Things made more difficult by pregnancy

Sleeping
Rolling over
Sitting on the floor
Getting from a seated position on the floor
Getting up from any seated position
Shaving your legs
Getting out of the bath tub
Painting your toenails
Dressing a wiggly toddler
Parenting a wiggly toddler
Falling asleep
Staying awake
Blogging

The Story of Christ's Birth According to Sam

When the Bible mentions the three kings at the birth of Christ, I'm pretty sure it wasn't referring to the three kings of the Piston Cup.  Granted, I can see where Sam would be assume that they were talking about The King.  But Lightning McQueen and Chick Hicks? We may need to take his religious education a little bit more seriously.

Day ??? - Pumpkin Cake

The goal of the week is to get this runaway train of a 365 back on track.  To start it off, I would like to introduce you to my breakfast.



Pumpkin and I have an interesting relationship.  I love pumpkin cookies, pumpkin bread and pumpkin cake.  I don't love pumpkin shakes.  I despise pumpkin pie and gutting pumpkins.  Gross.

However, when I stumbled on this recipe, I knew I had to make it.  So do you.  Really. I'm encouraging the world to revolt against pumpkin pie.

Make the world a better place
Try instead to make a cake.
(That was really terrible.)

Found on Not So Humble Pie 

Spiced Pumpkin Cake

from Bake!: Essential Techniques for Perfect Baking

yields 2 8" or 9" cake rounds

3 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)

1 cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt 

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons freshly ground nutmeg

1 cup golden brown sugar, firmly packed

2 cups canned pumpkin puree

5 large eggs, at room temperature

1 1/4 cup vegetable oil

Preheat your oven to 350°F and prepare two 8" or 9" round cake pans with a light coating of non-stick spray and then line the bottoms with parchment. 

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices. Once sifted, give it a good mixing with a whisk to ensure everything is evenly distributed and then set aside. 

In a second large bowl, add the brown sugar and a third of the pumpkin puree. Combine the two with a spatula, pressing firmly to ensure there are no rogue lumps of sugar.  Once lump free, add the remaining pumpkin and oil. Blend with a whisk and then add the eggs, one at a time, stirring with the whisk to incorporate after each addition. 

Add the dry ingredients a third at a time, blending after each addition. 

Divide the batter between your two pans and place into the oven on a lower-middle rack.  Bake for 40-45 minutes until risen and firm to the touch. 

Let the cakes stand in the pans on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Then unmold onto the racks and turn right-side up to cool completely. 

Once cool you can begin on my whipped cream cheese frosting. 

Ms. Humble's Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting

Yields enough to frost a 8" or 9" double layer cake. 

1lb (16oz) full fat cream cheese, softened but still cool

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 cup cold heavy cream (use the ultra heavy 40%+ cream if you can find it)

1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract

Sift the powdered sugar and add the cream cheese to the bowl of your mixer with the paddle attachment. Beat them thoroughly until fluffy and completely smooth/lump free. In a separate bowl, beat the heavy cream to nearly stiff peaks, then add the whipped cream into the cheese mixture, scrape down the sides of your bowl and quickly and briefly beat to combine. Do not over beat.

Day 252 - The Muffin

I realize that there are a couple of days missing but they are coming.  Soon.  For now, bear with while I talk about my favorite subject other than my boys.  Food.

So Sam (you didn't think I was actually NOT going to talk about him did you?) really loves the show 3rd and Bird on the Disney Channel.  This is funny because I am terrified of birds.  My friend Kara sent me this today and I think it properly illustrates my feelings.

Anyway, back to Sam and the birds.  There is a character on this show called Muffin that always refers to herself in third person.  Super annoying but whatever, Sam loves it. 

I think the show is backed by some muffin that is inserting subliminal messages into the program because I have been wanting to back muffins all week long. 

So today I made these lovelies.

They were good, but not quite sweet enough.

Then my brilliant husband suggested a white chocolate glaze. 

Which I made immediately after Sam went to bed.

Not the prettiest thing (or photo) but I'm sure I can perfect my technique because this sauce sealed the deal.  Muffin perfection.

Cause I love ya, here's the recipe.

White Chocolate Glazed Raspberry White Chocolate Muffins

Based on recipe found here.

• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking poweder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup raspberries.  Fresh or frozen (I used frozen)
• 1/2 cup white chocolate chips

White Chocolate Glaze

• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/4 white sugar
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup white chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Grease 12 muffin tin cups.

2. Heat oven to 400°.

3. In a large bowl mix the milk, butter and egg.

4. Stir in all remaining muffin ingredients except raspberries & vanilla chips.

5. Stir only until flour is moistened,then gently stir in the berries & vanilla chips.

6. Spoon the batter into the greased muffin tins.

7. Bake for 24-28 minutes or until golden brown.

8. Let muffins cool a little, then remove from pan.

Glaze Directions:

1. Over medium heat, bring butter, milk and sugar to a boil.
2. Boil for 3-4 minutes.
3. Remove from heat and stir in white chocolate chips until completely melted.
4. Drizzle (or liberally pour) over muffins. 

Day 249 - Mexican Panaderia

Ok, so there is a lot of food talk on this blog recently.  It's the baby's fault.  I seriously have the appetite of a 13 year old boy right now.  

A couple of months ago, my friend Minda introduced me to a Mexican bakery here in Austin called Chuy's. (Not the Tex-Mex restaurant)  She took me to have tortas for lunch. This was good because she ordered in Spanish and I don't speak Spanish.  The tortas were divine.  THEN I discovered the bakery on the other side of the restaurant.  Oh. My. Heavens. Delightful.

Just this Saturday I took Ben there to buy bread bowls for the potato soup.  Once he laid eyes on the baked goods laid out before him, he had to give them a try.  We bought a churro, a sausage kolache, three bread bowls and a pound cake muffin thingey.
It cost us $4.50.
Angels sang.
I wept.
 No one needed to speak Spanish.
Baked goods are a universal language. 

So imagine my lack of surprise when this morning Ben asked me if I was going back to Chuy's today.  Needless to say we did.  We got a strawberry empanada (HEAVEN), yellow cake with coconut frosting, another churro and two more pound cake muffin thingeys. Ben didn't want to share the pound cake this time.  All of this for a measly $3.50.   

We did not eat it all.  In fact, we just ate the empanada and the cake.  I think Ben would have ate the muffin too. 

Anyway, here is their yelp page. 

Chuy's Bakery

 If you are ever in Austin to see us, remind me to take you there.

Day 248 - Peanut Butter Pork

Every once in awhile I have a cooking fail.  While tonight's dinner was nowhere near a fail, there was something about it that just wasn't quite right.  I liked it.  Ben liked it,  In fact, after dinner he kept eating the pork right off the cooking board so it must not have been too bad.  Despite this evidence, I still think it was missing something.  So. . .  Here is the link to the recipe.

Asian Peanut Butter Pork

Will someone else please make it and tell me what it needs?  Some heat?  A sauce?  More acid?  Please people, I'm begging you.  Solve the mystery of Asian Peanut Butter Pork.  It'll help me sleep at night.

Baked Potato Soup

In my last post I linked to the recipe that I used for Baked Potato Soup.  Then I realized that like most things, I didn't really follow the recipe exactly.  So here it is with a few minor Tracey changes.  

Baked Potato Soup 

Ingredients

• 6 bacon strips, diced
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 clove garlic, minced
• 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 6 cups chicken broth
• 4 large baked potatoes, peeled and cubed (
• 2 cup half-and-half cream
• Shredded Cheddar cheese
• Minced fresh parsley

Directions

1. Bake potatoes in oven until cooked through.  
2. In a large dutch oven. cook bacon until crisp. 
3. Drain, leaving one 1 tablespoon drippings in the pan. Set bacon aside. 
4. Saute onion and garlic in the drippings until tender.  I cook them FOREVER until almost caramelized.  If you are aggressive while doing this you can get a lot of the burnt bacon off the bottom of the pan.  That is, if you are like me and have burnt bacon bits on the bottom of the pan.  
5. Make a roux by adding in some of the bacon fat and the flour.  This should be brown and bubbly. It is hard to tell around the onions but just do you best in order to cook out the flour flavor.  Unless it starts smoking you can't rook a roux too long.  
6. Stir in salt, basil and pepper; mix well. Gradually add broth. Bring to boil; boil and stir for 2 minutes. While stirring, finish using the liquid to deglaze the bottom of the pan.  Get as much of that bacon goodness as you can.  
7. Add half of the potatoes.  At this point I used my immersion blender to blend the potatoes and onions into a creamy mixture.  I like my soup kind of thick and we don't like onion chunks. 
8. Add the rest of the potatoes, half of the bacon, half-and half cream and hot pepper sauce; heat through but do not boil. 
9. Garnish with leftover bacon, cheese and parsley.

