Read all about Christmas here!

We went to Wimberley's Trail of Lights on Thursday night.  It was the nicest free Christmas event!  Cocoa, Mrs. Clause, a book for each child, and lights galore.  They had a music playing area, and a bonfire for roasting free marshmallows.  Sabrina danced on stage to Christmas music.  Of course, she had to stick her head in the elf picture... See our accidental video here - we were trying to take a picture! Haha...!

Samuel on Christmas Eve. 

We had a lovely day at home with my parents, then attended Bethany Lutheran's simple & sweet Christmas service. They focused on all the Scripture of the angel coming to Mary & Christ's birth, with focused songs intermingled in between passages, and two sermons. We all really enjoyed it. Then Philip & I visited Rae & family while my parents attended Mass. The kids had a great time. Sabrina & Alessandra read the Grinch, and Samuel hung out with us in the kitchen. We finished the night up singing carols while Rae played our favorites on her piano. Sabrina danced to all of the songs, sometimes with Samuel, and piped in whenever she knew the song. This year she's learned all of Rudolph, Santa Comes to Town, and Jingle Bells. She also knows most of Joy to the World, and some of a bunch of songs: The First Noel, Away in a Manger, Deck the Halls, and Little Town of Bethlehem. She really prefers fast and fun songs, so the slower/softer Christian Christmas songs are harder to teach her as she is less motivated to learn them. I don't want to pressure her & cause her to not like any of them, so I'm just being patient.

 

Christmas morning arrived and Sabrina was thrilled with her new bike.  Samuel was not really sure what was going on, but he was really excited to have all of us home together.  Samuel was most thrilled with his dump truck.  Sabrina helped me with the turkey rub, and was exhausted by all the present unwrapping.  We had to end round #1 of unwrapping because she just wanted to play with the toys she had received!  Who could blame her?  We took a few more videos, I'll share them soon. All in all, we were so satisfied and content with our Christmas in Austin.  We enjoyed all of our family, and dinner was really yummy.  I didn't burn anything to oblivion! Relief....

Nov-Dec

Whew!  Well we had a busy November with a Mississippi trip, New Orleans visit, and South Texas Thanksgiving.  Samuel signs all the basic words now:
sleep
eat
milk
more
all done
dog
hat
water
shirt
please
ball
banana
diaper
thank you
book
ball
arms up (looks like he's saying touch down!)
help (see note below)
He gets 'help' mixed up with more, but if he is playing, gets frustrated & yells, then walks up to you saying more, you can bet he needs help.  Context clues, indeed Sherlock. :)  He says mama, da, nana, aaaaa, dadda, eat, ezzzz (please).  He's at that stage where he sounds like he says the actual correct word all the time, but then has trouble repeating the right word again.  It leaves us saying, "did he just say xxxx?" all the time.  It's anyone's guess if he really did.  :)

Meanwhile, Samuel has turned into a big climber.  For instance, he'll move the blocks box over to the toy chest, so he can climb up on box, then climb & stand on toy chest.  This whole process will be so that he can push buttons on Sabrina's cd player which is resting on the ledge above the toy chest.  This is a very effective technique to stop any continous music play and really aggravate your sister. He's also developed proficiency at moving the small chairs to many drawers all over the kitchen so he can dig in the drawers & get stuff out.  All good until he discovers the knife drawer.  Boo... we'll be adding a drawer latch this week to that!  Also scary in that it is really a challenge to manage the stove.  Besides using the back burners, we can't really turn our backs on him while cooking. 

Samuel continues to be quite the dancer.  Put on any music, and he'll draw close, like a moth to flame.  Then he'll sway his hips side to side, bounce up and down by bending his knees, and occasionally spin.  Clap, and he'll clap with you.  If you tell him good job, he starts clapping for himself, and you can't help but join him.  He's gotten a lot faster lately.  Sometimes he'll get motivated to bolt for the laundry room (play in the doggy water bowl) or bathroom (loves the blue stool to reach the sink).  He also sometimes likes to play chase with Sabrina, but he's still inconsistent with this - has to be in the mood!  He loves to push Sabrina on her trike, or while riding the little yellow car.  He's investigated our Christmas tree thoroughly, and we are glad for all the plastic ornaments on the bottom 1/3 of the tree.  He really enjoys yanking them down & handing them to me & his dad.

He is starting to pretend, with babies & teddy bears, holding them longer and pushing them in the baby stroller.  He also is starting to like the train set, moving trains up & around the track.  He had a great time at the Barnes & Noble train table Saturday, moving the trains all over that thing.  He isn't grabby yet, so when a bigger boy took his train out of his hand, he just looked at me quizzically.  The train was returned by the little boy's father, and Samuel was back to happy again quickly.

