Sam's 2nd Birthday!!

Sam turned 2 years old on February 27. We can hardly believe it! He has become such a fun kid. He keeps us laughing and entertained all the time. He has become our alphabet fiend. As I have posted before he can identify the entire alphabet and probably knows the names or sounds of at least 1/2 the letters. He is so funny because he will spot letters in the craziest places. For instance he will turn his tent on it's side and tell us "D" because the arch on the door does in fact make a "D". This morning I gave him a graham cracker and he looked at it and told me I. I realized he was looking at the perforation down the middle of it. Os are anything that is a circle. We were getting into the van yesterday and Sam noticed a shrub that had been cut in a circle and pointed out O. I don't know what it is about letters that he loves so much but they almost rival balls, his other great love.

We just love our little Sam so much. We think of the miracle that he is in our lives daily and are so honored to be his Mama and Da. We can hardly believe that it has been 2 years since he came into our lives. We are so grateful for adoption. We so sincerely love the people that have come into our lives through it. I always think if what someone said in a workshop that we attended while be were getting certified to adopt, "Before adoption you underestimate your capacity to love."

First professional haircut.

Ever since Aunt Jen moved away, BJ and I have just used the clippers to cut Sam's hair. I will have to admit we are not great at it and after several attempts we started noticing that his hair was getting pretty uneven. We decided that for his 2nd birthday we would take him to someone who actually knew what they were doing...Great Clips. As you can tell we was not too happy about the situation, but doesn't he look so handsome at the end (and he got a sucker out of the deal so it can't be all that bad).

Close encounters at the zoo.

Sam and I have a pass to the Phoenix Zoo. We go usally one or twice a week. It is so nice to just get outside and walk around. It seems like the past couple of weeks the animals have just gotten really friendly and we have had so many "close encounters with them", maybe it's because we are there so much.

This is Jack the horse. Sam asks to go see him nearly every morning. He also loves to look at this picture on the camera.

This is how Sam met Jack the horse. Sam looks like he is crying, but he is actually just really excited that Jack is so close to him.

We were going on the bear trail at the Phoenix Zoo and saw this duck wandering down the path.

This is Smokey the horse. Maybe Jack told him about Sam or maybe it was the cheez-its on his tray but Smokey had to meet Sam too.

If you follow this link you can see a video of our close encounter with a squirl: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnncnQZz18M&feature=channel_page

Neverneverland

(I have absolutely no idea why my text is underlined, I swear my site is possessed, I am going to just not care.) So I really have been trying to update this for the past few weeks. You you just get everything at once. Sam is just as cute as he ever has been. He makes me laugh because lately he has discovered our shadows when we go for a walk and loves to chase the Mama. Every time he does this is makes me think of Peter Pan and how I just really don't know if I want Sam to grow up. Certainly not as fast as he is lately. I have to admit that it is crazy to see Sam with other kids, being a kid. Last week he didn't even cry going into nursery. Here are some updated pictures of Sam just being Sam.


Sam agrees with me that the best part of making brownies is licking the bowl afterwards. There isn't anything quite like brownie, cookie, or cake batter.

This would have been a really cute picture, but BJ and I disturbed Sam while he was trying to blow bubbles that he got for Valentines Day. We are at my family's valentine party.

My independent Sam. It nearly killed me but I let Sam go through the cave at the zoo all by himself. This is him emerging pretty darn proud of himself. I think it's more hard for me to let Sam be independent than it is for him to do things by himself.

Sam has just loved to play with his cousins lately. Here he is with most of his Watkins cousins.
While Sam's Iowa cousins were visiting we had four 2 year olds around. So we decided to have a 2 year old party for them. They are all within a few months of each other. This is a cake I made for them (I just make a blog with some of my other cakes at cakesarefun.blogspot.com).

We found out why the tradition to have one year olds dig into their cakes is a lot more fun. At 2 kids start having more manners and what to use forks and stuff like that. It's not quite the same.

Gosh, what a cute kid!

Regarding my last post.

I figured out what had happed to my has post. Awhile ago I was thinking about setting up an adoption blog so created bjshannonsam.blogspot.com but didn't do anything further with it because we already have a website at meetthewatkins.com. I just selected the wrong one to post. If you are curious of what my last post was, (Tiff you might because it has pictures of your girls) go to bjshannonsam.blogspot.com. If you don't care read on oh well.

