Oma's Birthday

Oma's birthday was 3 weeks ago, and I made the kids some cute shirts for the occasion. It was pretty easy to do with some letter stencils, felt, and the magical "Stitch Witchery" bonding tape.

Here's Anne with her hair out of her face (a rare occasion)And my Bo-Bo...
Taking a break from yelling "NO Sambo!" and screaming at each other
And now, we must soothe ourselves.
Thanks, Oma, for taking their picture! We'll get a new camera one of these days...

Classmates

Sammy and I are taking a Parent/Tot swim class at the YMCA. It is a pack of mommies and toddlers singing and playing games in the water. It's fun, but I'm usually ready to be done after 30 minutes :)

I find people's names to be very interesting, so here are the names of Sam's current (and future) classmates. Diversity!

Brooklyn
Lexie
Isabelle
Ava
Svea

Caleb
Anthony
Tavaris
TJ
Carter
Davis
Owen

Marches Past

A little blast from the past for you today:

March 2008--Anne was 5 months old (and still a brunette!)

March 2009--getting ready for Erin's bridal shower and role as flower girl
March 2010--ready for a day of hockey

Oh, Sambo

To continue the theme of black-and-blue bruised babies, Sammy managed to fall off the couch on Saturday and then fall over me last night, landing on his head both times. I'm concerned when he cries, but also concerned for the times he DOESN'T cry. I guess if I just slammed my forehead into the floor I would cry, but sometimes he just dusts himself off and keeps going.

Yesterday he pushed our little kid table to the back of the couch, climbed up on the table, then rolled himself over the back of the couch. It was terrifying and hilarious at the same time.

Last night both kids were wild and not calming down for bed. I had gone to their room once before to try to quiet them, and on the second time I was very stern. I looked at Sam and said "No! No! You will be quiet!" (not yelling, but stern!) He just stared at me, dead silent, like "What the heck was that?" I laid him down and he didn't move a muscle--just stared at me until I left the room. Apparently I am not stern with him very often!

Sam-a-palooza!

It is all Sammy, all the time around here. Oma snapped some cute pictures last week so we can finally get some images around here!

This is Sam fingerpainting. They used a mixture of sweetened condensed milk and food coloring to make shiny paint. He was a sticky mess, but he smelled so sweet!
The official 18 month photo. His shirt says "Mountain Dude", and it was a gift from Erin and Todd. They picked it up on their honeymoon in Breckenridge, CO. He looks pretty cute!
Good thing Oma got a picture last week--this week he has a bruise on his forehead, a scrape on his eye, and a runny nose. Not exactly photogenic. People tell me that is par for the course when you have a son--constant bumps and bruises.

More cute things he says: oopsy-daisy (oopy-deezee), happy birthday (ah-pee day-day), and "What?" while holding up both of his hands.

More Words and Stuff

Little Sam is coming up with more and more words every day. This was one of my favorite stages with Anne and it is the same with Sammy. Yesterday he said "cookie" with extreme clarity and said "Oma, poop" when he had a dirty diaper. He is also very good at inflection--his words "go up" when he's asking for something or asking for confirmation. His "dog?" sounds different than "dog!", which indicates he understands the purpose of his speech. Such a smarty-pants!

Speaking of pants, I forgot to mention that Sammy can identify many things by pointing, including pants, shirt, shoes, socks, belly, eyes, ears, nose, hair, and teeth. He also screams "teeth!" at night when it is time to brush teeth before bed. He really loves doing that and looks like such a big boy standing on the stepstool at the sink rinsing his toothbrush. Makes me say "Awwww...."

We were getting ready for a bath the other night and I told Sammy "take your pants off" and he bent down, grabbed the hems of his pants, and pulled them up to his knees. It was hilarious.