I feel so incredibly blessed this Christmas.  Most all of our family is healthy and well.  There have been years where this was not true.  Our kids are inquisitive & fun, and we had a great Saturday shopping for all of our loved ones.  We went to the Christmas tree lighting & singalong at the Capitol a couple of weeks ago, then visited the Paramount for refreshments & Rudolph viewing.  Walked down Congress hearing live music, and did a crafts project with Sabrina.  We have most all of the presents wrapped & under the tree, and realize we are one of the few families in the world who have such plenty.  We are looking forward to Grandma & Papa arriving Wednesday night, then Wimberley on Thursday night, and Christmas Eve at Rae's.  For the first time in our married lives, we'll celebrate Christmas day in our own home, with our 2 wonderful children.  Sabrina is filled with expectation and excitement for the big day.  Allie, our Christmas elf, has been hopping all around the house since after Thanksgiving, and she serves as a daily reminder to Sabrina of the Christmas to come and how to behave to make that Christmas all that she wants it to be.

Merry Christmas!!

Sabrina & Samuel... life in motion!

One of Samuel's favorite current moves is to yell as loud as he can 'Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa!' Then when you look over at him (with a smile, who can resist?) he responds ha ha ha ha in his gurgly way. It's pretty cute. That & his mad dash to the fridge anytime the door opens. He most favors the light ranch dressing bottle in the door, and just this morning he decided it would be a great idea to try and sit in the nice cool fridge. He couldn't understand why he kept sliding down! (condensation.)

He stopped crawling last week. By Wednesday he decided even the shortest little moves around were better to walk than to crawl. Hard to believe I've seen his last uber motivated, army man style crawling, bam bam bam as fast as he can! No more! :( Kind of sad to gain & then lose these little signs of babyhood. Now it's official... toddler times!

Sabrina delights us with her conversation. Yesterday she explained so many things to her uber dense parents, thank goodness! She's getting really good at describing her world, things that she does out of your sight, but still messes up words & switches things around enough to be totally adorable & charming. It still makes me laugh & smile when she is blunt with us, or tries out a new word, getting it 60% right! Sabrina totally loves her brother soooo much, she gives him big hugs & takes every opportunity she can make up to pick him up and move him around our house. MOst of these moves elicit more AAAAAAaaaaah sounds out of Samuel. He's definitely figured out he has a say so in what happens, and has decided to share his opinions with a yell or a few cries whenever he is unpleased with an outcome. We can also tell, when they are out of sight by his yell when Sabrina's got him in a squish hug, him on top of her while she's laid down with him. Usually he's had just about enough, and yells to be freed. Sometimes Sabrina needs to be encouraged to let him go though, as she can't get enough! :) I was creating some decorations with scissors yesterday for Samuel's party, and she decided she needed to contribute as well. She used her pattern scissors to cut blue confetti for the party. Then she colored the confetti with hot pink, and used the glue to attach it all to a piece of paper. With one Belle sticker added to the top, her masterpiece was complete. She was at it again this morning, creating another gift for Samuel. She asked me, aren't I sweet to make this for Samuel's party?? Yes, honey, you are! :)

She is very concerned with Samuel's well being. I'll ask her to watch him when I leave the room, and she'll say yes Mommy I've got him! Then other times she'll say you can go now Mom, I'm watching Samuel, I'll keep him safe! Ha! To be truthful, she is absolutely our early detection/Samuel warning system. Mommmy/Daddy, Samuel's got the water cup! Mommy, Samuel's trying to go in the laundry room She takes unsafe objects/chokeables from him. Ok, this is making us sound unsafe, but it can be really hard to keep coins from falling out of pockets, fuzz from making tiny balls - and Samuel thinks anything smallish should be tried out for taste! Ewww... I know but we are so used to it by now, we just have to vacuum & sweep all the time. STill, you wouldn't be able to tell! ;)

Sabrina is 100% on top of the party planning for Samuel's first. She gets updates daily on how far away the party is (2 wks, 1.5 wks, 1 wk). She is probably the most excited person in the house. I get it too, who wouldn't be with all of her favorite friends coming? I'm pretty sure she has forgotten it is for his birthday and not hers, but that's ok right? We are thrilled to have so many of our loved ones come and join us in celebration. Sabrina is going to be over the moon, at 200% energy, and probably will crash hard for bed that night. Samuel will be his normal happiness, wondering who the heck all these people are... Don't worry son, you just didn't know how many people love that you are part of this big world! And they all are behind you and your family! We are so so blessed.