I'm no blog expert...

Those who know me well know that I have an uncanny knack of strange things happening to me. For example, when I was in Paris several years ago a friend and I were at the Eiffel tower and I noticed that some street vendors were selling these wind up pigeons that would fly around, I said to my friend "Just you wait one of those pigeons is going to whack me in the head". Not 5 minutes later we were in the middle of a crowd and sure enough one of those pigeons comes flying by and whacks me in the head. If you have ever seen the movie "Pure Luck" with Martin Shorts, it's kind of like that.

Ok so I spent 1/2 the evening updating our blog just to find out I some how created a new blog and posted it to that, BJ just came and asked how I did that and I tell you I have no idea. I'm telling you I had some weird background from the Cutest Blog on the block on it and everything. I am completely mystified. All I can say is I dare not try it again tonight so you will just have to wait anxiously to read it until I repost everything later, maybe tomorrow....if I'm very brave.

Holy Freak!!!

That is what when through my mind this evening when Sam decided to unveil his new talent. For Christmas we got Sam a little laptop because he loves our computers so much. I was sitting on the couch this evening when Sam brought it over to me and said "O" I looked down and he was pointing to the O on the keyboard. I though "Hmm, what a coincidence." and then tried to stump him and said "Sam, where's the Q?" To my sheer amazement he pointed right to the Q. Q is by the O, so I asked him where the A was, sure enough he got it right on. I then quizzed him with all 26 letters of the alphabet and for the most part he was right on. I showed him a game on his laptop that asks him to identify the different letters and he did it. I think I'm raising a super genius!! OK so I know that Lexi was quoting the Pledge of Allegiance near his age, but come on that's pretty good right?! It was so cute because you could just see him concentrating so hard at finding the right letter and then when he found it he would look up at me to check to see if he was right before he pushed the letter. I have to tell you it was a pretty bizarre moment in my life, and like all Moms I cried at his brilliance. He was probably thinking why in the world is my Mommy crying.

He has really turned a corner in his communication this past month. Not that he has said any new words his words still consist of "Mama ( I should say A Mama, which is what he always says) Dada (which for some reason is turning into Yaya), Dog, Ball, shoe, apple, and banana. However over the course of a few weeks he started learning a bunch of signs. It was really cute tonight he was across the room and gave me the sign for candy. I told him no candy right now. He walked across the room put his face in my lap and very clearly did the sign again ( which is your index finger touching your cheek) I guess he just wanted to make sure I heard him.

Sam loved Christmas. He loves lights. He would lead us around the house and have us turn on anything that would light up in the morning and made sure that we got the lights on our house turned on in the evening. Ironically enough he fell asleep when we took him to see the temple lights. All presents were a big hit for him. Thanks to everyone. Some of the highlights are his fisher price car that he will sit in while he watches his shows. It's kind of like his own private drive in theater and thanks to the generosity of Grandma and Grandpa Hansen we have a dog that doesn't make him break out in hives 5 minutes after contact. His name is Henry and he eats batteries, when you want him to stop barking you turn him off. We don't have to clean up after him and with all that he even does tricks!! He's wonderful.

We hope everyone had a great holiday season and we give our best wishes for this new year!!

This is Sam giving Henry kisses.

Dorky smile I know, he kept trying to say cheese and pose for the picture so this was the best shot I got after about 5 tries. (I had the same problem with the picture on the top)

Smarty Pants

This morning Sam wondered off by himself. This could only mean 2 things he is going poopy or he is getting into something really good. I started to hear a grunting sound and figured it was reason number one. Getting ready to change a diaper I followed the sound to the closed bathroom door, never a good sign. I tried opening the door but he had opened up the drawer in the sink closest to the door so it would only open a crack. I peeked in the crack to find Sam sitting on the potty chair that we were given just grunting away. When he was finished he closed the drawer and let himself out. Sure enough he needed a diaper change.

We're Expecting!!

