Sam's Birthday. My baby's 1!!!

My attempt at a farm cake.

Loved these balloons.

Lots of people say Sam looks like my Dad, and the funny thing is, Sam makes the exact face my Dad is making in this picture all of the time!

Grandpa keeping Sam at bay for the moment.

Big Sam and little Sam

Lily and Griffin "helping" with his toys.

He looks terrified of his balloon in this one, but he actually really liked it.

Getting warmed up for the action.

The aftermath.

More decorations

We had a really fun party for Sam. We kept it a little smaller than Lily and Griff's 1st party since it seemed to overwhelm them a bit. I decided on the farm theme because Sam loves it when we sing "Old McDonald" and he loves his farm animal See and Say.

He was hilarious with his cake. I will have to figure out how to post a video. He gagged on the frosting, and then starting crumbling up the cake and flinging it all around the room. After he was done, I gave him another little taste of cake and frosting, and he made the funniest faces like I was trying to poison him. It was great. Very entertaining.

Gingerbread Part Deux

 Caught Lily with a mouthful of candy

 Griffin's "birth cousin" on the left looks so much like him, it's crazy.

 All of the "birth-cousins/siblings" plus Lily :)

Griff with both of his "half birth-sisters" (don't know if that's the best/most accurate term, but that's what I'm going with)

We see Griffin's birth Mom usually a couple of times a year. This year we went to his birth Grandma's house to decorate gingerbread houses. They had a lot of fun. It has been a neat thing to stay in contact with them. We have a very easy relationship with them, and have loved keeping the relationship with them.

First ever gingerbread house

I do believe this was the kid's first experience making a gingerbread house. (I could be forgetting, but anyway) Thanks Grandma Baldwin!

Santa Baby

 Sam wasn't too thrilled with Santa, but he never cried.



Here's a little reminder of how Lily felt about Santa at about the same age.



Look, Sam's even wearing the same shirt Griff wore. Gotta love hand-me-downs.



We love the tradition of going to my Dad's work Christmas party every year. Lily got a strike. She was pretty happy about that, and Griff was just glad to show off his candy-cane induced lipstick.

"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore Toto"

We had a crazy storm a few weeks ago, and we wanted to document the damage and temporary repair for the insurance. We have it all fixed now, and we are lucky because many people had much worse things happen to their homes and/or property.

Stake Nativity

Our Stake had an activity and the kids got to be part of a live nativity. If you can't tell, Lily was an angel and Griff was a shepard.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The kids had a Thanksgiving feast at preschool and their teacher said they could dress up as a pilgrim or an Indian. I borrowed some of my Dad's authentic Indian jewelry and tried my hand at face paint.

First Snow

Well last year I didn't play in the snow with the kids, so this year, I decided to take advantage of the first snow, and we had a snow ball fight. It was pretty tame, which was good since I'm pretty anti-snow. I will say the snow was pretty, but ask me again in February, and I'll probably tell you a different story.

Halloween Night

 The finished product

 Trick-or-treating at Gma Jean's.

Trick-or-treating at Gma Harker's

 and finally at Gma Baldwin's.



The Pumpkin Patch

 The kids loved the hay ride. I opted out so I wouldn't be an allergic mess afterward.

 Pumpkin Picking time

We had so much fun at the pumpkin patch. They had a bunch of tractors for the kids to play on, a little corn maze and hay ride. The kids also found their perfect pumpkin. Thanks Grandma!