A moment of reflection

A friend in blogger world had a post one day just filled with little nicknames she gave her kids and it was one of the most enjoyable posts I have ever read.  So, I thought I would do the same.  

So here they are in no particular order:

Baby

Baby Boy

Dude

Love

Lovey

Lovey Bear

Love Nugget

Monkey

Tiny

Fresh

Freshy

Muffin

Muffin Top

Sweet Cheeks

Punkin

Punkin Head

Sweetness

DooDaa (as in Zippity)

This blogger friend also posted what she loved most about each of her kids. (blogger friend...you know who you are. Thanks for the ideas)  I am totally ripping her off, but it's really nice to reflect on stuff like this every once and a while.  So here are just a few things (because I could never list them all) that I love most about my Sammy.

I LOVE.....

The way he gives me a kiss when I get him out of his crib every morning.  

The way he will grab my face and force a mouth kiss if I try to offer him a cheek.

The way he "dresses up"

The way he nuzzles his head against you when he is really happy or nervous.  My Grandmother has a sweet little doggy and Sammy LOVES dogs, but for some reason he is really timid around Maggie.  So instead of petting her with a hand, he will bend over and gently touch her with the top of his head.  It is hilarious.  

The way he will run in circles like the Tasmanian devil when he hears the "Little Einsteins" theme song.

The way he LOVES to hear his Daddy play guitar.  He will watch for a minute and then he grabs the pick out of Jordan's hand and strums a few bars and hands it back.  

The way he just starts laughing and running hoping that you will chase him.  

The way he cuddles right before bedtime. 

 

How he will sit by himself and look at books.

The way he lays on his stomach and plays with this cars.

The way his countenance brightens when his Daddy gets home from work.

The way his eyes light up when he sees his grandparents.

The way he idolizes his big cousins.

The way he is made happy with the simplest of things.

Most of all I love the way this child has filled a hole in my heart in a way that I could have never imagined.  He is more than I could have hoped for.  Even when I am exhausted from the day, I miss him after he goes to bed.  On the mornings when Jordan goes to get him out of bed, I get a little jealous that he got to see him first.  I always heard people talk about how you love your child so much that your heart hurts, and I thought that was really neat.  But, it is far more than neat.  It is magical!!!!!!!!!!  This tiny little boy does things to my heart that can't even be described.  

Memorial Day/Daddy's Birthday

Our Memorial Day/Daddy's birthday started out with Jordan and I giving Sammy a "Daddy Cut".  It was not intentional, but the top of his hair got a little weird looking after we trimmed it so we kind of had no choice but to shave it off.  He looks adorable though. 

This is what happens when I ask Sammy to sit still for a picture.  Silly kid!

First errand of the day was Frys where I thought I would look for a Little Einsteins DVD for Sammy.  It is his favorite show of all time!!!!  I had flipped through all the "L" videos and came up with nothing.  I turned to Sammy saying "sorry buddy, no Einsteins".  I looked down and realized he was holding one!  Little stinker!  I have no idea how he found it, but he did!  He was so excited and studied the back of that DVD case like a big boy would.  Notice if you will his leg crossed over his knee.  It's his new sitting position.  He looks 5 and it makes me want to cry.

Jordan and I started singing the Einsteins theme song and our little baby freaked out with excitement.  It was almost more than he could handle.

My stomach hurts from laughing, but please don't stop!!!!

Beautiful Boy!

Then It was on to the Big Birthday Bash for Jordan, my brother John and myself at Grandma and Grandpa's.  My Dad was sitting at the water faucet and would turn the sprinkler up and down when the kids would get close.  A little cruel, but we all thought it was too funny to actually make him stop.  Good thing Sammy digs the water.

Cousin Emma making an artsy moment of standing in the middle of the sprinkler.  Strike a pose girl!

Auntie Danielle and friend Rachel in a serious game of "toss the volleyball"?  Not quite sure what they were doing, but Sammy liked being in the middle of it.

