Traffic school...they have it on computers now!!

A couple of Sundays ago I was driving my family back to Mesa from the West Valley after a lovely evening at Shannon's sister's house. Though I have driven that stretch of road countless times I never before realized that the speed limit drops from 65 to 55 in the tunnel area through downtown Phoenix. A nice highway patrolman was nice enough to stop me and help me realize the folly of my ways, along with a written notice so that I would never forget. In other words, I got a ticket.

Fortunately, I have not had a ticket in many years (since before Shannon and I got married) so I was able to go to traffic school and get it wiped off the books. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they have traffic school online now. It was a much more enjoyable experience to take it from the comfort of my own home rather than sitting in some dirty hotel room with a bunch of people I don't want to get to know and don't want to be there anymore that I do.

The way it works is you have to be logged in for four hours and spend about 3-5 minutes on each page reading the material. You cannot click the Next button until the timer says you can (as a former software tester I tried countless ways of beating the system, it is pretty locked down though). The best thing, besides being at home, is that you can log in and out as much as you want. I did an hour on Friday night, an hour Sat morning then did some yard work and then finished off later that morning. After you finish the coursework you go to a testing center (any FedEx Kinko's store will do) and they take a look at your ID to make sure you are you and log you in to take the test.

There is one thing in particular that I took away from the class that I would like to share with you. It stated that 25% of all railroad accidents are from cars driving into the side of trains. Yep, it is not a train driving into a car stuck on a track but the opposite where a train has already moved started through the intersection and some yahoo comes along and doesn't notice that a train is there and drives right into it. I paid over $100 to get that info, for you it is free!

Sam would like to introduce you to our new DOGS!!

Yes, you have read that right. BJ finally let Sam and I get TWO new dogs. The secret was to go and pick them up while Daddy was at work! Here are a couple of pictures of them. They may look like fish but Sam corrects us every time and tells us that they are dogs. The red one is Bruno and the red and white one is Spot.

I just have to toot my own horn.

I was working on a baby book that I am making for Sam and I just worked on this picture of when he was first born and had to share it. I just think it turned out really cool. Here is the whole layout.



After previewing this blog entry I noticed that you couldn't see the detail of the picture, here is the picture without the layout. Notice how Sam's in color and in focus and everything else is only tinted and out of focus. Wow, how did I do that?! I love Photoshop and the magic of layering.







Here is the picture without any effects.

We have been spending the holiday weekend in Pine, AZ. It has been so nice to be in the cool weather. Sam has even gone to bed pretty well for the most part. Last night BJ and I got brave and decided that Sam needed a hair cut and with Aunt Jen in Georgia we were going to cut his hair ourselves. It's nothing fancy all we could manage was buzzing it with a number 4. The problem was that one of the things Sam does for comfort is run his fingers through his hair. We grossly underestimated how much comfort this gives him. It took him an hour to get to sleep last night and then woke up about 1:30 am and we couldn't get him back to sleep until about 4am. BJ and I took turns sleeping while the other one held Sam. He would reach his little had into our hair to run his fingers through it. We can't recall that Sam has ever had a night that rough. Even when he was a newborn he would wake up in the middle of the night but it was pretty easy to get him to sleep. Needless to say, we won't be cutting Sam's hair that short for a very long time. We haven't taken a picture of him yet or I would include it. We hope everyone had a great holiday!

List of life goals...check one off

I did it. I am very happy to report that I completed my MBA last week. It has been a goal of mine to get an MBA since high school and although life has taken a little different direction for me career wise than I started out with, I completed one of my life goals. I highly reccomend it, it feels good.

Thanks to my sweet wife who was very patient while I stepped out of many family activities for a while in order to complete this.

Shout outs all around

So I was perusing the blog that I setup a few months back and noticed it has become a lot more feminine. Thank you to my lovely wife who has added some nice color and layout coordination, and especially the great pics of our little Sam. So, here is a shout out to her and her mad design skills!

