Hair

Anyone who's known me for awhile, knows I keep my hair pretty long.  Why? So I can put it in ponytails and not have to worry about it.  However, I can't remember ever letting it get this long before.  It's hard to tell with that over sized jacket on, but my hair was to my butt.  It was getting super unhealthy and most importantly, it was just starting to bug me.  

So we cut it! 

Here is my ponytail all ready to be shipped out to Locks of Love.  After brushing it out, we discovered that the ends weren't even.  So after evening it out, we cut 11 inches off.

Here's the after.

And the front.  I love how light and movable my hair feels now.  Oh, and I love that it's short enough that it doesn't take forever to do it, meaning I'll actually do it some now!  My good friend and neighbor cut it and I think she did a fabulous job! Thanks Brook!

My good friend and neighbor cut it and I think she did a fabulous job! Thanks Brook!

Sammy 12 Months

Sammy at 12 months is a handful!

Whenever we take the kids in for a well-child checkup there is always a questionnaire to fill out and at the end it always asks us the describe our child's personality. This time I wrote 2 words -

strong-willed and happy.

Other words to describe Sammy? Curious, mobile, excited, Momma's Boy. Sammy knows what he wants and now has some of the skills to make it happen.

He knows how to climb stairs (still working on getting down them), he climbs (the bathroom sink is now a favorite destination), and he walks! As mentioned in a previous post, he took a step or two the day before his birthday but did the actual walking on his birthday, in front of most of his guests!

We've been working with Sammy on his sleeping habits this past month. We had, unfortunately gotten into the habit of nursing him to sleep and then nursing him during the night, with him ending up in our bed most of the night. That needed to stop. Desperately. So we worked on it and the first night seriously sucked. After that, he's gotten much better. He goes down by himself now and sleeps through the night about half the time. We'll keep working on it and hopefully he'll get it soon!

Sammy's favorites right now: Strawberries, bananas, noodles, cheese, climbing, anything with buttons/electronic - especially cell phones.

At his appointment he weighed in at 22 lbs. 15 oz. (49%) and I can't remember the length but it was in the 83%. So he's tall and skinny but definitely solid and healthy!

The Birthday Boy!

This adorable little boy turned one last week! I still have a hard time believing it.

See this cute bib? The candle is a washcloth. Love it!

We had family and a few friends over for dinner and cake on Sammy's birthday. It didn't seem like a lot of people were coming until everyone was here. We had 12 kids, age 5 and under, running around. It was chaos. Lots of fun, but chaos! And, luckily, Sammy loved it all. He just watched and watched as everyone ran around him.

This is my first attempt at a decorated cake. I think I did pretty good! (It's a tiger in case you couldn't tell.)

And some cupcakes to match.

He liked the cake alright but got really excited when we gave him the ice cream.

"Yeah, THAT'S the stuff Mom!"

He also had lots of fun with the balloons. We opened gifts (ok, Lucy mostly opened gifts!) and played. Sammy also surprised us all with walking! He had taken a step or two the day before but during the party, while everyone was sitting around in the front room, he actually "walked" for the first time - a good 4 or 5 steps. It was pretty exciting. Unfortunately, with everything going on, we didn't get many pictures so these will have to do!

On another note - our weather has been so strange!

These are some of our tulips the day before Sammy's birthday.

These are our tulips 2 days earlier. And today? Pouring rain. Gotta love spring in Utah!

Spring Break!

Warning: This post contains lots of cute pictures!

If it's not a well-known fact that teachers and their families look forward to spring break, it should be! While we spent much of our break in a sleep haze from (finally) sleep training the kids, we did find some time to do some fun stuff too. By the way, the sleep training is going very well.

Lucy and Sammy "helped" me make strawberry freezer jam. Yum!

I took the kids to Spencer's mom's house where their HOA was doing an Easter egg hunt. I tried to take a picture of the kids with their baskets of eggs but all Sammy wanted to do was play with the eggs and all Lucy wanted to do was make sure he didn't. So here is what we ended up with as far as a cute picture of the two of them. Yeah.



I did manage to get a cute picture of Lucy with one of her cousins though.





We went to my dad's house for dinner the Sunday before Easter and celebrated Easter and my Grandma's birthday. During the evening, we taught Lucy the joys of Robin Egg lipstick!

Here are Grandma and Grandpa Mac with Sammy.

Sometimes it's the simple things that are the most fun!

We made little Easter treat bags and asked Lucy which friends she wanted to take them too. Then we went on a walk/bike ride to deliver them in the neighborhood. She is getting so good at riding her little push bike.

We decided to get out of the house and head down to Discovery Gateway. We got there with only 30 minutes left until closing. Oh, well! Thank goodness for passes! Sammy loved sitting on all the little trucks and cars.

And Lucy loved the shopping, as usual.

After the children's museum, we did something we rarely do - went out to eat. We had dinner at Marie Callendar's. Yum!

Even if we could afford to eat out more often, I don't think we would. It's a bit of a challenge to keep two little ones busy and contained that long! It was a nice, relaxed family date though!

The day before Easter, we went to another, much bigger Easter egg hunt at the school nearby. Lucy knew exactly what to do and got right in the middle of things. With so many more kids though, she didn't get as much. Oh, and a quick gripe about both hunts - a little thought would be nice when considering what candy to put in eggs would be nice. Both hunts had age divisions and at both of them, Lucy had bubble gum and jaw breakers in her eggs. Hello?!

We also went to Macey's where the Easter bunny was hanging out and Lucy got to decorate a cookie.

That night we decorated eggs.

We actually forgot to hide them on Easter but did it multiple times throughout the following week. In fact, we lost an egg and just found it today! Luckily, it hadn't started smelling yet!

On Easter, we had fun with the baskets, going to church, and then having dinner at Spencer's parents' house. It was nice to have some time with Spencer around. We made a lot of progress with the kids' sleeping habits and got to spend some family time together. My only complaint? It went by way too fast!