Megan made me do it...

I feel so honored to have been entrusted with this incredible responsibility of making a post on this blog. Meg is in Idaho with Sam, but insisted I stay behind to watch over the blog and keep it updated. I tried to convince her that I really was not worthy of such a job, that I could not possibly live up to her standards of blogging. She reinforced the idea that I was actually capable. After that, I really really tried to change her mind by claiming that my manhood might be at stake, but here I am. My parents and Jake came over this last week and we celebrated Sam's birthday, went to the zoo, went to Nauvoo, and played a little golf. We had a great time with them, and I am also proud to say I still haven't had a heart attack after nearly eating 10 times my body weight in 1 fantastic week of good ol' Iowa grub! I can always count on eating well when family visits. Not that Meg doesn't feed me well the rest of the time... Anyway, here are the pics!

I hope Jake realizes his hair will probably end up looking like mine and not Dad's.

I love riding the zoo train!



This is us trying to mimmick how the Saints looked and felt as they were forced to leave their homes in Nauvoo and cross the Mississippi in the dead of winter.


Carthage was awesome as always, kind of like me.

Meg did a great job with Sam's Buzz Lightyear cake. I'm not being sarcastic this time.



Sam thought the farm themed gifts were pretty cool and had a fun birthday. Meg and I worked the graveyard shift for a few nights trying to get the barn done, and it turned out not too shabby considering the fact that I whittled it all out of one solid piece of wood.

This is me being too lazy to figure out how to rotate this picture of us at the zoo the right way. Now, it's time for bed. Hope you enjoyed the pictures!!

Happy 3rd Birthday Sam!

Sam is turning three! I can't believe it. He has gotten to be such a big fun boy. I am so happy that he came to me and Shawn, and am amazed at how much I love him everyday. Here's some things about Sam:

1. Born: July 14, 2005 after 30 hours of labor, weighed 6 lbs. 12 oz, and was 20 inches long.
2. Sam loves to play baseball with his dad and is a pretty good hitter.
3. Sam has flown 12 times, his first flight was to Philadelphia when he was about 2 1/2 months.
4. Sam loves chocolate but hates any other candy, popcicles, fruit snacks and basically all other good treats.
5. He loves Toy Story, Cars, 101 Dalmations, Thomas the Tank Engine, Bob the Builder, and Madagascar.
6. Sam is the greatest little boy ever. We are so blessed to have him in our family! Sam Happy Birthday! We love you so much.

Sam's Saturday Soup - Sunday Leftovers!

Sorry we are a day late due to the HUGE celebrating we did over the weekend (okay, not HUGE, but I'm a little lazy!) Here's a quick recap of our fun week. Monday we went to the zoo and saw the elephants they have there as special guests. These elephants were amazing, honestly they could do things with 7000 lbs. that I can't do with ???lbs! It was really great.

Finally we ended the week in celebration - we went to the Yankee Doodle Pop Fireworks at the state capital. They were great, but getting out afterwards took a little too long! We also had friends over for a BBQ and then headed to the Waukee Parade. Sam loved the firetrucks and tractors! He had a great time collecting all the tootsie rolls too. That night we enjoyed Waukee's great firework display from our back yard. Definetly liked watching in my pj's with and getting home in uh, one second afterwards.



Hope everyone else had a great 4th of July! What did you all do???

Maternity Pictures

Mary did such a GREAT job! It is so fun to have some pictures of this pregnancy, especially the ones of Sam and my belly are too precious. She was so good with Sam and had a lot of fun, creative ideas for the belly - if anyone is looking for pictures to be taken don't hesitate. Thanks again Mary for using us as your guinea pigs, we love the pictures. Here's a small - but large sampling of the pictures we got. She gave them to us in color and black and white!











This picture is my absolute Favorite of Sammy! It just really captures him how I always see him!

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??