Day 247 - Fall

As you will read in the next post, I just spent a lovely 5 days in New England.  Fall days in New England.  I wore a jacket and ate soup.  I got rained on.  I shot lots of photos.  

Today it rained in Texas!  It was very exciting.  So since it is October and rainy, the only thing I could possibly do was make baked potato soup.  Then as I was cooking I realized I was really hot.  Possibly because it is still 82 degrees outside . . . in the rain . . . in October. 

It was still delicious.  Here's the recipe.

Baked Potato Soup

And We're Back!

We are back from hiatus.  The last two weeks have been filled to the brim so it was time to take a short photo break for the following:

Sam is in school now.  Every morning, every day.  We are thrilled.  He has been making some wonderful progress and his speech is becoming clearer every day.  He LOVES school and his lovely teachers.

Ben's parents came for a visit last weekend.  Sam loved every second of it.  I left town but they found plenty to do.  Ben took them to the Farmer's Market where they picked up some persimmon and some pork chops.  Random but apparently delicious.  They also went to the Natural Bridge safari park.  Apparently, this is not the place for me as there is a giant scary ostrich.  I'm totally ok with missing that business.  Here is a little video from their adventure.

Finally, I was able to go spend five lovely (and rainy) days in Concord, NH with my dear friend Shannon (known as Sister Harmon the missionary to you Nebraska folks)  For the last couple of years, I have made an annual trip to do photos for her and her friends.  They live on campus at St. Paul's School which could quite possibly be the most lovely campus on earth. I have 13 shoots scheduled.  We had rain every day but for some reason I was super blessed and the rain stopped for most of our shoots.  Although I have a million more photos to sort through, here are a couple of little samples from my trip.

Treatloaf

I did not get a photo today, however I'm going to make up for it by posting one of our Hanson favorite (not to mention easiest) recipes:  Treatloaf.  

My mother hid Ben's cookbook for 6 months because she wanted to keep this recipe.  My brother Kent requests it within 30 minutes of seeing Ben when we go to Utah. He also asks him to make two.  Ben sends his brother taunting photos of Treatloaf when we have it for dinner.  My sister Bethany insists that there is magic in it.  There might be. I think it might just be cheese.

Treatload (aka Meatloaf)

1-1½ lbs hamburger (we do half hamburger, half ground pork)

1 cup cheese

1/3 cup milk

2 tsp onion powder

1 tsp parsley

1 tsp thyme

2 cups corn flakes

1 egg

salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 350.  Mix all ingredients by hand and shape into loaf at bottom of 9x13 pan.  Indent in the middle.  Cover with 1 can cream of mushroom soup.  Cook for 1-1½ hours

Day 246 - Big boy

Sam got into a WONDERFUL preschool program provided by the school district for kids with speech delay.  We could not be more thrilled.  He goes Monday through Friday from 7:45 am to 11:45 am.  

Fun for Sam.  

Sad for Mom.  

Good for Mom's chores.  

Great for Mom and Sam's afternoon naps.  

Wednesday was his first day of school.  He loved it.  

When I dropped him off in the morning, one of the little boys in his class exclaimed "Yea!  Sam's here!"  

When I picked him up he was super happy and they said he had a wonderful day.  We love all of his teachers and feel so blessed that it is possible for him to participate in the program.  

After school, we went and met Ben for lunch at Phil's Ice House.  He was excited to see Dad, play on the playground and drink lots of root-beer.  Every time I look at him, I can hardly believe how big he is getting

We are looking forward to many great things as our little guy continues to grow and develop.  

  

Day 245 - Steak Pasta

Ben's least favorite thing about me being pregnant is the way it wrecks our dinner schedule.  We plan a month at a time but it seems like at least once a week I beg him for something off the plan.  