I also would like to send a shout out to big Sam (no, that isn't a fat joke). When I lived in Utah I had this wacky roommate named Sam. Turned out we became the best of friends. In fact, according to his grandma neither of us got married until a little later in life because we were having too much fun "partying". Nonetheless, Sam is now older, wiser and engaged to a wonderful girl named Heather. I want to give a shout out to Sam and Heather and wish them the best. The picture above is of big and little Sam together last Halloween.

Sammy got SKILLS

Sam learned a new skill at the UPS store today. We were waiting for the UPS store boys to make some copies for us (they were taking a really long time). Sam got pretty restless and I noticed that there was a little table with some toys at it. I must not be the only one with a child who had to wait for 16 year old boys to figure out how to make a copy. Sam started pushing the chair around on his knees. I stood him up turned the chair around and he started pushing it around standing up. You can't see his face but he is really pleased with himself. Holly, Claire's prayers must have worked. He pushed his bus around for a second at home but was more interested in sitting on it and pushing the musical buttons over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. I was glad I had my cell phone and even gladder that I figured out how to upload it onto my computer. He isn't walking yet, but he's one more STEP closer (LOL I kill myself).

Evaluation Update.

As it turns out Sam qualifies for a physical therapy evaluation. Out of I think 60 points in an area if a child scores under 32 they refer them for an evaluation. In gross motor Sam only scored 20. Poor guy. He will probably get his PT eval within 2 weeks and then they decide if they qualify for services. It has been interesting being on the recieving end of services since I have been on the giving end for 3 years now.

I was looking at my post that will not post and I really do just have to post this cute little video. As some of you may know, Sam is still not walking. I always thought that he would start to walk when he realized that he wanted to use his hands to carry things. He proved me wrong, he has started to walk around on his knees. Usually short distances, but as this video shows he can get around this way. We just love our Sam! I told a physical therapist friend of mine about this and he was actually concerned because this is actually harder than walking would be. We do have an appointment with an early interventionist tomorrow. We are sure he's just fine and they will probably make us wait until he is 18 months before they do anything, but we might as well get the ball rolling. One thing I have learned working in the system, things can take a really long time. Also, for those of you following our weight checks, he lost a couple of ounces again!! Since he had the stomach flu last week he gets one more month to start gaining weight before they start testing him. I am becoming more and more convinced that there is a weight ratio in our house. If Sam or BJ loose weight I always seem to gain weight. Go figure. I need to start pushing that ratio the other way. Well here's Sam's cute video:

AARG

I spent about 1/2 of the afternoon making a great blog entry and it errored and wouldn't post. No wonder I get so far behind. I'll just have to try again later. Sorry.

We are alive!!

Hello everyone. We know, we know, we have finally been guilted enough to update our blog. We have been pretty busy with other projects. BJ is finishing his last class for his MBA. Yahoo!!! We have decided that after he graduates we are going to start actively pursuing another adoption. So I have been busy with our website and new birthparent letter. This might be the cause of me not updating our blog because I have been doing a lot of writing about ourselves and there is only so much of that you can do. Our website is http://www.meetthewatkins.com/. Check it out. It is finally up to a point were there is content on it. This project has made me learn not only Adobe Dreamweaver but Photoshop as well. I have found that I love digital scrapbooking (Thus another reason I have not been diligent). Here is a cute layout of Sam being one.

He is just so much fun. He loves balls. That is an understatement. We will walk into Lowes and he will see those little round cameras on the ceiling and announce "Ball, Ball". He loves the fuse ball table. A few weeks ago, BJ got home to relieve our babysitter to find Sam crying and saying, "Ball, Ball, Ball". She told BJ that she has given him every ball in the house and he is just not happy. BJ put him in the chair we have pulled up to the fuse ball. He sighed and started spinning the players. She said "Oh, now why didn't I think of that ball, I wondered why you had the chair there. There is a picture of him in the bottom picture. It might be kind of small. Sam is pulling at my arm right now so I guess I better go.

Updates

Wow. It has been forever since we've updated our blog. Here's a quick update...The first part of March took us on an unexpected trip to Utah to attend the funeral of BJ's Grandpa Clark. It was great to see so much family that weekend although it was under sad circumstances. Grandpa Clark was an amazing example of a kind and gentle man and will be greatly missed. I have included some photos of that weekend.

