Sam's 1st birthday

Sam's first birthday with several "parties." He really didn't get very messy and prefered the plate to the cake.

Happy Easter

Meeting the Easter bunny, egg hunts, stealing friends eggs, matching outfits, and more egg hunts with Cousin Masen.

Zoo

We went to the zoo with Grandma and Uncle Matt. It was the only day of the week that didn't rain and it was quite beautiful outside. Boise Zoo is not much to talk about, but we will be getting giraffes and lions this summer and that will be huge. Right now the tiger is the most exciting thing to see.

Family and Birthdays

With Uncle Matt
I know they look like an item, but it's just my brother and sister.


My mom and brother came up to visit for the week. Tonight we celebrated 3 of our birthdays. Mine was last week, Matt's is tomorrow and Sam's is on monday. We didn't even eat the cake because we stuffed ourselves at dinner. I'm sure it will still get eaten.

Happy St. Patricks Day

Grandma was here to celebrate St. Patrick's day with us. It was pretty green around here. We even had green pancakes for breakfast and green shamrock jigglers for snacks.

Sign Language: more & finished

I know this seems to be a monopoly of Sam on this blog, but he's learning and doing so many new things every day and they grow up so fast. Grandma doesn't get to see these milestones and neither do a lot of others, though they see him frequently. Both of the girls spoke at least a little sign language and I believe it helped their speech development. I hope to do the same with Sam, although I haven't been as diligent with it. He has been saying "finished" for awhile now, but I don't believe he has connected the sign to the meaning simply because he does it frequently and not usually when he is actually finished. This was the first time he has said more though, he finally figured out he could get more if he did it. I guess we just needed to give him something he liked enough. He doesn't have the fine motor skills enough to make it "understandable," but as long as I know what he's saying, that's all that matters. What word should I teach next?

Driving

We decided to bring in the car from the garage so Sam could actually enjoy it. I remember when the girls loved riding this around our apartment (the days before we had a yard to play in). He of course loves it.

Which one is plugged?

Can you tell which eye was not fixed? This is how Sam wakes up every morning (sometimes worse). Now that he's sick again he wakes up with both eyes matted shut. He's had a fever the past three days. What does it take to make him well?

Walking - almost, okay not quite

The videos I take at night always turn out real dark, sorry. We really want Sam to start walking before our trip because I won't let him do any crawling at the park and he's going to get real ancy. He's come a little way because he can keep up with the lion most of the time as opposed to a month ago when he would fall the minute the lion started to move. He still gets too scared when he finds himself standing alone and immediately sits down. Taylor is in the background talking to the video camera. She thinks she is recording. One of Sam's upper teeth is finding its way out. He once again has a cold/fever. I really don't like this time of year. It appears that Sams tear duct is plugged still in at least one eye, but you won't see me going back. Supposedly it's supposed to fix itself of the problem eventually, so I'd rather let it take its course then go through that again. Once he's past 13 months I don't think they would do it anymore anyway and it takes almost two months to get into his doctor.

Trampoline Hi

For those who are concerned - I did catch him when he fell.

Blocked Tear ducts no more! (Hopefully)

We went to the eye doctor for Sam today. He's had drainage coming from one eye for several months and the other eye started last month. The cause is a blockage in the tear duct so the tears don't drain like they should. The doctor probed these ducts, but first they had to strap him down and numb his eyes - the poor guy. It looked like an awful experience. I sure don't ever want to go through it. It seemed to look harder then it should have been and we heard a "pop" when the blockage gave way. She said it was the most plugged she's seen in a long time. OOOOWWW! He seems to be doing fine now. Let's just hope it worked and was worth all that pain and anguish

Faces

Dani decided she needed some lipstick so she used the marker Taylor left on the table then Taylor saw all the attention Dani was getting for it and decided she needed to make her own statement. Needless to say they won't be using markers for awhile. I suppose there are worse things they could have drawn on.

Background

Thanks to those who helped me figure out the background. It took me a while to get it figured out. I'll have to play around with it a little more until I get something I really like, but I don't have the time right now.

