More Christmas...

Jason holds up one of our fave gifts for Samantha - pink Chuck Taylors from Uncle Mike!

Yeah!

Carson loved all of his presents...AND the boxes.

The kids got so many fun presents from family near and far...We all had the best time opening them. Carson's face when he saw all the gifts under the tree was priceless.

Samantha, on the other hand, slept through the entire Christmas morning and beyond.

But she still made out like a bandit, with clothes and a piggy bank and an American Girl Bitty Baby to call her own.

The best Christmas ever....

Here are some pics from Christmas Eve at the Smith house.

It was our first year not traveling back to the Midwest to spend Christmas with family.

My mom and grandma Edna (the Polish Queens) flew out to spend the week with us and we are having the best time. Jason's parents were also here for all the fun. We are so lucky to have family that's able to travel to see us when we are limited in the amount of travel we can do (i.e. I am still working on going places with these two babies in tow...It's a lot of rigamaroo but it's getting a lot better!)

It was the best Christmas ever having Carson at an age where he can enjoy Christmas (particularly the treats and the bows) and having Sam's first Christmas. Even though she didn't know what was going on, I'd like to think she knew it was a special day.

Here Carson holds up his "Dora is my homegirl" t-shirt from Aunt Jenny.

Hilarious!!

Carson is still really into books and he is now identifying letters...his recent favorite is "Q" which he says like this "Kewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww". He checked out all his new books all weekend and he was pumped.

Sam I Am displays her new Christmas bow from Nana Caryn.....

Deep conversations with her Nana on the bed...

Busica (which is Polish for grandma) gets to know Samantha....

She was a little heavy for Grandma to hold for a long time. Time for Gram to do some bicep curls to prep for carrying this chunker!

Here is Samantha in her Christmas dress, which was sent to her by the Alford family.

She is, as always, cuter by the minute!

It's been a busy week so far but one of the best.

Another highlight of this last week was the engagement of Jason and I's sister Jenny to her boyfriend Ian. We are so excited for them! He treats her like a queen and we are going to be eagerly anticipating their wedding, probably in spring of 2011.

Having Ian as a brother in law is sure to make life that much more fun.

They are coming to town on January 3rd to see us.... we will see how much Dora Ian can really take...it's the true test of being a member of the family. :)

She's all smiles...

Samantha turns 7 weeks old today. She is all smiles these days and she is melting hearts left and right with her precious grins. She has slept through the night a couple of times but it is not an everyday occurence...last night she was all eyeballs from about 4-5:30 AM. We sang Christmas carols to pass some time. My horrible singing probably kept her awake, come to think of it.

Here is another shot of these baby blues of hers....

Batting at animals on her mat...she does some serious batting and she's got good aim.

Carson had better watch out!

One of her little grins...

One of my greatest friends, Lori Pryor, stopped by yesterday with her beautiful baby Anistyn.

Her and Samantha were both born at 8:02 AM about 6 weeks apart. In other words, they are BFFs. They had a lot to talk about...mainly how cool they each are. We had a fun visit.

I love that the Pryors live in Vegas with us!

We went out!

We went out last night to the Rock and Roll Wine event at the new BB Kings Blues Club at the Mirage. It was a sweet place. It felt so good to go out. Thanks to our good friend Sarah Oliver who managed our two sweet kiddies by herself for a few hours while we went out...

She is amazing. The kids were good and we all got a fun date night.

An ode to the Blues...and Samantha and her Papa Dave.

Still trying....

We're still trying to get a picture of these siblings together.

It seems that all Carson wants to do is kiss the baby, but then when we want him to pose for a picture next to her, he's like "Heck no!"

Here he helps with her bath....

Here he tries to show Samantha his camera and his chewed up apple.

Her face says it all....

Mt. Charleston

I've been too busy to blog lately but here is what we've been up to!
We went to breakfast with Santa this past weekend up on Mt. Charleston.
They had about a foot of snow up there and it was beautiful.
Carson loved the snow.