Sam is doing great. He was such a trooper while we were in Utah. He played with his cousins and charmed everyone else. His only problem was he just didn't want to sleep at night. He is not a big fan of his pack and play. Bythe end of the week just in time to go home he had finally adjusted. It was our first long family road trip (BJ and I have never traveled longer than 5 hours in the car) Sam did great, only a little restless. He is just such a fun little guy. We love to watch him grow up and become a toddler. He is not walking yet, probably because he is a turbo crawler and can get any where we wants much faster by crawling than he would by trying to walk. His favorite things in the world right now are dogs and balls. BJ and I were going to take him to the zoo a couple of weeks ago. When we got there it was so crowded that we couldn't find a parking place so we decided to do something else. We saw an event going on near a store that we were going to and it ended up being a dog adoption festival. Sam thought he had died and gone to heaven. There were probably about 40 dogs there and every single dog we saw he gave his shreels of glee.

I've been working on an online niche store that sales scrapbooking equipment, and am now, Shannon Watkins, Website designer. For about 3 weeks I have gone to knowing absolutely nothing about web programing to actually creating and designing a website that I am pleased with. It is at www.discountcricut.com check it out and tell me what you think. So now I've gone from completely clueless to a little bit less clueless.

Sam's 1st Birthday!!!

Yes, yes, I know, it's hard to believe but Sam just turned one last Wednesday. The biggest event was Mom and Dad have finally relented and let Sam have high doses of sugar for the first time. True to form, Sam ate a little but then squished the rest between his fingers. He's just not that big of an eater. At one we are already resorting to the PB and J alternative if we can't get him to eat anything else. He loves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The entire time he eats them he says "mmmm, mmmm, mmmm". He is just such a fun little guy. I could go on and on and on about all the funny things he does all day long, but it just wouldn't translate. Here are some of pictures of the highlights of his birthday and party.

11 months old!!!!

I was flipping through some of the old posts, and since I am with Sam everyday I don't realize how much he changes, but my goodness. He is doing so well and just basically is doing everything he is suppose to be doing. He is not doing his army crawl anymore, after spending a couple of days with his cousin Sadie, who is just about his age, he started to crawl. (Crazy that he is affected by peers pressure so early). He has found it a much more efficient way to get around. I guess being a speech pathologist what I find so amazing is that he actually has words!! He only has two consonants "b" and "m", so that limits what you can say, but luckily a lot of his favorite things start with that sound. "bu" is book, "ba" is ball, "boo" as you might guess is boo (his favorite game), "moo" we think are his farm animals, and of course "Mama" is mommy. I'm sure that he's trying to say Daddy too, but what do you do if you can't say "d" yet? (At least that's what we'll tell BJ) Sam just keeps us laughing all day long with his funny looks and good nature. He has proven to us on several occasions that baby proofing the house at all times is absolutely necessary. It was so funny, yesterday on his 11 month birthday he started smiling for the camera., so here are a few adorable pictures.

Sam figured out how to take the top off his puffs and instead of pouring them out to get one he will reach his hand in to get a few to eat. How very considerate of him, isn't it.
What can I really say about this picture, it is just so cute. This is the smile that BJ and I keep claiming he does all the time. The problem with putting it on the Internet is that now I am going to be getting calls from Gerber all day long trying to get me to have Sam endorse their products.

What a big boy!! I can't believe that only 11 months ago he was just a tiny little baby.
Here's trouble. We went shopping today and I couldn't believe what good luck I was having that Sam was so patiently playing with his toys while I put the groceries away in the other room. I didn't realize that the box of Kleenex had fallen on the ground. Yes, you guessed it, that is EVERY SINGLE sheet pulled out of a new box. He was so proud of himself.

Pictures with Santa

I realized I never put up any pictures with Santa. He wasn't so sure about this jolly old fat man in red, but got some good looks at him and was amazed at the resemblance to his Uncle Tyler.


Hmmmmmmm. I guess we'll go home and think about that one for a while.

