1st Double Stuffed Oreo

Recently, Sam had his 1st Double Stuffed Oreo. As to be expected, he carefully scraped every last speck of icing off with his finger. It was like the Everlasting Gobstopper of Oreos. It went on forever. The pictures speak for themselves...

Trip to See Santa at the Gaylord...Well, Kinda

The other night, we went to the Gaylord to see Santa which is where we went last year. (See pic) I pictured us strolling through the hotel, sipping our coffee, hand in hand while looking at the lights and discussing our many blessings. Well, I could just show you the following 3 pictures without any other explanation and you can probably tell how the night went...

Mistake #1 - I gave him a sucker at 8:30 at night.

Mistake #2 - I let his feet touch the floor....and he's off...

Honestly, the back of his head is all I saw of him the entire night. Poor Daddy was sweatin' 5 minutes into our arrival and I was chasing the 2 of them down while pushing the stroller with one hand (bum finger, remember?) and coffee sloshin' & flyin' everywhere (and we were going to stroll, remember?).

What? His Face? He didn't mean to stop long enough for his face to be seen. Hurry, this never happened...

However, Sam got to ride on an escalator for the first time without a stroller.

The decorations were amazing and Sam had a great time to say the least. We decided to postpone the visit with Santa once the meltdowns began and try again for another day. (another day, another post)

Well, all I can say is Live and Learn!

Getting Ready for Christmas

Ok, I have had my decorations up since before Thanksgiving and I am just now blogging them. Since the main reason that I blog is to journal and/or scrapbook these wonderful times with my sweet SamBo, I decided better late than never. Sooo, here are some pics of the process and the results :)

Getting it all down...
As we were getting down the decorations from the attic, Sammy found a little red rocking horse. It's really small and supposed to be used for decoration, not as a toy. I laughed out loud when I turned around and found his little bottom wedged in it, rocking back and forth.

The outside...
After getting everything down, it was time to decorate the outside of the house. The plan was for Matt to do the outside while I did the tree. As it turned out, Matt finished the outside as planned and I successfully spent the entire day complaining about how I didn't want to go inside and "fluff" the incredibly painful, stiff artificial branches.

Sam sat in the back of Daddy's truck and watched as Matt did the work.

This was Sam's reaction when we turned on the lights. We switched to colored lights this year in efforts to make it more gingerbread like. Sam thought there were little "ball balls" as he calls them, all around the house.

Next, it was time to decorate the tree...
I love this picture and his sweet little hand. (Although he looks like he is innocently placing an ornament amist the tree, he is most likely getting a good grip so he can rip it off)

Later, I walked up and found him looking at this sweet little picture of himself from last year and saying, "Sssssss". That's how he says Sam. It's an ornament that says, "Baby's 1st Christmas".

While I was doing the awful chore of fluffing the mashed down branches, he came over and had a little seat in my lap.

After the beat down of the branches was finished, I bit the bullet and decorated it. Sam helped :)

This year, I added big candy-like pieces to go with the whimsical candy house theme.

At first glance, this seems like a sweet little picture of a sweet little boy. If you look a little closer, you can see that little mischevious gleam in his eye that says, "Go ahead and go back in the kitchen, I'm not going to do anything."
All finished. We added new stockings this year but didn't manage to get the names on them. Oh well, maybe next year.
This T'was The Night Before Christmas book was the first one that my dad started reading when my oldest brother was an infant. He's 42 now and my dad has read us the story every Christmas Eve since then (another post to come after Christmas this year)

Make Like a Tree & Leave

The other day, Matt was working away, raking millions of leaves from the yard when Sam took the rake away from him and went to town. My favorite part is the way that he grunts as he works :)

*WARNING* Really gross picture! Look at your own risk!

Ok...after much convincing from my friends that took this picture, I decided to post it on my blog. This is my finger after nearly a week. It is starting to feel much better although it is still uncertain as to how much of it will survive. The hope is that most of it will live and the part that my not live will be such a small section that it will be fine. Anyway, for those of you that like gross stuff, enjoy! For the rest of you...I'm really sorry! (Scroll down to see the picture)














Drumroll......

