Silly Sam

We missed Sammy like crazy while we were in Europe. I did pretty well for the first week but the last week was tough. I really missed that sweet boy.

When we got back to Colorado Springs and Don got Sam up in the morning, he was really confused at first but then was really happy to see us. After he got over being happy to see us, he was a little upset with me. He would occassionally push me away and cry to show me that he remembered that I left him. He also threw a lot of tantrums for a couple weeks. I think he was just getting out all the tantrums he didn't throw for Grandma and Grandpa during the two weeks we were away and he also was punishing me a little bit for having left him. He was never upset with Don because Don is gone all day so seeing him is always a treat, but he definitely let me know he wasn't happy I left.

While we were gone, though, he was such a good boy. He slept through the night every night and was really happy and cooperative. I was so thrilled and Don's mom was so wonderful to watch him and take such good care of him while we were gone. Sam sure loves his Grammy.

Here is the sweet boy the day we drove home from Colorado Springs. I missed that happy smile!

Sam loves to climb up onto our bed and hide behind the pillows...

...and then pop out and surprise me. It's really cute.

He tripped on a crack in the sidewalk the day after we got back to Boulder and scraped his lip off. It was really raw, sore, and swollen for a couple days. Poor guy!

Despite his sore lip, though, he was such a happy boy.

The Saturday after we got back (Jan. 30th), my friend Adrienne and I took the kiddos to the Chautauqua park dinosaur exhibit. I really wasn't anticipating that Sam would be very in to the dinosaur bones and footprint casts but he was so excited. 

He absolutely loved the footprint casts. He sat next them for about a half hour saying "WOW!" over and over. 

Sam was so excited about the footprints that when Kaia came over (Adrienne's little girl) to look at them, he babbled and babbled about them to her. This day was another funny realization of how varied language development can be for different kids. Sam isn't much of a talker (as I've mentioned previously) and little Kaia who is a couple weeks younger than Sam, has been a chatterbox since she was about 12 months old. When we were walking to the building, Adrienne said, "We're going to see the dinosaurs, Kaia" and she said, "Allosaurus?" What?! She says Allosaurus and Sam didn't even say "hi!" at that point? So funny. 

Sam and Kaia are great buddies. They are so cute together.

Mid "WOW!"

After our time at the dinosaur exhibit and after a nice nap, we went on a family bike ride to Scott Carpenter Park (rocket ship park) and had so much fun playing on the slides.

At dinner that night, Sam was so, so silly! This is a picture of his sad lip injury.

And here is a video of him cracking up at daddy during dinner.

And here is a video of him roaring at me. We thought it was really funny that he started roaring so we got a video of it. Good thing we did because he hasn't done it again since. 

My friend Ashleigh and her cute little girl, Leah, came over to play. Leah, like Kaia, has mad language skills and says 7 or 8 word sentences. I think she has a major crush on Sammy. They love to play together. 

Ashleigh is also a great hairdresser and cuts my hair. Since she was cutting my hair, she gave Sammy a quick trim too. It was his very first haircut and he did ok for about 2 minutes. Luckily it only took about 5 minutes total. 

Books and blocks...

I love Sam's face in this picture. Blue steel!

Sam sneaking his arm around Leah while they shared the chair. What a smooth operator. Hopefully he'll lose those skills when he becomes a lanky teenager.

This picture shows why the haircut was necessary. Sam had a little too much of the mullet action going on here...

Muscle man! I had taken his shirt off for the haircut and he was showing off his awesome abs.

So, off it came!

Sharing cheerios on the chair. 

And here are a couple pictures of Samjaman in the tub. 

And daddy caught a picture of story time with mama. 

We love our Sammy! It was so good to come home to him. This is such a fun age!