The Zoo

Shannon has a season pass to the zoo. Because of that, Sam has been going to the zoo since he was a little guy. He has never really noticed the animals during those visits. Not until Christmas day, that is. He is really starting to watch the animals around him a lot more and gets really excited and makes noise when he sees them. Some of them got a little too close for his comfort in the petting zoo, but he was brave and tried touching most of them. Here are some of the pics.

Sam on a Llama:

Checking out the deer:
Getting a close encounter with a goat:
Shannon and Sam feeding the giraffe. Check out the tongue on that guy!
A little shy around a little goat:
The day we were at the zoo (Christmas Day) was coincidentally the day of the tiger attack in San Francisco. We were a few feet away from the tigers at this zoo. Fortunately they were pretty calm. I'm sure there will be many more zoo adventures to come.

Some fun pics

Here is what is going on in each pic. In the one above, he is demonstrating how thin his hips are by scooting right out of his pants. We are having a heck of a time keeping them on. I say let him roam free while it is socially acceptable, Shannon doesn't quite share my sentiment and insists that he does indeed need to wear pants. Sometimes moms just don't understand!

We were happy to get him smiling here while enjoying a new food, banana. It was a little slippery for him yet but he had fun.

He is starting to explore the kitchen and likes the warming drawer in the range. A few days ago I said to Shannon "I wonder how long it will be before we come in and find him sitting in that drawer." The next day she came around the corner and this is what she saw. Guess it's time to childproof.

This is Sam with his cousin Sadie (Ty and Tiff's) who is two months older. They are both starting to pull themselves up on things and ended up showing off for me a few days ago. I enjoy the awkward stance they both have. They also each shared the trepidation of getting themselves safely back to the ground without hurting themselves.

THE BIG DAY!!!

The day we have been waiting for has arrived. Sam was sealed to us on November 23. We are grateful to all the family and friends who made the trek out from faraway distances in order to be there with us. Sam did really well and was a good little boy.

Sam's crawl

One of the things that we think is really fun is the way that Sam scoots around. He is capable of crawling normally, but he chooses not to. Instead he does an army crawl across the floor. Notice the technique with the one arm thing and the speed he gets. You will also notice that he gets tired half way across and stops to take a break. My sister, Holly, called and asked if that was normal to put his little hand under his chin when he stops for his rest. Yes, that is normal. It is hilarious to see him do it so I am glad it is on film. Thanks to Papa for filming this for us.

Halloween

Here are a few belated Halloween pics...

The group picture is with his Library friends where he and Shannon go once a week to do a "Mommy and me" story time. The second shows off his costume and how well he sits up and the last is my favorite, it is him at the end of the evening after visiting some of the neighbors. He just had this look on his face the whole evening like "why in the world am I out after dark and everyone dressed wierd?".

It was fun!

The Pumkin Patch

Sam's been making some big developments. He has realized the benefits of just sitting now and has had his first sitting up bath. Of course I think every child alive has had a picture taken of them in the bathtub and Sam is no different. I think his little hand is covering up all his vitals. He is becoming quite the scooter and can now get to anything he really wants. We went to the Pumpkin Patch yesterday and Sam helped pick out a pumpkin. Afterwards we went to Trader Joe's and Sam got his first balloon. He loves it. He's manage to carry it around with him all morning. It's pretty cute.

The cutest baby ever...

Sam is just so cute!! This weekend Sam has started trying to give kisses. It is so cute because they are very slow and calculated as he moves for a slobbery wet one. We'll have to work on that if he hasn't gotten better by the time he gets off his mission (until then I'm fine with him scaring off the girls). For all those who have teased me about having a ball at the end of my nose (namely my fabulous sisters) will be happy to know that Sam found it. While trying to give me a kiss he bite down on the end of my nose and started to gnaw. I was laughing so hard I could get him off. He has quite a bite. Good thing he doesn't have teeth yet. I just love Sam so much. He cracks me up all day long. I never realized how much I would love someone who wakes me up at all hours of the night, pees on me, poops on me, spits on me, throws up on me, and demands my attention at all times. He just brings so much into my life. I love being a mommy!!!!!

Mesmerizing glare...

