First Day of Preschool

This past Wednesday was Sam's first day of preschool. Can you believe it?! I know it's just preschool, but it's hard to believe that he's old enough to be attending school of any kind. He goes to preschool at the Shoreline Covenant Church. I'm super impressed with the school and teachers. His teachers' names are Miss Katie and Miss Sarah. Miss Katie has been teaching preschool there for 15 years and she's really good with the kids. Sam loves her. I love her. I think it's a good fit. ;-)

Funny story: On Thursday when I went to pick Sam up he was walking in a line with his class in the hallway back to his classroom. Later when I asked him what he did at school one of the things he told me was he walked in a line...just like in Make Way For Ducklings! So funny! I love that he made the connection from walking in a line to one of his favorite books. Anyway, so far Sam loves going to preschool! Yeah! I knew he would just eat the whole experience up. I'm so thankful he can go this year. Three cheers for preschool!! :-)

Ouch!

Yesterday on our way into the YMCA Lauren tripped and hit her head against the corner of a concrete stair. OUCH!! It gave her quite a gash in her forehead and we had to take her to Children's Hospital to get some stitches. Because we were at the YMCA they had to call an EMT and we had to let them drive us to the hospital in the ambulance. It was all a little traumatizing for Lauren, but I have to admit a little exciting for me. :-) Despite the trauma, Lauren was quite the little trooper and handled it all like a pro. Here are some pictures I took (with my cell phone) to prove it.

In the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Ouch!

Waiting to have the stitches done. The green "princess" band (that's what they called it) is holding the anesthetic to the wound to numb it. I think she looks more like a little Indian, especially with her hair (feather) sticking straight up.

This whole trip to the E.R. was a little bit of a Déjà vu experience for me. We went through the exact same thing with Sam two years ago almost to the day. Crazy!

Vacation 2010: Cannon Beach

We spent five fabulous days at Cannon Beach in Oregon with Evan's family this month. We had such a great time playing in the sand at the beach, flying kites, cooking foil dinners and having S'mores on the beach, going for lots of walks on the beach, visiting Hug Point, gazing at Haystack Rock from the balcony of our hotel room, playing in the hotel pool, eating clam chowder from Mo's, and visiting Bruce's Candy Kitchen (my personal favorite). We especially loved the opportunity to be with family doing all of these fun things! It was a GREAT vacation!

Lauren was a little unsure of the sand. It took her a while to get used to it. Both my kids don't like their feet or hands to get dirty. They certainly don't get that little quirk from me...that would be ALL Evan! :-)

Sam discovered he could make an endless amount of roads for his Lightning McQueen car. He loved driving them around on the sand.

Haystack Rock...Sam got so excited everytime he saw this (which was often). He kept telling us how HUGE it was. It's not big, it's HUGE! :-)

Sam playing with Uncle Brian. He had a great time playing with him...Thanks, Uncle Brian!

Uncle Brian just got home from his mission to Atlanta, GA.

I love this picture. Sam was sad about something and I snapped this picture as Evan was comforting him. Very sweet.

So tired! Lauren fell asleep as we were packing up to come home.

Summer

I haven't blogged in a while...sorry. My only excuse is that we've been busy. I know, that's a pretty lame excuse. "Summer" has been a little scarce it seems here in the northwest, but we've had a few warm and sunny days. It's funny what I think is "hot" now, after living here in Seattle for a few years. Yesterday it was about 79 degrees with 45% humidity and I thought it was HOT. Thankfully, Mother Nature kicked on her air conditioning again and we're back to a little cloudy and 57 degrees this morning. Phew! :-) Anyway, here are a few pics from our SUMMER 2010!

Kids playing at Richmond Beach Park. They love to go here and throw rocks in the water, especially Sam.

Like I said, we have had a few really HOT days. We've enjoyed a couple trips to the wading pools in the neighborhood.

I love this picture of Sam with his little friend Marie. Marie is moving soon...we're going to miss her! :-)

We had a neighborhood barbecue the other night and the sheriff showed up for the fun. He was nice enough to let my two little kiddos sit on his motorcycle for a bit. They LOVED it!

We recently took a trip to the local fire safety station with friends in our ward. Sam especially loved this trip. It was hard to get him to take off his fire jacket when it was time to go home.

Sam with his buddy Josh. Too cute.