This week it was Steak Gorgonzola from Olive Garden.  There are two problems with this.  First, Ben refuses to go to Olive Garden.  Second, I'm not really supposed to eat Gorgonzola.  Something about mold and soft cheese or something.  Anyway,  I fixated for three days and finally decided to make my own Non-Gorgonzola Steak Gorgonzola.  Here's the recipe I used.   (Loosely based on this recipe.)

Steak Gorgonzola (minus the Gorgonzola) for Crazy Pregnant Ladies



The Glaze
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup water
2 Tablespoons brown sugar

Simmer until thickened, cool to room temperature.

The steak
1 lbs flat iron steak thinly sliced
1 bottle Newman's Own Balsamic Vinaigrette
1 TBSP rosemary

Dump it all in a Ziploc and marinade for an hour.  About 5 minutes before the pasta is done, throw it on the grill and cook for 1-2 minutes per side

The Pasta
1 lbs fettuccine

Bring a pot of well salted water to a boil.  Cook as directed.  So easy.

The Sauce
2 TBSP butter (Tracey addition)
1/2 large sweet onion, finely chopped (Tracey addition)
3 cloves of minced garlic (Tracey addition)
1 1/2 cup white milk
1 1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup  parmesan cheese, grated
1/2 cup  romano cheese, grated ( I didn't have Romano so I just used all Parmesan.  It worked just fine)
5 egg yolks, fresh jumbo eggs
Salt and black pepper  (LOTS of black pepper.


Melt butter in large saucepan.  Add onions and cook until slightly caramalized.  Add garlic and cook until light golden brown.  Stir in milk, cream and cheese.  Cook until cheese is melted.  In a separate bowl, lighly beat the egg yolks.  Slowly add sauce mixture to bring eggs up to temperature, stirring the entire time.  Once the eggs have been tempered, add it to the rest of the sauce and cook over low for 5 minutes.  


Assemble your pasta, sauce, steak and cheese.  Garnish with glaze and chopped sundried tomatoes.

Day 244 - Spelling

I'm not sure what this says about our parenting abilities.  Either we are really great parents because Sam is spelling at the age of three.

Or we are really bad parents because we obviously let him watch WAY too much Pixar.

Day 243 - Goodbye feet

In case you haven't noticed, I've really been slacking on the posting.  I have a good reason though. 

It seems that I have misplaced my brain.  

And my balance.  

Not to mention my appetite.  

Wait, that's not true.  I still have my appetite.  

I've just lost the ability to keep the food I eat in my stomach. 

I have also lost my ability to stay awake all day long without taking a nap.

And the ability to stay awake past 10 pm.  This causes some blogging issues.  

Finally, in the last few days I seem to have misplaced my feet. 

While I'm not counting on it, I'm hoping to find all of the above around the end of March. 

Maybe if I'm lucky, the little culprit pushing out my abdomen will also make an appearance around the same time.  

Day 242 - Chex Mix

This is what I was eating at 11:00 on Wednesday night.  It's the gooiest, most delicious chex mix you have ever had.  

And once I find the post-it that I wrote the recipe on, I will share it with you.  

Day 241 - Mickey

When Sam was 6 months old, Ben took me to Disneyland for my birthday without Sam.  We had a LOVELY time.  While we were there we bought Sam the cutest Mickey you have ever seen.  It's a knit Mickey and we love it.  They had all of the main characters but we failed to pick up the rest.  Never again have we seen this line which is really too bad because Sam has taken to rotating sleeping between Mickey and Buzz every night.

Day 240 - Crepes

After 3 days of craving crepes, I gave in on Tuesday and made them.  This really boring photo was my delicious ham and cheese crepe.

What I really should have shown was the Nutella crepe topped with strawberry ice cream that I made later that night.  DELICIOUS.

Delay of Game

Hi all,

Just a quick check in. I've had a handful of messages expressing concern that I haven't updated the blog.  We are just fine.  I've been taking photos.  There's just a little bit of craziness going on at our house right now.  More on that soon.  Like tomorrow. . . or Monday.  Soon we'll be back to our regularly scheduled program.  I  promise.

Talk to you soon!
Tracey

Day 239 - Ice Cream

Sam is a really picky eater so when we find things that he likes, we try to work them into the rotation as much as possible.  Fortunately one of the things he love most is Costco cheese pizza. It's cheap.  It's easy.  I like it enough to split a slice with him. The funny part is that he only likes to eat pizza

  at Costco.  

