Our little Negotiator...

Yesterday I had to do a make up appointment at the clinic that I work at. In the break room there was a box of See's lollipops. I just couldn't resist that so I grabbed one and headed for home while sucking on my sucker. When I got home Sam saw that I had a sucker so I let him have a lick of it and then gave him a dum-dum so that he could have a sucker too. A little while later as we were busy sucking on our suckers Sam came over to me and pulled my sucker out of my mouth, put it in his mouth and refused to give it back to me. As I kept trying to get my yummy See's sucker back from him he decided to trade me and handed me is nearly gone grubby sucker with a warped stick. He's no dummy he knows the good candy.

Pictures

I was updating the blog and threw up some pictures and was side tracked before I got to explain them. On Tuesdays I watch my our friends daughter. It's amazing how a 12 month old and an 18 month old can keep you on your toes. They are both napping now (miracle of miracles) so I can now finish and add some more pics (Tiff and Brandy you were just too quick in commenting my blogging queens)

This is on our way to Boston for BJ's brother's wedding. Sam was amazing. We were lucky enough to get a seat next to us for Sam's car seat on every leg of the trip, I think there were 5 legs. Here he's got Dog, binkie, and pediasure, what more could a little guy want.








Here we are in Salem, MA at a witch trial museum.

Here is Boston Harbour. We went to the aquarium ($40.00) thinking Sam likes our fish, he'll love this. However, it was pretty crowded (Sam doesn't like crowds) and it was kind of dark. He had the most fun chasing the birds outside which we could have done for free. After that we postponed the Disneyland trip until he is a little older.

Sharing-Here is Sam and his friend Lauren (the 12 month old started above). He is such a sweet boy. Here he is sharing his raisins with her.

This picture is put in for anyone on BJ's side of the family. Sam also prefers his binkies upside down. Go figure...

(You may notice there are a lot of binkies in these pictures. Sam is a bit of a binkie junky. We were pretty lenient for a couple of weeks because of shots, teething, you name it. Now he is hooked. Even if we hid them, he must have a stash somewhere, he'll find another one. )

Sam loves his swing. One particularly cranky morning(again, shots, teething, you name it), I could not appease him except for swinging him on the swing. He would let me run in the house to do something just as long as I came back soon to give another couple of pushes. After one quick errand I came out to find him totally crashed. After taking this picture I tried to take him to his crib. He immediately woke up and insisted on swinging again. There is just nothing cuter than a kid who falls asleep in a swing.

Here's just another cute one of Sam in his new pool. If you look closer you will find yet again that the 1. he has a binkie (the first step is admitting you have a problem) and 2. It's upside down. For anyone who doesn't know,when BJ was little he would always suck on his binkie upside down too.

One small step for mankind, one GIANT leap for Sammy!!!

It finally happened, a week before his 18 month birthday, Sam decided that he could indeed walk. We was playing with Nanna and Uncle Mike and just walked across the room! He would then only walk to the two of them so BJ and I had to sit on the side lines and cheer. When we got home he walked all by himself from the living room to his room. Now he just cruises every where he goes. I can't tell you how nice it is not to have to worry about him picking germs up off the floor when we are at the store or something and he decides that he wants to explore (truthfully he is still a bit of a Mama's boy so he sticks pretty close to me most of the time anyways but at least I don't HAVE to hold him all the time). We had his meeting for early intervention services a couple of weeks ago, he will qualify for services until he is 3, so we should be starting that up pretty soon.

Poor Sam got a couple of bug bites on his legs last Thursday. This may not seem like that big of a deal but every time he gets a tiny bug bite, the bite turns into a huge pussy sore. We just took him to the doctor again today about this and he is now on an antibiotic again because they get infected so easily. This is twice now that he has had to have an antibiotic for bites. It's so sad because no matter how careful we are we can't always prevent bites. The worst time he got bitten a mosquito was in his room one night and bit him six times. He's been pretty miserable the past couple of days.

BJ and I have been keeping pretty busy lately (thus the huge space between our posts). I have started doing a couple of hours of online speech therapy. Who knew there was such a thing?! I work with a company based out of Boise Idaho and use webcams and a head set to do speech therapy for kids attending an online public school. It's great because I put Sam down for an afternoon nap and then log onto the computer to do a couple hours of speech therapy while Sam's asleep. No travel time, no babysitters, it's great. It's such a new concept and is just starting to take off that BJ and I would like to start our own therapy company doing this. We hope that I will be able to transition into just doing this so that I can stay at home with Sam all the time.

BJ is so happy to be done with him MBA, he now has the time he wants to plot and scheme about what he wants to do with the rest of his life.

We'll have to post photos on our next post. Let's face if I don't post this now it just may not get done.

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!!!!!