Samism of the Day

C'mon! Rocky Roll!

Sam's conversation with Aunt Kristin

Sam: "So, you should come over to my house."

Kristin: "I'd love to come over, but my car is broken."

Sam: "Your car is broken!"

Kristin: "Yeah. And I miss you!"

Sam: "I miss you too so much!" [pause] "I know! You can ride your bike!" [Kristin lives about 50 miles away, BTW]

Kristin: "Oh! But that's so far!"

Sam: [a little embarassed/defensive] "Well, it was just an *idea.*"

Lily eats pee and poop

Someone who will go unnamed forgot to flush the toilet this morning. And Lily found it. And you can guess what happened from the title of this post. Oh my gosh I take back everything I ever said about that kid being freakishly smart!

cute samism of the day

Sam's name for Albertson's: The Hungry Store

where they have chocolate milk, cheese, and spiderman cupcakes.

If you're a six foot tall girl

This is the best place ever to buy your clothes!

The Green Thumb

Sam got these cute gardening gloves from Grandma Peggy. When he opened them, he thought they were superhero gloves. So he ran around wearing them saying, "I have POWERS!!!" And when it was time to go to bed, he wanted to wear them. We call him The Green Thumb.

Sam loves his mommy because . . .

1) She makes me breakfast
2) she makes my bottle
3) I play in the backyard
4) She buys me spiderman toys
5) I want to get her a birthday cake!


Made me get a little teary. I confess

Thoughts on Uncle Bob's Birdwatching Notes

So, I've been going through a box of books from my Great Uncle Bob's house. He died within the last few years and I've had the box in my garage for awhile now. Some of the books are really cool. There's a WWI first edition of TARZAN, for example. It has this fascinating note at the front about how the book was produced within the restrictions of paper rationing. But then there are a few little notebooks. The notebooks are full of little tiny table-like observations that took me forever to figure out WTH they were. For example, a list of numbers and dates follows the cryptic heading, "DEAD." They look like this: 4678A51, 2-3-55; 870C54, 2-20-55; 6681C52, 2-24-55, etc. There are about 25 entries like this per page.

After flipping through the book and seeing a few descriptions next to such numbers ("yedged wings," "Y tail," "2-tone tail," etc.), and knowing a little bit about my Uncle, I figured out (finally!) that these were birdwatching notes.

When I figured that out, I suddenly was at a loss about what to do with the notebooks. They probably have no intrinsic value. Not like the TARZAN books that are worth $300 a piece (Well, worth up to $300 according to some online site. The most anyone has offered me in real life--and I've been looking--is$30 for the set. But I digress.) And yet, composing these notebooks took *time.* Lots and lots and lots of time, judging by the notes that span on for day after day after day after day. These notebooks, in essence, represent Uncle's *life.* The actual way that he passed through the hours of the day. These notebooks represent the experience of his very mortality.

So what to do with them?

Uncle was a packrat. He had some 6000 square feet packed with storage alone. If we kept every single thing that he left, well, there literally wouldn't be any room left for us.

But I can't help but feel that these books have something to do with the meaning of life. The actual way that we pass the time day by day.

And I can't figure out . . . if the notes really are a symbol of his mortality, what should I do with them? They're birdwatching notes. Birdwatching notes.

I'm stumped.

Essays by Martin Luther King, Thomas Jefferson, and oh, that's right, ME!!

I just had an essay published in a BYU textbook. We got our copies a few days ago, and here's what I think: it kind of rocks. A few hundred kids are going to have their minds warped by what I have to say. MWAHHAHAHA!

Sam loves the kissing

Happy Family

We took like a zillion pictures trying to get a good family picture. This is the best one. Even though Sam looks just a little sick. I think it's cause he's so pale. He's a seriously pale kid. Gotta love Lily and her beautiful posing though, eh?

Lily wearing Sam's old Monkey Costume

Starting preschool sux

Sam starting preschool has been way more traumatic than I thought it would be. (For all of us.) But today he seems to be doing really good. When we spied on him, he was laughing and playing and asking to color and wasn't crying anymore. (That's a first.)

So here's a cute picture of Sam to celebrate.

Two married princesses

Whenever Sam sees pictures from our wedding, he says, "oh look! It's Princess Mommy and and Princess Daddy!" (Steve loves that.)(sarcasm alert :-)

Lily got mauled by a herd of three year olds

So, we hung out for the first couple of hours with Sam at preschool today (to help him get used to it). And all of the little three year old girls found us utterly, utterly fascinating. They kept asking, "is that your baby? what's her name?" As if they had never seen a baby before in their entire life.

Whenever Lily tried to walk anywhere, she was instantly surrounded by at least six squealing girls (and one squealing boy) who petted her, grabbed her, tried to tickle her, tried to pick her up. This would happen over and over. One of the girls kept trying to "hug" Lily by wrapping her arms around Lily's neck and squeezing. Lily would gag and then push that girl away as hard as she could. (I was impressed, actually, at just how violent Lily was capable of getting.)

After awhile, Lily just couldn't take it anymore and started to cry. She sat on my lap for almost the whole time after that. And if you know Lily, you know that this is HUGE. She can't stand to stay in one place. She MUST, MUST, MUST keep moving, keep walking around. But she was not about to submit herself to the ravenous mauling of seven three year olds.

On my lap was the only safe place.

Sam's Preschool Follow Up

So . . . all did not go as splendidly as one would hope. When I got there to pick up Sam, his eyes were red and puffy. I said, "Did you like school?"

He said, "Yes. But I cried and cried. Like this . . ." And then he folded himself over and gave me a hilarious rendering of wracking sobs. (His teachers confirmed that this re-enactment was, in fact, based on truth.)

I asked, "Why'd you cry, honey?"

He said, "Because I missed my mommy so much."

Kind of breaks my heart. Poor kid.

Sam started preschool today!

He woke up all excited and said, "C'mon mom! We gotta *go*!" When we pulled up, he started laughing and said, "Wow, this is Sam's school!" And then he waved goodbye, blew me a kiss, and smiled like, "See ya!"

No more baby stuff in mom's room!

Lily has her own room now and we got to move all of her baby stuff into it! No more diapers next to my bed! No more crib in my closet! (Seriously. That's where she's been sleeping.) Yeah!

My sister who had been living with us for the last year got accepted to BYU with a full scholarship. (We all started crying when she got the scholarship. Me, her, my mom, my dad, all of us. Doesn't take much.) So, she moved down to Provo and Lily has moved into her room. Now, I just have to make curtains and stuff.

An early picture of Sam in costume

Cute, eh?

I want to wear my naked costume

That's what Sam told me this morning when I tried to get him dressed. So I let him wear it.

Of course, he likes a lot of other kinds of costumes, too.

For example:

Lily is One!

At 1:17 PM last year, all of us were freaking out about whether my mother in law was going to have to deliver the baby because she was coming so fast. Today we just freak out because she runs around so fast. Does everything fast, actually. She has pretty much started talking this week. Her words: wow, Papa, mama, dada, down, bottle (baba), Barbara (baba), hi, uh-oh, and--I kid you not--Sponge Bob Square Pants. That's my kid.

My brain hurts part two

This is me thinking really, really hard about how to get a picture posted. Woo hoo! I'm a genius

In praise of family with connections

Thanks to Johnny's brother, I have a cell phone again! And it works! And you can call me and stuff! I feel important again! Yeah!