More thoughts and a party

More thoughts on Thomson:

You are ticklish everywhere, everywhere!

You eat a lot and are usually not very picky. We do try to keep it bland, though.

You love when Gus comes home and when we look out the window and see Bates running around the yard

You love to be outside

You have 7 teeth and 1 more coming in this week

You are crawling and pulling up on furniture but only to your knees - I guess that is far enough for you!

The bubble party was a lot of fun! Erin brought a borrowed bubble machine that was the best! If you ever need a bubble machine, look for one called "The Gazillion". It blew hundreds of bubbles the whole time and all the kids loved it!

Thomson's cake was just a cheap one from Publix. This was a party on a budget! At publix they give you a free smash cake when you order a regular one. I had them keep it plain and just put his monogram on it. For the big cake, they did white icing and I decorated it myself.

I had a hard time finding tablecloths for the card tables, and because I never learned how to sew, I bought navy felt and cut it with pinking shears. They turned out perfect!

We served BBQ from Johnny's in Marietta and snacks for the kids: raisin boxes, applesauce, goldfish, juice boxes.

Aunt Evie and Uncle DJ came all weekend and helped us make PomPom decorations that we hung everywhere to look like bubbles! We put a few on the front porch and mailbox. Thomson loved his cake and ate it with both hands. I had to cut him off after he ate half! I don't think we have any pictures of him looking at the camera because he was so intent on the cake!

Check back next fall for details on Thomson's tractor party!
Mr. Gus is going to give all the kids a ride . . .

Thoughts on my toddler:

Dear Thomson,

You are one year old!! (Actually 13 months as I write, but who's counting?)

You are so joyful and happy, just as you look in all of your pictures!

You have the best smile and you smile all of the time

You laugh at yourself when you do something new, and you laugh at us when we play with you.
You also laugh when you think we are playing with you, even when we are not. Every time I leave the room you giggle and think I am playing peek-a-boo!

You are getting harder to photograph because you are on the move! We are so happy that you are crawling and exploring!

You love dogs, especially Bates who licks you all over. You crawl after him and try to grab his little tail. You love baths and wagon rides, swinging at the park and reading books any time of day.

You can easily entertain yourself

You scream really loudly when you want attention

You wake up so happy in the morning and from your naps. It is the best thing to hear you laughing on the monitor!

You are the best thing that ever happened to your dad and me! We could not have created a more perfect child for us. It has been so fun to see your big personality develop and to know that God created you for us as a perfect part of our family.

I still don't have your birthday pictures to share, so I will skip the party and share some pictures of our Christmas card photo shoot. After this I let you crawl around the grass and we ruined this adorable outfit.

So much to be thankful for

I know, I know. I haven't posted in forever and I have SO many things I need to post, especially Thomson's birthday, my birthday, and I still have a recipe I have been meaning to share . . .

We had an eventful weekend. Both Gus and I got a stomach bug on Saturday night and were so so sick all night long. I started getting sick when Thomson was in the bathtub. Sweet thing crawled over and pulled himself up to the edge of the tub and started patting my arm. Sunday was a tough day for all of us.

Yesterday we awoke with new energy, Gus headed off to work and I was ready to tackle cleaning the nasty house and catching up on laundry.

Fast forward to Thomson's morning nap, and luckily he was sleeping in my closet (don't judge). I opened the laundry room door and black smoke poured out and set off the fire alarms in the house. I of course panicked, ran to get Thomson and the dog out of his crate and called 911.

The firefighters got here in less than 5 minutes and ran in with oxygen tanks and full suits. The whole house had smoke - but they realized quickly that it was just our old washing machine. They got it out of the house but left a mess behind - black water all over the floor and loads of laundry wet and messy. Yuck.

But this being Thanksgiving week I have chosen to be thankful even though I feel a little defeated. I am thankful:


That our smoke detectors are working

That Thomson was asleep in my room and not his room (next to the laundry room)

That the firefighters were so gracious and helpful, and quick!


I am so thankful that only Gus and I got the bug and not Thomson

I am thankful for my sweet sweet mother-in-law, who came to our rescue Saturday night with bags full of medicine, gingerale, saltines and chicken soup

And now I am thankful that we both feel better and can enjoy my mom's turkey and dressing on Thursday!


Promise to catch up with everything this week and more of what I am thankful for! And I have some great pictures to post! Please everyone check your smoke detectors!!!

HaHa

Thomson loves his HaHa. That is how Lee shortened BigHappy's name.While we were in the mountains last weekend, Thomson got to go to a Marietta football game and hear HaHa on the loudspeaker for the first time! I hope they got some pictures from the press box. I never thought that my children would not be Blue Devils. But Thomson will have LOTS of Blue Devil friends - and he will be a Blue Devil at heart! (and if he turns out to be a great football player, HaHa just might recruit him over :)

Wasps, turning 30, turning 1

We have been crazy busy around the Sams house. Here is how my morning went:

Me: "Bates, what do you have in your mouth?"

Bates: Running, yelping, running, shaking the object of play, yelping...

Me: "Looks like my glove, hmmm - wait, is that a WASP NEST?"

Me: Running, screaming

Bates: Runing, yelping, shaking the nest in his mouth

The past few weeks have been so full. I am due for a major blog post about all of these fun events:

- I turned 3-0 last week and we celebrated a LOT, went to the mountains and out for several dinners with friends in Athens.

- Thomson started CRAWLING last Thursday, 6 days before his first birthday.

- We have Thomson's party this weekend and have been getting ready for the fun!

- Thomson is sick right now with a high fever since Saturday. We were up a lot last night.

- And our dog is craving attention so he finds things to get in trouble with like WASPS.

We were too sick to dress up for Halloween, but Thomson was a duck with his buddy Emory for the Marietta Halloween parade. It was rainy and too close to supper-time and T would not wear the duck hat, not even for a picture.

Here we are with Brooks Bagwell and Emory Lowry at the parade:

Here is the hated-hat

Halloween Genius

It drives me crazy how much Halloween candy costs. Yes they have sales this time of year, but a big bag of chocolate candy can be around $10 or more! And yes, I am cheap, but I think I found a way to keep the Little Treaters happy and stay on budget this month. Answer: Pixie Sticks!

The sugar candy is way cheaper than the chocolate. 1 bag of pixie sticks is on sale at Target this week for $2 and it comes with 120 sticks! We can give 3 sticks per kid, and I am sure we won't have more than 40 Treaters. And this way I can keep Gus in check - he likes to give lots of handfuls of expensive chocolate to cute children. Am I cheap? Yes. Smart? Yes. And I think the kiddos will like it too!

P.S. The cute felt kitty bag is also from Target - T's trick-or-treating bag this year!

Pumpkins . . .

The pumpkin patch didn't go over very well today. Thomson hated it. We put him down in the perfect spot for a cute picture and he started SCREAMING. Everyone was looking at us and saying "Poor baby". Something scared him and we couldn't figure it out - so this is the only picture.

I tried giving him some cheerios to cheer him up - teaching him emotional eating early I guess. But he kept screaming with the cheerios in his mouth. Better luck next year, ha!