Oh Christmas Tree Oh Christmas Tree

...actually the song we sing at nighttime here is Oh Tinkerbell Oh Tinkerbell, we love the way you fly. Oh Tinkerbell, oh Tinkerbell, we love the way you flyyy. We love your green and pretty dress. We love the way, you bring out the kid in us. Oh Tinkerbell, oh Tinkerbell, we love the way you flyyy.

We had fun continuing our Johns family tradition of cutting down Christmas trees! Check out the new and old photos! The tree smells wonderful.

Sam had a blast eating a candy cane and dancing in the car.

Addie working hard moving the christmas tree wagon.

Also enjoyed continuing our tradition of cookie baking with Auntie Julie and Uncle Bill. Check out those cute snowmen!

Pics from christmas tree trip 2009!

Pics of 2008 trip with Papa, same farm as 2010!



Samantha's first birthday

Samantha is one! We have had lots of fun celebrations, including a pre-celebration in Florida with Gammy and Gocky and a big partee at our house last night- house was filled with peeps.

It was like a college party minus the not-so-well behaved adults with the addition of happy kiddos running around with icing dressed up by Addie in either princess dressses or spider man (thanks to cousins Lala and Synnove).

Below is buddy Gavin, born 5 days after Sam last year.

We wish all of our out of town family and friends could have been here. But we might not have fit in the house :-)

Bugs and Princesses

Whew, I am feeling a bit of relief that our princess-dress loving daughter now also has a love for bugs! Last night she found a cricket and was laughing saying it tickled as she let it crawl all over her for about 20 minutes as she was winding down from our big partee for Samantha's first b-day. (Are you reading this and going thumbs up, great parenting, or thumbs down, gross! or both)

Addie also has a love for Stink bugs, which have made quite a presence in MD this season. When she finds them she is very careful and takes them outside to be with "their family."

I do draw the line at no high heals!
Love
Jess

Baby on the Loose!

So, I am on my way to NYC to meet up with best friend from college in NYC (so excited!!!) and am on a bus with free wifi ( I am on cloud nine already. How funny is that. Ahhhh, the things that become simple joys when you have kids). I digress... so, I was gone for literally one hour, and JC calls to tell me Sam is crawling, tripod style.

We totally thought she was just going to skip crawling and go straight to walking. The child HATES being on her stomach. But something clicked this week and its a whole new world. Guess she just needed me to get the heck out of the way :-)

Hope to send video soon but I stole camera for my first trip away since Miss Samantha was born, ALMOST a year ago come November 30. She's adorable as is big sis Addison, who, by the way, was chanting PUSSY cat (without the word cat) on the way to Lynnie's so we had to have a little talk about what this means. Hmmm. The situations you find yourself in and the things you end up trying to explain that you don't realize understand yourself.

Love
Jess

Blog Envy

...OK, I just tried to put a pot of coffee in the fridge instead of the egg nog. Hmm. No blogging NOT under the influence.

I just started our family blog in a very non perfectionist way. I have been trying to hold special memories in my brain, rehearsing them so I don't forget but then more happen. Time marches on.

So, a blog sure does seem like a great easy way to capture those things I keep meaning to write in a baby book. Plus, I have total blog envy (and mild feelings of inadequacy :-) when I see the updates from you all, tracking even charted growth if your my bro in law :-)

I hope to go back and retroactive blog (is that allowed?) but for now, I took 2 minutes to capture the sweet memory that our baby baby girl just drove off facing forward in Addie's old car seat. Is blogging supposed to make you cry. Hmm. no fair :-)

For those interested, it's
http://johnsfamilyinannapolis.blogspot.com/

Love
Jess and family

Facing Forward

JC just got on the road to Lynnie's with Samantha FACING FORWARD! How did she grow so fast. She looked so excited to be part of the above-20-pound world, her little feet kicking like crazy cuz of the space and a huge grin on her face, aware that something was different-- getting to look ahead instead of behind. Now all we need is for her to start MOVING forward. :-)

Mama's girl

Miss Samantha is quite the little mama's girl and I"m going to soak it up as I know it will be short lived; I imagine there is an ever so slight connection to the whole nursing thing :-) Can't believe she will be one in less than a month and will start drinking milk of the moo moo kind.