Petting Zoo

We were invited back to the petting zoo by some friends on Saturday. I don't think Samantha could ever get tired of that place.
This time I threw caution to the wind and pretty much let her do whatever she wanted while we were there.
This resulted in her climbing up to see the horse,

getting the horse's nose in her face, chasing ducks and chickens around their enclosure, and stepping in some muck by the pig pen...which turned out to be pig poop...and yes, her sandals still stink. I'm going to have to throw them in the washing machine to see if that gets rid of the awful odor.

On Sunday we took her to one of the local malls because they have an indoor play place and a carousel. She had fun, but got tired of both pretty quickly. We ended up taking her to the little teddy bear building shop and let her get a stuffed animal. She picked a soft black bear and never wavered in her decision. We tempted her with every other animal in the store, just to be sure she was happy with her choice. She was, and still is. I'll take some pictures of her with "Bear" (that's what she calls it) and get them up here soon.

Samantha has her first war wound from being around other kids. We have no idea what happened, because we're pretty sure nobody saw it, but we know she was bitten in the nursery at church by another kid. The volunteers in her room didn't say anything about it, so all we can assume is that they didn't see it. She's got a pretty nice imprint of some kid's teeth on her arm though. I guess it could be worse. I was a biter when I was a kid, so hopefully this means she won't be the one dishing it out. Unless of course another kid has a bruise in the shape of Samantha's teeth...

Gratitude 168

Over the past 3 weeks our church has had a sermon series called 3 Doors. Door 1 was Forgiveness. Door 2 was Confession. Door 3 was Gratitude.
At the end of week 3 Pastor John challenged everyone to spend this week in gratitude. Part of his challenge to us was to reflect every day on the past 24 hours and list at least 10 things to be grateful for.

Here's my top 10 for today:

1) An amazing husband who will happily fix a flat tire on my vehicle.

2) Time spent with good friends.

3) Play time Samantha gets with other kids her age.

4) Kind neighbors who will rescue our dogs when they get out of the yard (again).

5) An abundance of food in our freezer to make meals with.

6) Cool crisp weather that reminds me fall is coming soon.

7) Garbage men who empty our trash can every week.

8) The people at Starbucks who occasionally give me a Grande when I ordered a Tall.

9) The miles of bike trails in our town.

10) Jillian's work out dvds that kick my butt...even when I'm not sure I want my butt kicked.

She has a friend...

Okay, so Samantha has quite a few little friends. Last night she got to play with her friend Andy though, that's who I'm talking about.
The first thing these little punks did was watch Andy's new Baby Einstein dvd. World Animal Adventure. Need I say more? It was all about animals. They loved it. They started out sitting together on the couch pointing at the animals, and eventually they wound up dancing all over the living room laughing at the video and each other.

The rest of the night they were either making a disaster out of the play room or running around the house screaming at the top of their lungs. It was good screaming, they were having fun. I think they were playing tag or something, but at this age it's hard to tell. It was very easy to see that they had a good time together though.

♫ ♪ We are looking for Blues Clues ♪ ♫

For a long time running Baby Einstein has been Samantha's favorite thing to watch on TV. Over the past few weeks Blues Clues has been edging in on B.E., and I think it's about to take over the #1 spot. The word "clue" has been added to Samantha's vocabulary, she does some of the hand gestures during the "Blues Clues" song, and she gets the biggest grin on her face when she hears the show starting. We don't just plop her in front of the TV all day, but when we do let her watch Blues Clues she'll almost always stay there for the entire episode.
She has a Blues Clues book in the car, and she will point out Blue and Steve when asked. It won't be long before she's singing along with the show.

Transformation!

Chris and I spent a good solid couple of hours last night transforming our office into an office/play room. Since Samantha came into our lives our entire house has been overrun with toys, diapers, baby supplies, and any other little odds-and-ends items she might need. To be honest, I've wanted to claim our living room back for quite some time. But where would her stuff go? Her room is too small to house everything, plus it's on the second floor, and we want her to have things to play with on the main floor of the house.
Our desk has always had an attachment on it that makes it L shaped, so the first thing we did to make room for Samantha in the office was take that attachment off. Then we moved our bookshelf and my sewing shelves down to the basement. Eventually we'll work on finishing the basement and put all those items back to use down there, but for now they'll just be in hibernation.
I attempted to move the desk, broke it, and spent about 45 minutes last night watching Chris fix it. He's pretty awesome. I'm also quite sure I gave our cat Tweek a heart attack when the desk came crashing to the floor. He was right in the line of fire of the items falling to the ground, including the desk itself. Don't worry Gina, he's okay. That'll learn him to stay away when I'm cleaning!
I don't have any before pictures, because I really didn't want to share the prior state of our office with everyone. This is what it looks like now though! Samantha loves it!We do need to get that carpet cleaned. We'll eventually paint, put up different curtains (Chris hates the purple sheers), and get some fun artwork on the walls. This will do for now though!

What did you do this weekend? This is what we did...

Yesterday I had a post written and all ready to go, I just never got around to posting it. Today I decided that I didn't like that post anyway, so you'll never get to see it. I think this one will more than make up for it though...you be the judge.

Sunday was a great day for a little bit of swimming. It was so oppressively hot and humid out that the only way you could survive outside was if you submerged yourself in a pool. Disgusting. I can't wait for fall.
We have a new body pillow in the family, and Samantha has already claimed it as her own. This kid really knows how to use a body pillow.

We're still working away on the bathroom. When I say 'we' I mean Chris, but that doesn't stop Samantha from trying to help!

We went to Tropical Sno (again) because it's close and this little kid can't get enough of that flavored ice. I won't be sad to see the hot summer weather go, but I will be sad to see the Tropical Sno stand close.

It seems like Samantha's vocabulary is growing a bit. She can say "color" and we think she is trying to say "dog" and "glasses". She meows like a cat and tries to tweet like a bird. We're also pretty sure she says "blah" any time sees the dragon from Baby Einstein. She's getting too smart for her own good.

Privacy Please!

We have changed the settings on our blog and have now made it an invitation-only kind of party. If you're reading this, we're so happy you're here! Thanks for jumping through the hoops and deciding to keep up with us. Your reward for coming back is this very goofy (out of focus) picture of the reason this blog exists! Enjoy!

A Budding Artist

Because of Samantha's obsession with crayons I assumed she would really enjoy sidewalk chalk. Ours was more like driveway chalk because our sidewalk isn't very smooth. I was right, she loved it!
I was going to tell you that she drew the rainbow and wrote our her name all by herself, but I'm pretty sure you would have seen right through that.

When I asked my friend Kristin how she was able to get her daughter to drink out of straw sippy cups she suggested trying the toss and go straw cups. There's really no reason to tell you that other than for this picture to make sense:
She figured out that tipping the straw cup backwards wouldn't get her any water. I guess setting it on the ground and leaning over it helps...she's drinking out of the straw here.