Sea World

A few weeks ago, we took our first family vacation to Sea World. We all had a great time seeing the animals but most of all being together. Here are some highlights:

Here's our beautiful hotel. Our room was on the fourth floor overlooking the pool.

 

 

 When we got to the hotel on Saturday, we found out that they had upgraded our room to one that had a balcony. The boys loved hanging out outside. Saturday night they had a movie at the pool. We stayed for a bit and then went up to the room, gave baths, and watched the rest of the movie from the balcony. What a fun treat! Then Matthew and I got to hang out out there after the boys went to sleep. So much fun!

 

 

 

 The hotel had a beautiful pool with a little splash pad for the kids. Samuel LOVED the splash pad and enjoyed swimming with Daddy. Luke and I hung out on the side, watching the action.

 Here are the boys, ready and excited for our first trip to Sea World! (Luke is resting up!!)

 

 We rode a shuttle from the hotel to Sea World. I think Samuel was more excited to ride the "bus" than anything!

 Samuel loves looking at fish!

 

 

 We watched the Shamu show both days. Samuel and Luke were both amazed at the whales (as were Matthew and I!). They really are incredible creatures!

 Luke LOVED being outside all day!

 It took a lot to get a good family picture!

 This one's pretty good!

 Looking at the dolphins

 Meeting Franklin

I can't wait for our next family vacation!!

Activities with Samuel

I want to keep up with and remember the activities I do with Samuel during the day so I'm going to post them. I will probably edit this post whenever we do something new. Here are a few things we've done so far.

 We made a Fourth of July painting with cookie cutters. Cookie cutters are a great way for little ones to paint without getting extremely messy. He loved this!

 I wrote upper and lower case letters on paper plates and construction paper. Samuel is pretty good at matching them.

 

 We started making a letter book. We would decorate the letter on Mondays and then make pictures that start with that letter during the week. I've stopped this for now but I plan to come back to it.

 Samuel has played with stamps a couple of times and had a good time.

 Here's an activity where Samuel matches magnetic letters. He LOVES this one if I only bring it out every once in a while.

 We made a monster out of construction paper and tissue paper. Samuel loves monsters!

 Then we baked monster cookies!

 

 Samuel sorts construction paper shapes inside the shapes on the floor. Funny story: as I was taping the shapes down, I had done the square, circle, and triangle. I was about to do a rectangle when Samuel asked, "How 'bout hexagon?" Ha so cute. Of course, then I accidently did an octagon. Oh well.

 Samuel loves playing in the tunnel that Cammy and Out-paw gave him for his birthday. He also enjoys putting all of his stuffed animals inside with him!

Here, Samuel is doing some toy puzzles.

Samuel loves coloring with Color Wonder.

I found some dot letters online. Here, Samuel is putting a dot of paint in each dot on the paper. We will also try dot stickers and little pieces of paper.

 Samuel's favorite thing to do is to make a mess!:)

Samuel Lately

I felt like I needed to write about Samuel because he is doing SO MUCH right now!! First, here are some of my favorite Samuel quotes:

-How 'bout this one?
-Bye, swimming! (When we were leaving the pool)
-Mama, mama. Two mamas (pointed at the mama in a book and then me)
-Don't touch! Don't run! (tells Luke to not touch and then told kids at church not to run)
-One day he was putting his toys into time out. He would tell them each, "Time out. Don't throw. Okay? Okay."
-Samuel has started saying our names before a sentence (ex: Mama, look! Daddy, no.)
-He has started to use his imagination some. It's so cute to see him pretending to talk to someone.

Samuel's favorite...
-color: black
-animal: lion
-song: ABC song or Lion song
-TV show: Super Why
-movie: Finding Nemo
-letter: W

Samuel LOVES W and can even write it!!

Samuel loves to....
-color. He will color in his coloring book, in boxes, and on plain paper. He colors with crayons, markers, and colored pencils.
-play outside. We play in the backyard and on playgrounds and go on walks frequently.

Playing with his sand table in the backyard 

-count. He can count to ten by himself and twenty with help.
-say his ABCs.
-church. He LOVES going to class. He also still talks about VBS all the time!

-sing. It's so cute to hear him singing church songs (The Lion Song (My God's Not Dead), O Happy Day, Jesus Loves Me) and learning songs (ABC song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star).
-swim. He really got back in to swimming this year as we had a membership to our local pool.

They have an awesome splash park area at the pool.

-play at indoor playgrounds. We will take him to Going Bonkers and the playgrounds at malls to play.

Daddy and Samuel at Going Bonkers

Having a blast at the mall

 

Samuel struggles with...

-sharing. We hear the phrase, "No, that's Samuel's" A LOT in our house!

-getting frustrated easily. When something doesn't go his way, you can bet there will be lots of crying!

-clinging to mama. He still loves to play with my hair, sit beside me, have me hold him...I try to enjoy it because I know it won't last forever!

 

 



We took Samuel to see his first movie recently. Studio Movie Grill was showing a kids movie (Chuggington) on a Saturday morning. Cammy and Outpaw watched Luke and the three of us had a great time!

Samuel started school this month! He is going to First Baptist Church of Garland for Mother's Day Out on Mondays. He loves it and is doing a great job!

The cutest student I know!

Samuel is at such a fun age!! He is a great big brother and we love him so much!

Four Months

I feel like this past month just absolutely flew by! Is it really September 10th already?? Wow!!

So Luke is four months old now. Here are some stats about his fourth month:

-He is 16 lbs, 14 oz which is the 85th percentile.
-He is 25 inches long which is the 60th percentile.
-His head is in the 70th percentile.
Translation: Luke is a big boy!

I just love all the rolls!!

-Luke is napping MUCH better than this time last month. He still does not have consistent naps (same time every day) but when I know he's getting tired I will lay him down in his bed, put his paci in, turn on white noise and he will eventually fall asleep. I have to go in several times to put his paci back in, but this is a huge improvement!!

-Luke STILL wakes up to eat several times a night. I told myself I would work on this starting this week and I kinda started last night. He should be able to go about seven hours at night without eating (and I don't think he'll waste away).

-Luke still eats about every three hours during the day. He watches us eat like crazy so we may start cereal at five months...we'll see.

-Luke is SO ticklish!! He will squirm and laugh when we tickle him under his neck, on his ribs, and his thighs. It's just so cute!!

-Luke can roll over both ways now and would prefer to lay on his tummy. Any time I lay him on his back he immediately rolls over. He also likes to sleep on his tummy, although I try to get him to sleep on his back.

 

Mom, who's that adorable baby in the mirror???

-Luke went to the nursery at church for the first time. Well, I was the nursery teacher so I guess it doesn't really count. I'm not ready to be apart from him just yet! But he did enjoy playing in the exersaucer and watching Isaiah!

 

In the nursery at church

Luke also loves our exersaucer at home.

-Luke and Samuel are still getting along great. As Luke becomes more and more interactive, Samuel enjoys playing with him more. They are so cute together.

 

 

 

 



We just love our Lukie!!