Family Fun

Tonight for FHE the activity was playing Simon Says. The kids are so cute when we play this game. I especially love to watch Lauren try and jump when Simon says to jump. We sure love our kids and love being a family.

The kids have been having a little fun in the bathtub lately. :-)

Sam's Potty Training Story

Where to begin? I guess I'll start with just saying how much I love this little boy and how sincerely proud I am of him. He's is successfully on the path of being diaper and pull-up free. Yeah! Yeah! Such a big boy!

Here's the story (I would stop reading here if you don't want the gory details):

Sam has been ready for a few months now to potty train, but I've been the lazy one. Let's be honest...diapers are just way easier and the idea of potty training really overwhelmed me. Call me a pessimist, but in my mind potty training meant loads of frustration and staying home for two weeks straight. Yikes! I like to be out and about with my kids so the idea of staying home with them both for two weeks made me a little crazy even thinking about it. Well, my friend recommended this method (potty training in THREE days) and I jumped on it. You mean I only have to do this for three days and you say it will work? Sign me up. Evan and I both read the short e-book and picked our three days and went for it...full throttle. Evan even took a day off of work (Friday of last week). I'm so glad he did because I really don't think I could have done it by myself, especially the first day.

How did Sam do? Simply put...AWESOME!

Day #1: Sam helps me throw all his pull-ups away in the trash because he is a big boy now and big boys don't wear pull-ups or diapers. He really bought into this idea of being a big boy. It worked like a charm. We started and he had a few accidents in the morning, but then was dry the rest of the day. Yeah! :-) He did poop in his underwear. Sigh. But I can't expect a full miracle on the first day, so we're proud of him and hopeful this is going to work.

Day #2: One accident in the middle of the day, the rest of the day dry as a bone. :-) No poop...he's holding it in. Lovely.

Day #3: He poops in his underwear before church, but no other accidents the whole day. We even went to church and he stayed dry the entire time. Yeah! Yeah! So proud!

Day #4: Normal life resumes...we go to the gym (no accidents) and to McDonald's with some friends (no accidents). He takes a 2 1/2 hour nap (no accidents). Then tonight he pooped in the toilet...ALL BY HIMSELF! We were sitting at the dinner table and he announces he has to go potty and wants privacy and to do it by himself :-). We say okay and he goes trotting off to the bathroom. The next thing we know he's screaming, "I went poop in the toilet! I went poop in the toilet!" WOW! We were so excited and proud! I wanted to call everyone I know and tell them (instead I'll just blog about it). Sam just wanted to call Grandma and Grandpa and his cousin Malachi because in his mind Malachi is his very best friend and the coolest kid in the world. Anyway, it was a very fun moment. :-)

Here are a few cute things Sam has said while potty training:

"Mommy, the pee-pees are trying to get on my underwear..."

"Mommy, my penis said it needs to go pee..."

Sam: Mommy, Did you go poop today too?
Me: Yes, Sam...I did.
Sam: I'm so proud of you mommy! :-)



There is one minor issue that Evan and I just hope goes away. When Sam is bored (like in sacrament meeting or when he's trying to fall asleep on a day when he had a 2 1/2 hour nap) he tells us he has to go to the bathroom literally every 3-5 minutes. What do you do? You have to take him. We're not sure what to do about this and just hoping he stops doing it. On Sunday it was fast and testimony meeting and I don't think I heard one testimony. I must have taken him to the potty 10 times. No joke. And tonight Evan probably took him to the bathroom every 5 minutes for about two hours (I was gone). Yikes. Anyone have any advice?

All in all I have to say that potty training has been a positive experience. Not even close to being the beast I thought it might be. Thank goodness!

Memorial Day 2010

We had a great Memorial Day as a family. The day started with this...

Evan took Sam to the cemetary near our house early Monday morning to help distribute flags to all the burial sites of those who died while in military service.

This was right up Sam's alley...He loves flags AND lining things up in rows. As you can see he thoroughly enjoyed himself!

Mostly Sam just loves his Daddy and spending one on one time with him.

Later in the day we went to a great barbecue at Grandma H's house complete with lots of fun relatives and yummy food. After the barbecue we went to the cemetary where Grandpa H is buried. We tried to tell the kids about Grandpa H, but all they wanted to do is chase eachother around the cemetery. 

All in all a GREAT day together! Wish we had these sorts of days more often!