The Quirin Clan

Busy Busy Busy…. life is spinning by quickly and I have had no motivation to update the site.  So I’ll try to summarize two REALLY long months into one brief post.  Sam has been to about 8 hockey games now.  She LOVES hockey!  She can recognize the NHL logo, and knows all of the music cues at the game.  She loves yelling “Lets go Blues!” and doing her powerplay dance.  She also likes to root for the Penguins, “Yay Penguins!”, when Daddy watches the Pens games. We spent a TON of October with our friends from story time at Barnes and Noble, Atalie and William.  Sam and William became good friends…. he was her first little boyfriend!  We went to the zoo once a week, and they passed the time playing together, pointing to animals, holding hands, and even kissing!  So cute.  They moved to Cleveland on Halloween, so it has been a lonely November without them here.  Sam got a big girl twin sized bed on October 11.  Has been a good thing, but recent night terrors and teething have been causing her to climb out of bed at night looking for Mommy.  Though the little monkey that she is makes me think she would be getting out, or injured, in a crib and she grew to HATE her toddler bed.  Mck Homecoming and Fall Family Weekend were great for Sam this year.  She loved watching the parade and collecting the candy and beads that were thrown from the floats.  She catches on to things so quickly. Sam was a Honey Bee for Halloween.  She had a custom tutu outfit from our friend Shannon (www.crossinmyheart.com) and was too cute for words!  We did Boo at the Zoo for trick-or-treating, and then went to story time and the Blues game on Halloween.  November has flown by in a flurry of getting ready for Christmas, teething, and family stuff.  Sam LOVED Thanksgiving- I think turkey is her new favorite food.  I can’t believe that she is almost 21 months old!  She is getting better with her ABCs and counting to 10.  She loves singing Twinkle Twinkle and yelling “Oh Man!” at Dora.  We constantly have Dora, Nemo, or Madagascar (Lion, Zebra) on in our house because she asks for them all of the time.  She is getting better with names- Jeff’s dad is Pa Pa Pie, and she recognizes people in pictures.  I think the worst thing about her growing up is that she knows so much and is starting to get attitude and understand what she is doing.  Pretty soon it will be time for Christmas…. Sam is ready.  She knows who Santa is and that he says “ho ho ho.”  She also loves our outdoor lights and the “moman” (Snowman).  Can’t believe how big our little girl is getting.

We took Sam to her first Blues game this week!  She is seriously becoming obsessed with Hockey.  It doesn’t help that we took her to a practice & scrimmage game, then all three home preseason games and Fanfest.  Anytime she sees anything hockey related now she yells “hockey” and she can say “Go Blues.”  It’s adorable.  She does pretty well at the games, too.  She hasn’t kicked anyone or thrown a tantrum. For the most part she just claps, dances, and yells YAY! at appropriate times.  She got up on the big screen dancing at the first game and got to high five Kariya at Fanfest.  Looks like our girl is going to be a big hockey fan just like her daddy!

This summer has been absolutely nuts! We’ve been keeping Sam entertained by running her around everywhere.  We took her to the clubhouse for the 4th of July, made several trips to the Zoo, took her to the new City Garden in St. Louis, went swimming, took her peach and apple picking, played at Grandma & Grandpa’s houses, took her to her first Cardinals game, and went to see Disney on Ice.

Our little girl is getting big!  Her 18 month check up put her at 32 1/2″ tall and 26 1/2 lbs!  She climbs all over everything, runs and dances everywhere, and can count to 10 and say her ABCs up to the letter “I.”  She’s OBSESSED with Dora and Hockey… and she makes me laugh every day.  Enjoy a backlog of photos- I’ve just been too busy to keep up with it all!

Thursday we went on a playdate with Shannon and Alyssa.  We went cruising through the mall, and then headed to Barnes and Noble for storytime.  Samantha was, as usual, animated at story time.  There was one boy in particular that caught her eye and she insisted on singing to him.  The girls had fun making 4th of July crafts.  Had lunch and went home… Sam crashed and I decided to clean.  Jeff made it home LATE Thursday night…. Sam was really happy to see him when she woke up on Friday morning!  They spent the day together while mommy had some time to herself.  Sam got some pretty fun stuff from New York!  Daddy and Grandma brought her back an M&M cup with a twisty straw, a sparkly NY shirt, some coloring books, M&M stickers with her name on them, a Dora Potty book that flushes, and a Wonder Pets book.  She LOVES the Dora book…. I’m sick of it already!  Very glad that things are back to business as usual!

Sam and I went to the Zoo with Melissa today.  We went early, which ended up being a good thing because it got crowded!  Sam first suggested we go see the frogs by pointing to the sign and yelling “frog.”  She liked those a lot.  Then we took her to the Children’s Zoo… she giggled at the otters and lemurs, got excited about the porcupine, and ran around some.  They had guinea pigs out to pet, but Sam yanked her hand away and pretty much screamed.  She did, however, really want to pet the snake…. what a weird kid.  From there we headed to see the apes.  Went to River’s Edge for the first time in a while.  Sam told us that parrots say cock-a-doodle-do!  We got to see the baby elephants, and the hippos…. but the hippos were sleeping in a big pile and then one pooed so we decided to leave.  From there we checked out the giraffes and decided to hop on the train.  Sam is so funny on the train!  She says hi to everyone around her… poor boy that ended up in front of us halfway through the trip was a good sport considering that Sam wouldn’t leave him alone…. at all!  She makes the funniest faces in the tunnels and I can’t help but capture them to share.  She gets so bored when the train stops, but when it starts again it makes it all better.  She got a new stuffed frog- I was going to get a back up penguin, in purple this time, but she REALLY loved the frog so we got him instead.  Tomorrow we are off to storytime and hanging out with Shannon and Alyssa… should round out our great “vacation” week while Jeff was gone!

