I'll Take That!

Sammy snagged Pat's new hat for herself the day after he brought it home. She looks so cute in it that I just might let her keep it!

She also managed to snag a pair of my underware while I was folding laundry and put them on. So silly!

Inherited Traits

I love when Samantha does something and I can totally see Pat or myself in her. Tonight she piled all of her stuffed animals on herself and pulled the pillow over her face to go to sleep. She whined when I tried to take it off of her, so I just left it (I propped a corner up with her stuffed kitty, Simon). The pillow on her head is definitely inherited from Daddy!

If you look closely in the picture you can see a little arm peeking out.

A Sunny Afternoon

Last Saturday we were blessed with a beautiful, sunny day. We took full advantage of it and spent the afternoon in the backyard and at the park down the street. Samantha has quite a little rock collection going. She keeps them on the little shelf on the garden hose hanger. She goes back to it day after day to add new ones and carries some of them around with her.

We showed her how to blow the seeds off of dandelions, and she got it right away. Now she has to stop and blow on them any time she sees one.

She tries to blow the petals off of regular flowers too, but it doesn't work nearly as well as the dandelions.

Pat took the opportunity to start grooming Sammy for a promising golf career. She seemed to enjoy her first lesson, which included dragging Daddy's club around, clicking the balls together, and running up and stealing the golf balls everytime Daddy tried to chip one.

A Wink and The Wiggles

Sammy has figured out how to wink recently...well kind of. She gets what she's supposed to do, but she ends up making an adorable pirate face. She also shows off her body-part naming skills. I was trying to get her to make some animal noises, but she knew that The Wiggles were coming on soon, so she was a little distracted.

Here was her reaction as soon as she heard The Wiggles theme song.

Television-watching definitely isn't a passive activity in this house!

Miss Independent

Samantha has definitely entered the "I can do it myself!" phase of toddlerhood. She has become very interested in dressing herself and reading her books by herself. She used to sit on my lap at bedtime while I red two books to her. Now she yells "No, no, no!" if try to read them. Instead, she takes them to her bed and "reads" them herself. She has managed to put together some pretty interesting outfits with whatever clothing she can pull out of the hamper. She ran around like this for quite a while the other day. I didn't manage to get a picture, but she added her rainboots to the outfit. Yesterday I saw her run off with my socks, and then reappear a few minutes later wearing them. Pretty impressive!

A Day at the Beach x2

Apparently it's feast or famine when it comes to this blog. We'll see how long this string of updates lasts.

The weather isn't quite spring-like here yet, but we did have a beautiful day of sunshine today. We decided to take advantage of it. We went to our favorite restaurant, Jake's, for lunch and then went to a waterfront park just down the road.

Heading to the playground.

The view from the playground. Not too bad.

Sammy running full-speed toward the water.

Waiting to see the train we could hear coming.

Chooooo choooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Sammy would have spent the entire day throwing rocks into the water if we would have let her.

We had to leave the Steilacoom park sooner than we wanted to because Sammy decided to wade right on into the water and we didn't have dry shoes/socks/pants/shirt/sweatshirt for her. It was still nice outside, so we took some bread to the lake by our house to feed the ducks and let Sammy splash in the water a little more. These two ducks got out of the water and followed us to get more bread.

For a Change of Pace

A video post today! The first one is just Sammy running around and playing in the backyard. The second one is a snippet of Sammy and Mimi's favorite game. Sammy runs around the house dragging a ribbon behind her, and Mimi chases it. You also get to hear Sammy's version of "kitty" as she's climbing the slide. Our sitter thinks it sounds like she's yodeling when she says it.