Celebrating 28 Years!

A few silly family shots!

Sam ate SO much birthday cake - I think he takes after his mother :-)

Mommy & her little helper :-)

Yesterday, on Jan. 28th, I celebrated my 28th birthday :-) It was a really important birthday for me since it was my first as a mommy. Sam was mesmerized by the birthday candles and cooed along with Craig as he sang Happy Birthday...it was so cute! Craig made my day so special. He made a delicious dinner for us (homemade pizza is my favorite!) AND baked the yummiest birthday cake! He even surprised me with the peacoat I have been wanting...I am nominating him for Husband of the Year, haha! Thank you Craig for making me feel so speical on my birthday - I love you, I love you, I love you!

Our Busy Bee!

Oh my goodness - we have such a busy boy! Sam is 9 months old and is in to EVERYTHING! He is so curious about every little thing and must touch any and everything that peeks his interest :-) These last few weeks Sam has become obsessed with our mini dirt devil vaccum...he drags the thing around with him all over the house! He also loves to open and close doors, cabinets, and play with the window shades. Hopefully this last picture won't get us into any trouble - we do not crate our child, I swear! Sam loves to crawl in and out of Gus' crate. We only locked the door to take the picture :-) PROMISE!

Our New Morning Tradition...

Sam and I now start each day with a little Sesame Street :-) He LOVES it!!! Sometimes he'll sit in my lap but usually he insists on watching while holding on to the tv stand - I'm sure it's excellent for his eye sight! He coos and laughs at the different characters and bounces around when there is music. I have to admit, I really enjoy watching with him...makes me feel like a kid again :-)

I also included a picture of Sam reading his most favorite book with his daddy - I Love You Through and Through. Craig and I each read this book to Sam atleast a dozen times a day! He will crawl around looking for it when it's story time :-)

Christmas 2008

This was the greatest Christmas ever for our family! Having Sam here with us to share such a special day was a wonderful gift. Our son is a sleepy head so by 8am (and after 2 cups of coffee) Craig and I decided to wake up our little man so we could start the festivities...we just couldn't wait any longer!

I think Gus was the most excited this Christmas...I have no idea how, but he knew exacly which presents were his! Instead of letting Craig and I help him open his gifts, he used his paws to open them all - even Sam was entertained by it! Sam really enjoyed opening his gifts too! After he opened each present, he played with the bow and wrapping paper first and then explored his new toy. He seemed to like his new laugh and learn table and his lion walker the most! They both light up, sing, and make lots of noise :-) We weren't sure what he would think of the lion walker but he took off with it immediately! He holds onto the handle in the back and pushes it forward...shouldn't be long before he's walking all by himself!

After we finished opening all of our presents, we ate Craig's most favorite breakfast...cinnamon rolls and mimosas! Grandma Jane was nice enough to share her cinnamon roll recipe with me so I decided to attempt it all by myself...and I was shocked (Craig too!) when they came out almost as good as Grandma Janes :-)

We played with our new presents the rest of the day and had a yummy Christmas dinner together. It was a quiet Christmas but very memorable! I know that we will always remember our 1st Christmas with Sam in Fort Riley, KS.

Sam Meets Santa!

A few days ago we took a trip to the mall so that Sam could meet Santa. It was very strange standing in line holding my son so that he could meet Santa since I remember so clearly doing the same thing with my mom and my younger brothers - I guess it just doesn't seem like that long ago (but maybe it was!). Sam was very curious about Santa's beard at first and seemed to be ok in his lap UNTIL I started to back away to take his picture...that's when the fit began! He started crying and tugging at Santa's beard. Poor Santa patiently let us take a few pictures and of course once I picked Sam up off of Santa's lap the crying stopped immediately :-) You can see how happy he was in the car driving home...AWAY from Santa, haha!

3, 4, & 5 are in!

Sam has been very busy cutting teeth these last few weeks! He started cutting his top middle two at the beginning of the month and just a few days ago the top left tooth has also made an appearence in his mouth :-) Teeth really do change a baby's face - he looks like such a big boy now! In these pictures (taken about a week ago) you can only see the top middle teeth...how cute!

Paradise

A few weeks ago Craig and I spent 6 days, 5 nights in beautiful Montego Bay, Jamaica...it was an amazing vacation! We never had the chance to go away on a honeymoon after our wedding three years ago so this was our very belated honeymoon :-) We've been to Jamaica twice before but this time we stayed at one of their Sandals resorts - the food was wonderful and the drinks were delicious!! Our room was on the top floor and had beautiful ocean view! Our resort also had it's own private island that we went to daily. Besides having a gorgeous beach, the island also had it's own pool & swim up bar AND a jerk hut (this would be Craig's favorite spot!). From the very beginning we decided that this vacation was going to be nothing but absolutely relaxing so we opted out of the daily excursions around the island and chose more lazy activities - we layed out on the beach and swam in the ocean, read our books, hung out at the swim up bar sipping on many yummy tropical drinks, sailed over to the resort island, played cards, ate lots of delicious food, and talked about our little Sam! It was so difficult leave Sam but once we arrived we realized how much we needed to get away and just be together again. We knew that he was happy and safe with his grandparents. Five nights was definitely enough and the whole plane ride home we talked about how excited we were to see our little boy and be a family again :-)