Sammy mooching food off of Grandpa, but everything on his plate contained a pepper of some sort.  Sammy was none to happy about that!

All in all the day was wonderful from start to finish.  A lot was crammed in to it, but it was perfect.  We celebrated Jordan and the gift that his life has been to me as his wife and the gift that his life has been to Sammy as his father.  Sammy and I are blessed to have this man in our lives.  The way he takes care of us and loves us is priceless.  We were also able to take a moment and celebrate the lives that have been lost while fighting for the freedom that we all too often take for granted here in our country.  I thought about the fact that we look at this day as a free vacation day, but there are families out there that take this day to visit the cemetery and grieve the loss of their loved one.  We have no idea how fortunate we are to live in a country where our men AND women will voluntarily go and fight for our freedom.  Wow!

Please Pray

I was stunned last night to learn of the death of Steven Curtis Chapman's youngest daughter from China, Maria.  Due to the fact that it was this mans adoption testimony that led Jordan and I to adoption, I feel like his family is somehow my family.  I am sad beyond words.  Here is the link that explains kind of what happened. www.stevencurtischapman.com

Please be in prayer for this family.

The Races

Jordan has been nagging me for like 3 weeks about when I am going to update my blog.  I tend to tire of things quickly and I figured it was only a matter of time before I grew board of blogging.  It just happened a lot faster than I had anticipated.  So, I am going to try this again.  Let's hope that this post will get my juices flowing again.

We decided that it would be fun to take Sammy out to Lone Star Park over the weekend, so after his 3 hour nap(yes, 3 hours!!! It's been going on for almost 2 weeks...it's amazing!!!) Saturday we headed out.  It was like 4:30 when we got there and a massive cloud had rolled across the sky creating a canopy of lovely shading and a cool breeze.  It was perfect!!!!!!  We placed a few $2 bets over the course of 3 races.  We know nothing about how to choose a horse, we mostly pick based on the odds and the horses name.  Snooky's Image, Little Ms. Cozzene, Dawali and Gone Missing were just a few of the ones we picked.  Who comes up with those names anyway???  Do they really say "come here Little Ms. Cozzene" when they call the horse?  I think those are stage names and the horses are really called Jack, Belle, Fran, Gus, and Lighting.  It just makes way more sense!  ANYWAY, after two hours of races, good greasy hot dogs and two $3.50 bottles of gatorade, we called it a night.  It was fun to be out there, but Jordan and I said that the best part of all was being together as a family.  Sammy is getting to that age where he is showing more interest in things for a longer period of time.  He was such a joy to be with yesterday and really seemed to enjoy himself.  We left as soon has he got oochie so that his experience would remain a positive one.  It was such a good day!!!!!!  

And they're off!!!!

Sammy and Daddy cheering on the horses

    

"Rockin Ronny"

Come on guys, just a little smile....please!!!!!!

                 

Sammy and Mommy

  

Sammy groovin to some Prince on the way home

If only I had made spaghetti!

