lots of "1st-s" over the holiday

Sammy has a few first-s while we were in Utah for Christmas. His first haircut--this is the before:
And this is the after. My mom cut it and she did such a good job! He looks like such a little boy now. I was a little sad to have his hair cut, but maybe now we'll stop getting comments like "your daughter is so cute."
Also, Sammy played in the snow for the fist time in his life!
Jared took all the kids who wanted to outside and they made a snow pyramid. Sammy has always loved being outside so he loved the snow too.

Here are some more pictures of the hair cut. I just held Sam and gave him juice while my mom cut so that Samuel wouldn't know what she was doing back there. It seemed to work great.

Christmas 2009

Jared, Sam and I spent this Christmas in Utah with my family. We were all together and we had such a GREAT time. We were there for a good 10 days...BUT we had to drive. Luckily Jared's mom gave us an early Christmas present--a portable DVD player! So Sam did great on both drives. We had such fun and we got to see so much family--both mine and Jared's.

Our ward Christmas party

Here are some of Samuel's friends--an angel and three donkeys.
We had to keep Sam's cap on--that was the only way he would keep the donkey ears on. He was in "observation mode." There was so much going on with all the kids getting dressed up that he was content to sit in Audra's arms and watch all the action.
Here is a view of his costume from the back. I loved the little tail!
I know this is a terrible picture, but I had to post one of Sam's stage debut! He was the best donkey up there too, of course.
Sam didn't cry when I put him in Santa's lap...
But he also would not take his eyes off him.

We had such a fun time this year at our ward Christmas party! The primary put together a rough, chaotic but very cute nativity program for us all before we had dinner and then Santa cmae by after dessert. We love our ward so much. We have so many very close friends there so our ward activities are always much like a big family get-together.

bath time!

Samuel LOVES bath time, but I almost HATE giving him one. He makes such a mess and he cries when it's time to get out. PLUS since I only have the kitchen sink to bathe him in, that means the dishes have to be done before he can have a bath! Living in a trailer is so hard sometimes...

I'm always playing catch-up!

It seems like as soon as Thanksgiving is over there is a mad rush to get ready for Christmas. That was the case with me this year. BUT, I am ready now. The tree is up, the lights are hung, cards are sent out and gifts have been bought. SO NOW I can post the pictures I took at Thanksgiving...I know, I'm terrible.

We spent Thanksgiving in Indio, CA--at Jon and Tara's house. We had such a great time too. We got to see a lot of family because 4 out of the 8 brothers were there and Sam had plenty of cousins to play with.
The day after Thanksgiving we all went to a great little park by Allie's school and played around there. There was this great place for the kids to play and then this grassy area were all the adults got in a bunch of games of Kuub--that is what you see us all doing in the pictures.

As you can see, I am not very good at Kuub, but we all love that Scott and Ashlyn introduced us to the game.


And this was all Sam could do after our fun-filled-family-filled Thanksgiving. Thank you so much, Jon and Tara for beeing such good hosts. We loved spending the time in your home.

Halloween '09

We had such a fun Halloween this year! Halloween is so much more fun with kids! I had a dress up day with my parent participation class, our ward "Trunk-or-Treat, a free picture day down town San Luis, plus a party with our neighbors on Halloween night.
At our ward party, someone brought these fun picture opportunities! What a fun family picture for our family! I kinda looks like Sam is looking down at the keys...right?
Here is a picture of my crazy CTR 8 class. I teach 4 very fun girls every Sunday and they were nice enough is stand still for me long enough to get a group picture! This was taken at the trunk-or-treat.
Here is Sam trick or treat-ing. He wouldn't hold the bag so we had to make him wear it as a purse. He would walk up to the people giving out candy and then at the last minute turn away. He was such a tease.
Doesn't he just make the CUTEST Tigger?!?

Here is a slide show of our ward's trunk-or-treat. We had such a fun time!

Avila Valley Barn

I went on a field trip to Avila Valley Barn with my parent participation class back in October. We got to pick out a couple of pumpkins and go on a hay ride and there was a little kids hay bail maze. Sam seemed to have such a fun time. The group photo is of everyone in the class who came that day with our teacher Sally.