Reagan Update

I feel like it has been a while since I have posted what Reagan has been up to lately.  She is coming up on 18 months old and does so much now!  

• She climbs on everything.  Her latest trick is standing on the chairs at the kitchen table.  She goes up and down stairs pretty well too.  She runs everywhere!
• She says quite a few words now.  She can say bye-bye, hi, momma, dadda, doggie, milk, please, thank you, sissy and a few more.  She also does a lot of signs too!
• Still very attached to her pacifier, specifically her Giraffe Wubbanub.
• Loves carrying around baby dolls and giving them kisses.
• She loves to follow Hannah around and play with her.  She also can't get enough of the dogs.
• She is still very little.  She consistently has been below the growth curve for her age, but eats great and is meeting all her milestones so we aren't too concerned.
• Loves being outside to play but hates the pool.  She cries every time we are there.  Maybe next year she will enjoy it more.
• She loves to snuggle and be rocked.  
• She is just starting to get interested in books and will sit now and let us read to her.

I guess that is about it.  Just wanted to update what she has been up to lately.  We are packing up to head out on Sunday for our first family trip to the beach.  It's going to be so fun!

The Newest Sampsons

Pretty much since the first time Hannah saw Finding Nemo she has been asking to get a fish.  Of course with the move and all, it just was not a good time.  But she is very persistent and we finally caved and got her a fish.  Actually 2 fish so that they would not be lonely.  We have them down in the playroom and Hannah has been a good little mommy to them.  She feeds them, reads books to them, and hugs and kisses the tank to tell them good night.  She named them Nemo and Mickey Mouse.  Mickey Mouse because the fish are called Mickey Mouse Platys because the have black markings on there tails that look like Mickey heads.  Hopefully we can keep them alive....

Sprayground Fun!

We finally made our first trip of the summer to the Roswell Sprayground.  Hannah and Reagan both had a great time in the water!

Better late than never??  It seems like it has been forever since I have updated this.  We have been so busy with projects around the house, entertaining the kids, and then my camera battery charger is no where to be found....so there haven't been any new pictures taken in a while....Anyways, here are some pictures from the 4th of July.  Sam and Hannah started their morning at 7 a.m. at the Chimney Springs fishing contest.  

 Here's one of the tiny little fish she caught.  She won first place for her age group with daddy's help of course!

 We had a nice little family cookout for dinner and then tried to do some small fireworks with the kids.  We had considered going out to see real fireworks, but the weather was not so great and we weren't sure how the kids would handle being out so late.  It was a good thing we stayed home, because Hannah hated the fireworks.  The first one was okay.....

 but the second one made some noise and Hannah completely freaked out.  Notice, she is not in this picture enjoying some sparklers.  She is standing in the garage crying to get into the house!  We ended the fireworks quickly and called it a night.  It was so nice to enjoy a family day and celebrate the 4th!

We really don't have a whole lot of use for a basement minibar that is straight out of the 70s/80s, so before ripping it out we decided to turn the back into a chalkboard for the kids.  The kids love it and it was a free project.  Yay!  This blog has always centered around our family and kiddos, but since the house is our new baby we will most likely be documenting our projects here as well.....the many, many projects that there are to do.  In fact, our living room is a construction zone and completely off limits right now.  Before and after pictures to come soon!

Happy Birthday Head Trauma

My worst nightmare came true....tons of blood gushing from my baby's head!  Okay, maybe I am exaggerating, but it was so scary!  On Hannah's 3rd birthday we made her first (and hopefully last) trip to the ER.  We were running around and I was chasing her and she jumped up on the couch and fell backwards hitting the back of her head directly on the sharp corner of the coffee table.  I immediately ran and picked her up and the blood was just running all the way down her back and down to her feet.  I tried to keep cool (I am a nurse after all) but there was just so much blood and with all her hair I could not find where it was coming from to see how big of an injury we were dealing with!  I applied pressure as best I could and attempted to call Sam with my shaking hands.  After I finally got the bleeding to slow down I saw that there was a small little cut on her head, but it was pretty deep and still bleeding, so I decided to take her to the ER.  WARNING!!  Graphic photo below!! 

 Sam met us at the ER and I was so glad since I was managing both girls by myself.  She did great at the hospital and did not cry once.  She got two little stitches in the back of her head and after waiting a while to get her head numb, she actually giggled through the stitches.  It could have been so much worse!  So, so scary to see your little girl like that!  Hopefully nothing like this will ever happen again!

Party Time!

Last weekend we celebrated Hannah's birthday a little early with a party at the new place.  Yes, we had a party just 10 short days after closing on the house!  Even with all the chaos of moving and unpacking, the party was a big success!  Everyone had a great time and we got to show off our new house.  We thought the easiest thing would be to let the kids play in the water in the backyard and they all had a blast!

Here is Hannah all dressed in her tutu bathing suit and waiting for her friends to arrive!

 We set up the baby pool, the sprinkler and the water table for some backyard water fun!

 Ally and Reagan sharing a snack!

Happy birthday to Hannah!  She loved her sunshine cupcakes!

Our Very Own Forest

We not only bought a house last week, we also bought the forest in the backyard.  There is a small grassy area and then woods with ivy that is out of control.  The previous homeowners started with a few small ivy plants 20+ years ago and it turned into this...

 Needless to say, Sam really has his work cut out for him.  We have big plans to clear out a lot of the smaller trees (and a couple big ones) and get rid of tons of ivy.  Sam even got a new chainsaw so he can get working on this crazy backyard.

 He has already tagged some trees out from that are coming down, and he has been out working on the yard a bunch.  This is going to be a huge ongoing project!!

Tiny Dancer

The day after buying the house, Hannah started dance class.  The girl has been wearing tutus and ballet shoes around the house for months.  We thought for sure she would love to take dance this summer.  So, we signed her up along with her good friend, Addy, to start dance class.  The class consists of ballet, tap and gymnastics all crammed into 40 minutes.  Here she is all excited to go in to dance for the first time!

 Hannah and her buddy, Addy

 They started with gymnastics (sadly I have no pictures of that).  Hannah loved it.  The bars were her favorite part and she was hanging upside down within the first few minutes of doing it.  Then came the ballet part.  She loved it for about the first 10 minutes then she just completely lost interest.  She was zoned out, just standing there watching the teacher and the other girls.  Then came the worst part where she turned and just stared at me with a very sad face through the glass window until I finally went in and got her.  I thought maybe it was just the stress of moving and being nervous on the first day, but the following week in class when they were doing tap the same thing happened.  What a big shocker for the little girl who dresses like a ballerina every day to not like dance class!!  After 2 weeks with no success, we decided to take her out of dance and just let her do gymnastics which she LOVES!  We will see how it goes this week!

Our new house!

After a long, long wait for the closing and a couple years of searching....we finally own our dream home!  We are so excited to have bought the home that we plan to live in for a very long time and where we will raise our family!  We closed on June 1st and have been working nonstop since then on packing, moving, unpacking, painting and numerous other small projects around the new house.  My head feels like it is about to explode with all of future projects floating around in it.  We were so thankful to be able to have Sam's parents up here with us through the whole thing.  They were so helpful with watching the girls, cooking, cleaning, unpacking and they worked so hard!  I think they were ready to leave today and get back home to relax!  We just cannot thank them enough for coming up here to help us!  We are mostly unpacked and are really getting settled in now.  We are loving our new location in the Chimney Spring being right next to the playground, lake and pool.  We can literally walk out of our backyard and be at the playground.  How awesome is that?  We can't wait to keep working on the house to really starting making it our own.  More pictures of the inside to come soon...