So last night was a Monday like any other.  Jordan was at school and I was contemplating what to make for dinner.  I did not feel like exerting too much energy so I opted for fish sticks and mac n' cheese.  I set the oven to preheat and carried on about my business.  The back of the fish stick box said to set the oven at 475 which is a little high, but I've done it before without a problem.  I heard the oven beep once it had pre-heated and a few minutes later I finally made it over there to pop in the fish sticks.  I notice a small spark through the window on the oven door.  It sort of looked like a sparkler had been placed inside.  I just stood there for a second, calmly mind you, wondering what to do.  I quickly turned the oven off and stood back to see what would happen next.  Nothing.  I opened the door to see where exactly the sparks were coming from.  BAD IDEA!!!!!!  It went from sparking to a full on fire!  I shut the door quickly and watched as the inside of the oven was nothing but bright orange.  I knew that water is not what you use on electrical fires and that flour is used for a grease fire.  My only option was to use the fire extinguisher.  Two sprays and the fire finally died out, but I could have never imagined the disaster zone that would have resulted from this choice.  The stuff that came out of the extinguisher was like a powder.  Two squirts COVERED my kitchen, living room, and trickled into the bedrooms even though I ran and shut the doors.  I could not breath and Sammy was rubbing his eyes.  I ran and put him in the back yard then went back in and opened all the doors and windows.  It was unreal!  I am standing there on the back patio counting all the times that day I had been happy because my house was so clean.  I just stood there for a minute as I watched the powder billow out of my house into the clean outdoors.  What to do, what to do.  I called my mom and told her what happened and she told me to bring Sammy over.  Actually her first response was laughter!  It was good though because I needed to laugh.  It really was quite Lucille Ballish.  Anyway, I dropped Sammy off and went back home to clean up.  Jordan got home from school and walked in to our powdered filled house and got right to work.  He was so sweet about the whole thing. We were wiping down everything.  Walls, floors, blinds, cabinets, furniture, dishes, bed linens, baseboards.  Strangely, through the whole thing I never cried or anything.  Only once did I loose it and might have let a curse word slip when my vacuum cleaner stopped working half way through the cleaning up process.  Other than that my spirits stayed relatively high.  I think I was just retreating into my happy place.  I don't know.  Our house is about 2/3 of the way back to normal.  I still have some wiping down to do in the studio, bathrooms, and my bedroom.  I look back now and laugh at the fact that I thought fish sticks would easier!!!!!  If only I had made spaghetti.......

Experiment #1 Update

Yesterday went really well!  Sarah and Luke came over around 10:00 and we started out with everyone playing in Sammy's room.  They all sort of did their own thing at first, which was fine.  The fact that Sammy was letting them play with his toys at all was impressive.  After about 15 minutes of that Sammy decided to join Luke who was playing with the car garage.  Much to my surprise Sammy sat down nicely beside him and they played TOGETHER for at least 10 minutes.  I whipped out the camera so I could have this moment documented.  Then we moved on to movie time.  I sat them down with their own bowl of goldfish and instructed them to eat only from the bowl in front of them.  I then inserted the movie "If Only I Had A Green Nose" (Max Lucado video which is actually really cute)and walked into the other room.  I waited for screaming and yelling to ensue brought on know doubt by my son dipping his paw into Sarah and Luke's snack bowl, but it never happened.  Sammy did not bother their snacks once!!!  Thank you God!  So we were nearing the end of the the play-date when Luke and Sarah decided the wanted to play with Sammy's little kitchen.  Well......Sammy was none to sure about that. So he walked up to them, turned his body to the side and used his hip to wedge himself between the two of them.  He then planted his back against the kitchen and spread his arms the length of it preventing them from playing.  There was no violence involved, just a very clear point being made that this was his kitchen and he had not given them permission to play with it.  I had to pull him away several times and he finally gave in.  Other than that, it was a success and we will be doing it more often.  In fact I already have another friend scheduled to come over Monday morning.  Oh, and Sammy cried when Luke and Sarah left.  So sweet!

Coolest Logo Ever!

So Kristin and I thought that it was important that we give this orphan outreach program a name, but we have just been stumped.  We were meeting with our pastor Monday and he suggested "O2", which represents the double "O" in orphan outreach.  I thought that was brilliant!  So I started doing some internet searching for a graphic to go along with that.  I found one on this great website called www.istockphoto.com.  You pay a certain amount for an illustration and then download it onto your computer.  My brother-in-law is a whiz with graphics stuff, so I told him which one I wanted and then also told him how I would like to manipulate it to fit the look I was going for.  He took my suggestions and whipped out the most awesome result.  It's a little abstract, but we want people to have to ask questions.  Especially if we have t-shirts made.  Anything that can start a conversation is great.  The only problem is that "O2" is the symbol for oxygen and I don't know how that really ties in.  I choose not to worry about that right now.  Let me know what you think!