Celebrating Sam

Our little big man Sam turned two last week.  He really didn't have a clue it was his birthday, evidenced by the fact that as I incessantly asked him throughout the day whose birthday it was, he replied Micah, Mason (one of the boys' best friend), cheese toast, and the bath tub.  Usually, these responses were accompanied by his own version of the Happy Birthday song.  And if you've never sung Happy Birthday to a piece of bread with melted cheese on top, well, I'd go as far as to say you've never really celebrated a birthday.

We had a fun family birthday dinner for Sami that night.  He chose pancakes, which happens to be my dad's specialty.  Micky Mouse pancakes to be precise.  This seemed like an ideal choice to me because pancakes can easily double as dessert, relieving me of the perfunctory birthday cake that always leaves me stressed out.  Throw in a candle and you're good to go!

Oh how I wish I was able to upload the video of Sam's birthday song, but it seems the iPhone ate it.  During the course of the 20 second song, Sam blew out the candle half a dozen times and then finally stuck his hand in the flame.  Both Kevin & I reacted by yelling at him to stop (not because we were mad at him but just because we were afraid he would hurt himself).  He was so taken aback and startled by our loud voices that he started crying.  Poor buddy.  More afraid of his parents than open flame.

But then we gave him a few presents to get him smiling again.

I found the Little People Noah's Ark set at a consignment store for $6.  So what that a pet cat seems to have chewed off Noah's hand?  I'll bet it's more authentic to the story that way.  Surely Noah didn't get all those animals onto the ark without some kind of incident.  Plus, I got a free set of panda bears from the store owner when I commented on Noah's injury.

Really the only play time Sam has gotten with his boat & animals was this stare down with the zebra.  Micah confiscated it and has been playing with it ever since.   We'll try again at Christmas, Sam.

I also found a board book about trucks at that same consignment store.  In total, my birthday budget was a grand $8.  I'm a fan.  And Sam seemed to be a fan as well since the book involved wheels.

A few days later, G & Pop's gift arrived in the mail.  Two days later to be exact, thanks to Amazon Prime.  Micah figured out how to wipe the memory on our Kindle Fire a few weeks ago, which meant Kevin had to re-install the apps and re-register it.  The system, however, thought we were registering for the first time and gave us free access to Amazon Prime for two weeks.  That was much appreciated since this mama puts off shopping as long as possible.  

The big box arrived, and Pop led the boys in an anticipation dance as they prepared to open it.

Sam ran off with the inside packaging, which made me wonder why we spent money on toys in the first place.

And finally the big reveal...scooters!  Not that these were much of a surprise.  The boys have been playing with our neighbors' scooters for months now (with their permission of course).  We didn't get them their own because I figured we'd be returning to China any day now.  But, as we know, "any day" has turned into "any month."  And, as we also know, three year old boys aren't know for their stellar sharing abilities, so I thought it best to reduce cul-de-sac drama and get them scooters of their own.

Sam decided he didn't need to wait for wheels and just took off.

He didn't get very far, however, so he came back to observe the construction phase.

Apparently, that quickly bored him so he headed next door to get a working scooter.  

(That little orange blob through the trees is him.)

He came back to show off his functional scooter, wondering why in the world it was taking dad so long to get it done.

Finally, all wheels were fastened and the boys took off on their maiden voyage.  

Shortly after, they decided the trash cans were more entertaining.  This again begged the question of why we spend money to entertain our children.

And that's how we celebrated our Sam.  Pancakes & scooters--his all-time favorite things.

Happy birthday, Da Di Di!

The Pumpkin Patch That Wasn't

A pumpkin patch was the last item on my agenda of fall fun.   I even scoped out a church that friends told me had a great group of gourds.  But, being the procrastinator that I am, it took me all of October to actually pull it off. Surely, I figured, the pumpkins will still be there on Halloween.  But, alas, I was wrong.  All the pumpkins had found new homes.

I suppose I should say "most"of the pumpkins had found new homes.  There was one giant one perched atop a scarecrow's head.  Micah, of course, wouldn't go anywhere near it.  After his obvious dislike of all things giant with the Chick-fil-a cows and Elmo, why do I even try anymore?  That is why you will see no pictures of my eldest son next to the pumpkin-headed scarecrow.

There were also a few dozen baby pumpkins lining the steps of the church building.  I figured I'd do my best to make my own pumpkin patch for the kiddos.  The kids who attend school at that church, however, weren't too keen on that idea.  "The babies are stealing the pumpkins!" they shrieked as the passed by.  No stealing.  I promise.  Just trying to make the most out of this failed outing.  

While running around the church grounds, Sam managed to make his way into the preschool's chapel.  I guess he found their songs more entertaining that the pathetic pumpkins outside--he's been singing "This Little Light of Mine" ever since.

