Do you want to go night night?

Somehow Samuel learned to shake his head no in December (at 6 months old). We thought this would cause some great challenges. Luckily he would shake his head no for milk, green beans, cheerios, hugs, diaper changes, etc. He didn't quite have the distinction between yes and no. That has since changed! Case and point!

Just too funny

Bebe gave Samuel these cute little hand puppets a few months ago. He LOVES the "piggy" and has done this with it since day one. We think it is just hilarious! He often stops what he is doing to give the piggy a kiss, tongue and all!

We love Oliver

Our friends, the Laniers, have had quite a crazy couple of months. They went away this weekend for a fancy family wedding and we are keeping Oliver with us. The boys had a lot of fun unpacking the toy box, running around the yard, and fighting over who would sit in my lap.

Thankfully Samuel's RuRu and Grandaddy (Ryan's parents) sent us a nice big package of clothes for Samuel and coupons (WHICH I AM THANKFUL FOR). It made for some great entertainment for about 5 minutes!

Samuel showing Oliver his favorite place to play! These are some great little boys! I can't wait to show this to them in 15 years, when they'll probably be just as crazy and hard to corral!

Thank you Uncle John

Samuel LOVES his Uncle John. Thank goodness John is willing to teach him some of the "great" things of being a boy! What have we gotten ourselves into?

Mark and Becca Visit

Our good friends came down from Pittsburgh for their (hopefully) annual beach get away! We had such a great time playing in the sand, enjoying some great local food, wonderful girl time (pedicures) and boy time (golf). We couldn't have asked for a better week or better friends! We miss you already!

My handsome little stud!
Samuel likes to practice his surfing!
loving the ocean with daddy
wanting to chill like the adults (thank goodness this wasn't mommy's chair!)
Mark showing Samuel how to build a really tall drip castle. My Big Daddy would have been proud, he built me many drip castles when I was a little kid.
Samuel working on his "high five" skills! He is quite talented!
Samuel got these sunglasses for Easter. The only little boy ones were WWF (not to excited about that, but whatever). This is Samuel's interpretation of John Cena "you don't see me"
Samuel practicing his pilot skills at the little kids playground at the RDU airport.
The girls and the little boys (we took 2 pictures and Josh was looking this time and Samuel was looking the second time! The joys of getting multiple children to look and smile for a camera!)

The Aquarium with our buddies

We went to the aquarium with our buddies today and had a great time. Sorry the pictures are so blurry, not sure what was going on with my camera!

While we were waiting for everyone to get there the boys were running around and one said "hey mommy, look an alligator". We just shrugged it off thinking he maybe saw a statue or something. As we walked over, sure enough a baby alligator had come to the pavement to sunbathe from the marsh! We went inside to let the staff know and they quickly came to let this little buddy back into the wild! Just goes to show we should listen to what our kids say!
The whole group at the beginning...notice we are all smiles!
The kids checking out the BIG fish tank
Samuel waving at the fish! He was pretty enthralled!

Here comes Earl

Yesterday Ryan and I got a chance to go check out the beach with hurricane Earl quickly approaching. As of right now the majority of the storm will miss us, we will probably get quite a bit of rain/wind tonight, but nothing too extreme! We did get some good pics from yesterday and today! The waves are huge and the surfers are very happy!