Recently he added another item to the list of Sam approved items.  Costco ice cream.  Again, something that he only likes 

at Costco.  

Now, if I can just get him to eat hot dogs and chicken bakes, we will able to feed him the entire Costco menu.  

Day 238 - Pudding

Imagine my immense pleasure when I opened the fridge last night and found this . . . 

Chocolate pudding from Rudy's BBQ that I bought on Friday night.  So happy.  So delicious.  

Day 237 - Chuck

Ben's family came this weekend for the BYU vs. Texas game.  We are so excited to have them here.  

The group includes his nearly identical twin brothers Nathan and Berkeley. Nathan's wife Kristy and Berk's oldest son Romney.  Ben has always called Romney by his nickname, Chuck.  Therefore I have always called him Chuck. However, I'm pretty sure Ben and I are the only people who call him Chuck. As you can imagine, this twin uncles and nickname situation has caused some major confusion for Sam.

To make matters even more hilarious, Sam LOVES Berkeley.  Loves him.  He wants Berk to play with him, hold him and carry him everywhere. They have a major Fruit Ninja connection going on.  It is really very sweet.  

You would think that Sam calling Berk by the wrong name would be natural with him having a twin an all.  Except Sam doesn't call him Nathan.
He calls him Romney.
He refuses to call him Berkeley.    

But what does Sam call Romney?  Chuck, of course.  

Don't you love the conflicting BYU and Texas gear?  Such cute Hanson boys.

Day 236 - Bat Bridge

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a picture of some of the Austin bats.  My sister-in-law Kristy immediately replied that she DID NOT want to see the bats while in town this weekend.  

Guess what we did last night?

  

Day 235 - Area Rug and Excuses

I hate our carpet.  DESPISE it.  For months I have been trying to come up with a solution to keep it clean.  We don't wear shoes in the house but unfortunately we have a little person living in our home who likes to toss sippy cups around.  Grr.  I've been eyeing area rugs for awhile but they are just so expensive and the thought of putting a rug on carpet seems so strange to me.  I don't know why.  

Luckily, Sam's birthday brought the perfect solution.  If my house didn't look like a Toys R Us before, it certainly does now.  But hey, it keeps the carpet clean.

In other news, my friend Shannon called today to check on us.  Apparently the combination of the craziness of our lives right now, the fires all over Texas combined with the fact that I didn't post yesterday was enough to cause a little bit of concern.  This is why I love her.  

We are doing just fine.  There aren't any fires in our immediate vicinity.  However, I did pack a bag today just in case something happens and we need to evacuate.  We are hoping that will not be the case but it is better to be prepared.  Unfortunately there are many Texans who were caught by surprise and do not have the things that they need.  My heart aches for the 1,386 families that have lost there homes in Bastrop just outside of Austin.  We continue to pray for rain and hope that this dreadful drought will soon come to an end.  

Day 234 - Boundaries

As our friends were getting ready to go home today, Sam disappeared into the guest bedroom for a minute.  Since Sam is busy and I'm suspicious, I went in to check out the situation.  I was surprised to find this little scene.  

Sam LOVED the baby and could not get enough of him.  Every time someone would sit down with him, Sam needed to be on their lap as well checking out the situation.  Sam would help pat the baby's back and give him his binky.  He didn't even seem to mind when Ben or I would hold the baby.  He especially liked to lay on the baby mat with him.  

There may be hope for this kid yet. For the most part he did really well.  He only tried to step on him once.  He was even gentle.  For Sam. In the last 2 days he heard, "Sam!  Be gentle!"  about a million times.    Hopefully when we have another he will have learned some boundaries so we don't have to hide the baby .  Not that we know anyone who has to do that.  Right Mags?

Day 233 - Baby

 I'm a little behind this weekend due to us having guests.

Sam is enamored with the smallest guest.

I'm not sure he is as excited about Sam.

Unfortunately for our guests it is due to their home be evacuated because of the crazy Texas wildfires.  About 4000 homes just down the road from us were evacuated on Sunday night and they won't be able to go home until Tuesday at noon.  At the earliest.   A good chunk of our church congregation lives in the community and many of our friends were displaced.  

I think it time to start doing some rain dances.  

Day 232 - Guests

Again, we have guests at our house.  One of them is furry.  Sam is thrilled.  

