The latest in the holiday shirts series. Let me know if you want one!
Football Gear for Babies and Kids!
Here are the latest onesies and t-shirts from my etsy shop (sizes 3m-5T).
For your little cheerleader (personalized in your favorite team’s colors):
For your little quarterback (personalized in your favorite team’s colors):
For any football fan:
Please pass this along to anyone you think might be interested! You can contact me directly if you’d like to place an order, or you can go through etsy (bythemillers.etsy.com). I know football season is already in full swing so I am trying to fill these orders as quickly as possible!
Happy Friday
This video just makes me smile. We miss our GA family!!
Cousins
Poor Sam. He only has 2 cousins. I have 11! Auntie Nikki probably isn’t having any more kids, and I doubt that Auntie Becca is going to have 9 children. So Sam is really going to have to make the most out of the cousins he’s got. The good news is that the cousins he does have are pretty great!
Sam had so much fun getting to know his cousins Asa and Ella when we were in Georgia last week. After he forgave them for dropping a lamp on his head (juuust kidding!), they really got along great. I wish we’d taken more pictures, but, wow! It is hard keeping up with three kids.
Ella showed Sam how to use all the cool toys. (I apologize. I can’t explain why Sam never has pants on in pictures lately. If it makes you feel better, he always wears pants when we go out!)
Both Ella and Sam just LOVE Asa. Asa kept coming up to Sam and saying “Hiya, Sam!” in his cheesiest voice. Sam loved it!
Ella and Sam looking at the “bahs.”
Our attempt to get three kids to pose for a silly picture.
Ella hitches a ride on Sam’s stroller (this is seconds before he started swatting at her head to get her out of there!).
What a pair!
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s “Happy Friday” post for the cutest cousin dance party video ever.
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s a “bah!”
When Grandma Judi was visiting for Sam’s birthday, she came in one day from taking a walk with Sam to tell me that he had just identified some birds. She said that as some birds flew overhead, Sam waved his hand at them and said, “bah! bah!”
I was pretty surprised since until this point he had never identified anything. He just kind of babbled, sometimes happening on real words like mama or dada. But sure enough, the next time we were outside, a bird flew overhead, Sam looked right at it, and said “bah!” Ben and I were so excited.
We also noticed that Sam had generalized bird to include planes and helicopters. Yeah, Sam, that’s an airplane-bird!
In Atlanta, we went to the zoo and Sam almost short-circuited saying “bah” so many times. There were a lot of birds. Here he is with Dad showing us a bird (off screen).
Lately, Sam has started saying “bah” for almost everything he wants to draw our attention to, not just birds and other flying things. We try to encourage him by saying things like, “that’s right, there’s a a dog” or “yeah, you see a fan.” Occasionally he changes from “bah” to ” dah” or “fah” with these prompts, but not usually.
It is so fun to see Sam start to develop his language!
Sam’s first trip to the ER
This was obviously one “first” that we were not looking forward to. On our recent trip to Atlanta, we went up to Lake Hartwell to my sister’s family’s lake house.
On Sunday, Sam was walking around the house and pulled a big brass lamp onto his head. It cut a gash in his forehead which bled like crazy. It scared us to death but we were able to stop the bleeding with some paper towels. Sam was still upset and the wound looked pretty bad, so we went ahead and took Sam into the ER.
The place was empty–we were literally the only patients there at 11 a.m.– so we had the attention of the entire staff. Sam had calmed down and was no longer crying by the time we arrived at the hospital. The doctor looked at his wound and said he needed to use glue on it.
This required Sam to be pinned down for several minutes by me, Ben, and several nurses while the doctor applied this medical super glue to close up the gash on Sam’s forehead. Sam screamed, but I think this was just because he hated being pinned down.
After it was over Sam was much happier, albeit a little worn down. Here are some pics of our brave little guy. And don’t worry, the rest of the trip was MUCH better (more on that to come)!
Sam’s First Birthday Party
On Sunday, we celebrated Sam’s first birthday! Most of his playgroup buddies were there, as were some of our friends who have know him his whole life! To celebrate our San Antonio heritage, we decided to have a Fiesta themed birthday party. We decorated the house with adorable papel picado made just for Sam by Marley Diehl, a family friend.
For food, we did tacos. Unfortunately, we didn’t have Taco C tortillas. However, we did discover that the so-so Mexican place down the hill from us actually has delicious, fresh tortillas that you can order by the dozen!
For the adults, we had a Chelada bar where you could make your own Chelada (beer, lime juice, and a salted rim). Actually, the babies seemed to like those, too.
And of course we had cupcakes for everyone, especially Sam! He loved his first taste of sugary cake and icing. And he also loved the fuss everyone made over him while he ate it.
Here are a few pics from the day.
Taco time!
Friends playing outside.
Sam’s friend Evelyn with her daddy.
