Sam's Saturday Soup

Sam had a very fun week from swimming with "his boys" to digging fossils with Brooklyn at the Science Center and "fishing" with mom at the park. Sam is lucky to be surrounded by so many fun little buddies here in our neighborhood. Here's a swimming day with Matt and Ben. Sam and I "fish" - or poke big sticks in the water and mud and the park and fling it all over. Its one of his favorite activities. You can see in this picture he got a little carried away with playing chef in the sandbox. He didn't actually eat the sand (thank heavens), but he got really close to his cuisines..Finally the Iowa Science Center has a great Dinosaur exhibit and Sam took his buddy Brooklyn with him and they had a blast digging for bones and playing archeologist.

On a different note - I'll be posting some maternity pictures sometime soon. My friend Mary is starting to do pictures and asked me if she could do some of me b/c I'm not quite ready to pop yet. Shawn and Sam will be in them too, so I'll be posting some of those when we get them! Hope you had a great week!

Sam's Saturday Soup

This week has been great, mainly due to nice weather! We've had a blast playing with our friends and soaking up the sun. Here are some highlights.
Sam's OCD Line - He lines up his cars with similar cars or ones that go together in the movie, even his lunch boxes are lined up very nicely!
Pirate Binoculars - Sam and I got crafty and he stamped up these toilet rolls and we tied them together and wholla: Binoculars Matey!
Mini Golf with Dad - Gangsta Style


Finally before I go - I took Sam to the pool by myself today, thinking how fun will this be, right? Wrong - he will not swim unless another friend is swimming with him. He literally cried for half of the time there and I had to force him into the water - hence the crying! How do I get him to enjoy the water a little more on his own?? Any suggestions would be great.

Father's Day

We had a fun Father's Day - and enjoyed awesome weather. We started by giving Shawn breakfast in bed, and then we had dinner after church of Shawn's Favorites - steak, potatoes, stuffed mushrooms, corn on the cob, and brownie sundaes. We got Shawn some Perfect Push-ups and a round of Miniature Golf for him and Sam. Shawn and Sam played ball and pretty much it was a perfect day! Watch out Major Leagues here comes Sammy Summers!

Food is a big part of any celebration in our life, and I knew exactly what my mom would make for my Dad for Father's Day - leg of lamb, peas and potatoes, and pumpkin pie. What do you do (or eat) for Father's Day??

Sam's Saturday Soup - Father's Day Edition

This week has been a great week, despite the horrible flooding and tornados that have ripped across Iowa. We are feeling extremely blessed to still be safe and dry! Since tomorrow is Father's Day - we are devoting this post to the Father's in our lives. 1st - Shawn: He is the absolute greatest Dad. I really am lucky to be married to him because he finds no greater joy (other than really good food) than in being with Sam. He has NEVER complained about watching Sam or helping him - he comes home and instantly takes over! Shawn is Sam's hero and best buddy! Here's a little video of one of the father/son bonding moments that only Shawn can do with Sam - introducing the Football Underdog.


My Dad is the greatest father. I have always been a daddy's girl, but really I can honestly say that there is no father greater than my dad. My mom asked me to think of a reason why I loved my dad, so here are a few:
1. He has always been my "hero" - drove me to my senior trip 4 hours away after I missed the bus, rescued me after breaking down or wrecking a car, etc.
2. He always says just the right thing when I need to hear it - still makes me feel like the Princess.
3. He makes me laugh - he has a total sarcastic sense of humor
4. He introduced me to the "Oldies" - to this day I would rather listen to CCR, the Beatles, or the Byrds than any other music.
5. He makes a killer chocolate milkshake and omlete.
6. He made all seven of us kids feel like we were the only kid he had! Thanks Dad for being you!!
Shawn's Dad is amazing! Everyday I think wow - Shawn you are just like your dad. He would do ANYTHING for his kids, and he has. He spends so much time with his kids, and Shawn is just the same. He can recall specific highlights from Shawn's old football and baseball games that Shawn doesn't even remember - I love that. He also has a great sense of humor and loves to watch movies with the rest of us. He's such a hard worker, and worked since he was old enough to tie his own shoes - in fact he seems to love working on the farm. He still loves to play and we have some wicked ping pong ball tourneys when were home! Thanks Kell-Dog for being such a great father.

Yea! For Father's - I really believe that most any women can be a mother but it takes a really special and dedicated person to be a father!

Dragon Softball & BYU Tribute

Shawn is playing Spring, Summer, and Fall Softball with a group of mostly DMU students on a local city league. It has been fun to watch him play! He's also picked up a lot of scars from sliding, so it makes him feel really big and manly!

Finally our friends Emily and Eric's blog had this on it, and Shawn loved it so much that he wants to add it to ours. So WARNING - if you're a Ute fan we're sorry that the truth hurts!! Enjoy!

Sam's Saturday Soup - So Sweet!

This week Sam has been either a total stinker or the sweetest, cutest boy - I'm not sure if he's bi-polar or what, but I'm going to highlight the sweet-cute stuff! * After FHE on Monday Sam took Shawn's scriptures and said, Direct quote: "I'm going to read about Jesus Christ." He then opened them and started to flip through the pages and tell us that Jesus likes his house, he likes butterflies, and he likes cookies. Who knew? I don't doubt that all of those are probably true, but it made FHE so great this week.

* We also had our 1st ever TORNADO WARNING on Thursday and had to go seek shelter in the basement (which by the way I'm so grateful we have a basement to go!). It was issued at 10:00 at night and lasted for about 20 minutes. We had to get Sam out of bed, but he slept through the entire warning in a sleeping bag. Nothing happened, but it was definetly an experience we will remember.

* All of the other kids in the neighborhood have bike helmets, so we decided it would be good to get Sam into the habit of wearing one, even though his bike doesn't really allow for "extreme" biking! He found a Thomas the Tank Engine one, complete with elbow pads. He loves it. Honestly I've never seen him this excited about something. Infact yesterday he rode his bike about 8 blocks by himself to a local park. He's quite the cool rider!


* Finally last night we went on our date night and our good friends watched Sam for us so we could see Indiana Jones. When we picked Sam up, of course he didn't want to leave, but driving home in the car he said, "Mom I feel happy!" He's never expressed his emotions before, so thank you Grover's for helping Sam feel emotion, especially HAPPY!

Dr. Summers

Shawn started his clinicals (he gets to actually see patients with a supervising doctor) last Thursday. He will be doing these and studying for boards which will be July 9th. He is really excited to be able to finally get some hands on learning, and I think he looks so handsome all dressed up. Except the other night at dinner Shawn commented on how wierd it would be to have people call him Dr. Summers, and I replied that I would laugh the for the first little while - its just really hard to picture myself taking Shawn serious in anything, let alone call him "Dr. Summers." Inspite of this, I am so proud of Shawn! He has done such a great job in school, and he will make a great doctor.