Happy Friday and gesundheit!

Sam saw 4 of his 5 grandparents last week! My mom and Jerry took care of him while we were in NYC. Then Judi came to stay for a few days after we got back. And on the day she left, my dad came in town for a meeting! No wonder Sam’s been acting so spoiled (juuust kidding!).

Grandma Judi definitely got the best deal though, because she got to enjoy some unseasonably warm days here.

Here are some pictures of Sam with his Grandma Judi at the park.

He had fun climbing in and out of the fire engine,

pointing out all of the ahp-nahs (airplanes),

and chasing after the squirrels yelling, “no, no, no!”

Ben and I both celebrated our 30th birthday this year!

I haven’t been doing much blogging, so I didn’t write about it, but I thought it was at least worth mentioning. Here we are on Ben’s birthday (we didn’t take a single picture on my birthday!).

(dinner at Restaurant Eve)

(drinks at PX)

Our 5th anniversary is also this spring so we are planning on taking a vacation (without Sam) to celebrate all three big events in April! I’m sure I’ll have plenty of pics to post then!

Sorry for the lack of blog posts lately. I’ll be playing catchup for the next few days…

Last weekend Ben and I took the train up to NYC for his cousin Whitney’s wedding. Ben’s parents and sister flew out from CA for the big party. The wedding was beautiful! They held it at the Tribeca Rooftop which was this cool enclosed area on the top of a tall building. The views were spectacular and the food was amazing! Here we are living it up (me, Ben, Rebecca).

Due to a late night disturbance at our hotel on Friday night (a women staying on our floor came home at 4 a.m. shouting “It’s my BIRFDAY!” among other colorful phrases. Security was called.), Ben and I were bumped to the honeymoon suite! Here’s a pic we snapped as we were leaving Sunday morning:

And don’t worry, Sam was in good hands. My mom and Jerry flew out from TX for the weekend just to take care of him. He had a great time and learned two new words/phrases: “outside” and “oh boy!”

Guest post by Ben: Turns out stay-at-home parenting is tricky. Who knew? For example, recording Sam playing with blocks without letting him steal the camera? Caitlin makes it look easy, but the kid’s got a quick first step and a long reach.

This might be the last video we’re able to post, so I hope you like it.

(Kidding, Caitlin! The camera’s totally mostly not even a little bit broken. Who said anything about broken?)

We got another big snow on Wednesday. Unfortunately it hit right around rush hour which wreaked havoc on commuters. Even though he left early, it took Ben THREE HOURS to get home. And Ben’s cousin Lani, whose flight was scheduled to arrive that afternoon, arrived a day late. But after the storm was over, we all had fun in the snow!

Sam is not so sure about his snow boots–they must be hard to walk in– so he basically just stood in one spot (made for great pictures, though!).

Here is Sam helping Dad clean off the sidewalks.

The shovel is too unwieldy. Better to just use your hands.

And here he is modeling his new hat (a gift from cousin Lani).

He refused to wear his mittens.

Don’t worry, we didn’t let him eat the yellow snow.

I think Sam has a future as a basketball star. He certainly has the genes for it. He is consistently in the 90-99 percentile range for height and at least half of my cousins have played college ball. Plus, I can totally see Ben turning into a young Bobby Knight at future AAU basketball tournaments.

Here he is doing some squats to work on his ups:

And practicing his pull ups to work on his upper body strength:

And, of course, working on his handle:

He’s got the faces down. This is his game face:

And this is his Derek Fisher face:

This morning my dad called to deliver the news that my grandma, his mom, had passed away. My grandma was an amazing woman and I am going to miss her so much. She was a great grandma.

This week Sam has been all about the babbling. He has a running narration of everything he does, but he is the only one that knows what he’s saying. Here’s a little example:

Happy MLK Day! This morning at breakfast Ben played the “I Have a Dream” speech and as you can see, Sam was riveted.

But in all seriousness, I love this holiday. These are the times I really miss teaching because teaching first graders about Martin Luther King is really one of the best ways to honor the holiday. I can’t wait until Sam is a little bit older so he can learn about one of our greatest heroes.