Tuesday, March 27, 2012

A Boy and his Bear

Meet Mr. Bear. :) He's a Gund bear, and a rather old one in fact! Isn't he cute in his little winter hat? I actually bought him for my brother, Matthew, as kind of a silly Christmas gift in about . . . 2000? 2001? Somewhere around there. And then I stole him back when Matthew neglected to take poor Mr. Bear with him to college! I mean, really, it would have been Toy Story 3 all over again, right? I couldn't have that. Soooo, thanks, Uncle Matthew! Sam is very grateful for your sacrifice -- which you may or may not know you made. Hmm.

Sam LOVES this bear. Our Sammy Boy used to have a very hard time falling asleep when he was a wee little one, so we gave him Mr. Bear to have as a familiar friend in his crib. It worked! Some of you parents out there might be crying, "Sleep prop!" And, well, yes . . . it was. Oh, well. :)


-- 7/7/11 - 4 months old --
This was probably not too long after Sam and Mr. Bear met, AND, coincidentally, the first time I caught Sam sucking his thumb while sleeping. Cutie patootie.


-- 7/14/11 - still 4 months! --
Just one week later . . . look how they've bonded! Awwww . . . and look how white and fluffy Mr. Bear is! Nowadays he's not so white and fluffy, but his frequent trips through the washing machine do help a little.

(Which just reminded me of this!)
Ha! :)



 -- 8/10/11 - 5 months old --
Mr. Bear is great for long trips in the car, too! I think this was taken during our drive out to Utah to see Adam's family. :) Look at that happy boy!


-- 8/10/11 --
And, of course, Mr. Bear has spent a lot of time getting drooled on. If you've met Sam, you probably know that he puts everything in his mouth. EVERYTHING. It's funny, because Ava hardly ever put anything in her mouth, but Sam's like, "Mmmm . . . rocks! Potting soil! Paper! Sharp objects! Delicious!" Hoping the phase will pass someday. Yikes.


-- 2/3/12 - 11 months old (exactly!) --
Just playing with Mr. Bear at Great Grandma Stewart's house. And looking rather serious! 


-- 2/16/12 - 11.5ish months old --
Naptime!


-- 2/26/12 - nearly 12 months --
I think this was a Sunday. Sam was having a meltdown before we left for church because he was SO tired . . . so the kids and I never made it to church and Sam took a nap -- still in his jacket and button-down shirt and all! And with Mr. Bear, of course. At least he woke up happy!


-- 3/5/12 - 12 months, 2 days! --
I love this one. :)
 Here we see the Standard Mr. Bear Holding Procedure. Grab an arm or a leg in your fist and stick your thumb in your mouth. Voilá! Time for relaxing. 



My boy loves his bear!

Friday, March 16, 2012

Tea for Two


Ava and I had afternoon tea today :)


White Peach Tea - with plenty of milk and a bit of sugar for my Boo!


We talked about all sorts of very important things ranging from bunnies and butterflies to pirates and treasure! She's kind of on a pirate kick right now. It's cute.

Then things pretty much dissolved into absolute silliness. Goofy girl! Mostly she was hamming it up for the camera and then asking to see the pictures. :)


I ❤ Ava

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Super Sam!

Our little Sammy boy is ONE! Can you believe it? Me neither! Well, except that he's so big . . . look at this little man!


It's kind of amazing to me how he's developed physically so fast. Sam is on the move! He runs, climbs, does chin-ups . . . you know, the usual baby stuff . . . right? Ha! He's fun. And a bit of a handful. :) We had his one-year checkup last week and he's doing great! He's still tall (in the 97th percentile!), but has slowed down a bit on his weight now -- in the 50-75th %ile range. Oh, it's just so fun to watch him grow. I love it. ❤

He's an exciting little guy to have around! He's just into everything right now and is doing all sorts of surprising things. One day I found him standing triumphantly on top of the dining room table. He climbed onto a chair and then right up on the table - easy as pie! He stood there, waving his arms around excitedly and looking quite exhilarated at his feat. Haha! Needless to say, Sam requires rather a lot of supervision. :)

He's a boy of many nicknames, one of them "Super Sam" -- I mean, the kid's got some serious super-strength, super-sonic screeching, super speed . . . need I go on? So, we decided to have a superhero birthday party to celebrate his first birthday on March 3rd. All of his little friends came and we had tons o' fun! 

Look at all those awesome superheros! There were kids flying around all over the place! 

Our fun party table! Adam and I made the little cityscape the night before (it's Denver! Did you notice? heehee). It was actually quite simple -- it's mostly made out of wrapping paper, plus some sparkly yellow scrapbook paper that I had for the stars. Adam had the idea to put the Super Sam "S" light in the sky which he made out of wax paper . . . awesome! :)

Super cupcakes! I designed some little cupcake labels using Pages on our Mac. I love Pages -- so easy to design things. I made his party invites on there, too.

 Much cheaper to make them on there than to order them from some photo site or something. Especially since I didn't even print any and just emailed them . . . :)

Here's his cake! It was kind of a cake-tastrophe . . . but it doesn't look too bad, right? Maybe a tad lopsided. I don't know why, because I've made the same cake before, but the layers would NOT come out of the pan in one piece. It was crazy! So, in the end, I had to cement it all together with frosting. It still tasted good, though! Extra frosting never hurts, eh? :)

Sam liked it! Yummy!

 Probably the most fun part of the party was watching all the kids playing in their capes! They were my big pre-party project and turned out so cute! I might do a little tutorial on here sometime soon on how to make them. I'm no expert at sewing, so it was pretty easy!


The big kids really got into it. :) It was fun to hear them coming up with all the different superpowers they had!

And Sam and Violet mostly just looked cute. :)

All in all, it was a super fun party! Happy Birthday, baby boy!