Who ever has been through the adoption process knows that adoption is DEFINATELY not the easy way to get a baby. If something can go wrong it generally will. For two weeks or so we have been trying to get our profile posted on www.itsaboutlove.com LDS Family Services website. It is now finally posted. That means that we are offically adoption pregnant! I know that doesn't sound nearly as exciting as a real pregnancy, mostly because you have absolutely no idea when the due date is, but then again that can be the really exciting part. Go check us out our profile name is BradleyAndShannon. We are really excited to be in the process of finding a brother/sister for Sam. Or follow this link: http://www.providentliving.org/ses/birthmother/viewsingleprofile/0,12272,2133-1-10609-1-1,00.html

Blessings

This morning Sam woke up at his usual time at about 5:30. Usually it's not a problem because BJ and I are getting up around that time to either work out (Shannon) or go to work (BJ). However the night before BJ and I had stayed up too late so we were not ready to get up with him. So, once again we brought Sam into bed with us so we could at least all cuddle together before it was a time that BJ and I felt like getting out of bed. I dozed off again and woke up a little while later to find this cuteness. I just couldn't help but take a picture of my two men.

I don't know if it's Thanksgiving so I am thinking about my blessings or that we are getting ready to look for another baby to adopt but moments like these have become more heartfelt and precious to me as I think of the what ifs in my life that would make a precious moment like this, my son and my husband snuggled up together, not have happened. I hope that makes sense. As I have had the wonderful opportunity to be Sam's mommy, I have felt more acutely, the true sacrifice that was made on my behave to have this special boy in my life. There is no way to ever express the gratitude for son. He is my son because of the impossible sacrifice of others.

In my struggles with infertility I remember, and still do feel on occasion, that this was a thing I could never be grateful for. How could it be so easy for others to bring children in their family and me be denied the blessing. I was very wrong though. Adoption has been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I have been able to experience life from a prospective few others have. I am mystified by the great love I have for Sam's birth family. At an adoption class that we had when we started the journey of adoption someone said that before their adoption they underestimated their ability to love. I feel the same way. Through my ramblings here, I just want to say thank you to those who allowed me to wake up this morning to see the two most important people in my life cuddled up together sleeping and letting me be a mommy. However, the words "thank you" will never express the depth of my gratitude.

Cute Cute Sam

I have just a few random pics of Sam that I just have to post. Each of which have a little story to go with them.

This is a picture of which Sam is not as Innocent as he seems. He woke up at 3 am wouldn't go back to bed. BJ and I were both sick so we finally gave up and put him in bed with us so that we could at least lay down. Then spent the remainder of the night being kicked, pushed, and having Sam play with our snarly hair. He finally fell asleep around the time we gave up and were getting up. But man isn't he so cute when he's asleep.

Here he is asleep again. This is just a cute story. Before we drove home from the zoo the other day I gave him a little container of cereal to eat on the way home. He fell asleep not long after I started driving and his arm twitched and cereal flew all over him. It didn't phase him at all, although I got a pretty good chuckle out of it.

I made cinnamon rolls yesterday. BJ and I keep forgetting that just because we put something on the counter doesn't mean that it is safe anymore. This morning Sam came into the living room with a cinnamon roll in his hand. I went in the kitchen and he had taken the plate that they were on off of the counter and helped himself to one, knowing that there was no way he could eat the whole thing I cut a piece off for him. A little while later again he came out of the kitchen with a huge grin that he had gotten another roll. By this time it was pretty munged up so I just put him in his chair and let him do his worst. I love the proud smile. I also love how he doesn't quite get that if he does something naughty he shouldn't come and proudly show me the evidence. I will keep that to my advantage as long as I can have it.

Invite

Just in case you may not know I am having a Lia Sophia Party at my house at 1 pm this Saturday. If you don't know what that is it's super cute jewelry. This is a perfect opportunity to do a little Christmas shopping for others or yourself or just come and hang out with some yummy goodies.

So I had a dream the other night that I forgot to clean my house for the party. Does that mean that I have become a true house wife?

So, does anyone need a cake?

I am making a ball shaped cake for my cake class this weekend and I certainly don't want a whole cake just sitting around the house. If anyone is in need of a boy cake this weekend I'd be happy to donate it. I can ice it into any ball one would desire. I'm not promising it will be great remember I am in Level one and I ditched the first class, but let me know and the cake is yours.

I'm a little impressed with myself

Ok look over to the right side of my blog. It's all of your updated blogs!!! I know, I know many of you have figured out how to do this forever ago. I will talk to someone one who I haven't seen for a while and try to catch up with them, and they will say, oh yeah, I read that in your blog. I've always thought how do people have the time to actually keep up with everyone else's blogs. Now I know, the secret is out. This is great!