What a fun night :)

A few nights ago, we had one of those simple nights at home when you turn off the TV and just hang out as a family. We don't do this nearly enough! After dinner, Sam & I played hide & go seak with Daddy. We would hold hands and run and hide while Matt hollared, "Where's Sammy?". Sam would stick his sweet little finger to his mouth (or sometimes behind his lip) and say, "Shhhhh". However, he was anything but quiet. He would chuckle & giggle as loud as ever while we would sneak up on Daddy & jump out and say Boo! Matt would be very dramatic and act scared and Sammy loved it. Matt wouldn't hardly have the words out of his mouth and Sam would be grabbing my hand saying, "a knee, a knee" (again, again). He and Matt finished with some football & good ol' tickle torture. He was so excited that he started going in circles until he was dizzy (which is his new favorite thing). See the video below which is crooked and I don't know why...(Don't forget to pause the music at the bottom of the page)

Leave it to me!

Ok...this morning I was rushing around trying to get to my parent's house to take them to the airport when it happened.....I shut my left pointer finger in the garage door (the big one, not the little door leading to the house). The result? I crushed the end of the bone into pieces, pulled out my fingernail from the main root at the nuckle and severed the end, 1/2 - 1" or so, of my finger off (not just the skin but the whole end of my finger). It was barely attached but luckily it was still hanging on by a thread. (I have heard the word crushed far too many times today. Apparently the words crush injury together are actually a medical term).

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Fortunately, it was my left hand & my pointer finger instead of my middle finger. Otherwise, I'd go around for the next 4-6 weeks, while celebrating Christ's birth, telling everyone that they're #1.

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I would tell you the long drawn out story but I am having to hen peck this with my right hand. We are just hoping & praying that the reattached portion of my finger survives. The ER called in a plastic surgeon to sew it back on so at least I know it was done the right way & we've done all that we can, we just have to wait & see. For those of you that know me, this is coming as no surprise to you...I'm what you call "accident prone". :) Above is a pic of me in the ER waiting on the surgeon...I may look as happy as a clam but I'm not gonna lie, it hurts like a fool.

A Little Reminder...

*Twas the month before Christmas*
*When all through our land,*
*Not a Christian was praying*
*Nor taking a stand.*
*See the PC Police had taken away,*
*The reason for Christmas - no one could say.*
*The children were told by their schools not to sing,*
*About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.*
*It might hurt people's feelings, the teachers would say*
* December 25th is just a ' Holiday '.*
*Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit*
*Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!*
*CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod*
*Something was changing, something quite odd! *
*Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa*
*In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.*
*As Target was hanging their trees upside down*
* At Lowe's the word Christmas - was no where to be found.*
*At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears*
*You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.*
*Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty*
*Are words that were used to intimidate me.*
*Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen*
*On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton !*
*At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter*
*To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.*
*And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith*
* Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace*
*The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded*
*The reason for the season, stopped before it started.*
*So as you celebrate 'Winter Break' under your 'Dream Tree'*
*Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.*
*Choose your words carefully, choose what you say*
*Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS ,
not Happy Holiday !*
Please, all Christians join together and
wish everyone you meet during the
holidays a
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Christ is 'The Reason' for the Christ-mas Season!

The Whole Gang

The day before Thanksgiving, we headed out for the amazing task of capturing a group picture of Sam and all of his Texas cousins (the Cheatham gang). My friend Melissa(http://www.melissadarstphoto.com/) said she was up for the challenge although I'm not sure she knew what she was getting herself into! She actually got some really great shots. Between two toddlers and my sweet nephew with autism, we have quite a challenging group to say the least. My mom had the idea of putting jersey style shirts on them to show their birth order. I love the way they turned out! Luckily, we managed to get them in their element and capture the love/chaos! Enjoy!

This one was taken on my dad's antique tractor.

He collects them and donated one to Nash Farm in Grapevine, TX. The other big thing in the background is some other kind of equipment donated by one of my uncles.

Although he is 150% boy, Sam doesn't really like to get his hands dirty. The cans were rusty and he had dirt on them which, as you can see, he was overly concerned about. These are my brother Kelly's 4 kiddos.

These are the 3 girls...Halle Caroline, Emily, and Ellison.
There was a goat in that pen...I can't believe she got Sam to actually look at the camera!