Good deals

Most of you know I thrive off of good deals. Especially when they're free. I've had a good weekend. Sam is absolutely going to love his new toddler bed when he gets a little bigger. It's a race car bed just like you see in the picture. We also ended up with another toddler bed that has pink rails (we have no use for it now, but maybe in the future)? We also ended up with a lot of new clothes. I actually have jeans that fit me now! I love Craigslist and Freecycle!!!

I was also wondering, I've noticed some real cute backgrounds on other people's blogs and was wondering if anyone would be willing to explain how they do it. I know how to change templates, but how do you choose your backgrounds (ie: hearts for Valentines day). I get bored with the look of my blog.

Happy Valentines Day!

Thanks for the Valentine shirts Grandma!







































Matching shirts from Aunt Shirley.





























Swinging in his swing during a spurt of warm weather.





































Happy Valentines day from us!

Valentine Tea Party

Thanks to Grandma for always sending fun packages. The girls were begging to have a tea party when the valentine package arrived so the Valentine treats were a big hit as well as the outfits for the animals. Of course Sam had to be a part of it all.

Taylor making Daddy lunch (Peanut Butter and Jelly). She tried to make him the same thing for dinner too. She is into making us meals. Every morning I wake up to her trying to make me breakfast. And yes, she is wearing a Raggedy Ann Daisy Kingdom dress and gets lots of compliments on it which makes her want to wear it even more. She insists on doing her own hair too. Both of the girls did just get new hair cuts, but you would never know if I didn't tell you. The purpose was to even out the hair which had been previously cut by Taylor a long time ago, but I don't think they did much.

Sam enjoying a new chair.

Dreams do come true!

It's official! We're actually going. Unexpected, but a pleasant surprise. This is one of those trips you always plan to take, but it's always well in the future. However, an opportunity arose that we just couldn't pass up. Mark's employer requested that he attend an all expense paid Psychiatric Nursing conference. He had the choice between Las Vegas, Philadelphia, or Orlando. When considering this we agreed that there will never be a time when we get 4 free nights in a very nice Disney resort (Corondao Springs)

for this price ever. All we have to pay for is the flight for the rest of us (which is expensive enough) and park tickets. And I guess we should eat too (except Mark will be eating well with his food allowance). We figured with our decent tax return we could splurge this once. We are excited and the girls of course can't wait.

Tents and dancing

I have been trying for a week now to create a new post and I don't know if it's my computer or internet service or what, but it won't let me post anything. If you don't see anything for awhile again, that's probably what's happening. I've noticed everyone else seems to be posting just fine. I haven't had any other computer related problems, oh well. This is a picture of everyone crammed into a little tent. The girls love to play inside and even get Daddy in every once in awhile. The video is Sam dancing. Pretty soon and the girls will have their prince to dance around the room with which is what they requested when they found out we were having a boy.

Firestation and Standing

Sam has finally learned how to pull himself up and he does - on everything. I can't move anymore because he always pulls up on my legs and if I move he topples over. We went to the firestation for Dani's preschool and since it was a snow day Taylor got to come along too. I can't believe how much snow we've been getting. The igloo from the last post melted and caved in, but today we got a brand new pile and Taylor's been begging to get a new igloo started. I've been trying to make this post for a few days and the site hasn't been letting me until just now. Has anyone else had this problem? Sam and Dani have had some excretions from their eyes - pink eye? I'm going to try to take them to the doctor tomorrow. Mark was scheduled to fly to Spokane today, but because of all these storms his class was canceled. It's nice to have him home, but now they'll just have to schedule in another time to go and that won't be convenient. The snow was so bad today that church was canceled in all of Nampa. I was grateful because I didn't want to be driving on those roads. Mark spent the whole morning shoveling off driveways - what a good man. Because of all the snow-ins he has to go to work tonight though. Poor guy - worked hard all day and then won't get any sleep tonight.

Igloo

We just keep getting more and more snow. Yesterday was the first time in 7 years Boise has had a snow day. It's been coming down all week and continues to come. Daddy has been able to come home from work a little early to avoid the bad roads. Taylor has been playing in the igloo Dad made for her everyday. Unfortunately it's starting to cave in now.