Lexi's cake

So after about 10 calls to my sister who teaches a cake decorating class and several trips to the store I finally finished Lexi's cake. It was the first cake that I have ever done doing fondant and wasn't as difficult as I imagined. (I even made my own fondant) I am going to start taking a cake decorating class this weekend. This has made me even more excited than I was before. The whole time I was decorating the cake, Sam kept saying "Ball, Ball". I guess Cinderella is going to a ball so he got that part right.

She is immodest because I couldn't figure out how to do sleeves. Hopefully that won't have a lasting effect on a 4 year old.

Halloween

So I think that my blog spot got haunted and I can't seem to change the background to anything other than the Halloween deco. Any hints from you master bloggers.

Sam had a fun Halloween. He was a duck. I know what you are thinking? It's still 90 in AZ what in the world are you doing putting a fleece jumpsuit on him to go outside. I did feel a little guilt, but I guess not enough because come on, isn't he so cute!

Instead of the traditional trunk or treat our ward hosted a neighborhood party in a near by park. Sam has confirmed once again that he's no pushover. He got pretty frustrated that little girls in big fluffy dresses take more time to get up the steps to the slide than he does even if he did have on as many layers as the stay puff marshmallow man. So Sam started to push the little girls in the back to move them alone. He had some sliding to do. Here he is with cousin Sadie, who I have to confess got pushed up the steps multiple times.

Here's another picture of Sam cutting in line up the steps.

He and another kid found a pumpkin laying around and he had the best time rolling it around. The other kid was pushing it up a hill and letting it roll down. After he wrestled it away from the other kid he couldn't quite get it pushed up the hill but settled for pushing it around as if he were making a snow man.

The pumpkin was fun until he caught sight of the most amazing thing he had ever seen, A GLOW IN THE DARK FOOTBALL!! Would the fact that it was being played with by some local teenagers deter him, of course not, Sam's got guts!! He waddled over to the teenagers (of course waddling because he was still in the duck suit) and took it from them. Notice the confused stance of the teenagers not knowing what to do about the baby having taken their ball.







We were at the children's museum the other day which has a great area designed for kids 1 to 4. Sam loves it. However, this particular day a kid about 4 years old decided that he was going to kind of bully Sam. Anything Sam would play with the other kid would come and mess with. There were about 20 other kids there but he for some reason honed in on Sam. I was trying not to intervene too much so that he can learn to well "stand up for himself". After a little while of this Sam was getting pretty tired of it. He was going down the slide and the kid sat down at the end of the slide so Sam ran into him. On there way back up the slide, I saw cute little Sam go up to this big kid (for him anyway) poke him in the chest and say "No! No! No!" It's good to know that Sam will stand up for him self. Now it's time to learn a few manners like sharing and taking turns, it's a hard concept to learn when you are an only child and have the rule of the house at home.

New Pics

I will update the blog with pictures tonight..I will. Sam has taken some cute pics lately (really, how can he help it) but somehow getting those pics to the computer is more complicated that it should be. My sleep study post is pretty depressing to be the last updated post forever when Sam is way more interesting.

Sam loves pumpkins and he is in luck because they are every where. We were at Walmart today in the Halloween section and he went crazy pointing out all of the "balls" to me. We got him a couple of pumpkins that he carries around every where. When we were visiting my sister in Glendale the stem fell off one of them. The entire 45 minutes home Sam held the stem in one hand and the pumpkin in the other hand and said "uh oh, uh oh, uh oh" the entire ride home. The boarder line of being really cute and annoying got pretty close there. Luckily a little wood glue fixed the problem.


Sam is doing fantastic with his walking and physical development. He has discovered playgrounds, especially slides. Today we went to a playgroup at a park. He climbed up to the big slide and went down. The slide had a couple of bumps to it and Sam is such a light weight that every bump he caught air. His first time down her terrified me that he was going to be traumatised but not our little boy. He came down with a huge smile on his face and ran to the stairs to got down about 20 more times. Last Saturday his physical therapist was amazed at how quickly he has caught up.

