Easter 2009

This year we took the little ones out for an Easter Egg hunt at Val & Matt's house. Sam and Ellen totally enjoyed running around their huge back yard looking for plastic eggs...even if most of them were empty...shh...don't tell them. The day before Easter Sam helped Becky dye some Easter Eggs.

I'm A Big Kid Now!

Sam has graduated to his big boy bed and UNDERWEAR!!!

NO MORE DIAPERS!

Our second attempt (more like Becky's second attempt) at potty training over spring break was much more successful than our first. He's got #1 down great. He's a little less secure with #2, but is reluctant to go on the potty once he gets there. We are very proud of him and as you can see below, he is pretty proud of himself as well.

"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.