Stephen Sampler

I have been having a hard time keeping up with my little guy lately. I am not sure if it is him being more active and requiring more work or if I am just slowing down due to my increasing size... Probably it is a combination of the two. I find myself exhausted half way through the day and wondering how I will ever handle a two year old and a newborn at the same time! I am sure that somehow we will make it work - people do it all the time - right??

These pictures were taken when Stephen came down with some weird rash two weeks ago - the doctor said it was Scarlett Fever -??? He took antibiotics and after the rash turned his skin into sandpaper it is finally starting to clear up. He looked awful for several days though - his face was all puffy and red. He never had any other weird symptoms except for a slight fever one night.

Stephen has been doing very well with potty training. He has many days without any accidents and is getting better and better at actually telling us when he needs to go. He loves getting stickers on his chart and m&ms. He gets really excited about the prizes he earns - the favorite rewards include trips to the park, Matchbox cars, movies, Wendy's for dinner, and the latest - bubble bath. (I realized that we have never bought real bubble bath and filled the tub up with bubbles for him - it was a BIG hit!)

Here is Stephen chillin' with some of his potty training prize cars.

Nursery is still really fun for Stephen. He can hardly wait until Sacrament meeting is over to go to nursery. When we sing a rest hymn it really confuses him and he thinks that the next speaker is saying the closing prayer. He always is happy to go and start playing and sometimes isn't ready to go home when we come to pick him up. One week I showed up and they hadn't done the bubbles yet so he told me "no mommy! go away!" I wasn't offended - bubbles are pretty special!

These pictures are from a fun party we went to at our friends' house a week ago. They had a pinata and as you can see, Stephen was a big fan of it! My favorite picture is where he is stuffing his pockets with candy. Yes, I still need to figure out how to make these pictures turn the right way!