Santa...not so much. He warmed up to him but only after about an hour. We did finally get him to sit on Santa's lap for a brief moment. It's all in the name of progress!

As for our little 10 lb. princess Samantha....she (you guessed it) slept the whole time!

Here is Samantha pictured in her sassy leopard car seat cover, compliments of our cousins Kerry and Kristina and their families. She is tres chic in her stylish cover!

Carson getting ready to see Santa....Mom, do I have to do this again?



Outside the resort in the snow....lovin' it.

Escape attempt from Santa #1...

Thinking about it...but no.

With Dad after the experience...We had such a great time.

no!

Watch Carson as he builds a tower of pudding and then knocks it down.

What a goof!

Weekends with Samantha

Samantha shows us her feminist "We Can Do It" pose in her Santa suit.

Still tired....I wonder why! She was up all night!

Carson enjoys an apple like we do...it's now his most prized possession.

Carson takes Chuck E. Cheese

Dave and Barb, bless their hearts, whisked Carson away to Chuck E. Cheese this week.

It was Dave's idea. And I think a part of Dave wanted to go there more than Carson did?

See below...

But obviously, our boy had the best time ever.

Grandparents and Chucky Cheese = Best Day Ever.

How Am I Driving?

This is a video from a couple of weeks ago...Check out Carson's stroller driving skills.

Luckily Samantha was not in this stroller at the time.

Message: Do not ride with this boy if he is driving!

Sam I Am...

We discovered that Samantha likes to nap on her belly!

Is this the answer to our recent difficulty with napping?

We'll see...it does look pretty comfortable!

Samantha with Papa, demonstrating her mad head-control skills...

She also does this thing with her arms that we call the "Herky Punch"

She's wild about her play mat and loves to stare at all the animals around her.

She wants to see everything there is to see!

It's a good day

Today's a good day. It's 47 degrees in Vegas and the mountains are all covered with snow from the storm yesterday. It's so beautiful.

Here is Carson....post-park...modeling his second outfit of the day, which is the first thing I grabbed when I was upstairs. We call this one "Fat Boy in a Little Onesie". Note the beer belly!

Samantha takes a snooze with Nana Baba.

This morning I had this whole two kids thing under control.

One slept on the couch....

While the other watched Dora. Carson calls her "Deeeeeeeeee".

Shoot...I could have done my nails this morning!
I have this whole thing totally under wraps.
Until tomorrow.....

Our beauty...

Here's our little beauty from this morning.

Look at those eyes!

And she's been busy cooking up some cheeks in the last week.

We're still trying to get a good picture of Samantha and Carson together.

Here's our latest attempt...unsuccessful.

Notice anything?

Notice anything strange about our Christmas tree this year?

How about the fact that it has NO ORNAMENTS from half way down.

There is one 30 pound reason why that is.

Carson has taken off all the ornaments that he can reach!

And because he is such a tall drink of water, he can reach most of them.

Oh well....maybe next year's tree will have more ornaments....oh, wait.....:)

Never a dull moment..

It's never a dull moment with this little Carson around.

Him and Daddy take a self portrait....

Love his face in both of these pictures....

Carson loves sidewalk chalk and loves to draw on everything. Patio furniture, his basketball hoop...he will even try to draw on food (good luck with that!).

Carson thinks Samantha's tummy time mat is pretty darn sweet...

4 Weeks

Samantha is four weeks now. It must have been the fastest 4 weeks of our lives...I am not quite sure where that time went! She is growing and changing every day. She eats so well and enjoys play time on her tummy time mat...I can tell that she is starting to be able to see a lot better and so she is really beginning to study faces and the world around her. I am thinking that her sweet smile will be here before too long...we can't wait to see that smile of hers. She weighed 8 lbs 5 oz when I weighed her last week. Her belly button FINALLY fell off after 4 long weeks of that darn thing hanging on to dear life....She got her first bath the other night and she loved it. It was a big turnaround from Carson's first bath, which was a huge disaster.

We love our little precious Samantha!