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!!









Three Months

Luke turned three months old on Tuesday!! I feel like time is just flying by! Luke is growing so fast and doing new things all the time. Here are some highlights from Luke's third month:

-Luke weighs about 15 pounds.
-Luke rolled over from his tummy to his back this month!
-He eats about every three hours during the day. Sometimes he will stretch to four if he's asleep.
-Luke is finally falling asleep in his bassinet at night. I will rock him a little bit, turn on music, and he will usually fall asleep pretty quickly.
-Napping during the day is a different story. I don't know why, but he usually fights his naps like crazy. Right now he naps in his swing most of the time.A lot of the time (like right now) I know he needs to sleep but he is crying in his swing. He definitely LOVES being held!!
-Luke is on medicine for reflux. It seems to be helping his fussiness quite a bit. I have to be SO careful about what I eat, though. I've been off dairy since he was about three weeks old, and I also can't eat anything that's the least bit spicy. I also have to limit my caffeine intake. If I eat/drink any of those things, the next couple of days is ROUGH on Luke. It's been tough finding out what upsets him, but the good thing is that it's helping me to lose weight!:)

Luke went on his first road trip this month to Abilene!

 He met his Great-Granny for the first time

 Sitting in Nana and Granddaddy's backyard

Luke is doing great on his tummy! 

Look at him holding that head up!

 Rolling over

Samuel and Luke are soooo sweet together. Luke is really watching his big brother these days and Samuel is quick to give him a hug and kiss.

We went to Matthew's aunt and uncle's lakehouse this month. Luke had a great time and did a great job sticking to his little schedule.

 Sweet boy!! I just can't get enough of him!!

Luke at Two Months

Luke turned two months old on Saturday. He is becoming more interactive (and less fussy!) every day! Here are some things Luke has been up to during his second month:

-He weighs 13 pounds, 5 ounces (90th percentile)
-He is 22 3/4 inches long (50th percentile)
-Luke still despises tummy time. He fusses and gets very worked up. BUT he is doing a great job at bringing his head up. AND he "shimmies" off the blanket or over the boppy. His legs and arms are very strong.
-The boys went to their first VBS in June. Luke stayed with us and Samuel went to class. We all had a great time.

-Luke has been smiling A LOT. When he is in a good mood (which is happening more and more) it's pretty easy to get a cute smile out of him.

Man I love this grin!!

In this picture, the top one is Samuel and the bottom is Luke. Don't they look alike??

-The boys went to their first wedding on July 5th. Matthew's Aunt Ronnie got married and we had so much fun! On the fourth we went out to their house for a 4th of July party.

 

Here's our cute baby on his first holiday

 

And here we are at the wedding. The boys did great!!

-Luke is sleeping really well at night. He has trouble falling asleep in his own bed but we are working on that now. Right now his last feeding is usually around 10:00 and then he will sleep until around 5! I am loving the 6 or 7 hour stretch of sleep! He usually gets fussy after his 5:00 a.m. feeding but will eventually go back to sleep in his crib or the swing.

-He is still napping in his swing during the day. I'm working on this as well.

 

Here are Samuel and Luke, both at two months old.

 





 And here's our big boy!

2 Years Old

Well, my baby boy is turning two years old today. I can't believe it. Time needs to just slow down!! Before I talk about the things Samuel is doing now, I'm going to recap his second year (warning: long post!!)

JULY

 

 We moved Samuel into a forward-facing car seat because we made the long drive to Durango, CO for Christ In Youth camp.

 

 At this camp, we bought Durango, Samuel's beloved bear.

AUGUST

 

 We went to Abilene while Uncle Rob was in town.

 Playing in Nana and Granddaddy's backyard

 We had a blast at the nearby splash park.

 

Samuel tried watermelon for the first time and LOVED it!

SEPTEMBER

 

 Samuel started walking! He took his first real steps in Abilene at the ACU Welcome Center.

We found out that Samuel was going to be a big brother!!

