He's got it now!

And he has his first tooth, too. And he's sitting on his own. And his feet are his favorite toys.

Not really rolling over, yet.

Sitting up

But, Mom, please only ask me to do one thing at a time. . . .

Caught some smiles :)

He is getting closer to actually jumping.

We see this sweet smiling face a lot, so I'm glad I finally caught it on camera to share!

Express yourself!

When he has something to say, well, he says it!

New Trick: moving forward?

He can sort of sit up if he wants to, but this is his preferred action at the moment:



Ta da!

jingle, jingle

This is the rattle Cak brought Samuel in honor of his baptism. He really enjoys grabbing things these days. Unfortunately, he has gotten suspicious of the camera. Maybe one day he'll learn to smile for it.

Jump!

I think he's going to be a fan of his Johnny Jump Up, just like his daddy was of his.

We're staying busy these days. Trey keeping up with work and me trying to keep up with Sam. He's growing fast and brings us many smiles and laughs every day.

pics

Little charmer:Enjoying the sites at Wurstfest. A ten day celebration of the sausage held annually in New Braunfels. They have facilities that are solely dedicated to this once a year event!

Little Big Fella

It is amazing to see this little one develop and grow and learn before our eyes. Early this morning, I was changing his diaper while he was asleep. I glanced at his face a few times and saw his eyes were closed. When I started putting the clean diaper on, I noticed his little, chubby hands were holding the top of the diaper as I tried to fasten it. I looked up at his little face, and he was sitting there with his beautiful eyes open calmly gazing at me. He has started grabbing his feet when I change him. If we get our rhythms right, he'll pick his legs up for me to remove, clean, and put on the new. He holds on to us when we carry him. Aaah!Sittin' up proud.
Precious picture his dad took. He is so expressive!
Getting ready to crawl, you see. Once he starts going, I'm afraid he won't be stopping for anything!

Growing too fast

Of course, we knew he would.

Bath time. I don't bath him very much. He doesn't spit up often, and the only things that seem to get dirty are hands and feet, and of course, the poopy area. I can clean those places fairly quickly without filling the tub with water. Besides, he's so big, it's a little scary putting him down and picking him up from the tub, especially when slippery!
Pops was able to come and baptize Sam into his larger covenant family. We were glad to have the Owenses (and Owenses) and MeeMaw and the Smiths and GG. We missed other family, but for a short weekend, we still had more visiting than could be accomplished!

Reading with Aunt Grace. I wish she lived closer!

Dad saves the day again. My back is starting to suffer from the baby bjorn, but Trey put Sam in the baby hawk in this unauthorized position and we had a very pleasant family walk.
Cute in his Sunday duds from Aunt Su Su.
I'm not sure if I'm supposed to put him in the bumpo yet, but he seems pretty happy in there for minutes at a time. He's pretty cute, too. I always want to find the camera when I put him in.
With GG. He tried to poop on her right before she left, but she was too slick for that old trick. She whisked his little fat legs up and off her lap, so the only one he got dirty was himself. It was a desperate effort to keep her from leaving.
With Cak. He's just so snuggly.
And this is the day that Trey took us on a picnic in Landa Park. We've been having very nice, coolish days out here. Makes it hard to stay inside! But the mosquitoes make it hard to go outside! At least for me!
So, he hasn't done this in a while, but a few weeks ago he was really amused by playing with himself in the mirror. Now he seems more interested in trying to grab his feet.

Growing and growing! I'm so thankful that he is so healthy and happy. Our house is finding a new sort of rhythm, and we're usually all well rested. God is so gracious.

it's working

I've been seeing more of this lately, which is mostly helpful. We made a trip to the grocery today, but he stayed awake in the carrier.Cuteness.
More uncontrolable cuteness.

Mr. Pooper

So,

The little man is growing, and we have moved up to the Level 2 diaper (*ding*).

However, there's a slight problem: Sam's backside doesn't quite fill the diaper, leaving the elastic bands along his legs a little too loose. You can imagine what this means.

I experienced the results the other day when I came home happily from work. I picked up the little man after my lovely wife had just changed his not-so-little diaper. I hadn't had him long on my lap when I heard the familiar sound of a vigorous explosion from Sam's nether regions. I thought nothing of it--that is, until I began to feel something wet on my jeans. As if I didn't already know what it was, I picked him up and looked underneath my much happier son. Sure enough, there was a generous deposit of something looking much like garlic cheese grits.

While I was changing out of my soiled pants, my lovely wife noticed that not a whit of poop had found its way onto his clothing. And upon further inspection, and much cackling from the amused female, very little had been deposited inside the diaper. Apparently, the vigorous explosion of poop lifted the diaper out of the way, so that my son's healthy excrement found its way into my lap, bypassing most of the diaper and his clothing in the process. What a talented baby boy!

I discovered today at lunch that he had managed a much more marvelous feat while Hilary and Sam were at the store this morning: somehow Sam managed to poop out of the front of his diaper, leaving the back of his diaper perfectly clean.

Oh the joys of fatherhood!

The Best Daddy

Little Sam and Dad get along just great. Dad figured out Sam's usual favorite way to be held: facing out. You know his momma likes to hold him snuggled facing in. He still likes that sometimes, but only when he's ready to go to sleep!Handsome in their stripes.
Not quite big enough, but he's getting there!
Today after Trey got back from work, he watched Sam while I ran to the grocery. All I did was buy some food. Sam and Trey sat on the couch, read the bible, prayed, took a walk outside down to the island and watched the Comal River float by. And when I got home Little S was sound asleep. The swing held him while Trey ran off for a family visit and I unloaded groceries. What a great dad! And what a happy baby! (and happy momma, too!!)

