Turkey Time

We had a fun Thanksgiving....Here are some pics from our day.

We fried a turkey again and it was spectacular. I am a believer!

Jason carves the bird...he's serious about it, too...

The boys minus Dave with our inflatable turkey...

Scott Boschee and our turkey....He's the cutest little Butterball!

Samantha and her first Thanksgiving!

We put our tree up and Carson checked it all out....

Still trying to get a pic of these two together...

Samantha - getting cuter by the minute!

Go Carson Go!

Let us celebrate the day after Thanksgiving by watching Carson dance to the theme song of "Go Diego Go!" We are thankful for his dancing skills because they crack us up!

0 for 2...

Well, Carson is 0 for 2 in the Santa Claus lap-sitting department.

Last year he was totally sketched out by Santa.

(I can't really say that I blame him? This particular Santa isn't much for conversation.)

This year we thought we might turn the corner, especially when it was mentioned that there was a little car available for sitting in NEAR Santa's lap, not on it.

But it was a bust. We are 0 for 2. Maybe next year Carson will become a Santa fan.

Samantha was our golden girl....3 weeks old and totally cool with Santa.

Her face says it all...."What, like it's hard??"

As Dora says..."We did it!"

We had our good friends Brian and Kim Boschee over on Sunday.

They are turkey frying experts and helped us fry our first ever turkey.

Now we are all ready for Thanksgiving!

Kim and Brian have the cutest little baby, Scott. He might be Samantha's future prom date...so we thought they might enjoy this picture later on in life....

The boys ready to put in the bird...

Backyard turkey frying conversations on the patio...complete with wine. Is it legal to fry a turkey and drink wine at the same time?

Meanwhile back at the ranch....

The Stinky Fish occupies his time while little sister is being tended to by....

Standing on the backyard wall with Daddy...

Goofin' around in his wagon scooter in the yard...

Passing some knuckles to Auntie Jenny...

Eating Pringles sticks during the Christmas photo shoot...complete with juice in his new pink Dora cup...what could be better!?!?!

Samantha Who??

Samantha LOVES to sleep.

She can sleep sleep sleep until the cows come home.

She sleeps through anything and everything.

We joke around that we could almost forget about her sometimes....she's so quiet!

She smiles in her sleep.....I think it's Grandpa Dennis telling her jokes. :)

Sleeping at the park while Carson baboons around..

Sleeping on the couch....

Napping with Auntie Jenny....

Here are the girls doing some shopping at the outlets this week...
And Samantha was....you guessed it....sleeping!

Samantha is also sleeping pretty well at night. She took her first bottle this week, so daddy is feeding her at about 9:30 PM and then she ususally wakes up once at 1:30 and once at about 4:30 to eat again. And then she passes right back out. For now.... Stay tuned as to whether this pattern of awesomeness continues!

Another great weekend...

We had another fun weekend spending time together as a fam of four.

We love this little Samantha to pieces - she is the best girl! She is filling out and has slept for 2 1/2 to 3 hour stretches at a time at night. She is becoming more beautiful by the day.

Carson has some new tricks from last week - he now says "hair" and "beer" (don't ask), and learned how to take his pants off, all by himself! At any given moment, we can now find ourselves with a pants-less boy. It's never a dull moment with the Stinky Fish - he makes us laugh all day, every day!

Below - even though our beloved Hawks lost in OT to OSU on Saturday, we had fun snuggling on the couch with the kids.

The face says it all...Stross dropped ANOTHER pass????? :)

The kids snuggled up with Daddy....

Samantha snoozes all day long....Someone's gotta do it!

1 Week Old

Samantha is one week old today!

I can't tell if it's because she is our second baby, but Samantha is not only precious as can be and sweet as pie, but she is the easiest baby ever. For the moment, she is just perfect...Eats and then goes right back to sleep at night, rarely cries for no reason, looks around calmly when she is awake, and loves to snuggle. She is a dream come true. It couldn't come at a better time, because this week has been stressful with Carson being sick. We got some antibiotics from the doctor for him yesterday so hopefully he is on the mend soon. But it is our 9th day of him not feeling well, so that has been hard. He has been a good boy though...he is not jealous of the baby and loves to call her name when he hears her...."babeeeeeeeee!"

I took a couple of pics this morning of Samantha enjoying her tummy time....She, unlike Carson at this age, totally digs tummy time.

