Merry Christmas!

What a wonderful Christmas we had! Its hard to believe its already over - in fact yesterday we actually took down our tree. (We're keeping the rest of the decorations up for a while longer - but the tree just had to go. Poor thing, if you just looked at it it started raining needles.) :) I really think that this Christmas season went by so much faster than any other. Maybe it has something to do with having a toddler? Who knows... Nevertheless, we were able to do some really fun Christmas season traditions: making Santa cookies, driving around to look at Christmas lights with hot chocolate, watching the movie ELF, watching the living nativity at Horizon church, plus lots of other things.

Samuel had a great Christmas too! He loves looking at Christmas lights. He also loved smelling the Christmas tree - and while doing so would often pull off ornaments, then look at me and say "uh-oh" until I put it back for him. :)

On a Sammy note, he is 16 months old, and is doing a LOT more talking than he used to! Almost a new word every day... he is also getting really good at repeating words that we say, which is fun. Of course, they don't sound exactly like the words we say, but he's getting there. (For example: "peek-a-boo" is "pa-boo" and "spoon" is more like "boon") :) What a cutie!

We spent the weekend before Christmas up in SCV celebrating with Andrew's family. Then spent Christmas day with Jessica's family. Here are just a few of the photos - enjoy!

Sammy with Gramps & Auntie Amy.

Opening his Christmas presents at Grammy & Gramps house

Christmas morning at home and SO EXCITED that Santa came! :)

Opening more presents... Samuel is now a pro at unwrapping gifts.

Our family in front of the Christmas tree

Sammy donning his new monkey hat & mittens from Mamoe & Grandad

And here's cute little Sam on Christmas day at the Whites. He always has such a fun time there running around with his cousins.

We hope you all had a great Christmas too! We are so thankful for all of you and especially thankful for our most wonderful gift of eternal life through God's son!

Sam Dancing

Looks like we've got a boy who might start joining his momma at hula class... :)

Thanksgiving Fun

Hi everyone! We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! We really have so much to be thankful for - especially for all of our dear families. Here's some fun shots we took of the Pre-Thanksgiving with Jessica's family & Thanksgiving with Andrew's family.

Here's our whole family trying to all fit in the photo! We got together to celebrate the weekend before Thanksgiving. Sammy loved his first taste of Thanksgiving turkey. :)

One of our Thanksgiving traditions is to take a cousin photo on the couch - in order of age. From oldest to youngest we have Stryder (4), Indiana (3), Leia (2), Samuel (1) and Laylie (0)!!! Its fun watching the cousins have fun together!

On Thanksgiving Day we drove up to SCV to celebrate with Andrew's family. Here is a sweet "firstborns" photo of Grammy (Joan), Gigi, Samuel & Andrew.

Sammy had fun riding the rocking chair that Andrew rode on as a little one! :)

Our little family on Thanskgiving Day

On our drive back home, we stopped to visit Leia for her 2nd birthday party! Here's Samuel with Uncle Jason holding Leia's new dolly. We told Sammy to give the baby a bottle and he knew exactly what to do! I'm surprised he knew what to do, since he rarely ever wanted to take a bottle himself! :)

And this one is just so funny. Poor guy looks so tired! You know his face just reads, "Having a newborn baby is wonderful, but I'm so tired getting up all the time! I wish I could just get a full nights sleep!" :)

Fall Happenings...

So much has happened since we last posted! First of all, there was Halloween... although this is way late, here's our little guy all dressed up. We actually took him around trick-or-treating to a few houses and he was quick to catch on to the idea of reaching into the basket and grabbing candy.

Samuel is now almost 15 months old... and he is walking everywhere! No more crawling for him! Its so fun to see such a small little person walking around our house and exploring everything! One of his most recent activities is picking up something and finding a new "home" for it somewhere in the house... so far we've found the remote control in our laundry hamper, mommy's makeup in a wastebasket, socks in the toy box... and lots of other surprises who-knows-where, waiting to be found!

We also took a week-long trip to the Turks & Caicos islands at the beginning of November... thanks to Andrew's work! He had a week-long conference there and Sammy & Jessica were able to tag along. It is so beautiful there and we had a great time! We got to relax on the beach or at the pool everyday, Andrew got to drive on the left side of the road, and this is where Sammy mastered his walking! Here are some more highlights from the trip:

The main entrance to our resort - the Regent Palms

Sammy getting ready to go to the beach - all loaded up with sunscreen!

Here is the view of the pool with the ocean in the background - we pretty spent the afternoons at the pool or on the beach - Sam loved it because he is such a water-baby!