Today Sam and I headed out to Waterloo to play with Sydney and Liz.  What a wonderful afternoon!  We took the girls on a walk to the park and they both played their hearts out on the playground… just not together.  It’s so funny to watch kids that young play similarly to each other, but not really with each other.  Sam had fun climbing the playground stairs and burying herself in mulch.  Both girls played with their mommies’ water bottles, because having their own juice cups just wasn’t enough.  Funniest moment of my day: Sam fell asleep with a chicken nugget in her hand/mouth in the car.  I would have stopped to take a pic, but we were driving on 255…. not a good place to pull over!  Sam has a whopper of a bruise on her face- watch for it in the Zoo pics tomorrow.  She was getting ready for her bath with Grandma and she slipped.  She was apparently watching the water fill and kept standing on her toes, which made her fall.  Smacked her right cheek on the outside of the tub.  Mom said she wailed… poor thing.  When I was getting her final diaper changed before bed I noticed that not only was her cheek swollen, but so is her right eye.  Poor little girl has a nice shiner.  Oh well, crap happens!  We’ll still have fun tomorrow!

Yesterday, Sam went to the Science Center with Amber and I.  She loved it!  I know she didn’t get as much out of it as an older kid would have, but she had fun exploring everything that she could get her hands on.  We went to the Ends of the Earth exhibit to learn about penguins and polar bears.  She LOVED the giant polar bear and the penguin slide!  She also got to hear what sounds penguins make, and size her self up to these chilly creatures.  Unlike most normal kids her age (can’t ever be like other kids), Sam LOVED the huge animatronic dinos!  She was a little leery of TRex growling until I told her that he was hungry, but then she nodded and said hi to him.  What a goof!  She was the only kid waving to the dinos…. She explored most of the exhibits in the Science Center, but especially liked the tornado, driving some kind of construction demo, and a swing seat scale.  We “met” Sue the TRex… Sam thought she was pretty neat.  She got to “dig” for bones… that was the highlight of the exhibit for her.  Then she ran through the exhibit squealing and making a weird face…. it scared some 6 year old girl.  I heard the girl telling her friend “She scares me!  Did you see her face while she was running??” as she ran quickly away from Sam.  Oh my strange child.  Overall, a great day out.  Hopefully this is something Sam will continue to enjoy.

Jeff left this morning for New York City!  Sam and I have a BUSY week planned!  Today, we have plans to go to the Science Center with Amber.  Tomorrow, we are headed out to Waterloo to play with Liz and Sydney.  Wednesday, we are off to the Zoo with Melissa.  Thursday, we have story time and lunch with Grandma.  To top it off, we may hang out with Greg or Aunt Missy sometime this week.  I plan on taking lots of pictures.  Since wer’re “home alone” expect daily posts highlighting each activity…. I’m sure I’ll be looking for something to do after she goes to sleep!  Keep your fingers crossed that I wear her out so much that she is too tired at night to realize that Daddy is not home to put her to sleep and that she is ok with Mommy doing the evening activites in the house.  Ready or not, my week has started.

My mom and I took Sam to the Magic House in St. Louis yesterday for the first time.  She had a BLAST!  She couldn’t seem to focus because of all the stuff she wanted to do.  She played in the kids area, went down slides, crawled through tunnels, cooked at a kitchen, drove a car, boat, and bus, played with balls held up by air, made her hair stand on end with static, played with bubbles, and learned about magnets.  She was independent the entire time we were there; she didn’t want to be held, helped, or carried.  I had her dressed in a cute outfit with her new shoes.  BAD IDEA!  Poor thing came home with multiple blisters that popped; both feet are completely raw.  Ouch.  She slept the whole way home.  After her bath we had to do some blister-therapy involving neosporin and tall socks.  She looked goofy, but she kept her socks on!  Definitely a trip we’ll have to repeat… and take Daddy with us next time!

Sam is 15 months old now!  At her appointment, she was 24 1/4 lbs and 31 1/4 inches.  Great height and weight… not too chunky even though she LOVES to eat!!  The doctor said that average vocabulary should be 3-5 words at her age, and she is WAY ahead of the curve with a whopping 42 word vocabulary.  Her favorite words right now are cup, cool, hi, and dog.  She can name frogs, dogs, pick out ducks, fish, hippo, and she can moo, cock-a-doodle-do, bark, and meow.  Our little girl LOVES to be read to- she is already memorizing books and imitates how we read them to her.  She loves to watch Dora, Diego, and the Wonder Pets… she usually sits or stands in her basket in front of the tv.  Meal times are messy, but she eats a TON of foods!  Not really a picky eater at our house!  We play outside as much as the weather allows, go to story time, go on family bike rides, and now we are playing in the pool in the front yard.  Jeff is going to NYC with his mom and his brother in a week, so Sam and I have lots of fun stuff planned.  More pics and updates on that to come soon!