Some friends of ours were kind enough to pass their keyboard onto us. Sam has figured out how to work all the special features and sound effects better than I have.

I managed to video tape him dancing to the new keyboard without him noticing.

Sibling Education

Me: This is called a triceratops.

Sam: Sara-tops?

Me: A triceratops.

Sam: A sara-tops.

Elena: No, Sam. A TRIceratops. It's a kind of dinasaur that tries stuff.

Christmas 2011 Highlights

Happy 10th day of Christmas!!

I didn't get too many pictures this Christmas. I'll share the best of what we got. We had a wonderful Christmas - 3 days in a row of family parties with time every morning to spend at home with the kiddos.

The best line of Christmas was by Sam when he opened his first present from Santa: "It's a box!!!!"

Matching aprons made by Grandma Langer


The Myhre cousins

Cuddling with Grandma Corky

A Tractor!

Making Christmas cookies with the cousins

Just Like You

At lunch, Elena was telling us how many kids she wanted to have. She's not quite decided on the number - first it was 2 girls; then, realizing she had left out a boy, she wanted 2 girls and 1 boy... only to change her mind to 3 girls and 3 boys. Fortunately, she has a lot of time to figure that one out.

One thing she was definitely decided on though is that she wants kids. Here's how the rest of the conversation went.

Elena: "I want to be a mommy. A mommy like you."

Me: "That's so sweet. Thank you, honey."

Elena: "I want to be a mommy like you. Not the kind that's all wrapped around."

Me: "Huh?"

Elena: (Illustrating being wrapped up with her hands) "You know the mommies that have wrapping all around then."

Me: "I think you mean mummies."

I wasn't quite so flattered when I realized that "a mommy like you" really meant "not like a 3,000-year-old dead guy."

A Lesson Learned

Well, Sammy now knows not to play with electrical outlets.

Let me start this story by saying: no one got hurt. Thankfully.

This morning, I was helping Elena get ready in her bedroom when I heard a pop and saw a flash out of the corner of my eye. Then I heard Sam burst into tears and I ran out into the hallway to see what happened.

Sam was sitting by the outlet in the hall that we keep a night light in. I looked at the night light and noticed that the back of the night light and the outlet were charred black. I immediately asked Sam if he was hurt. He said he wasn't hurt, but he had scared himself pretty good and took awhile to calm down. I couldn't figure out why it had blown - Sammy said he just turned on the night light. When I pulled it out of the outlet, two coins fell to the floor.

Apparently, Sam had been playing "grocery store," which entailed sticking a few coins behind the night light and turning it on. So I talked with Sam again about the dangers of playing with - or even touching - electrical outlets (which I think he had figured out pretty well by then).

To which he replied: "Mom, can you put all of the outlets up high on the wall so I can't reach them anymore?" Sorry, Sammy. You're just going to have to learn to leave some things alone - as fun as they may look.

No wonder nature gives us slightly more boys than girls.

The scene of the crime

Last night, I took the kids to a Phil Baker concert at the school. Phil Baker is a children's singer from the area (kind of like Raffi). The kids had a great time dancing the night away.

Before the concert, Elena was asking about who was going to be putting on the concert. We have been to see him before, so I said, "You've seen him before. Remember the guy who sings? He's tall with black, curly hair."

To which Elena replied, "We're going to see Ray Charles???!!!"

Look who's 3!

Sam turned 3 on Nov 30th. A few times he complained that he didn't want to be three. "I still want to be 2! I don't want to be a big boy." I don't even want to know what he's going to be like when he hits 40 if he's having trouble coping with 3.

His favorite gift was his toy coffee maker. Sam loves to help me make coffee and tries to do it himself much more often than I would like. I'm shocked our coffee pot hasn't been broken yet. I hope this one will help keep him away from ours a little more!

Sammy continues to be as cute as ever and he makes us laugh on a daily basis. He also keeps us on our toes - if we take our eyes off of him for a second, he is guaranteed to get into some mischief. A friend of ours calls him Calvin because Sam reminds him so much of Calvin and Hobbes. Before he had even mentioned it, that similarity had struck me on several occasions.

For example, we took the kids out to eat at a restaurant last night and told them that if they were good they could get a treat at the end. The restaurant had some of those little vending machines that you stick a quarter in for a handful of candy. They did well and got their treat, but as we were heading out, Seth and I stopped to talk with some friends. When we turned around, Sam was putting another quarter in the machine and getting a new handful. We asked Sam where he got the quarter, and he said he found it. Figuring he had found it on the floor, we started to leave. Then he pulled another quarter out of his pocket and started heading for the machines. We asked again where he got the quarters, and Elena pointed to a table nearby with some tip money lying on it. After we returned the money, we had a nice little discussion about stealing on the ride home.

We also went to story hour with Santa at the library yesterday, and while Santa provided entertainment for the kids, Sam provided entertainment for the adults.

At one point, Sam got up and gave the girl sitting next to him a kiss on the top of her head. Then he proceeded to go around the room and kiss every little girl there on the head. Once he had handed out kisses to all the girls, he looked around the room and started walking over to a little boy (about the same age as Sam). I don't know if he was planning to give him a kiss or not, but this little guy was not about to take any chances. As soon as Sam got near him, he immediately stiff-armed Sam. I wish I could have caught that on camera - we all got a pretty good laugh watching them.

Later, the librarian was reading about Santa, and she came to a picture with Santa holding his list of Good Boys and Girls. She asked, "Do you think you're on this list?" To which Sam yelled out, "Not me!"

We love you, Sammy! Thanks for brightening our days.