Playdate with the Rudas

We went over to the Ruda house for lunch and some play time a while back. Tracey Ruda is the friend that watched Samantha for me while I worked last year. She is also the one that had her baby 3 months early and he weighed just over 1 pound when he was born. We haven't seen them in SEVERAL months, so I was excited to go see Zach and chat with Tracey. Samantha, Marc, & Zach had a good time playing together. :)One of the favorites was an inflatable ball pit that Zach had gotten for Christmas. Samantha enjoyed crawling in and "fow"ing all the balls out. :) (Check out the static in this girl's hair!!)
Marc decided he wanted to join in on the photo op....(Silly kiddos!!)
and then Zach joined in. :)
We all had a great time. I enjoyed catching up with Tracey and all the kids had fun playing together. Marc really enjoyed seeing Tracey (She was his 3's preschool teacher and he adores her!). Thanks for having us over Tracey, we all had a lot of fun!! :)

Naughty!

The other day, Marc III and I were in the kitchen after dinner making some brownies for dessert. Samantha hadn't finished her dinner yet so she was still sitting at the table. I heard her banging her plate on the table. When I turned around I saw that she had dumped her plate of food on the floor. Needless to say, she got in trouble. She got her first time out. She was not happy about it either! ;)Surprisingly enough, she only tried to get up once. I walked her back over to the step and told her that she couldn't get up yet since she had been naughty. She started crying all over again.
I decided that since she dumped most of her food on the floor, that she wasn't going to get anything "new or extra". She ate the little bit that fell on the table and in her lap, and that was it.
I know....mean Mommy! ;)

Cute Boy AND Girl

I have 2 very cute kids who love each other very much!
The other day Marc was playing on his computer making a "Book About Me" online. Samantha loves bugging him while he is on his computer. This time, before I saw her and told her to stop, she climbed into Marc's lap!! He sat and made her a "Book About Me" for her. He is such a sweet little man!!
One morning before Marc had to get his coat on to go to school, Samantha climbed in the chair and hung out with her favorite brother! :)
Hope their lovingness continues and the fighting doesn't. ;)

Cute Boy!

For years I have been looking forward to when Marc was old enough to start "Family Game Night". Well, for Christmas Marc got LOTS of games. We had about 4 nights of "Family Game Night" last week. I was in heaven! ;)

One of them we played was Jenga. We wondered how he would do since he is wild sometimes. He did really well. The longer the game went on, the more "tense" the game got. He was getting really nervous every time someone had to remove a piece.
And then when it was his turn, he was SO scared that he was going to be the one that knocked it over.
When it came around to my turn, Marc was so jumpy that I decided to put him out of his misery. ;) I could have gotten my piece out successfully, but I made it fall over. Marc was so excited!
We have truly had fun having our "Family Game Night". :)

Cute Girl!

Over the last week or so I have gotten some cute, random pictures of Samantha. So, here thy are: :)

The other day she was playing with her dishes. She found her 2 shakers and decided that they would make good bracelets.Samantha LOVES Marc's CARS slippers. Every time he wears them, she goes over to him, touches his slippers, and says "car, car, car". One night Marc was nice enough to let her try them on.
To keep Samantha in the living room we pull the play kitchen over to block the walk-way (unfortunately, she is strong enough to move the kitchen herself). She slid the kitchen just enough for her to slide out one night. Daddy went out to get her. He didn't move the kitchen enough for them both to get back through at the same time, so he put her on top of the kitchen to get her back in the living room. She thought that was REALLY cool. (Don't worry, Daddy is just out of frame in this picture)
Samantha was digging through her bucket of dishes and food. She couldn't reach the thing she wanted. So, instead of walking around to the other side of the bucket, she decided to climb into the bucket to get what she wanted. I guess that is one way of problem solving! ;)
We have officially begun potty training her, Ugh! ;) Over the last week or so, any time we see her starting to poop in her diaper, we grab her, and out her on the potty. We also put her on the potty right after waking up from overnight and nap. Nothing has happened yet, but she is showing definite interest in the "potty". Here's to a quick and easy potty training! :)
We love our little girl and can't believe how fast she is growing up!! :)

Messy Girl!

For Christmas Samantha got these cute little paint brushes for toddlers. You can seem them in the picture below...they are a big ball to make it easy for the toddler to hold on to. The paint is already in there, all she has to do is press down a little to get the paint to starts flowing.

One night while we were playing games with Marc, we let her try them out......She had fun....and made a MESS!! :)
My Mom has been "whining" that she had artwork from Marc on her fridge, but none from Samantha, so we have decided to give this masterpiece to Grandma for her fridge. ;)

Thanks for the cool painters Aunt Sari & Uncle Gary! Samantha had a blast using them the first time. The wet wipe after cleaning her up was really pretty too. ;)

Happy New Year!

We usually stay home on New year's Eve and chill out as a family. With young kids, we didn't want to leave them home with a babysitter, and we also didn't want to take them out anywhere late. This year one of our neighbor friends invited us to their "neighborhood, family friendly, party". We thought that sounded like fun so we walked over to their house for awhile. There were 5 families including us there. There were kids ranging in age from 20 months up to 10 years old. Their house was chaos! ;)
Here are some of the pictures of the kids playing:

Samantha making the top spin

Samantha riding their rocking horse. (Sus and I thought we had the only 2 Rocky's, but guess not. :( )

Marc dressing up with all the "girly" dress up stuff

Samantha ready for battle, wearing a pot on her head

Rob, the dad of the house, plays hockey. Samantha decided she wanted to try his helmet on

We got to Kris & Rob's house about 7:00 and left about 10:00. Samantha was starting to get a little cranky from being overly tired. We came home, put Samantha to bed, and played games with Marc for awhile while we waited for midnight to come. As soon as we got home, Marc turned the tv on one of the countdown shows. Little Marc sat down in front of the tv and watched for awhile waiting for the ball to drop...he was VERY excited for the ball to drop.
We played Electronic Toss Across and Sorry Sliders waiting for midnight. Sorry Sliders is a really cute game!! :)

Once midnight hit I took some pictures. This is what Samantha was doing at midnight.
Marc actually did very well for staying up 4 hours past his bed time. :)


We had a great night...lots of fun with great friends and family. :)
We had a great 2009 and are looking forward to another great year in 2010 (man it seems weird to type that!)

Who is That?!

Marc has very thick hair that grows very quickly. I know it is time to call for a hair cut appointment when he wakes up in the morning and his hair is sticking up. ;) With is being the Holidays, we were so busy that we didn't have a chance to get him there, so it got really long this time.
After his hair cut, we decided he looked about 9 years old. ;)

Cars!!

We were putting the Christmas tree ornaments away the other day. Samantha found the box to Marc's CARS ornament. She was really happy about the cars. :)

Daddy decided to "test" her. ;) He buried the box in the pile of all of the other boxes and asked her to find it......



and she did!! Smarty pants! ;)