Caught it!

Today started out much like any other day. Sam is here posing:Then, I somehow managed to have the camera around when he did his smile!!



He has been mimicking us for several days now. Yay for smiles!

Sam in Motion

We discovered this fun trick while Amy Claire was here:

Amy C was a huge help to me. I have clean bathrooms, a tidy house, vacuumed rugs, and swept and mopped floors. I also was able to eat and do some things on my own for a few days with her extra hands to hold sweet Sam. Thanks, Amy! You're the best sister ever!

I dressed Mr. Man in a sleeper yesterday. His dad said he looked like an old testament prophet.

Such a precious little man!

We're entering week 6?!?!!?

It's hard to believe Sam is five weeks old, and at the same time, it feels like this has been going on forever. He's growing and changing constantly, which keeps us confused and on our toes. He is a delight and a challenge. The last few days he had spaced his feedings out to every 3 hours, but last night he was back to every 2. Entering the 6 week growth spurt, perhaps? Since my last few months of pregnancy I got up every 2 hours through the night to tinkle, I haven't really had a problem getting up to feed the little man (especially if I make sure I get a few naps in the day). We've kept him in our room so I usually wake up right before he needs attention. Sometimes I start nursing him before he's awake enough to know he's really hungry. This is good for me. It means I don't have to pull myself from the depths of deep sleep and wake up enough to not drop him. Unfortunately, Trey doesn't sync with our sleeps cycles, so when Sam screams through his nighttime diaper change, Dad wakes up to remember that God has blessed him with a new means of sanctification!Sometimes he really likes his swing. Sometimes he'll be happier in the swing than when we're holding him, which really surprised me. Of course, the swing does make a nice, rhythmic clicking noise and it has this great warning label on the side that Sam seems to enjoy reading.
One of Sam's infamous yawns. Longies are courtesy of April and Ella Duvall. They aren't all the way down to his feet, so they are kinda like those long shorts that kids like to wear.
Workin' his arms. He's pretty good at that. He heard that his Uncle Nate said he needed more exercise, so he started working on his arms. He can kick pretty hard, too. Trey was supervising some tummy time this morning, and Sam put his feet down and pushed his little tushy up into the air. Thankfully he can't push up with his arms yet, or Mommy would pass out from grief.
This is how he asks us to change his diaper if he doesn't feel like waiting for us to find out. We generally check him every ten minutes unless he's sleeping. And sometimes we do have to change him every ten minutes. Thankfully in the daylight, he doesn't scream during diaper changes. Unless he's hungry. Then he thinks we're doing things out of order, so he lets us know.

And just so you know, I wasn't sitting there taking pictures of my baby crying. He just made that face, I was in the midst of taking pictures, so I snapped it and promptly put the camera down and picked the baby up.

In other news, my sister is flying in to San Antonio today to come up and spend a few days with us. She wanted to come help and even left her precious son, Pearce, who is just over a year old, with his grandparents so that she could come help me. Such a sweet sister! I am thankful for her.

It's raining

This is the second time it's rained since Sam was born. It's really more like a thunderstorm. I hope we get lots of rain. I don't know how long it would have to pour like this for us to get out of our water deficit from the drought, but praise God for every drop we get!

We have yet to catch Sam's sweet little newborn smile. It is precious, and he does it a lot when he's on his way to sleep (of course, I think that's when all newborns do them). He has smiled a few times while awake and alert. I try to enjoy these moments and not listen to Uncle Jim's voice in my head which says, Oh, that's just gas.

The other thing Sam seems to have figured out is that his dad has figured out what his "I need a dry diaper" cry sounds like. We've noticed that now when Sam has a dirty diaper, he will look around the room to see if his dad is there. If he is, he'll look at him steadily for a while before he starts his "change me!" fuss.

I got him dressed all cute for church. Unfortunately, he was too hot, and we had to take it off. Maybe once the cold weather gets here I can keep him dressed all cute.

Changes

This is Sam's current favorite cuddle for falling asleep. It works well with both Dad and Mom, and makes both of us feel like a million (or more) dollars.I told Trey I couldn't imagine Sam without hair. Well, it's looking like I won't have to worry about imagining:
My baby has a retreating hairline!

he's a hot little body

that's why he's usually naked in his pictures. Sometimes he feels a bit cool and I'll put a shirt on him, but usually he gets all sweaty and red if I put clothes on him.
This was Sunday when I got him all dressed to go to church. Unfortunately, he didn't want ME to get dressed, so we ended up not going.
Sam loves cuddle time with his daddy!
His little blocked tear duct has cleared up, and we're waiting to see what color his eyes will be. They are still mostly newborn blue, but are lightening a bit in the center. I say they look grey in the center; Trey says they look yellow. (Side note: Trey's eyes are blue and yellow in the center. I'm not insinuating anything.)
See that fat little tummy! I always try not to notice that my skin looks green or yellow next to his. Should I be jealous of my son's complexion?
Gotta love that sweet little face! He hasn't been using his smile muscles as much since he's discovered he can look around and see different things. He looks serious most of his awake time now.