Funny Kids

I just love his smile in this picture.

I love this picture because of the story behind it...We went on a walk around Greenlake and Sam had to take his dog and ended up "walking" the dog through some puddles and mud. Well, Sam insisted that we bring the dog home and give him a bath. What could I do? I had to oblige...

Two words best describe this photo...Potty Training :-)

Lauren's first attempt at eating yogurt...ALL-BY-HERSELF!

Love the pink rain coat.

Lauren loves shoes. She'll grab any shoe...Sam's, Evan's, mine or her own and come to you saying, "tshoo, tshoo, tschoo..." She wants to wear them all. It's very cute.

These next two are just all cuteness. Love them.

Three cheers for the new camera!! :-) :-) :-)

We're Back...

We spent the holidays in Springfield, MO with Evan's parents and siblings. It was so nice to be with family and be on vacation! As usual my favorite thing about being on vacation is having Evan around 24/7. Not only is it nice to have an extra set of hands to change diapers, wipe noses, give baths, etc., but it's just nice to have him around. I'm a better person when he's by my side. I'm sure of it. :-)

I also saw my cousin (mom's side of the family) Nicole who I haven't seen in years. It was SO FUN to see her and her husband Dave. She lives in Tulsa, OK but her husband's family is from Springfield so they were there for Christmas. It made me miss my mom (what doesn't make me miss her?!?). I wanted to call her and tell her I had spent the morning with Nicole. She would have been happy.

Anyway, here are a few more pics from our trip to Missouri...

Santa gave Grandma and Grandpa Thacker this GREAT house/tent/tunnel thing for their grandkids to play in. It was a big hit with the grand kids and made for some cute pictures too.

Evan's family lived in Rogers, AR for seven years when Evan was younger. I think he was in the 8th grade when they left Arkansas and moved to Seattle. Anyway, Evan wanted to take a day trip to Rogers (only 2 hours south of Springfield) to visit their old stomping grounds and I happily obliged. Evan's sister, Shelley and her family joined us for the trip. It was a good day. Here are some pics to prove it. :-)

Evan and Shelley in front of the house they used to live in.

Our family on the banks of Lake Atlanta, a lake Evan's family used to take Sunday walks around.

This Evan in front of the church building they attended when he was younger. He said it is double the size it was when they lived there. Same location, just bigger.

We had a GREAT time hanging out and playing games with Evan's family. The kids thoroughly enjoyed playing with their cousins, especially Sam.

Here are all the cousins together...so cute!

We visited the Bass Pro Shop in Springfield. It was awesome. I wish I had some better pictures of all the different animals and things they had to look at, but I don't...I do have a few pictures of Sam and the girls (Kenzie and Katie Grace) looking at the wild boars.

We played lots of games. Sequence was a favorite for the adults and the kids!

Just a cute picture of Lauren in the bath tub.

We made cookies and decorated them. The kids had a great time.

Cute picture of Sam with his cousin, Kenzie.

The kiddos exploring the yard...

We spent the afternoon/evening at Silver Dollar City, an amusement part near Branson, MO. They had a few rides to ride, even in the cold. This is us on the train. Sam thought the train was pretty cool.

Loving Sam's outfit. It kept him especially warm. :-)

Well, it was a GREAT vacation. Now that we're back in the swing of things here at home I find myself wishing we were still there. Gratefully, there's always another vacation sometime down the road.

My Greatest Blessing

December 17, 2005

Happy Anniversary to us! :-)

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.