Thanksgiving 2011

Matt and I hosted Thanksgiving at our house again this year. It was so much fun to have our family with us. Sam was in heaven :)

Matt did most of the cooking. I made the dessert and decorated the house and table with holiday decor. (They may not look too good, but these pies turned out pretty yummy!)

It's always fun to be able to bring out all the nice settings. (Which haven't seen a meal since the last Thanksgiving we hosted....3 years ago!)

Dinner was amazing, as we expected it to be, and it is tradition in our family to open Poppers after dinner. We all got paper crowns and silly little gifts.
Sam and Shauna playing with their Popper gifts. Shauna is also teasing Sam for his cheesy smile, which is almost identical to the smile I made at his age.

After dinner we all went into turkey comas :)The end!

In a nutshell

Things are pretty much same ol', same ol' here. Looking for work, parenting, photography sessions and house chores. As normal as it gets.

However, we did get a fun day out on Friday. We took a ferry ride out to Bremerton (I had a photoshoot) and then had lunch. Simple and low key, but so fun. I love my family and its so great to get to spend so much time with my boys.

We saw lots of sea birds and a seal.

It was such a beautiful day.

It was very cold and windy outside. Sam wasn't prepared for the gusts! I believe his exact words were, "Whoa! Winny!"

Our view of the city. We love it here on days like this.

The Big Boy

Sam has done a lot of growing up in the past month. It really took us by surprise.
First of all, Sam is officially potty trained. No diapers ever again! He doesn't even have them on at night any more. He is amazing at going to the bathroom when he needs and he has even started to go on his own without asking for help or telling us "mommy, daddy, I pee!" The greatest sound in the world is a toilet flushing from your 2 year old.  We started a sticker chart that really motivated him to go potty on his own. He gets a sticker every time he goes and when the chart is full he gets a new toy. Last week he chose a Bucket-o-Farm Animals for his prize. He used the chart to "pay" for the toy at Target.
This is a very exciting concept for him and I think we'll use the same idea for nights without a binky.Secondly, Sam is now in a big boy bed! We finally got around to rearranging his room so that it suited our toddler, instead of our baby. He still had a crib and a changing table in there.

When we showed him his "new" bed, he was thrilled and spent hours playing in it and even took his first big boy nap. Last night was his first night in the big boy room and it was a big success!Show me a big boy smile, Sam!Show me your big boy undies, Sam! (with Buzz Lightyear, of course.)
Give me a thumbs up!Show me your big boy dance!Now go to sleep! (He loves to pretend snore.)Such a big boy!

Some Fall pics

I have been dying to take some pictures at this tree nursery near our house and the other day was the perfect opportunity to do so. I begged my friend Sarah to snap a few for us, and I am so glad she agreed.  These are some of my favorite pictures of us ever.  Sam was not in a very smiley mood, but he's still cute in my book!

Asking him to kiss me. Didn't happen.
Once again, here are some shots of how we really act in front of the camera. :) Matt, photo-bombing without my knowledge.

Trick or Treating

What a fun night! Once our tummies were full of warm chicken chowder, we got into costume and started the festivities.

Our little Trick or Treaters. Grace, Eli and Sam. We LOVED having the Cox's with us for Halloween.

The boys checking each other out.
Mommy and Sam, super excited about CANDY!

Daddy helped Sam out at each door. He had a fun time yelling the magic words.

We had a blast with the Cox family and my parents who came dressed up as well. Dad took care of the door duties so that we could walk around the neighborhood as a family.

We are already excited (and planning costumes) for next year!