OCTOBER

 

 We took Samuel to an air show in Ft. Worth. Samuel and Daddy had a great time!

 We went to the State Fair. Samuel had a great time and was exhausted afterwards.

 

Samuel was the cutest lion ever for Halloween wearing Matthew's old costume.

We announced to the world our big news!

NOVEMBER

 

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family.

DECEMBER

 

 We found out that we were having another boy!! We were so excited!

Christmas with family was great and Santa brought Samuel a play grill.

JANUARY

 

We took Samuel to the Dallas zoo. He loved it!

FEBRUARY

 

 We decorated cookies for Valentine's Day

And made cards for our family

 MARCH

 

Samuel and I met Nana in Granbury for a long weekend.

APRIL

 

 

 We went to the Arboretum with the Irbys and Larkins. Samuel and Hannah love each other!

 Samuel and I decorated Easter eggs using shaving cream and food coloring.

 We enjoyed an Easter egg hunt at Valley View.

 The Easter bunny brought Samuel a little tricycle and some other fun things.

 We spent Easter day at the Irby's.

 Matthew and I both took off work to have "Samuel Day". We wanted  to spend a whole day with him before Luke came. We went to the Ft. Worth zoo and had a great day.

I took a few more days off to stay home with a sick little boy when Samuel had the stomach bug. Not fun for either of us but I did enjoy some good snuggles!

 

MAY

 

 We welcomed Luke Joseph into our family on May 6th. Samuel immediately started giving him sweet kisses.

 Here Samuel is giving Luke the letter S (right when we got home from the hospital). He kept taking Luke's hand and putting the letter in it. So cute!

 Sweet brothers

Mama and her boys

 

Here are some things that Samuel is doing/saying now that he's two:

 

 

-He knows all of his letters. Show him any letter and he'll name it or ask him to find any letter and he will.

 

-He also knows all of his numbers to 10 and can almost count to 10.

 

-Samuel's favorite songs are "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", "ABCs", and "Jesus Loves Me". He also likes "The Wheels on the Bus".

 

-He sleeps with Durango, blankie, and Hippo. Every nap, every night.

 

-Samuel pronounces the letter X "ec". It's so cute. So logically he calls his toy dinosaur who is T-Rex, "T-Rec".

 

-Some of my favorite Samuel sayings:

 

"There. All better." He will say this when he fits a puzzle piece in to place, when he draws on Mama with chalk, or any time he thinks he has fixed something.

 

"I did it! I did it!" I love it when he's proud of himself for something he's done.

 

"Almost..." He says this with inflection, kinda like I would say it.

 

"I find it."

 

"How bout..." He says this when he's picking out a book, a snack, or an activity.

 

"Samuel Irby, Luke Irby, Mama Irby, Daddy Irby" He figured this out one day when I was talking to Luke and called him Luke Irby. I then said "Samuel Irby" and Samuel finished by saying "Mama Irby and Daddy Irby". I thought it was so smart of him to put this all together!

 

Samuel loves:

 

-Being outside. He loves playing with chalk, his trains, his new water table, playing at the park, going on walks, and just running outside.

 

-Finding Nemo. It's by far his favorite movie. He asks for it every day, multiple times a day. I pretty much have it memorized.

 

-Cars, truck, airplanes. We make sure to have some in the diaper bag at all times for when we go out to eat.

 

-The iPad. Oh my. He could be on it all day long. We have to hide it in different places because once he sees it, it's over. And we have to trick him to take it away.

 

-Granola bars. He loves the ones specifically for toddlers. He asks for them all the time and usually throws a fit when I don't give him one.

 

-Church. Samuel LOVES going to his class at church. He will walk straight to his room when we step foot in the building.

 

-All four grandparents. He gets SO excited when we tell him that he'll see one/some of them.

 

I could go on and on, really. Samuel is full of life and loves lots and lots of things. I know this post was long but I want to remember what he is like right now!