He still has his few favorite words that he communicates in, "ball (all things round), dog (all animals), mmmm(anything to do with food), uh oh, Dada, apple, banana, and various grunts and groans to display his pleasure or displeasure of the descisions that I make on his behalf". He's funny because he loves to say the word banana "nana" and he loves to point them out but he does not like to eat them. If we make the mistake of thinking that he wants a banana because he is constantly saying banana, he will look at us funny and throw it on the floor. We think that he likes them because of the song "I like to eat apples and bananas" which is in one of his beloved videos. He LOVES apples on the other hand, we have been going through a couple a day lately.



We just love our Sammy. He is just such a crack up. We feels so honored and blessed that we have been given the blessing of being his parents. We think often of those who have been a part in bringing us together as a family.

This picture is the first time Sam fell asleep at a random location at the house. He falls alseep in random locations everywhere else Kid's club, Nursury, but never at the house.

Sam feeding the fish at Grandma and Grandpa Hansen's house

Sleep Study

So after fighting insomnia for 19 months (yes, that would be the same age as Sam) my Dr finally had me have a sleep study. I don't know if anyone of you has ever had one but, not so fun. First of all I checked in at 9:30 pm to be greeted by my technician. He's probably a great guy but something about him was a little creepy. Possibly the scruffy facial hair or really heavy Texan accent, but at any rate not someone I really wanted to have watch me sleep all night.

I got into my room got ready for bed and my tech came into to apply the electrodes. One on each leg, 3 on my chest, and I can't even tell you how many were applied to my scalp. They all had wires that were attached to a box and I kid you not there were probably at least 20-30 wires of various colors coming out of it. I then got tucked into bed with these wires at the side of my pillow (a little disconcerting) and then had to have an oxygen tube put in my nose and some sort of metal paper clip like sensor taped there as well.

Because I said I usually got to bed at 10:30 the lights were turned out and I was left there to try to feel cozy and at home so that I would have a great night sleep. I think that I finally dozed off to be woken up by the creepy tech guy because one of the wires came off of my leg. A little while later he came in again to tell me that they needed me to sleep on my back. I never sleep on my back and I find it the absolutely most uncomfortable way to sleep, but some how thanks to sleep medication I managed to doze back to sleep but kept waking up again and thinking someone was in my room. (Possibly because I had aready been visited by the tech several times) I had a dream right before I was woken up at 5:30 to start my day that the sleep study was over and they served me breakfast and I was on my way home with the other patients there only to wake up to 30 electrodes attached to my body. I was so glad to have that done I'll tell you what it was one of my worst nights of sleep and I am so exhausted.

I will do everyone a favor and not share the details of my colonoscopy a couple of weeks ago. I think that I should start a blog giving my commentary of all of the icky medical tests there are, since I think that I have now had most of them. If anyone has a medical test coming up let me know and I can tell you what to expect. :)

The Pumpkin Patch

Last Wednesday we went to the Pumpkin Patch with Tiffany's preschool class. It is a little educational farm in Gilbert that in the fall they decorate for Halloween and have a pumpkin patch so kids can pick out thier own pumpkin and decorate it. Here Sam is with the scarecrow cut out.

Sam was amazed at all the really cool "balls" that where there and kept picking them up throwing them and watching them bounce.

It's crazy to think that last year at the pumpkin patch we were propping him up to pose with pumpkins so that he wouldn't fall over and this year he is over 2 1/2 feet tall. He is growing so fast! Within the last couple of weeks we have had to move out the 12 months shirts from his wardrobe because they were geting too short. He can still fit into 9 month pants because of his narrow little hips. It works better with shorts that pants. The pants that he has on in this picture are 12 months with the top rolled over so that they won't fall down, thus they give him a nice high water effect.

Sam is really turning into a little boy before our eyes. Here he is playing in a little house with one of his cousins. He was playing "boo" with me in this picture.

This is totally besides the point but I feel like I need to take a blogging 101 course. Did they recently change the format for uploading pictures during one of my long breaks in posting? It seems like I can't get my post formated well and I have text and pic randomly scattered everywhere. Do any of you blogging pros have any tips for me?

Going to work

Recently my company sponsored the Read for the Record event that promotes literacy for children by setting a record for how many kids get read to on one day. I got to invite Shannon and Sam to come to my office to be read to and have some milk and cookies. Not only was it very fun to have them there for a little while but one of my co-workers got a very good pic of Sam. I love how it is fuzzy around the edges and really shows off his eyes.

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.