Party!

So that all my sisters and their families could join us, we waited until tonight to have cake and ice cream for Sam's birthday. Inspired by my friend Kris, who makes amazing cakes, I whipped this up:

If you're noticing a lion theme in our family, you're very observant. Sam is quite fond of a little stuffed lion that he sleeps with and one of his favorite pieces of a puzzle he has, is the lion. And, of course, he was a lion for Halloween too!

My BIL, Travis (next to Bill) celebrated his birthday on the 27th and my sister, Ann (far right) will celebrate hers on the 4th. Happy birthday Travis and Annie! We were so happy to have everyone there to party with Sam!

Sam was a little suspicious of his cake at first, but I think he liked it!

Video clip soon to come

One

I can't believe I have a one-year-old! If the rest of my life flies by as fast as this last year has (as I'm frequently told that it does), I'll be a senior citizen before I know it! Sam had a great birthday.

The three of us went to dinner at Smoky Mountain Pizza and Pasta

And then Sam got to take a bath with his new tubby toys

While Sam was napping this morning, I read through my journal entries the few days before and after his birth. It was such an amazing time that I can still remember very vividly. I've never felt so humble and vulnerable as when I got to hold my sweet little baby for the first time. It was the most precious moment of my life. I loved seeing Bill just melt as he held his new little son.

Life for us has sure changed since then! We are so happy to have Sam in our family and love him so much! Happy birthday Sammy!

Count Your Many Blessings

Name them one by one...

My two boys

My Family

The restored gospel of Jesus Christ

Freedom

Happy Thanksgiving!

Outnumbered

Yesterday afternoon, Sam and I went to my nephews' elementary school for a walk. The children can earn popsicle sticks for each lap they do. The adults they bring earn double and they get those too.

Seth, Jonah, Ann, Cael, Whit, Karen, Sam & Luke

After the walk, Ann had an appointment to go to, so Sam and I got to play with Whit and Cael for a couple more hours. We did great until the very end when they all had a meltdown at the same time. It was quite the scene. It is so fun to see all of them interacting with each other now. They are going to great buddies!

I LOVE living so close to my sisters and their families so we can do these kinds of things!

We're getting unpacked and organized little by little. I'm finding that now that we have all of this space, I don't know where to put everything. The possibilities are endless! When we're finally settled, I'll post pictures.

One last look...

Except for installing the spindles in the banister, some knobs on the cabinets, the blinds and touching up some nicks and scratches, the house is pretty much done! It seems crazy that they can build a house so fast, but then it has also seemed to take forever! If all goes as planned, we'll be unpacking on the 14th. Once we're settled in, we'd love visitors! Boise may not have quite the draw that Manhattan did, but come on!

Roar!

I've always thought it was kind of weird when people take their babies trick-or-treating when, clearly, the child will not be the one eating the candy. We did find a cute little costume, however, and took Sam over to visit our neighbors and then to my sisters house.

Here's our little lion on the prowl.

(Please forgive my loud voice!)

Almost there!

We are getting so close! We should be ready to move in, on schedule, in a couple of weeks. It's going to seem like an early Christmas morning when we get all of our belongings that have been in storage for 15 months now. It will be fun to remember just what we actually do own!

Since we're finally going to be in a permanent place now, we decided to change our blog to private. I'll be sending out an invitation to be able to view it with a username and password (it's really not too annoying to sign in), but if I don't have your email address or you don't get an invitation, email me at whitaker.karen@yahoo.com and I'll send you one!