Sammy Smiles

I know it's a blurry, low quality image (taken by my cell phone), but here's one of Sammy's first smiles. They're still hard to come by and very fleeting, but that's Mama's gold, baby!

Growth and Change

This is Sammy as of this morning. He is wearing (just barely) the outfit he came home from the hospital in. He was swimming in it then - length wise and around the middle - and now he's squeezed into it like a sardine. What a big boy!

In other news, I'm going to have to stop nursing and I'm feeling a little sad about that. I keep having problems with clogged ducts and such (I'll spare you the details) and just can't do it anymore. I need to feel physically healthy. It's been six months since I was "normal" for heaven's sake! So goodbye to not-really-stinky diapers and sweet smelling burps. And hello to stinkier diapers, stinkier burps, and rows of dirty bottles on the kitchen counter. Oh well. I did my best to make it work.

Aunt Karen and Baby Jessica

Richard went on a week long business trip last week. so to help me out we asked Richard's little sister, Karen to come visit. The perk of asking Karen is that she has a new baby, Jessica, that we were dying to meet. She was a great help and loads of fun. The kids love Karen and instantly fell in love with Jessica, too. Who wouldn't? It was so great to get to just sit and talk with Karen (while both of us nursed our babies) for hours. Thanks for coming, Karen. We love you!

Pumpkinville 2010

This is our third year of going to Pumpkinville on the preschool field trip. First Naomi, then Asher, and this year Asher and Isaiah. Each year I've made a photo book which has turned the trip into legend at our house. Isaiah knew more about Pumpkinville before he ever went there than you would have thought possible. So we were all really looking forward to it. And it totally lived up to our expectations, as always. It was a little chilly with a brisk wind, but that just made it more Fall-y!

Motor Mouth and Smarty Pants

Yesterday was our church Primary Program. Naomi and Asher both had a little part. Asher got to say, "Jesus Christ always obeyed Heavenly Father." Naomi got to sing "I Feel My Savior's Love" with two other girls. Naomi and Asher sat up on the stage in the chapel since they had parts. That put me in the rare position of only having Isaiah and Samuel with me. So you would think that would mean it was a relaxing Sacrament meeting, but no. First there was a bathroom incident that ended with me cleaning an entire stall. Then at one point Isaiah heard somebody on the stand refer to the Holy Ghost and he started saying, "The Holy Ghost?" very loudly in this totally incredulous voice. Repeatedly. I guess he hadn't really thought of that phrase before and thought it was funny that we were talking about ghosts at church.

Isaiah really is quite a motor mouth these days. He's just always talking or singing or humming or "boom boom boom"ing. I'd say we understand about 75% of what he says (but sometimes it takes 3 or 4 tries before we figure it out).

Then later in the day at dinner, Aunt Karen (who is visiting for the week) said to Naomi, "Which would you rather have, nine dimes or five quarters?" Asher piped right up and said, "Both!" He is such a clever boy. He asks very intelligent questions and wants to know about everything. He loves to sit next to me and ask how things work. He loved when Grandpa Ashurst was here and could ask him all kinds of questions.

It's fun to see these two boys move down their developmental tracks together. I remember just about a year ago that Asher was at the phase Isaiah is now. ...They grow up fast.

Not Exactly Professional

These photos are from my latest attempt at getting remotely professional looking shots. As you can see, I pretty much failed. But, professional-looking or not, they're still cute! Where's my friend Erica when I need her?

6 Weeks

Samuel is 6 weeks old today!

Samuel is sleeping longer at night, only waking me up once. I feed him around 10pm, then he wakes me up around 3:00am for a feeding, then he sleeps until 7:00am when I am waking up anyway. Only having to wake up once mid-night sure does make a difference as far as feeling more sane. I actually haven't broken down into ridiculous tears for more than a week!

He still has several of his newborn quirks, which we love. For example, he sneezes in fives, gets the hiccups practically hourly, and lets us know he's hungry by lapping up air like a kitten laps milk.

Richard and I bought a new, King size bed last week. It was quite a few drama-filled days trying to pick out new bedding that we were both happy with. And after all that, we still have to agree on a headboard. But the endless mind-changing is all worth it since I can now roll over in my own bed whenever I want, regardless of how Richard is positioned. It's fabulous!

The new bedding:Moving up to a King size bed means we had to sell our Queen size sleigh bed. It's such a beautiful bed that we really were sad to let it go. It was given to us as a wedding present by a very generous co-worker of mine. I feel a little bit like I'm selling an heirloom, but we just don't have anywhere to keep it. I hope the next owner loves it like we do.

The old bed:
I got a haircut last week that I hate. It's just a chin-length bob, but it somehow makes me look simultaneously 60 and 8 - and I'm neither! The first second I have available to escape, I'm getting another haircut. And that won't be soon enough for me!

We've got a slow-spreading, but fast hitting sickness going through the family. There's a fever and a sore throat, but the time inbetween one person getting it and the next seems to be like 4 days. So just when Naomi was over it, Asher got it. We haven't had a normal everybody-to-school day in more than a week. Which means I keep missing my "just me and Sammy" days. I miss that. ...Maybe Friday...

Richard is going out of town for a week starting on Friday. To help me out while he's gone, his sister Karen is coming from Utah to stay with us. We can't wait to see her and meet her baby Jessica. And we're looking forward to a fun trip to Pennsylvania the weekend that Richard gets back. And our 9 year anniversary is that week, too. So there's lots to look forward to.

Contradiction

I have two possible blog post topics rolling around my head.

The first is about the feelings of miraculousness that I have when I hold my sweet Samuel. The way that I melt when I look into his tiny, angelic face. His perfect, dark eyes. His miniature toes. His soft skin. His millions of accidental facial expressions - especially the one where he looks totally perplexed and even has rows of wrinkles on his forehead.

The second is about the feelings of frustration that I have when I hold my discontented Samuel for an hour straight and get nothing done all day because I feed him, hold him, take 10 minutes to rest, and then it's time to feed him again.

Having a little guy is tough. He doesn't know how to calm himself down and fall asleep when he's tired. He had major gas pains that leave him howling in agony after multiple feedings a day. And when he does sleep, I want to rest, too, not promptly get to work. Just when I'm feeling like I could get up and do something, he wakes up. I plan around his feeding schedule, but he isn't really on that set of a schedule yet.

...He just started crying again. I guess that means I'm done blogging.

But there is that whole "he's a total miracle" thing, too. It's a good thing. Otherwise this would SO not be worth it!

{read that last sentence with a good dose of humor.}

One Month Birthday

Today is Sammy's one month birthday. One month ago he weighed 6 lbs, 8 ozs. Today he weighs 8 lbs, 12 ozs. He's longer, too - but I didn't measure how much. His little cheeks are chunking out nicely. His legs are getting a little meat on them. His fingers and toes look like he needs some serious moisturizer because he's constantly growing out of his skin. He's such a big boy. Last night he slept an entire 5 1/2 hours! (Hooray for me!) We adore him.