noises and jumping up to get Sam to smile. He talked about seeing Santa the whole rest of the day.

Sam helped us decorate the tree this year. We have a fiber optic tree, and Sam started trying to hang the ornaments on the individual fiber strands at first. Once he learned how to hang the ornaments on the branches, he picked two spots and hung all the ornaments together in each of those spots. The poor tree was hanging to one side, so we had to help him redistribute them. He had so much fun and was really sad when we didn't have any more ornaments to hang.





Chris and I had our 12th anniversary on 12/12. We went to Dallas Fish Market for a nice dinner while Melanie babysat Sam. It was great to get out for a nice dinner, but we are totally fuddy-duddies. We were still in bed by midnight.




Here is Sam with his Spider-man boo boo ice pack. He wants his Spidy-man any time he gets a little bump.


It's been really cold here lately, so we've been putting a little fleece hat on Sam. When I go pick him up at day care, they already have him in his hat waiting. By the time we get home, he's had the hat on at least 20 minutes and it gives him crazy hair. By the way, that's Sam's attempt at a normal smile pose in the first picture. When we ask him to smile for a picture now, he squints his eyes and smiles with his mouth open.



Just a quick shot of Sam helping me peel carrots for beef stew.

Big Boy Bedroom

We moved Sam into his big boy bedroom about a month ago. He's been doing great! He had a tough time the first night, but he's done fine ever since. He actually staid in bed the first week or so until we would come get him, just like with his crib. Now he gets up and knocks on the door when he's ready for us to come get him. "Mommy! Dee-Dah! Come get me!"

We got all of the furniture and most of the decorations from Ikea. The theme is bugs. It's not very obvious because we don't have the art on the walls yet. We have a cute set of bug sheets, too, but all these pictures are with the striped ones.



This is what the room looked like when we started. Like most Ikea furniture, we had to build everything.




This is the bed, dresser, bookcase, and bench. That's the mattress rolled up in the corner.



Sam had a blast helping Chris build the furniture. Sam handed Chris all the pieces and even helped with some of the tools.



He loved his bed right away, especially this little cubby hole. The bed can flip over to be a loft bed when he gets older.



Sam loved climbing in and out of the furniture as it was being built. We took our time putting everything together. It took us about three weeks to build everything



Of course Sam had to jump on the bed as soon as it was put together!



Helping with the instructions.



Helping build the furniture.



Chris hanging the leaf canopies.



Messy room before we organized everything.



Finished room.



Sam's artwork for decoration and a light in the shape of a bug on the left.



Leaf canopy and a tent on the bed.

Storytime.



Bedtime.



Sam loves the independence of his room. He loves to turn his own lights on and off. He can even get a glass of water from the sink in his bathroom by himself. He's also starting to try to get dressed by himself in the morning before we come to get him. We are so proud of him and of how well he is doing.

Halloween Carnival

I'm just now getting around to posting the pictures from the Halloween carnival at Sam's day care.  It was a lot more fun this year.  We didn't fight with Sam to wear a costume, so he was already starting off in a better mood.

He was a little scared when we first got there, but that didn't last very long.  He started playing all the games as soon as he found out he was going to get candy.

We went to the carnival with the Johnsons.  Jackson was a motorcycle dude.  Check out the cool custom T-shirt that Brad made.

Sofia went as Pebbles.  Jennifer made the costume and it was just adorable!

We took lots of pictures of Sam playing the games.

Pin the nose on the pumpkin.

Does it count if you don't actually try to toss the beanbags?

Cake walk.

Andrea went with us to the carnival.  Here is Sam is telling her about the ducky.  This was Sam's favorite game.  He probably went back to play it three times.  It was like the ducky game that he played at the fair.  That's his teacher Mrs. April in the background.  He kept talking about her funny hat.

Mister

Andrea came to visit a few weeks ago.  Melanie calls Andrea, "Sister."  Sam turned that into Mister.  I tried to correct him, but Andrea liked Mister.  Sam wasn't shy around Andrea at all.  He wanted her to hold him and sat in her lap a lot.  He especially liked having someone new to play trains and play-doh.

We always take the opportunity to take a photo when the three of us are together.  The candid shots are always some of my favorites.

We went to eat lunch at the P.F. Chang's at Watters Creek one day.  We walked around all the green spaces and Andrea stopped for a picture with the bronze horses.

Ahhhh play-doh .... what could be more fun?

We were sad to see Andrea go.  Sam is still asking, "Where's Mister?"