The artist at work

| December 31, 2011

One of the stocking stuffers that Sam received was a set of watercolor paints.  She has been dying to get into them since Christmas, and today Mark finally let her experiment.  All decked out in her artist’s smock (Daddy’s old t-shirt) she painted away!  Look at how happy she was.

The entire process was fascinating to her especially dipping the brush into all the colors.

Here she was showing Mark her dirty little hands.

I just love how happy she looks – being creative and messy are great!

Hugging her paints…she loves to hug and kiss everything.

Her very first masterpiece!

Christmas Festivities 2011

| December 29, 2011

It was a very Merry Christmas this year with our little Samantha!  What fun she was!  Waiting for Santa to come, visiting him at the mall, watching Christmas movies, it was all good.  I have been sick for a while which sort of put a damper on things a little bit, but I tried to power through because I didn’t want to miss one single second of the festivities with my little girl.

On Christmas Eve, this year, we went to my mom’s house instead of them coming to our house.  Rich and Sandi came over too with Analiece, and we all had a good time talking about what Santa was going to bring and eating and drinking Christmas goodies.

Sam has always liked this little book of my mom’s, The Cat’s Night Before Christmas, and when Analiece got it down off the shelf to read, Sam jumped right up on the couch to listen to the whole story.

Back at our house, before morning came, Mark and I snapped a photo of all the goodies that were left under our tree.  Zephyr was checking things out as well!

Sam’s two big presents this year were her kitchen and her car.  She asked Santa for the car, but the kitchen was a big surprise.

Sam is quite the little cook, in no time she was whipping up some meals.  She likes to shake salt and pepper in her pots.

On of her other favorite gifts is this little hamster in a wheel.  It reminds her of the little “mice” she sees at Petsmart.

It was so much fun watching Sam rip into all her presents.  She kept picking up package after package and asking “Open?!” no matter who it was for.  She was a little whirlwind, that is for sure.

She also asked Santa for an orange snake, and the jolly guy came through!  As soon as she opened it, she yelled, Snake! and hugged him. He is orange and blue and red and yellow, so it is a very pretty snake.  I had a big stuffed snake when I was little so I think it’s funny that she wanted one too.

More presents!

Sam helpfully opened her daddy’s hats and then tried them on for him.

Whew!  Will you look at the mayhem!  Our entire living room was destroyed in a mass of wrapping paper and gifts and it was amazing. 🙂

Later that morning, we went to visit my parents so Sam could open more gifts!  Well, and us too!  Her favorite presents were her Melissa and Doug train and her Etch a Sketch Doodler.

Grandmom and her favorite girl.  Yeah, I may have been usurped from that position.

Around lunchtime we went to Rich and Sandi’s house to open yet more gifts!  Sam and Maddox were the first to open all their goodies, then the grownups.

Analiece was a wonderful big cousin and she helped them play with all their toys and babysat a bit to make sure that Sam and Maddox stayed out of trouble.

After eating at Mark’s parents’ house, we came home and ate with my parents and let Sam show off all of her toys.  It was such a wonderful Christmas.  I am so thankful that after all the years of wanting something I was finally given my little girl.  Mark and I are so exhausted and dazed because, boy, does she keep us on our toes, but we would not trade it for a minute.  There is truly nothing better than Christmas with a child, and when it is your own, perfect, amazing little one, well, it doesn’t get better than that.  Merry Christmas everyone!

Merry Christmas!

| December 25, 2011

Just waiting on Santa

| December 24, 2011

It is Christmas Eve and all is quiet in the Myers house.  Sam is sleeping and we are resting up for a fun night ahead with our parents.  The gifts are wrapped, the house is decorated, all the cards have been mailed, and the cookies baked.  It is nice when all of the preparations are done so that you can sit back and really think about the holiday and enjoy your family and friends.  This is the first year that Sam is really old enough to understand who Santa is and to be excited for all Christmas means.  We have been watching Elmo’s World Happy Holidays and How the Grinch Stole Christmas non-stop and she gets excited when the mail comes and she gets to rip open the cards.  Christmas is really all about the little ones, and I am so thankful that we have our little one to share it with.

Every year, Mark takes beautiful pictures of our little family in front of our tree and I cherish them so much.  Some years have been better than others, some years worse, but every year that we have each other has been wonderful.  And now that we have Sam, we can’t ask for much more.

Playing at the “Bridge”

| December 22, 2011

Since we are getting some warmer days (for winter, that is) Mark has been taking Sam to the playground whenever he can.  There are some really nice playgrounds in our area and they are all quite different, so Mark has tried to get her to explain where she wants to go.  The playground at the end of our street she calls Bridge (there is a bridge to cross on some of the equipment).  Her other favorite she usually calls Bells (CADES playground in Swarthmore where there are bells to ring) but sometimes she talks about driving since they have little cars she can drive.  I came with them this time so we could all have some fun in the sun.

She is so big now, we let her ride the “big girl swing”.  She does really well too!

Just being cute and happy. 🙂

Going down the curly slide with her daddy.  Whee!

She loves to walk on these but can’t do it by herself.  She calls them “the tables”, which I think is cute.  They do look like tables!

Hanging out in the window of the general store.

After playing, we always walk down to the stream so Sam can look for worms and bugs, one of her favorite pastimes.  She always says she wants to hug and kiss the bugs. 🙂  She was feeling photogenic, so she sat nicely on the rock for some pictures.

One last stop at the basketball court to jump in puddles then home we go for lunch and naptime.