Trimming the Tree

This week Sam and I put up the Christmas decorations. He loved hanging the ornaments on the tree and I enjoyed telling him the story behind each special one. 

Most people know that I have a very "bah-humbug"attitude during the Holidays, but seeing Sammy enjoy this time of year makes it a little better. 

To him, its all very magical.

He laughed so hard at his silly face. 

 When we were finished he stood around and just eyed the tree with pride. I can't wait to have another Christmas with my sweet boy!

Christmas 2011

Our family was lucky enough to get 3 days of Christmas this year.

On the eve of Christmas Eve, we opened our first gifts to each other, pajamas.

Sam was THRILLED to get Spiderman pj's. He demanded to put them on right away and then asked Daddy to help him touch the ceiling, because apparently that's what Spiderman does.

Then, on the actual Christmas Eve we had dinner and opened presents at my parents house with my little brother, Cory.

He and Sam are good buds. They love to wrestle and play together. Sam was also very excited to have Dundee there, my brothers dog, to play catch with.

After opening presents Sam and Grandma sat down to watch some movies while the rest of us relaxed as well.

Christmas morning came and Sam had a blast opening his stocking goods from Santa and his gifts from Mom and Dad.

Buzz Lightyear!

Matt and Sam got a Circus Waffle maker, so after presents were finished we ate breakfast and got ready for the day.

We arrived at Matt's parents house that afternoon to eat dinner and open more gifts. We were all spoiled, yet again, but I think that Sam mostly just enjoyed ripping the paper off of everything. He opened his own and assisted with everyone else's as well.

Matt's Mom had been fighting a bad infection for weeks, so exhaustion made it really hard for her to enjoy her Christmas. She opened all of her gifts first, and then went back upstairs to lay down. Hopefully next year she will be back to her usual self! Her Chemo treatments are working!

We hope that everyone had as Merry a Christmas as we did!

Sam visits Santa

We arrived at the mall today to see Santa. I had Sam practicing all morning what he was going to ask Santa for and he seemed very prepared.

"Buzz, Woody, Army Guy, Hamm and Jessie" were all on his list. What can I say, the kid loves himself some Toy Story.

When we got in line there were only a few families waiting ahead of us. Just as we turned the corner, Sam spotted Santa and ran straight for the Jolly man, cutting off 3 or 4 patiently awaiting children. He dove right into Santa's arms shouting "Santa! Buzz and Woody" and gave him a huge hug.

Luckily, all the other moms and workshop helpers were laughing along with me as tears of joy, laughter and embarrassment (quite the emotional cocktail) welled up in my eyes.

Oh, my little boy. Excitement to the extreme.

His Santa picture, although very cute, (doesn't Sam look dashing?!) does not do the moment justice. But I will always remember our 2011 Santa visit! How could I not?

Gettin' out

We finally managed to get out of the house a little bit while Matty was out of school for Christmas and New Year. It was so nice to be able to spend time together again. Gee I love my family!

Sam and I got together with a few friends to check out the Harry Potter Exhibit in Seattle only to find out that the tickets were sold out. So we played in the Children's Museum instead and Sam had a great time.

In the construction zone.

Cooking dinner for some girls. They played together for a while. They would say "Hamburger, please!" and he would hand them something out of the pot with a huge smile.

Slides. Sam loves slides. He goes "Ahhhh" all the way down.

I'm calling it now: Sam will be a drummer in a band one day.

You know you're a photographer when your child....

The boys (Sam, Chase and Eli) spent a lot of time playing in this car.

We also got to head down to Tacoma to check out the Zoo lights. Although they were really pretty, and Sam seemed to like them, we don't think it was worth the drive. It was SOO cold that night and none of the animals were visible.
We liked this tree a lot. So pretty.  Check out our red noses! Oh, and there's Tyler hijacking our family picture.

Cool, right?

Meh boys. So handsome!

We did get to see some of the fish since they don't have a bed time. We should get Sam an aquarium, he loves fish.

The entrance is really neat.

So we had a pretty good winter break. Family time is so much more exciting now that we don't get to have it as often with Matt and I being so busy with work and school. I have loved the little moments of watching movies in bed, sipping hot coco on the couch and playing out front in the snow.

Christmas 2010

I would love to show you all of the fun we had this Christmas, but I barely picked up my camera the entire weekend. I am already regretting the lack of pictures I took, but this year was unforgettable none the less.

