Archive for the ‘ Children ’ Category
Samuel decided he was old enough for a bed yesterday. He managed to climb out of his crib, open the door, walk downstairs and greet Joe when he was supposed to be napping. Samuel was extremely proud of himself and even more excited to get a bed that he can climb into. He sure is growing up quick!
Samuel's New Bed
Now that it has been almost 6 months, we hope that you had a great time adventuring with Samuel!
We had many questions about the adventure, but the biggest one was that people were having a hard time navigating through, so below is the entire list of videos that are available and the three different endings. Can you find all of them by going through the adventure? Enjoy!
All Videos:
P.S. Samuel is now 22 Months 
Samuel is now 20 Months old. Somehow this sounds so much older to me than 18 Months which is normally the big milestone. It feels like he is growing up so fast. I can’t believe the last update was 5 months ago and I’ll try to write down all of the changes that have happened since then. This is a really long post, so skip to the end with the photo album links if you are short on time.
Samuel has many more teeth. Once the bottom two came in at the same time, the top two came in a week later, and the ones on each side of the top two came in the next week. No new teeth since then, but he has the cutest toothy grin now.
He still loves to “read” books, except now he knows when they are upside down. He also loves to bring books over and sit in people’s laps so they will read to him. He will flip the pages and point to things waiting to be told what they are.
Samuel still loves to point to things and say “auh-auh?” but he does it all the time now. He loves seeing himself in pictures and especially on video chat. When he sees Joe or himself in the picture (and occasionally other men such as his grandpa and nonno) he will say “da-da”. When Joe comes home from work and I let Samuel know that Daddy has come home he runs over to the door and says “da-da” over and over. We’re still working on “ma-ma” but he will say it occasionally when he wants to go downstairs.
He has picked up on some other words as well. He can point out a ball and he will say “ball”. He loves to play with my bear from childhood called Barf Bear and calls it “baf bah”. If we ask him “Where is Barf Bear?” he will go find it in the room and bring it to us. He frequently will try to get in his car with Barf Bear.
Samuel loves to eat and is really great about communicating with us. When he is hungry he will put his hand to his mouth and say “foo”. When he is done he will say “aaaaaaahh duh” for all done, but sometimes he says this because he wants our food instead. Samuel graduated to a regular chair for eating. He’s actually sitting in the Father chair of our dining set since it has arms. We also boosted the height of the chair so that he can be at a good height with the table. He is eating off of plates now and we are working on bowls and utensils.
Samuel still loves other kids his age. Here are the photos from our Mommies’ Group Christmas time last year and this year.
This Year (2010):
Last Year (2009):
Samuel especially enjoys his friend Emily. Here they are playing together at the zoo:
Samuel also has some special people that he loves to see, and one of them is Laurie. He will frequently let go of my hand and run over to her to be picked up. Here is a picture where Laurie was already holding Emily and Samuel still wanted to be held:
Samuel continues to love sleep. He sleeps for at least 12 hours at night and 4 hours during the day spread across two naps normally. We think he has probably gotten rid of his third nap. Here is a picture of him asleep during our Gingerbread House Making Party where there were 40 people at our house. I miss being able to sleep like Samuel does.
Samuel also had his first haircut a few weeks ago at the same time as Joe. Samuel loved to watch Joe getting his haircut and stayed still the entire 15 minutes while they cut his hair because he was so fascinated with everything. Another benefit of having an inquisitive son. The before and after shots are below, but most of the hair was cut from the sides and back. There was maybe about 2 inches cut from the back.
Before:
After:
Samuel continues to run around and get into everything. We had a bit of a scare a few weeks ago when he got into some Asprin when Joe was going to the bathroom. Samuel turned out just fine, he was just a bit hyper that night. Samuel must have the genetics from my side that are resistant to pain medication. This is probably just the beginning with him and possible trips to the ER. He loves climbing onto things and especially into things.
He will frequently climb into something and then get stuck and cry. We keep telling him not to do it in the first place, but he loves it too much.
Joe is teaching Samuel all kinds of fun things. First he taught Samuel how to roll a car on the ground and then taught him how to place Legos on his Lego board. Samuel is really good at placing Legos on the board and can put them on there pretty quickly.
Samuel also loves playing hide and seek. He will often run down the hall and wait for you to find him. When he pokes his head out and you look at him he will squeal with delight and run back down the hall. He thinks that when he can’t see you that he is hidden. He will lay down on the floor or couch with his head down, hide in a blanket, or the tent.
Samuel will help out around the house. There are times when he will put away his toys and we are working on this happening all the time. His favorite thing is to put clean laundry into the hamper and “help” carry it to the bedroom. Next we will teach him to hang and fold clothing, but that will probably be for a while.
