Little Drummer Boy

Okay, so I got the video to post, but I'm not sure how to rotate it, so you'll have to turn your head to watch it (or, get Samuel to come to your house and mess with your computer and turn the entire display 90 degrees, which he did to ours before.)

Christmas Pictures

Samuel was such fun on Christmas this year. In the past he has been overwhelmed, and wandered off after opening 1 or 2 presents. This year he was more than happy to open anything with his name on it, and even offered to help open things that were not for him. Here are some pictures:






Santa brought him some tape, and he had a great time sticking it all over the house:




And then sticking his tools to it:




Here are pictures of me and Ernie showing off our new hats:

Our christmas tree pizza:

I keep trying to post a video, but it doesn't seem to be working. I will try again later, so you can see Samuel playing a drum set that Bridget sent him. We refer to these in the video as "payback drums" since Ernie used to give Bridget's kids lots of noisy toys when they were younger. Samuel LOVES them.

Ice Storm

Last week we had an ice storm in Fort Wayne. Here are some pictures of the bushes and trees in our yard:

It has been so cold that nothing has had a chance to melt in almost a week. So we have been doing a lot of stuff inside. Here are some pictures of Samuel helping to make cookies (or eating as much dough as he can, and also for some odd reason, eating flour by the spoonful) :

He is beyond excited that it is Christmas Eve, and cannot wait for Santa to bring him some presents tonight. He doesn't seem to understand that the rolls of wrapping paper are just that - paper. He keeps trying to tear them apart to find the presents inside. He's going to have a blast tomorrow. We'll post more after Christmas!

Christmas Parties

Ernie's company had 2 different Christmas parties that we attended this year: one was for adults, and one was for children of the employees.

Here we are at the adults party:



And here we are at the kids party. If you're wondering what Samuel has all over his face, it's chocolate. He found these little treats made with pretzles, rolos, and m&m's. He had no interest in any of the other party things (like Bingo) once he saw those treats. He just kept wanting to eat more and more of them. Not that I can blame him - they are super good.

Tape, Tape, Tape

Samuel has entered what I like to call the "office supply" phase. He loves tape, scissors, glue, and paper. Loves them so much that last night we wrote a letter to Santa and he asked for tape for Christmas. I think if we were to take him to Office Depot right now and let him loose in the tape and scissors aisle, he might just pass out.

This weekend Ernie was installing some towers that he built in our closet, and to keep Samuel occupied, we gave him a brand new roll of tape and some paper. He managed to use the ENTIRE roll while we worked in the closet.



The closet is not done yet, but here are how the towers are looking right now:





After we finished working in the closet and Samuel had used up all of the tape we keep upstairs in the office, we went downstairs, where he found the tape we keep in the kitchen (Santa? If you read our blog, seriously send him some tape.) He crawled under the kitchen table and was quietly working away with tape and scissors for quite some time.





A quiet kid usually means trouble, and this was no exception. Look what he decided to cut with his safety scissors:



Yes, that would be Ernie's shoelace. Did you know a 3 year old with safety scissors could cut shoelaces? We obviously did not. So we now have a rule that scissors can ONLY be used while sitting at the table, and they can ONLY cut paper.

Can We Build It? Yes, We Can!

Last weekend we went to a really cool thing at Lowe's called a Build and Grow workshop. Apparently they have these in their stores every few weeks. And they are free! Kids can build a different project each time. This time it was a truck, which Samuel loved because it opened up in the back like Mack from Cars.

Samuel was a little young for the building part, so we ended up bringing the pieces of the kit home and Ernie helped him put it together.

Here he is showing off his finished truck. (and the free tool apron and safety goggles he got too!):









If you have a child who is a little bit older (probably 6 +), I'd highly recommend checking these out.

On Top of Spaghetti

The other night we were eating spaghetti for dinner (well, some of us were eating it, others were apparently WEARING more sauce on our face and hands than seems humanly possible.) We sang "On Top of Spaghetti" for Samuel, who thought it was the funniest song ever. Especially the line about the meatball - it just kept cracking him up. (by the way, don't be fooled for a second into thinking he'd actually EAT a meatball. Oh no, that's not on the list of 5 foods he will try without screaming. Noodles - good, meatballs - bad.) But I guess meatballs are very very funny to sing about:

Halloween

Last year Samuel wanted nothing to do with Halloween. He had no idea what candy was, and he hated the monkey costume we got him. This year was a lot different. At school they got to eat candy corn, and we've been giving him M&M's for potty training, so he knows what candy is, and he is a BIG FAN. I bought him a lion costume at a garage sale this summer, and he seemed to like it, so he's been wearing it off and on since then. He had no problem putting it on Friday night to go trick-or-treating.

Here he is decorating pumpkins:






And here he is in the lion costume:

Roar:

Walking around the neighborhood. It was so warm we didn't even need jackets (nice change from Colorado, where there was usually snow on the ground on Halloween). Notice the candy in his hand. He didn't want to part with it long enough to even put it in his bucket:

Doesn't he look a little like a lion, but also a little like Lionel Richie?

Updates

I try to post on our blog every week or so, but we've been so busy lately that I don't think I have posted in almost 3 weeks. Here are some recent pictures of Samuel.

