"Okay people, move along, there's nothing to see here."

To put it bluntly...we had a fire on our deck. Our house is fine...even though the fire was literally inches away from it. We don't know how, but it's totally fine. We were out of town when it happened and a good Samaritan passing through the alley saw the fire and called it in. The officer who responded was able to put it out with his extinguisher, then when the fire trucks (yes...2) arrived, they hosed the area down really good to make sure it would not come back and did an IR scan of that area of the house to make sure their was no heat damage. I've since built and installed a brace under the failed side (about where Sam's climbing toy is located in the picture) to hold it up until we can have someone properly repair it.

We were VERY lucky.

Fighting Cabin Fever

We did everything we could to fight off cabin fever this winter...hopefully we'll be pulling out of it soon. As you can tell from the pictures below, Sam has learned to smile on command.

"Cheese!"

"Rain, rain go away!"
Daddy trying to be artsy with the camera.

Ready for...school!? Nah! ...but nice hat dude!

Sitting on his hideout made of couch cushions.

Chef Samuel with his bowl full of "lets pretend".
...and a huge smile.

So This Is Christmas...

From the delicious desserts and excellent dinners, Christmas was not complete without the requisite present overload for the kids. Sam had so many presents from his birthday, to Christmas (with a few extra snuck in by kind neighbors and daycare people) that I'm pretty sure he started to think he was going to get a present every day! Enjoy the images below of the madness.

Happy Birthday! Sam is Two!

What a party! Sam loved his construction themed party, complete with "birthday tree" to match. He had loads of fun with his family and received lots of cool things to play with.


Sam mesmerized by his new train set (Geo-Trax).


He especially loved the cake (in case you missed the red frosting on his lips in the picture).


"Oh my God!" Sam's words as he opened the giant fire truck.

Smile! Sam proudly showing off his Elmo slippers in front of the construction tree.

Snow Day!

Sam, Becky and Beamer enjoyed the first snow day of the season. No snow day for daddy.