Lazy Days and Sick Days

Last week we spent a fair amount of time at home becuase the kiddos had runny noses and I didn't want to share the love too much. As you know Sam went potty in the toilet for the first time and Lauren started walking. Maybe it was a good thing we were home more than usual because I got some good videos of the kiddos in action. I spent the week wiping noses, fishing cars out from under the fridge, stove, and piano, playing referee, and listening to Christmas music. All in all a good week. :-)

Sam has been "talking" on the phone a lot lately. It's always so funny to listen to because you can tell that in his mind he's having a real conversation with someone. Last week I got a great video of him talking to my friend Natalie.

Camera update: Some of you have asked about our camera...it's still broken. It doesn't take pictures, but it does still take videos. That's why you're getting an onslaught of videos from our family on the blog.

Progress

Just a quick post to say that Sam just tinkled in the toilet for the first time!! Gosh...I'm so proud of him. He ran into the bathroom saying, "I have to go potty! I have to go potty!" and indeed he did. I think some M&M's are in order.

In other news...Lauren is walking all over the place. This just started yesterday. I'll post a video later when I have a little more time. Right now I've got to run out the door. More to come...

A Sucker of Her Own

Ever since Halloween Sam has been way into "suckers"...well, this has piqued Lauren's interest in this little treat on a stick. Recently I let her try one of her own. This was her reaction. Too cute. Too funny. :-)

Decorating the Christmas Tree

Sam is all about it being "Christmas time" at our house. You can hear the magic in his voice when he talks about it. We decorated our little tree for FHE on Monday night and he had such fun hanging all the red balls. One fun tradition we started this year is I've wrapped my collection of Christmas books under the tree (I currently have 17) and Sam gets to unwrap one each night before Christmas. I'll either re-wrap my favorites or go buy some more cheap ones at the dollar store (I bought four there a few weeks ago). Oh, and one of the books I bought this year was a little golden book of "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer." That's the book Sam unwrapped last night and I'd forgotten what a weird story it is. Does anyone else think it's weird? Just lots of random characters and story twists and random scary monsters that eat reindeer. I'll stick to just enjoying the song and forget about the book. Anyway, despite Rudolph's somewhat twisted story I LOVE this time of year. I can't help but feel hopeful and happy.

PS- Sorry about the poor camera job. I thought I was making it so you could see the whole tree...didn't realize it'd be turned on its side. Ooops. Also, do you hear the music in the background? It's Alabama's Christmas CD. I grew up with this CD/tape and it just makes me happy to listen to it...brings back all kinds of happy memories.

Baby Steps

Tonight Lauren took her first steps on her own! It was very exciting! The flash on our camera is busted, but luckily Evan remembered that you don't need a flash to take a video. Anyway, it's only a matter of days before she's running around the house with Sam. Crazy! :-)

Update (12/3/09): Lauren is still NOT walking...she could totally do it if she tried, but has no interest in exploring this wonderful new mode of transportation. She cruises the furniture and cupboards, but only rarely will try a few steps on her own. Oh well...all in due time, I guess.

Motivated!

Okay, I may regret putting this out there but I wanted to share this (click here), mostly because I'm still in awe over the fact that this was me six years ago! Pre-marriage and pre-babies. Anyway, reading my friend's blog post has totally motivated me to lose weight...and believe me...I have A LOT of weight to lose to get back to where I was. I realize that losing all my baby weight may be a pipe dream, but a girl can dream, right? Can someone really lose 75 lbs?!? Thinking about it just depresses me and makes me want to eat chocolate, but that's the sort of behavior that needs to end...and end NOW. Anyway, I'm feeling motivated...Thanks, Jess (my friend I ran the marathon with) for the reminder of the old me. I want her back! ;-)

Happy Halloween!!

I'm DYING over the fact that it's already November and Halloween has come and gone. In my opinion, Halloween is so much more fun now that I have kids. I think Sam "got" Halloween this year. He loved dressing up as Thomas the Train and LOVED that people just kept giving him candy. Lauren just looked cute in her chicken costume and threw a fit every time we tried to keep the hood on her head. Oh well...

We gave Sam a little tutorial on how to trick-or-treat before we left for our ward Trunk or Treat. He rang our door bell and Evan taught him to say "trick or treat" for his candy and then "thank you" after he gave him the candy. It was cute and we could tell Sam was excited! :-)

Lauren found this little pool of ducks to play with at the Trunk or Treat. You can see how it all started...she first just played with the ducks outside of the pool, but before we knew it she was inside and there wasn't anything we could do to get her to stay out!

Her buddy Joel (Lauren and Joel are only three weeks apart) came and joined her. They had a good time crawling around the pool with the ducks.

Sam diligently said "trick or treat" and "thank you" for about the first five cars at the trunk or treat. After that he just told me "he didn't want to say that anymore." Oh well...people still gave him candy and that's all that matters, right? Anyway, a fun day for the Thackers...hope you had a happy Halloween too!