Sam is talking up a storm these days. Here’s a small sampling of some of his favorite phrases:

• “Take it off!” – Repeated in tommy-gun fashion when he wants some item of clothing removed (shirt, shoes, pants, etc.)
• “Get out!” – Repeated in tommy-gun fashion when you are sitting or laying down and he does not want you resting on your laurels.
• “Tunnel!” – Repeated in tommy-gun fashion when he wants you to use your hand to simulate a tunnel so he can push his trains through it.
• “Cereal bar!” – Repeated in tommy-gun fashion (seeing a pattern here?) usually in the car when he wants a….. cereal bar!
• “I like it” – Self explanatory, but this one is a little more rare than the others.
• “Jam!” – Sam has developed strong opinions about what kind of sandwiches he’ll eat.  Hummus sandwiches and Jam sandwiches are two favorites.
• “What happened?” – This usually comes after he’s smashed, banged, or thrown something.  Usually with a tone of innocence.
• “Hold you” – When he wants you to hold him.

Aside from these 2 to 3 word phrases that he’s constantly using, he’s actually starting to string together more complicated sentences as well.  For example he’ll look at his Elmo sippy cup and proclaim that “Elmo is holding a two!” (which, in case you’re wondering, is quite accurate.)

He’s also taken a keen interest in what kinds of cars everyone drives.  We’re constantly pretty amazed that every time he sees a car that is the same make/model as one that some member of the family drives, he’ll enthusiastically identify it as “Grandma car!” or “Mama car!” even if it’s a different color than the one he knows.

On to the photos.  We took a short trip to Santa Cruz and while we were walking around on the Boardwalk, we hopped into a photo booth at the video arcade.  After scanning the two strips, here’s what we ended up with. Sam is wearing his shades that we bought him so he would stop demanding (and breaking) ours.

Here are a few other highlights from the Santa Cruz trip.

Sam trying out his new shades:

Sam having his very first ice cream cone!

We took sam to a play-place called Studio Grow:

Sam & mom after swimming:

A few shots of Sam & dad in the playroom:

Sam absolutely loves his cars:

A few miscellaneous shots:

Sam went to a birthday party for a friend of his at a man-made lake in Walnut Creek and had a great time:

And last but not least, here’s Sam showing his patriotic pride on the 4th of July, holding hands with a neighbor of ours.

Here are a few Picasaweb albums with more photos to go along with the events shown above. Just hit the play button on any of them to start viewing.

Santa Cruz:







4th of July parade in our neighborhood:







Nathan’s birthday party at the lake in Walnut Creek, CA:

It’s been a long time since the last post, and that’s mainly due to our recent move from our place in San Francisco to Walnut Creek in the East Bay. Now that we’re finally getting settled in, we’ve had some opportunities for photo-taking.

These first couple of photos are from a while back when Brad, Julie, and Max were visiting for the holidays last December. Sam & Max took a bath together, and they had all kinds of fun.

As you’ll see later on in the photos, Sam’s hair is much longer now than it was when this photo below was taken.

Sam napping with his bear that he loves to pieces. Soon we’ll need to start grooming a backup bear — this one has had a pretty hard life so far, what with being dragged around everywhere he goes and having random bits of food pushed into his face when Sam tries to feed him.

I took this photo mainly to chronicle the increasingly curly hair that Sam is growing in the back of his head. We can’t really get enough of the curls.

And this one is mainly to highlight the amazingly long eyelashes this boy has.

Sam’s toothy smile, hamming it up for the camera. When he sees me setting up for a photo, he now excitedly screams “camera!”. We’ll see how long that lasts.

More happy Sam, making my job easy behind the camera.

The confusion you see on Sam’s face is from seeing my arm stretching with the camera to try to get us both in the photo. I was only partially successful, as you can see.

This is Sam’s new igloo tent that he loves to hang out in and read books whenever he sees fit.

One of Sam’s new passions — playing with Play Doh!

Did I say ‘playing’? I meant ‘eating’. I had to stop him from taking a huge bite out of it right after this photo.

Happy eating Cheerios, as always.

A rare shot of Sam & Dad having some lunch at a cafe. Michelle did the honors on this one.

We were at the Lindsay Wildlife museum which had a little fake child-sized house, so this is Sam peering over the edge of the white picket fence (looking at a stuffed baby deer).

Swings! He loves the swings.

Crawling through a big plastic tube at the park.

Action shot down the slide!