Last night (Thursday) Shannon and I sat down to pick a new picture for the main picture for this site. We looked and looked through the hundreds of Sam that we have taken and he is not smiling in many of them. I feel compelled to explain that he does smile and laugh a lot, he really does. As soon as we pull out the camera though he gets that mesmerized look that you see in many of the pictures below. Granted, that look is really cute but his smile is even cuter. I am therefore going to make it a point to figure out how to get him to smile for the camera. Some of you experienced parents are probably thinking to yourselves "yeah right, like you can force a baby to smile when YOU want them to" but I am going to give it a go anyway. I'll be sure to follow up on this one.

Life rolls on

We are now a minivan family. I was finally able to talk Shannon into wanting one instead of an SUV. As our neighbor put it "they sure aren't very sexy, but boy are they convenient". It is a 2004 Honda Odyssey and we are very happy with it. Lots of room and lots of extras. Who knew that power sliding doors would be so convenient?

Not much else happening with us. We are looking forward to conference this weekend. I am between classes and don't have to worry about homework in between sessions, just enjoying the nice cool weather that we are starting to get. Speaking of classes, only 6 more and I am done! I will finish up next June and am all ready for it.

Sam, the Yoga Master

Modified seated side plank

Cat Pose (Closely related to "Oh my gosh, he's about to crawl!!! pose) Cobra Pose

Upward facing dog pose
Locust Pose

Sam's been doing some yoga recently to prepare himself for his quest to start recking havoc around the house. Here are some of the poses that he has learned so far. He is currently using all of them to try to reach my lap top right now.

The Court Hearing

Today was a big day. The three of us met with a judge and finalized the adoption. All in all it was a very quick experience. We had to wait about an hour because our attorney got double booked, but once we got in it was just a few questions from the attorney and a statement from the judge. It only took less than 10 minutes, including pictures, once we got in the room. We are thrilled to have it finally done. Before now it has been kind of like living in a state of limbo, but not anymore. We are so grateful to have this little boy!

The picture above is us with the judge in the courtroom right after we finished. Sam found the microphone MUCH more interesting than looking at my Dad taking the picture.

The next step is the sealing which will take place the day after Thanksgiving. We are anxious to get that done as well but decided to wait a little bit in order to make it easy for our out of state family to be here.

Sam's smile...

Sam already looks embarrassed by his parents in this pic.

Sam just continues to be such a happy baby. Whenever we go to the store he just charms anyone who smiles at him with his big grin. The funny thing is that we can hardly ever catch it with a camera. As soon as the camera comes out he becomes a deer in the headlights and stops smiling to stare at the camera. ( Thus in most pictures he has a slight dazed look to him) Nana and Papa finally captured a smile, how be it, it is not his classical toothless grin.

Sam just can't wait to get on the move. He loves trying to scoot around on his tummy and likes to stand up. We just figured out that he will try to walk when we hold him up with his arms (of course he is awfully proud of himself doing this). We know we are in for a lot of trouble because he still has a difficult time sitting up by himself. He doesn't seem to be interested in anything that doesn't take him places.

He is loving eating baby food. He has tried peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, and squash. Not a big fan of the squash. He has made a great discovery. If he blows raspberries right after he gets a spoonful of baby food it will make a glorious mess. Sam, Mom and/or Dad, the high chair, and bib are covered in baby food by the end of the meal. We just adore that little stinker.

Sam's new best friend

Yet again, we have neglected our blog for a couple of weeks. The first 3 photos were taken at BJ's parents cabin over the past few weeks. As a result of the monsoon storms, mushrooms 9" in diameter were growing in the from yard.

Sam is continually growing and sat in a high chair for the 1st time last weekend. He is getting more and more interested in our food, and insists on sitting with us at dinner time.

He has found a new best friend this past week. His friend shows up in mirrors. He will play and talk with this adorable baby for a long time. This gives Mom and Dad a little break because we are his second best friends and he makes us interact with him during every waking moment. Not that we mind this too much. It just makes it impossible to do anything unless Sam is asleep. (Sam has been helping me with my spacing in this paragraph. I think I fixed all of the really big spaces.)