(Matts Dad got a video camera so we have lots of it on film. Yay!)

Sam got:

GIRAFFES. And lots of them. Seriously, a ton.
WOODY. This boy sure loves Toy Story.
A chair for movie watching.
A TENT.
Books and puzzles galore.
Some hip rags. A sweatshirt from Shauna and a sweater from Grandma.
TRICYCLE.
Bubbles.

Matty got:

A car jack. a very heavy one.
Coats, sweaters and tees.
KNIVES. A chef can never have too many.
A beater. Matt makes a lot of whipped cream. Im not kidding.
XBOX LIVE.
Black Ops Game. Im a black ops window.
Protein shake mix.

Holly got:

Bath stuff. Mmm.
L SERIES LENS. Yikes.
Nordstrom gift card.
Pink sweater and hair accessories. Thanks Shauna.
PELICAN camera case. So radical.
Battery pack.
Shoes.

As you can see, we were all very spoiled by our families. We had a great holiday and hope that you did too.

I know, I know.

You're dying to hear about our Christmas and you cant sleep at night without a new picture of Mr. Sam adoring this blog. Its all coming soon, I promise.

"Motivation" has been a curse word in this household all week long.

Feeling....distant.

Its been a rough few months. I try not to complain because I have it pretty darned good. But here I go anyway.

I have had a lot of work to do. Not only do I have my own photography to worry about, but I have started a new job with a marketing company that is starting to use me more and more. I wanted to get going with this months ago, but I just couldn't find the time. I'm starting to feel guilty about it and hoping that we can take off in early January.

The weather is so dreary. My mood is highly motivated by the seasons so as you can imagine I'm in a "stay home and nap all day" kind of mood. Its not very flattering on me.

Neither is this hack. I'm pretty sure Sam and I haven't allowed a silent minute to pass between our horrible coughing fits. We have been sick since we got home from Arizona. The drastic change in weather and hours in a contagious-disease-hub-of-an-airport probably didn't help at all.

Matty is amidst finals week. We do our best to leave him alone and let him study, but both Sam and I crave his attention. Poor guy. He's juggling a lot right now.

I miss my friends. I swear, when the winter hits I turn into this crabby-hermit-woman with no desire to "social butterfly" myself in the least. If I could hibernate with the bears and squirrels, I totally would. And don't you dare say I would miss Christmas, because the fact is I have never really enjoyed this holiday much.

Call me Scrooge. Go ahead, its been done before.

I don't like shopping. I don't like crowds. I don't like decorating and I really don't like Christmas music. At all. I envy people a lot this time of year because they all seem so jolly and merry and I just cant get into it.

So there you have it. My "pity me" post. Trust me, you have already done enough sympathizing just reading this pathetic complaint to the end.

Now, go have a Merry Christmas and Ill see you in the Spring.

Christmas 2009

Wow. What a Christmas we had. It was so much more fun and meaningful with Sam with us this year.

On Christmas Eve Matthew, Sam and I had our own little family Christmas where we opened gifts and had breakfast together. That afternoon we headed over to my parents where we ate dinner, watched movies, relaxed and played some games.

Sam enjoyed playing peak-a-boo.We had a blast with the game "Mad Gab" and seriously laughed like drunkards.

Christmas morning we opened gifts with my parents. Sam was spoiled, of course, and got a rocking horse from Grandma and Grandpa.

The story with the horse is that when Matt was 2, his parents bought him a plastic, spring supported rocking horse. He woke up Christmas morning before everyone else, went downstairs, got on the horse and starting calling out his name "Tuba."

So, now Sam has his own horse named, "Oboe."Christmas afternoon we drove over to the Aprecio home and opened gifts with them. Again, Sam was given box after box of toys and books and loved every minute of the attention that he got.For dinner, my family and Matt's family joined together for dinner and games. It was a very fun time, and I hope that everyone had as good of a Christmas as we did!

Santa Pics

I am officially one of those mothers that paid a ridiculous amount of cash for their child to sit on the lap of a Mall Santa for a totally cliche picture. And yes, I do realize that having done this, forces me to keep up the tradition each year. I'm a sucker.

But how great are these?

We got to meet up with Grandma and Grandpa Bailey for lunch. Here we are waiting in Santa's workshop.