18 Months

Sam is now officially 1 1/2 years old, as of Monday. It's hard to believe how fast the time has gone! He seems to be adding new words daily, although some things are only intelligible to our parental ears. :) A current favorite word is "tractor." Thanks to his grandparents and great-grandparents for the tractor toys and dishes! He really enjoys finding the tractor at the bottom of the bowl when he's eating his cereal. :)

We took him to Clark's Trading Post on Monday. He wasn't as "into" stuff as I'd hoped he would be--I guess we were expecting a little too much for how old he is. We made the mistake of sitting on the first car after the engine on the train ride. So he got really scared by the whistle every time it blew. He spent most of the ride snuggled down on either Jim's or my shoulder, gearing up to cry when the big bad whistle sounded again. It's funny--I thought the "Wolfman" who chases the train, shooting into the air, might be what would scare him, and instead it was the whistle. Oh well. Next time, we'll know to sit on the furthest car. :)

Sam and Daddy, before the whistle blew


He did enjoy watching the bear show, though. Which, of course, is the very best part of Clark's, anyway! It didn't hold his interest as much as I'd hoped, but he did stay very interested all the way through the first bear. :) By the time they got to the second one, he was ready to be out of there.

"Echo" (or is it "Victoria"?) gets weighed. Looks like she's emBEARassed! :)


Another thing we did was get an old-fashioned picture taken. Sam was not impressed by having to wear a buckskin shirt with fringe. It was pretty hot in the studio, and of course that made him hotter. He finally calmed down and gave a few smiles when it came time to get the picture done. It was just a good thing that they had a dog puppet that barked!! The picture came out nice, although if we ever get one done again, we decided it will be when our kids are older . . . and we'd like to go to a place that lets you pick out your own outfit and headgear. At this place, they just let you pick the theme, and then they picked out the costumes. Our theme was "prairie" family--we were hoping for a cowboy type look, but Jim and Sam both got to wear the fringed shirt or jacket, with a coonskin cap. Jim's was not just a coon skin, but the whole coon! And it was huge! I didn't mind the outfit I was wearing, but I wasn't crazy about the hat they gave me, either. I think next time I would like to do a Civil War theme. The family ahead of us was doing that, and I really liked their outfits! Still, I have to say that Sam looks adorable in a coonskin cap. :)

I've updated my profile picture; this was taken here in our new house on Monday. Also, here's a picture of our living room as it looked a couple weeks ago. We have since moved in the piano and moved (and uncovered) the TV, so it looks different now. I'll need to take another picture soon. But I know some have been wanting to see pics of our house, and I already had this one on the computer, so here it is. I'll try to take more as we get more settled in.


Hope everyone is enjoying a lovely week so far!