Samantha weighs 7 lbs as of her doctor's appointment yesterday, so she has gained back her birth weight plus a couple of ounces. She loves to eat. It runs in the family! :)

We love our little one week old superstar, Princess Samantha!

Back together!

We are enjoying our time at home as a family of 4!

Carson is finally home from his extended stay with Papa and Baba after being sick for much of this week. The poor guy had a virus this week so the doctor instructed us to keep him away from the baby. We were lucky that Papa and Baba agreed to take him in...and I think he had a great time, despite being sick. But we are all together at home now and loving it. We missed our little man. Carson has not been curious at all about Samantha so far and has not demonstrated jealousy yet. I'm sure this will change, but for now he is just happy calling her "babeeeeeee!" all the time.

Samantha is such a good girl. She sleeps and eats very well and loves to look around. She loves to stick out her tongue and always has her arms by her face. She is so tiny that none of her 0-3 month clothes are fitting her yet! Nana Baba went and got her a few more newborn outfits so she is all set with clothes that fit now.

Having her home just makes life that much better....We are loving every minute of having the two kids here together and can't wait for all the fun times ahead of us.

Samantha is all dressed up in her "going home" outfit below...which was an outfit of mine when I was a baby that my mom saved for me. She already wears vintage!

Ready to go home from the hospital....

Her first trip to the park was today...

A snooze with Papa last night....

Chillaxin' in the swing....it's a hard knock life!

Watching cartoons with Carson in her ducky PJs...

Our two kids....How lucky we are!

Le Petit Bebe - Day 1!

Samantha is enjoying her first full day of life today.

She has a busy schedule involving eating, pooping, and being snuggled all day long.

It's a tough life!

She is sweet as pie and we are in love with her.

She is cute as a button, but doesn't have a chance to have a boyfriend before she's 25 as long as Jason and Carson have anything to say about it.

Carson met Samantha today and he was very minimally interested in her.

Pressing the button to call the nurse to our hospital room TWICE was much more fun for him.

He did give his little sis a kiss though - As time goes by, I know he will only love her more and more.

Below....Samantha passes her hearing test under the watchful eye of her crazy audiologist mom.....

Carson kisses his baby sis....

Stinky Fish loving the curtains in my hospital room....

The family of 4!!

We are hoping to go home tomorrow, but we will see what the doctor says. I am feeling better and better every hour, so as long as that continues, we will hope to be home very soon.

Meet Samantha Michaelene Smith!

We are proud to announce that Samantha was born this morning at 8:02 AM.

She weighed 6 lbs, 15 oz. and she is 18.5 inches long.

She has a great set of lungs and she is already nursing like a champ!

She is healthy as can be and we cannot be more happy.

My surgery was very smooth. I've been a little nauseated from the anesthetic, but otherwise I am feeling comfortable. We have a ton of pictures of Samantha to upload, but for now, here is a preview of her little face. I think she looks totally different from Carson - she has dark hair and her eyes are murkey..making it hard to tell their color. She has a little button nose and Jason's chin. She also has the infamous Sitrick webbed toes that Barb, Jason, Jenny, and Carson all have and it is adorable!

We love our little lady to pieces. We are so thankful that she's healthy and in our arms now!

Much more to come.....

Halloween Fun

Carson thought Halloween was super fun!

Carson was dressed as DJ Lance from Yo Gabba Gabba. If you don't have kids, and thus do not know who that is (if you did, I would be worried about you....)...Yo Gabba Gabba is a kid's show on the Noggin Channel that involves characters dancing around....It is actually kind of a weird show....Hosted by DJ Lance, himself (see above). As you can see, Carson and DJ Lance are natural spitting images of one another. :)

Carson enjoyed the Halloween party at Town Square and some trick or treating in the neighborhood afterwards. Here are some pics from our adventures.....

We discovered that Carson is a big fan of suckers....Will have to remember this as a reinforcer for later! Time to go out and buy some DumDums!

He loved checking out all the other kids in their costumes.

One more pic of the fam of three.....

Carson and his BFF from down the street, Chase, and their daddies.

We met another DJ Lance in the little playhouse at the Town Square park!

Carson LOVES the little car carts at the mall and could crawl in and out of them all day!

Halloween fun with the fam...

Before we left, he got into the Halloween candy....

Little DJ Lance...Yo Gabba Gabba!