Playing a computer game with Ernie:

Different hats, different pajamas, same breakfast (he likes to dip his waffles in sour cream. If he was allowed to choose all of his own food, he would eat waffles with sour cream for every meal. Oh, and sugar. He'd eat that straight if we let him.)

We are having some success with potty training, which is great! He has been wearing underwear at home (except for when he sleeps.) We even went on a playdate last week, and he used the bathroom two times! Whoo-hoo! Now, if we could only get him to go at school, we'd be all set. For some reason he just flat out refuses to use the bathroom at school. He's almost ready to move from the middle toddler room to the older toddler room. I think when that happens he will be more willing because more of the kids in the older toddler room are potty trained.

It has been so beautiful here. Here are 2 pictures I took of the leaves last week:

It's a good thing I took them then, because yesterday the wind blew so hard that almost all of the leaves are now off the trees.

The wind was so bad this weekend that it woke Samuel up from his nap early both days. By dinnertime last night, he was so exhausted and grumpy that he just fell to pieces. We tried to get him to eat his dinner, but he just screamed and screamed and screamed. You'd think we were trying to feed him worms instead of a piece of potato from stew. So we ended up putting him in bed at 6:00 pm. He slept until 6:00 this morning. 12 hours of sleep at night is unheard of for him. He's usually more of a 7:30 pm - 5:30 am sleeper. He seemed much happier this morning, which is good.

Finally, here's something Samuel said to me the other day when we were sitting on the couch: "I am not kicking you mommy, I am giving you a high five with my foot." Way to spin the situation to your advantage there, future politician.

Giggles

Last weekend Ernie's Uncle Irv was driving from IL to FL, so he spent a night at our house. Samuel had a lot of fun with him, as you can see here:

Birthday Boy!

Samuel turned 3 this weekend. This was the first year he was old enough to really understand that it was his birthday. He was so excited to turn 3, to open presents, and to eat cake and ice cream (VERY excited about the ice cream. He would eat that all day long, if we let him.) Here are some pictures from the day:

unwrapping a present:



opening a box of cars from the movie Cars:



showing off new sunglasses:



this present of paint pens was so cool, he had to try it right then and there:



his birthday cake:



checking out the candles:



blowing out the candles:



And, just so you can see how much he has grown, here are pictures from the day he was born, his 1st birthday, and 2nd birthday:

Holy Confusion, Batman

This toy used to be Ernie's when he was a kid, and now it's Samuel's. However, Samuel cannot quite grasp WHO it is supposed to be. He'll ask us "is it a bad man on there?" or he'll pat his hands on his legs and then ask "is it pat man on there? does he go pat pat pat" I suppose a person dressed up in a bat suit is kind of a strange concept. It doesn't help that Samuel has never seen a bat before, and even if he saw one in a book, it doesn't look anything like batman's costume. But he's really more interested in the motorcycle batman is riding anyway. Hello, complete obsession with cars and trucks, welcome to our home.

In other language news, we have officially entered the "why" stage. EVERYTHING you say to Samuel is countered with "why?" Sometimes I know he asks because he's stalling, and doesn't want to move on to the next activity. But most of the time I think he asks because he really is very curious.

He was sick most of last week (because he decided it would be a good idea to eat an entire box of cheez-it crackers by himself in less than 24 hours!) so we now are having a lot of conversations about healthy foods, and not eating too much of any one thing. Sly kid that he is, he tried to tell us last night that he couldn't eat his pizza because he needed some healthy food. What almost 3-year old will not eat pizza? Apparently the same one who will not touch eggs of any kind, refuses to eat meat unless it is a chicken nugget, and is able to pick a single solitary spice out of his spaghetti sauce and put it to the side. We even have a whole cookbook about sneaking healthy foods into regular foods so your kids will eat them. Like you blend up zucchini and put it into sloppy joes. This would work great if we could actually get Samuel to eat sloppy joes. We need a cookbook that has strategies for hiding healthy foods inside of crackers, since he is more than happy to eat those.

No Fear

We are fortunate in that we live about 10 minutes from three different elementary school playgrounds, and one huge community playground. Samuel and I have been going to a different one each afternoon, trying to enjoy as much outside playtime as we can before it gets too cold.

The favorite playground at the moment is at Aboite Elementary School (As a side note, that word is pronounced "a-boy-t". The other day I asked Samuel if he wanted to go to the Aboite playground and he said "I can go there. I'm a boy!")

There is a whole section of Aboite playground that is fenced in and has swings and slides appropriate for little kids. Does Samuel want to go there? No. He wants to go to the other section - the one for the older elementary school kids. Still, even at the bigger kid section, there are some parts of the equipment that can climb on himself. Here he is having fun in a tunnel:

But fun in the tunnel only lasts for a few minutes because what he really wants is to go down the slide. What slide is that, you ask? One that is safe and meant for small kids, like this one?

No.

One that is bigger and probably still looks huge to a 2-year old, like this one?

No.

Toddler Knievel wants to go down this one:

I don't think you should be allowed to go down this slide unless you are old enough to drive YOURSELF to this playground.

But of course he wants to go down it. Which means we BOTH are going down it, because there is no way I'm letting him go up there by himself. And once we get to the top and slide down, it's fun. But helping him up that huge ladder, and worrying that he is going to go through one of those giant openings on the side (look at the spaces between those slats!) is nerve-wracking, to say the least. The kid has absolutely no fear.