My favorite picture

This picture kills me for many reasons: first, it's rare to get a smile out of all three of these folks at once. I mean, look at Sammy! What a cutie-pie! And Olivia with the outfit he picked for herself in the dead of winter: purple shorts. And Chris, what an awesome dad.

As 2013 comes into view, this is what I'm grateful for. 

Like mother, like daughter

I love this picture of Olivia and me getting pretty on Thanksgiving. She's doing her eyebrows.

Olivia is Four!

Olivia turned four yesterday! That seems a lot older that three, doesn't it? Maybe it's just me, but "four" seems solidly into little girl territory. Far, far, sadly far away from baby and toddler. She is a beautiful little girl, though. Cheerful and full of light. Her teachers love her, say she is a joy to have in class. She plays with everyone at school. They know her as outgoing and friendly. Alisa and I visited her at school for a little party, and she reverted to her shy self for a bit, a side her teacher says they don't see very often. That doesn't worry me much. The fact that she can be outgoing without the support of her parents I take as a good sign.

Right now Olivia is into wrestling and storytelling and writing "notes" to her friends and family. The notes are mostly little drawings of faces with feet, but she takes time to translate each one verbally, except at bedtime when she slips them under her bedroom door, signaling to us that she is still awake and playing. Olivia still likes to be held and carried. She likes noodles, juice, cheese and crackers. She dislikes bedtime and dinner. No surprises there.

Her favorite word lately is "helpful" - as in "Daddy, will you be helpful to get me some juice?"

4 months old!

Here's Sammy at four months old. My golly, what a cute kid. Since we went to his pediatrician today, we have his exact stats:

Height: 67cm (2' 2.38") 91%
Weight: 6.3 kg (13lbs 14.2oz) 17.8%
Head circumference: 42cm (16.54") 59.59%

So he's a tall drink of water for a baby. We do need to get some more fat in him, i.e. fat in me and that means I can eat to my stomach's content over the holidays. My mom also suggested that I let Sammy nurse longer and that makes sense. Sometimes I think I rush him because he's nursing every two hours and if I don't hurry Mr. Slowpoke along, I could spend all day nursing. We also got the go-ahead to start solids... hello, avocados!

But who is Sammy? He's a sweet, sweet baby. He's incredibly cuddly, giggly, drooly (he's got little tiny teeth buds coming in!) and loves Olivia like crazy. Chris says he's "loaded with charisma and has a great smile--everyone says so." People also marvel at Sammy's beautiful red hair and peaches-and-cream skin. His eyes seem to be changing to brown so he'll have Chris's eyes.

It seems like everything--all of the developmental milestones--are coming fast and furious. It's probably because we're not sitting around staring at him as we did when Olivia was little. But I'm really enjoying him. In fact, after we went to the doctors and ran errands, I had my perfect hour, watching a super-glam decorating show while holding my sleeping Sammy. Heaven. 

Four months is fantastic!

3 months old!

Here's Sammy on election day just a few days ago. Hopefully this photo won't come back to haunt us when he's a conservative Republican whose parents tried to indoctrinate him into the liberal ideology... But until that time *shudder* he's an Obama Baby. :)

At three months, Sammy is doing all of the baby stuff he's supposed to be doing, i.e. drooling, smiling, giggling when tickled, playing with his toes, sleeping every two hours for about a half hour (not long enough, however), and generally being cute as a button.

Our life is very changed by having a baby and I remember someone telling me that having two kids is not double the work, it's more the work is exponentially more challenging to even attempt. Chores that used to take a few minutes now take forever (and are forever interrupted) such as emptying the dishwasher. We have more laundry that I thought possible. Then again, I remember growing up with my four sisters, we had a laundry room with a heap of clothes that was as tall as I was. I'm not kidding. Socks were not put together but all were put into a "sock basket" never to be paired again. So I shouldn't complain. I only have two kids and that's doable.

Part of the struggle is helping Olivia find words and outlets for her depth of feelings about everything from what she's going to eat to exactly how to play the games she wants to play. Let me just say there are lots of tears. And not just from her.

But about Sam, he's awesome. He has beautiful auburn hair, sweet eyes that look like his dad's, and a great disposition. I couldn't ask for any more. Other than a housekeeper.

Halloween 2012!

Halloween this year started months ago with plans for Chris and Olivia to dress as Jack and Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas. Grandma Marjie made Olivia's costume and it ruled! Olivia loved it. Yesterday, Olivia's preschool went to New Seasons for a Halloween parade. Here she is with her teachers, Miss Kristin and Miss Gemma and her classmates:

After dinner, Chris put on his costume too, which was AWESOME for some trick-or-treating in the neighborhood (Sammy and I didn't dress up, we went as ourselves):

Here's Olivia's costume:

Here's one of Chris's bat bowtie, just like Jack Skellington:

So cute!

Rollin'!

Sammy is definitely rolling over. He threatened to roll last week when he was totally p.o.'d about being put in his crib. But now this rolling over is a *thing*.