Another one of Sam’s new passions (obsessions?) – drinking from water fountains. Thirst is irrelevant. If he sees one, he must drink.

We went to Easter brunch with some good friends of ours, and this was Sam’s outfit for the day. We were surprised that he didn’t give us much trouble when dressing him – we had prepared ourselves for a big battle.

Sam riding his Radio Flyer trike that he loves.

Lately he loves running around the house after bath time with his towel “cape”. It’s like a daily ritual that goes something like this: Mom/Dad pull Sam out of the bath tub, Sam screams “cape!” and hangs his towel over his head, and runs out the door before we have the chance to dress him.

One of the few times that Sam stayed perfectly still for the camera.

When we put Sam on the bouncy cow structure at the park, Sam, unprompted, started singing “Old MacDonald” while bouncing back and forth.

Sam takes a short breather away from the sun inside one of the play structures at the park.

It’s been a big month for Sam. He set foot on snow (Lake Tahoe) for the first time, and he started going to daycare a few days a week toting his very own lunchbox.



But first, SNOW! We start by gearing up in the back of the car with his friend Kai…

The first sledding run didn’t go so well… both Sam and mom got splashed in the face by snow at pretty high speed which led to a temporarily unhappy Sammy.

Mom doing some consoling while Sam recovers…








Almost back to normal…








Here’s Sam, flanked on either side by his sledding companions








Sam and mom, happy again after their traumatic ride








A rare shot of the three of us








Also rare, a shot of Sam and dad.








A brief respite, enjoying the whitewashed view.








Hanging out with his good buddy Kai (don’t be alarmed – we didn’t send them down the hill alone, this is purely a photo-op)








The last of the snow shots.








It didn’t take long for Sam to realize that he loves french fries.








Back at home, I managed to grab a shot of him smiling into the camera (he now points and screams “ca-meh-ra” when he sees me aiming my camera at him.)








He loves his trains…








…almost as much as he loves his books.








But let’s not forget Elmo.














Last but not least: Sam’s first day at daycare, carrying his lunch box!

He’s definitely been practicing his cranky faces.

But he’s mostly a cheerful, happy boy…

who loves playing with his socks more than wearing them.

He loves to bring you things he finds on the floor (in this case, a leaf)…

He had all kinds of fun at his cousin Drew’s birthday party:

We went to the San Francisco zoo, and Sam ended up being one of the main attractions for some of the tourists:

A few closeups…

Here’s Sam, dancing a little softshoe on command.

(if you can’t view the video in your email program, just click here instead:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjpnqjVL1LA)

One of the problems with being the primary photo-taker of the family is that we inevitably end up with thousands of photos of Sam & mom together, but not many with dad. So we thought we’d try an experiment and trade photo sessions with another family. We ended up being first, and the photos you see below were taken by our friend Alex Benn, with some added post-processing done by me. We’re extremely happy to have some pictures of all three of us to celebrate and remember this time in Sam’s life.

P.S. You’ll notice a recurring theme throughout these photos: Sam’s snack-trap filled with Cheerios that he never leaves home without, and always has in hand. Only a crazy person would attempt to pry it from his hands.

It’s been a long time since the last update, and the biggest news since then is that Sam has turned one year old.  He’s walking everywhere now, and even has a handful of words he likes to say.  His vocabulary consists of “ball” (when he sees a ball or anything circular really), “lamomo” when he sees his lawnmower toy, and “bye”, “dog”, “mama”, “da” (for dada), and “car”.

As anyone with small children knows, this is what happens when you let them go wild in the bathroom:





…and of course the inevitable paper stuck on foot

I love this series of mom & Sam:























A few more miscellaneous shots…

And as a little bonus, here are some photos that I’ve been taking lately with the camera on my iPhone, which I’ve been enjoying using:

Sorry for the short post this time.  The past few weeks have been hectic.  More soon…

Sam is nearing 9 months now, and he’s crawling like a madman.  He also has two bottom teeth coming in (which, if you look closely, you can see them in the first photo below).

Sam’s toybox seemed like a great place to hang out for a while.

“Aerial” view of Sam’s play area.  I stood on a stool and held the tripod as high as I could and used the remote trigger to take the shot.

Sam is a voracious “reater” these days.  :)

Sam and dad sharing a quiet moment.  The reason it’s quiet is because Sam is busy chewing on the zipper of my jacket.







These are some family shots we took with the tripod and remote trigger, since it’s rare that all 3 of us appear in photos.