At the car wash

Here's what Samuel and Lilly were doing with Meg, while Ernie and I worked on cleaning up the basement:

Water Water Everywhere

Samuel has a book called "Water Water Everywhere" about a nice happy octopus looking at water in a pool, in a glass, at the beach, etc... If the book was taking place at our house this past weekend, there would have been a page where the octopus finds water in his basement - ugh.

A pipe burst and caused a whole bunch of damage to our wall, ceiling and carpet. Thankfully Ernie was able to fix the leak, take down the sheet rock, and rip up the carpet, but we still have a ways to go to get things back to normal.

Here are some pictures of how things look at the moment. Here's the pipe (you're looking up at the ceiling):



Here's part of the wall where Ernie took off the sheet rock:



Here's Ernie taking up the carpet:



We were so glad that Meg and Lilly were here this weekend because Meg was able to entertain Samuel while we were trying to clean things up. Thank you, Meg! Otherwise, I'm sure we would have heard "whatcha doin' daddy?" a bazillion times.

I will try to post a video of Samuel and Lilly playing in just a minute. I seem to have some trouble uploading videos sometimes. Does anyone else have that problem with blogger? Sometimes when I click on the video icon, there's no option to browse for the video on my computer. I get the box to name the video, and to accept the terms, but no way to actually find the video. Isn't that kind of an important part? But then sometimes it works just fine. I have no idea why it works sometimes and why it doesn't. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Faces

Here's the last video - it's Samuel showing you his happy, sad, and grumpy faces (and also his ability to quack like a duck.)

Chocolate Pudding

As a total bribe to get Samuel to eat his dinner, I showed him a bowl of chocolate pudding and said he could have some if he ate his food. I have never seen him eat a quesadilla faster. Apparently we're going to have to start offering chocolate pudding as an incentive more often!

At the very end of the video what he says to Ernie is "you're 33." He's very interested in how old people are lately. In fact, the other morning Monty came into the kitchen and Samuel said "Monty's old" so I said "you're right - Monty is old" and then he said "Memere is old too." (sorry, Barbara!)

Mr. Fix-It

Here he is wearing his tool belt and fixing things around the house:

Mowing the Lawn

Here's Samuel helping to mow the lawn:

Videos Galore

We've taken several short videos of Samuel over the past week or so. I am going to upload each one in their own post. Here's the first one, where he is showing you how strong he is and how he can move our kitchen table back and forth with just his hands:

Visit with Paul and Cori

Paul and Cori were in Indiana this past weekend for a graduation ceremony. They came up to Fort Wayne and spent the day with us on Friday. Before they arrived, I kept trying to explain to Samuel who was coming. I'd say "Paul is mommy's brother" and Samuel would laugh and say "noooooo" as if it was ridiculous for me to have a brother. Ha! He's going to be in for a shock this June when we go to NY for a family reunion and he sees all the brothers I have!

Despite the confusion about the brother issue, we had a really nice time together, and Samuel really liked looking at their orange car (although I didn't get any pictures of that). Here are some other pictures.

Samuel loved Paul's MSU hat:



Being a monster:



Hanging out with Paul and Cori:






After Paul and Cori left, Samuel kept asking me where they were. Only he couldn't remember Paul's name, so he'd ask me "Where Cori and that man go? They go home in orange car? My like that orange car!"

Paul and Cori - feel free to come back any time!