The pool had this very neat shallow edge around the whole thing - perfect for Sammy to walk & splash around in.

Here we are standing in front of the Grace Bay beach at our hotel - - they say that this island has the most beautiful beaches in the world!
The pool had these very neat lounge beds surrounding the pool with pillows and umbrella shade that we were able to relax on one day. :)

We took a snorkeling excursion one day and here's Andrew with one of the two conch shells he found! We got to keep the shells, and we even ate the conch inside... :)

Just a pretty one of the blue water...

Sammy having fun on the white sandy beach

Mommy & son relaxing in our hotel room :)

Okay, that's it - you should be all caught up with us now! Happy Fall!

Sammy's Walking!

That's right everyone - he is walking!... well, just a few steps at a time. :) He actually took his FIRST steps on October 10, and everyday he's getting a little more confident! Here is some video to prove it!



Since we're already uploading a video, why not do a couple more? Here's one we took the other day of Samuel LOVING his really big "wubbies." (Wubbies = Comfort Silkie Blankets). So cute!



Last, but not least, here is a video of Sammy showing off his rhythm. Watch his shoulder when the song starts! Hysterical!

Julian & the Pumpkin Patch

We just returned from a weekend of camping with the White Family to Julian... our 2nd annual trip! We had lots of fun! Here are a few highlights from the weekend...

Getting ready for a bike ride with Grandaddy & Cousin Leia

Everyone had fun playing at the playground

Sammy loves going down the slide!

This is what happens to his hair after going down the tunnel slide!

Cooling down at the drinking fountain after playing so hard at the park!

Cutie-pie Leia Marie :)

Sam & Grandad at the Pumpkin Patch

Stryder & Uncle Cool :)

Our little pumpkin! What an adorable smile he has!

The whole fam - - minus Jason, Mindy & their brand new baby Laylie! We can't wait to go back next year with you guys too!

That's it for now! Have a great day everyone! :)

Samuel's new cousin, Laylie!

Congrats to our brother & sister, Jason & Mindy who gave birth to their precious baby girl last night at 7:16pm! Laylie Joanelle is so beautiful and we love our niece so much! Samuel also loves his new cousin and can't wait to play with her (when she gets a little older)!

Laylie Joanelle White

7 pounds, 12 ounces &

19 inches

On a Sammy note, here is an amazing video of our little guy having fun with daddy's tools. We were so amazed when we walked up on him doing this all by himself! He is just soooo smart!

A new hobby...

Samuel has found a new hobby. He loves to find places to hide! Under the desk... behind curtains... inside cupboards - wherever he can fit! :) And then he loves it when we pretend we can't find him and he peaks his head out and laughs when we say, "there you are!!!" Each day he is getting more and more fun!

Legoland and so much more...

We had an incredibly fun weekend! Our cousins from Georgia came to visit, and we were able to show them some of the fun things that San Diego has to offer. Our cousin's kids are crazy about legos and so we spent the entire day at Legoland on Sunday. Samuel was even able to go on 2 different rides, which he loved. Here's Samuel with Thomas the Train made entirely out of Legos. :)

They had the whole park decorated for Fall & Halloween with pumpkins and such. Here's some cute shots of Sammy & us by the big pumpkins!

No trip to San Diego is complete without visiting the beautiful ocean! This is one of my favorite beaches - Swami's. There are 137 stairs that you have to climb down to get to the sand... (we counted!), then you get a nice little workout going back up to your car when you're done... especially if you're holding Sam the whole time - thanks Andrew!

Here are our cousins and the tall cliffs behind them. :)

We also made a trip down to Balboa Park and visited the Reuben H. Fleet Science Exhibit & IMAX theatre. Its a completely hands-on exhibit for kids allowing them to have fun with science, & technology. :) Sammy loved quite a few of the exhibits... this one blew air out of a tube, causing a beach ball to float mid-air. You can really see how long Samuel's hair is getting here, as he's looking down the tube!

I just like this one of Sammy. Caleb is making Sammy smile so big! Sammy had so much fun playing with all three kids, Caleb, Daniel & Betsie. :)

And yes, this is what you think it is! :) We were on our way to the bathtub after a long day of fun, and Sammy decided to stop, play with a toy, and take a poop. I guess you shouldn't leave a baby diaperless for too long! It was really quite funny... I happened to hear him pooping, saw what happened and ran to pick him up. Just after I picked him up, then the second one fell from his cute little bottom at a height of about 4 feet. I'm glad it stopped after that! And I'm very glad that I found him before he discovered it! I guess we'll end it on that note! :) We hope you all are having a wonderful week!