Our mirror, the most popular toy in the house.
Sam’s first cupcake!
Parting gifts for the guests: maracas with “lucha libre” style tags designed by Ben.
I’m pretty sure Sam is saying, “Thanks for coming everyone! I had a great time. And don’t worry, Mom has Windex.”
Happy First Birthday, Sam!!
It is almost impossible to believe that a year ago today Ben and I were in a hospital room, exhausted, with a little, newborn, baby boy who we hardly even knew! Wow how things can change in a year! This is a big post, and I don’t want to leave anything out, so I am going to go by the sub-headings in my American Academy of Pediatrics book on development at age 1!
By the way, we had a birthday party for Sam on Sunday. I didn’t get a chance to blog about it before today, so I will do a separate post about it tomorrow.
Physical Appearance and Growth:
Weight: 24 lbs 10 oz (75%)
Height: 31.5″ (90%)
Cheeks: quite plump
Hair: not much
Overall appearance: handsome
Movement:
*Walks alone! In case you didn’t see the video last Friday. Sam has moved past cruising and is now a walking machine. He can walk for long stretches–the length of our house at least! His newest trick is clapping while walking. He has not figured out how to stand up on his own yet. Instead, he crawls over to the nearest sturdy object–the wall, the couch, my leg–and uses that to pull himself up.
*Stands on his tiptoes. Sam is always trying to get a better view. This involves anything from slouching down low in his highchair to see under the table, leaning dangerously far out of dad’s arms to see behind him, or standing on his tippy toes to see out the window or into the mirror.
Hand and Finger Skills:
*Throws everything. Sam’s favorite activity right now is to throw toys, food, phones, whatever he can get his hands on. He basically plays fetch by himself. Apparently this is a developmental milestone for age 1!
*Reads books with us. Sam loves to turn the pages of the books we’re reading, usually at a much faster rate than we can read! He likes books like “Pat the Bunny” that have an interactive component.
Language:
*Developing his receptive language. I can tell that he understands more and more of what we’re saying. For example, if I say “Do you want some water?,” he will go get his water bottle. If I say “Sam, come here,” he will look at me, smile, and then run in the opposite direction.
*Babbles all the time. Sam likes to talk in sentences. Those sentences just don’t happen to have any words in them, but the inflection is very realistic.
*May be saying some words? It is hard to say, but we think he might say some words and actually mean them. Today when I got in the car, he said mama! (He was waiting in the car with his grandma). Of course, he also says “mamamama” throughout the day, regardless of my appearance. He also says dodo when looking at Henry sometimes, which could be dog. Or it could just be a sound he makes. It is hard to know. I should probably teach him how to point!
Social:
*Loves to get the attention of big kids and adults. He mainly does this by walking up to them, smiling, swatting at them or something they are holding, and screaming. It’s hard to resist.
*Wants to be in on the joke. Sam is constantly laughing when anyone else laughs around him. This often happens when we are out at the store and people near us are having a funny conversation. It always seems kind of sad because he starts laughing and they usually don’t notice. But it never seems to bother him!
*Plays with friends. He has started playing with his friends at playgroup. They mainly take toys from each other, but occasionally they share them!
Emotional:
*Sam has started throwing little mini tantrums when he doesn’t get his way. They are pretty hilarious though because it is SO easy to distract him that he will go from tantrum to laughter in 5 seconds.
*Very independent. Sam loves to play by himself and is great and finding ways to entertain himself.
*He gets sad if mom or dad leave but he doesn’t have much separation anxiety at this point.
Eating/Sleeping:
*Eats most adult food. He is a good eater still but has recently boycotted Greek yogurt. I must have overdone it!
*Sleeps 11-12 hours at night at 2.5-3.5 hours during the day depending on if he has one or two naps. Lately it has been two.
Sam, you are the best baby we could have hoped for. This has been the most exhausting and the most exciting year of our lives. We are looking forward to many more exciting years to come. We love you more than we can ever say!
–Your Mommy and Daddy
Happy Friday!
Somebody’s walking!
The Kyllonen Clan
While I’m on the subject of trips we took weeks ago but am just now writing about…
In August, Sam, Ben, and I went to Minnesota to visit the Kyllonens. We got to see my Grandma Trish and Grandpa Chuck, as well as most of my cousins, aunts, and uncles. My dad, sister, brother in law, niece, and nephew also flew to Minnesota so it was really a great big family reunion! It was Sam’s first trip to Minnesota, and first time meeting many of his relatives on this side of the family. We had a great time!
Sam getting ready to take off (he did pretty well this trip!)
Sam with his Great-Grandpa Chuck
Nikki and me
Nikki and me with our cousins. (And now you know why Sam is always in the 90th percentile for height!)
Dad, Aunt Peggy, Uncle Mike, Uncle Brian, Grandpa Chuck
