Jon and Annie
Paul, Roxy and Trish
Hope you have a great day! We all love you and miss you tons. See you in a few weeks!
Mike, Jenn and Samuel (Baby too!)
Here he is easily reaching the bottom dead bolt. 
And now with an extra stretch he can even manage to get the top dead bolt also. As you can see he is very resourceful and dumped his bowl of crackers so he could use it to stand on!
And the solution...daddy has installed an alarm. Each time the door opens we both feel like we just walked in the local 7-11. The chime is really loud, but does fulfills it's purpose of alerting us that the door has opened. It is loud enough that I can hear it both in the shower and when I am using the hair dryer. The only question is...what will I do when I am in the middle of a shower and the door is opened?
Saturday afternoon we headed down to Green Lake. Annie, Jenn and Samuel took the nice 3 mile walk around the lake while Mike sat at the local coffee shop to get started on some reading for summer classes. Afterwards we played in the park for awhile before meeting up with Jon for dinner. 
Sunday afternoon we ran some errands around town. We hit up Babies R Us to look into the car seat and double stroller we will be needing soon. We also made a trip to Best Buy and looked around at a few fun toys. All in all it was a great weekend with family!
Everyone seemed to have a great time. Good food, good games, lots of great presents and fun baby talk. I think the majority of the women there were all expecting! 
Samuel loved playing with the balloons afterwards. He would run into them, get all tangled and laugh. It was pretty cute. He also thought it was great that they kept going up in the sky! He did have some disappointment when they lost their helium and now lay on the floor! I guess that is one of the hard lessons of life! 
Saturday afternoon Mike and I had the biggest scare since our entrance into parenthood. We were both in the process of getting ready to leave for the MHGS Spring Banquet (yes, we were running a bit late). Samuel had been playing really well in his room while Mike and I were getting dressed, packing bags and grabbing the final things we needed.
The other day we all needed a little break so we headed out to the park. The weather here has been pretty nice lately so the outdoors has become much more intriguing.
This is a little park that is right near our current apartments. It is really pretty nice. They have a kids play area, a huge field and a pavilion with a great grill. We are thinking this will be the location of Samuel's 2nd birthday party!
Samuel loves slides, but a still a bit hesitant about heading down them. It is actually nice to know that he does have a little bit of fear since we are use to him throwing his body all over without a care in the world that the cement might be hard or that someone might not be there to catch him!
We also had to grab blizzards on the way. Dreaming toward those nice summer days!
The other day I was drying my hair in the bathroom, looked out into the bedroom and this is the scene I saw. Samuel usually will sit outside the door and "read" this book while I get ready. Lately has been showing and increase in his love for Bailey. Apparently he felt that she would also enjoy the story so he climbed up to share it with her. 
Let's all hope he loves his sibling this much!
Samuel continues to love his bath time. His latest has been laying down on either his stomach or his back. He thinks he is so funny when he puts his ears, chin or nose in the water. He doesn't seem to mind a bit of water in his eyes unless we happen to do so when washing his hair. We snapped a few "decent" pictures the other night so I thought I would share. Yes, we are fully aware that one day he will hate us for these and yes we will pay for his counseling to deal with it!
This morning Daddy had his last weekend of class for the trimester. Mommy was feeling a bit "under the weather" so I thought I would make everyone some banana bread and banana muffins. Mommy helped me get the recipe down and all the ingredients out and I went to work!
My favorite part was using the blender! I loved the noise and thought it was hilarious to watch the ingredients mix together. I think I might have been so excited I may have over mixed a bit! Oh well. Mommy even let me scoop the batter into the muffin tin! 
It was so much fun. Don't worry, she wouldn't let me put it in the oven even though I was sure I could have done it all by myself!
We had a great, relaxing Easter this year. Samuel was up at 4:00am (still on EST) so the Easter bunny didn't make his appearance until after nap time. Samuel was so excited about finding eggs and his presents. It was a lot of fun to watch.
He went searching for the eggs around the apartment as was very excited when he got to open them. He loved the candy and the money!
The Easter bunny also brought a few new Bob the Builder videos, Bob the Builder toys, a new memory game and a Sesame Street puzzle. Of course we had to open all of it right away!
As many of you know, Samuel and I just returned from a nine day trip to Florida with Nana and Papa. This was the last year that Uncle Mike would be playing baseball so we all suffered through the sun and warmth to be there. It was a great trip complete with a day at the Magic Kingdom. Samuel loved it and it was a ton of fun to watch his excitement over the smallest of things. Here is a recap of our trip through a few pictures.
Here comes the parade!
Samuel liked the characters as long as they were fake!
Riding on the carousal with Papa!
Pluto was one of Samuel's favorite. He even got to pinch his nose!
Playing in the water was a ton of fun. It was also a great way to cool off!
Samuel and Nana watching the parade together.
Building a Mr. Potato Head .
Mommy and Samuel outside the castle.
Planting flowers in memory of Grandma Donna.
Showing everyone how he is already learning to drive.
Uncle Mike hit his first home run of the season and guess who got the ball!
Playing in the sun!
Keeping cool down by the pool!
All the girls were jealous!
Lego Land would have been daddy's favorite. We look lots of pictures for him.
Nana, Papa and Samuel during our last night out!