Being a baby himself, Hudson did much better with the baby pumpkins.  Maybe they could relate to one another better.  He didn't mind the lame pumpkins and even cooperated for a while so I could get a few pictures that made the whole morning worthwhile.

 

But then the cooperation stopped, and we moved on.

Where we moved on should certainly be a time-honored American Halloween tradition--$.50 corn dogs at Sonic!  This is the first time the boys had had anything like that, and I'm pretty sure they liked it.

They were also pretty thrilled at the fact that they were each given helium balloons.   Until Sam let go of his and he kept asking Daddy to get it back for him.  Not gonna happen, buddy.  Not even Daddy is that tall.

Hudson didn't care much about the corn dogs or the balloons, but he was (as always) just happy to be along for the ride.  

I really do promise that this is the last of my Halloween posts.  I'm even cooking up some adoption thoughts in response to the adoption series our church just finished.  Some deeper thinking will be good for me!

Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet

And finally the night we were all waiting for.  The Big Dance.  The final hoorah.  Halloween night.  We had a potluck dinner with our cul-de-sac neighbors, which pretty much meant starting the evening off with sugar.  It was like a cake appetizer before the candy main course.  Perfect.

But I'm sure you can guess who didn't even mind one little bit.

Then it was time to debut the costumes.  Micah & Sam's you've seen before but Hudson was eager to show off his new 'do as a punk rocker baby.

I originally had sprung a whopping $5 at a consignment sale and bought him a monster costume.  It ended up being too small so I sold it back to another consignment shop and bought a can of blue hair dye (washable of course).  And this was our final product...

I'm also too cheap to buy those "Baby's First Halloween" onesies because, realistically speaking, your kid will only wear it once.  So I made my own.  Post-it notes are so multi-functional!  The only downside was that Hudson ate his sign right after I took this picture.

I thought I wasn't supposed to get this look from my son for at least another two years.  5 months old and already a pro at the "Seriously, mom?" scowl.

Sam wasn't too sure what to make of his blue haired brother, but he decided to love him all the same.

Despite his indifference to dressing up in previous days, Micah finally agreed to put on his dragon-saurus costume.  That's the name I came up with since I still can't decide if it's a dragon or a dinosaur.  Either way, he's still the cutest prehistoric/mythical creature on the block.

And oh the jubilee that little guy had when his much-revered 6 year old friend taught him the "Trick or Treat, Smell my Feet" song.  Once he'd get to the underwear part, he'd just die laughing.  

I agree that it might seem like we've dived into the world o' Halloween head first.  But I've tried to find some good, clean fun for the buddies to make the most of this season in America.  There won't be many block parties and trick-or-treating once we get back to China.  

This special opportunity instilled a little bit more vigor in my photography.  And I'm not talking about finally getting a lesson on using the elusive M mode.  What I mean is unabashedly bribing Micah to go stand next to Daddy or hug brother one more time.  Bribing him with things like cookies and taking pictures of dog poop (his request) or the dog in the action of making the poop (his request again).  Anything for my son.  OK so really it's anything for the picture I want but it's all the same, right?  It seemed worth it to get the kid to hold still for 8 seconds for pictures like this:

Then we gathered all the little boys of the cul-de-sac and headed off for our wild tromp through the neighborhood.

I probably shouldn't say "through the neighborhood" though.  That's a bit too generous.  We made it up & down one street.  But if you've ever seen the street my parents live on, you'll know that's still an impressive feat with three year olds in tow.  Many of the houses here are perched atop cliffs and require lots of stairs to even get to the front door.  We only saw two other kids out on our street.  In fact, I think most of the neighbors are so used to getting zero traffic that they don't even bother staying home to pass out candy.  And no courtesy bowl either!  But the kids still enjoyed the neighbors that were home.

Especially Micah who picked up the art of trick-or-treating quite quickly.  He'd knock on the door with his friends, collect his candy, and then sprint off yelling, "Next house!  Next house!"  Sam, on the other hand, was more interested in turning trick-or-treating into a tour of homes as he would just go inside the neighbor's house as soon as the door opened.  I saw a lot of living rooms and gave a lot of apologies.

We made it home by 8:15 or so and dumped out the loot.  I let them choose one treat to eat but helpfully guided an indecisive Sam toward the organic bunny graham crackers one mom handed out.  I love that mom.  

Nearly the first words out of Micah's mouth this morning were a request for candy.  But, other than that, they've both seemed to forget about their bounty within the pumpkin.  We'll see how long that lasts.  

So we'll now retire our frog & dragon-saurus costumes, knowing that they did good by us during  Halloween 2012.