Daily Dose of Cute

I had Samantha's 6 month pics taken at JC Penney yesterday - here is one of our favorites!

The Clacker

Samantha figured out how to work a clacker this morning and she is so proud of herself!

Cuties of the day

Here is our pretty princess today, wearing a tutu for no reason at all.

Why not? Every day is a good day for wearing a tutu.

My dream of getting a cute picture of these two together is getting closer.

But we're not quite there.

Good Carson story here - We have been having some success this week with #2 on the potty.

Very exciting!

One night upon seeing his #2 in his potty, Carson exclaimed "Look! A banana!!"

Jason and I about died laughing.

Gotta love parenthood!

Party pics!

Just a few more cute pictures of the kids at Carson's little birthday fiesta last weekend.

Sam and Papa Dave

Sam is not particularly happy in this shot with her good buddy Scotty, but she had a wonderful time partying with the older kids.

Carson adventuring around the playground with Baba

The fam

Carson and buddies Michael and Nicholas

An ode to Sam

Just a little ode to my perfect little baby girl, Samatha.

You are one of a kind, and very special indeed.

You sleep in the car even if Carson is crying in the carseat next to you.

You happily eat a variety of foods.

You love your bath....the pool....the inside....the outside...the upside down.

Sitting up...laying down...tummy time....and bedtime.

In fact, you love life in general.

You don't mind when Carson yells in your ear or

shouts outside of your room while you are trying to sleep.

You are quite pleased to play with books that have been chewed up in the past

by a certain brother of yours

Nor do you mind playing with trucks here and there.

You love to entertain yourself while Mommy is trying to get Carson to pee pee on the potty.

You are smart and beautiful and low maintenance -

thoughtful, analytical, contemplative, resilient.

a killer combination when it comes to women, if you ask me!

How lucky I am to have you Samantha.

How blessed are we that we happen to have

the easiest baby in the universe.

When we need it the most, you are always perfect.

I love you!

The heat is on!

Temps are up in Vegas and so it's time for the backyard and the pool!

Carson is really interested in water and he can entertain himself for an hour just transferring water from one bucket to the other.

Samantha, on the other hand, is just busy as ever.

She has gone from rolling to sitting up to lunging forward into a crawl position in just a few weeks. Oh, how I pray that she remains stationary for as long as humanly possible.

She watches Carson so intently, it appears that she is memorizing all of his tricks.

This putting green needs vaccuuming Mom!

Carson continues to go on the potty several times per day.

He is still not telling me that he has to go, but when I can get him to sit there, we usually see some results.

A highlight was yesterday at the mall, when Carson announced to a Sephora employee who asked him how old he was, that he "pushes his pee pee down into the potty".

Nice!

Dinner with an Iowa Legend

We were lucky enough to have a wonderful meal at Smith and Wollensky last week with a true Iowa legend, John Streif.

For those of you who do not know Streif, he has been the head athletic trainer at Iowa for football and basketball for 30-plus years. He is a father figure for all of the athletes and one of the better parts of Iowa athletics in general. He was in Las Vegas to receive an award at a conference last week. We had a wonderful time catching up with him....He is truly one of the most selfless, wonderful people in the whole world and we are honored to know him!

Iowa pics

OK, here are some pics that I promised from our visit in Iowa...even though our trip was almost a month ago now...better late than never, right?

We tore up the Bettendorf Children's Museum....

Drove golf carts at DCC....

You can see by the pics that follow that the kids obviously got no attention whatsoever...

A great visit with cousins Jakobe and Callie Sitrick!

Samantha and Callie can't wait to play again -
they said "Let's do this again when we can actually walk!"

We had a birthday party for Carson with all the Iowa family.

Lots of food, laughs, and good times were had by all!

Here we have Sam, Baba, and her two Iowa great-grandmas!

Chicago Fun

Here are some pics from our Chicago adventures! Pictures from our trip to Iowa still to come - I am just working on staying caught up here!

Sam on her beautiful baptism day! She looked so beautiful.

Nana Caryn and her buddy Carson ready for Sam's baptism

Bro and sis before the ceremony

The big moment - Samantha and her parents and proud godparents look on as she becomes Catholic. What a special day!

We celebrated Carson's birthday on May 1st with all of our Chicago family.

Went to Lincoln Park Zoo on Carson's birthday with our family. Carson was a little bit crabby during the event but enjoyed himself nonetheless.

Samantha gained weight on vacation as most people do - she is eating all sorts of food now and has enjoyed everything thus far.

Another attempt at getting the sibs together...

We loved every minute of our Nana time - can't wait for her to come to Vegas in July.

My sisters Annon and Felecia doted on the kids all week long and enjoyed following Carson and Sam's every move. We had so much fun with them.

They are coming to Vegas in July as well and it will be their first visit.

My Dad would have loved to have watched them playing with the kids all week.

Just being cute at Papa Dennis' house...

We went to visit my old gym, Gym Kinetics - here is Sam pictured with my old coach, Jim Fredrickson.

Samantha and Carson tore up the Frankfort Children's Museum in Frankfort, IL.

My mom and I just watched as the kids took everything in.

Carson sellin' tickets at the museum :)

We were at the doctor yesterday for the kids to get their shots.

Carson got his 2 year shot and Samantha got 3 six month shots.

Oh what a fun moment that was!

At any rate, here are the latest stats:

Samantha - 17 lbs. 13 oz (82nd percentile for weight), 27.5 inches (94th percentile for height)

Interestingly, Samantha is .25 inches longer than Carson was at this same age.

Carson is 31.8 pounds and 36.5 inches (80th percentile for weight and 92nd percentile for height).

Looks like I will be talking up to both of my children sometime in the near future!

I'd better go out and buy some more heels!

We're baaaaaack!

We are home from another wonderful trip back to the Midwest.

We had an amazing time seeing family and friends.

As always, the trip went by way too fast but we soaked it all in while we were there and we are already looking forward to next time.

I have some great photos to post which I will hopefully do in the next couple of days.

Right now we are focused on unpacking and laundry and adjusting to Pacific time again.

The kids are growing and changing every day!

We have had some exciting developments in the last couple of weeks.

Carson turned two on May 2nd and our life can now be summed up by one word...

"No."

He is speaking in sentences and stringing sentences together.

He is newly obsessed with the show "Little Einsteins" which he calls "Little Ein-the-steins"

He has dropped Dora like a hot potato. She is old news.

Carson has also started potty training and he is going on the potty at least once a day.

He is so smart and he seems to get it, so we are going with the flow and trying it out.

If potty training him continues to be this easy, I will be amazed.

Samantha is growing HUGE and has developed rolls on her Polish thighs like you wouldn't believe.

She is sitting up perfectly now, giggling with abandon, grabbing objects with gusto, and making exotic bird noises regularly.

She is a 6 month old slice of heaven!

We will put up some pics pretty soon.