Day 230 - Sloooooow Cooker and Day 231 - Chile Verde

You might remember my finger burning chile incident from last week.  Well, since I still had Hatch peppers left. I needed to find something to do with them.  So Ben bought me a giant 12 lbs pork shoulder at Costco.  I cut off a fourth of it and decided to make green chile pork something.  Well, it turned into this.  

Which the next day turned into this: 

Oh, how I love chile verde.  Especially when I kind of make it by accident.  My subconscious must be telling me something. 

Day 229 - Sweet

The only thing sweeter than a new baby is a sleeping new baby.

Or a sleeping new baby being held by a sweet daddy.

This is what happens when a three year old discovers the camera on your phone.

I have 100's of photos of Sam's legs.  Luckily, mine made it into this photo too.  Ugh. 

Day 227 - School

Now that Sam is three, he is old enough to be evaluated for the speech program through the school district.  Yesterday was his first day of school.  He will go for 4 hours each morning all week.  

He loves it.  

I'm lonely.

I took his picture to document this momentous occasion.  Of course he wouldn't look at me.  Stinker.

He loves to wear his backpack and take his lunchbox.  They have breakfast every morning in the cafeteria.  Too bad he won't eat his food until I come to pick him up.  He immediately asks for his lunch box so he can have a snack.

We have a our first meeting next week to start to determine what program he will be in.  I'm really hoping he gets to stay in this class because we LOVE Ms. Laura.

Day 226 - Twiners

I love dressing Sam like a little man.  I love it even more when Ben and Sam inadvertently match. 

I love it the most when they walk the same way while wearing matching man clothes. 

Day 226 - Hatch Green Chiles

In case you didn't know, Hatch green chiles are in season.  Since moving to Texas I have developed a deep and abiding love for these little jewels. 

Until last night.  

I decided to make enchiladas last night.  Sometimes I'm not so bright and I don't think things through.
Like the fact that I was cutting chiles.
With bare hands.  

In case you were wondering, they will burn your hands.
I was so bitter about my burning hands that I couldn't even properly enjoy my enchiladas.
I will definitely be wearing gloves when I make green chile pork this week.

Day 224 - Cake

Because of our super busy day yesterday, Sam's cake wasn't finished until today.  He doesn't even like cake so he didn't seem to mind much.  He just blew out the candle and ran back to play with his number/letter mats.

Ben and I sure enjoyed eating it though.   

Day 223 - Haddy Dirfday (Happy Birthday)

Our little guy turned three yesterday.  I can't believe how fast he is growing up. 

We started the day with "tatos" from Chick-fila.  They are his absolute FAVORITE.  He ate 2 whole orders. Yeesh.  

Later we went swimming with Sam's friend Logan (and my friend Logan's mom Buddy).  We swam for two hours and he had a blast.  Towards the end they were jumping in the pool holding hands.  It was so cute.  Logan gave Sam a WONDERFUL letter book.  As soon as he opened it, we all lost his attention.  He wouldn't even pose for a picture.  

Luckily, Logan was much more accommodating.

After swimming we had his other favorite, McDonalds.  He was so wiped he took a long nap.  After his nap we had dinner with our friends the MacFarlane family. They gave him a huge present.  The whole way home he kept saying, "Haddy Dirfday.  GIANT present."  When he opened it he was thrilled to find a GIANT set of  foam floor mats.  It covers most of my living room floor.  But guess what are on the mats.  Letters . . .  and numbers.  Yet another giant hit.  

He loved all of his gifts.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and Chicka Chicka 123 from Karen, Ryan and the girls. 

Cars Duplos from Mom and Dad

From Grandma

The M&M Counting Book

A bike horn.  (Thanks Mom!) 

And construction cones.  He loved them.  As soon as he opened them he said, "Toy Story 2!"  He likes the part where the toys cross the street in construction cones.  He also stuck them on his head and said, "Haddy Dirfday!"

All in all he had a fabulous day!  We are so grateful to have this little guy in our family and we can't wait to see what exciting things he learns (and does) in the next year.  

Love you Sammy!

Day 222 - Haircut

Dear Sam,

I think that after you haircut today, your eyelashes are officially longer than the hair on your head. If one day you end up wearing mascara when Daddy comes home, I cannot be held responsible.

XOX,
Mom