Samuel is a really tall kid and breaking the charts. He is now at the greater than 97th percentile for height which placed him at 35 inches when he was 18 Months and 20 days. His weight and head size is back to normal for him which is the 47th and 33rd percentiles respectively. It just means that he will be able to go on the rides at Disneyland sooner and outgrow clothing quicker.
We really love Samuel and enjoy all of the laughter that he brings to our life. Here are all of the photo albums that have been posted lately:
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
You have been chosen to embark on an Epic Adventure:
The Olsen Fam Christmas Card Adventure 2010
Click on the link above or click play on the video to start your adventuring!
Merry Christmas,
The Olsen Fam (Joe, Kristen & Samuel)
Note: Please adventure on a computer as mobile devices do not show YouTube annotations.
Meet our little Steve Jobs!
Samuel dressed up as one of our favorite CEOs, Steve Jobs, for Halloween; complete with black turtleneck, blue jeans, glasses, black socks, and white sneakers. He was quite the hit at both of our workplaces with people stopping to take pictures.
Our little Steve also had his very own iPhone that he was demoing.
This softie version is handmade from silk printable fabric, felt, glue, thread, foam, marker, and paint. The real iPhone 4 is on the right.
There are more pictures in the Halloween 2010 album. We had a fun time and we hope you all have a Happy Halloween!
Samuel had a big milestone month. Samuel finally has teeth!
They just started to come in a few weeks ago and are the two front bottom teeth. This is right on track with when I got my first teeth.
Samuel is really starting to enjoy “reading” books. He loves to pick up a book and point to the words with a bouncy inflection to his babble.
He can even “read” when the book is upside down!
Samuel loves to point at things and ask what they are. His way of asking is by saying “auh-auh?”
He has always been a very inquisitive child.
Samuel becomes elated and enamored when around other children. There have been several times when Samuel just laughs and giggles just at the sight of another toddler near him. Other times when we are in unfamiliar places with older children around he will just stand and stare in silence at them until we take him away.
Here he is at the park where he stood next to the swings for 30 minutes and refused to move. The children are across from him at another swing set.
We went out a few weeks ago with some of his friends and their Moms for the annual trip to Avila Barn. Here is a picture from last year:
Here is a picture from this year:
Samuel also learned how to climb up the stairs a few days ago and has started to wear pajamas and sleep with a normal blanket at night.
He continues to put his thumb in his mouth when he is tired.
We also went up to celebrate Samuel’s Great-Grandmother Thelma’s 90th Birthday (my Grandma) and Samuel got to play with a bunch of cousins his age. He especially loved to spend time with Jared:
Here is a picture of the whole family:
Our son Samuel is growing up so quickly and is becoming such a delightful toddler. More pictures are available in the new albums:
Samuel became a toddler this month by starting to take a few steps at the beginning of the month and by the end of the month is using walking as his main mode of transportation. Here is a video to introduce you to our new toddler:
Samuel also started to use his first word – “Wow!”. It is so cute how he lifts up his head when he says it, here is a video of all the ways he says it:
There are also all kinds of cute pictures in the bottom two photo albums, click on the photos to see all of them:
Since we love having parties at our place, we decided to have a big one for Samuel when he turned 1. We had a really great time with our friends and my parents, and Samuel enjoyed everything except for the Birthday song.
Everything was decorated with a Rainforest theme since those were his favorite kinds of toys. Our friends Laurie and Sandra made some beautiful artwork of animals commonly found in the Rainforest to hang on the wall. In the garage we had a bunch of tables with lilypads and frogs on them, foosball, DDR, and a toddler swing. In the living room was more seating and a slideshow of pictures of Samuel. At the dining table was a place for people to make books for Samuel and our friends made some really unique books for him. Outside was a wading pool, sprinkler, and a bunch of water toys.
For the food we had a bunch of sodas and chips. Joe made some wonderful Hamburgers, BBQ Chicken, and Portobello Mushrooms, and my Mom made some yummy cupcakes and Samuel’s cake.
Some of Samuel’s friends were there and we had a group shot with a few of them:
He and his friends also had fun playing in the water:
We got Samuel a push car for his Birthday, and he really loved it. His friend Lilly also enjoyed pushing him:
The day after on his actual Birthday, we let him open the presents:
Samuel may not be able to remember his 1st Birthday, but we sure will be able to remind him of the fun he had.
Samuel turned 13 Months today and he is learning new things all of the time and has been keeping us pretty busy. Soon there will be posts about the New York Trip, Samuel’s 1st Birthday, Samuel at 13 Months and more, but I’ve finally gotten around to posting all of the photos for the past two months. Here are the links to all of the new albums in date order. Enjoy!
Here’s one of the most recent pictures of Samuel so you can see how he’s becoming even more expressive:
P.S. There were a total of 250 photos uploaded, so might take you a while to go though them. It took me several hours to get it down to this amount too.
Date: 03/28/2012