Easter Egg Hunt at church

Yesterday was our Easter Egg Hunt at church. Our nephew, Maddox, spent the day with us at church and joined our boys on the Easter Egg Hunt. They had a great time! And we enjoyed being with them!

Here are Maddox and Hudson on the hunt...


... little man, Cade, did pretty well hunting himself!


Uncle Howie/Daddy tried to help them look for more.


Even the Easter Bunny showed up at the hunt!


Maddox was the only one of the three, though, who would actually get close. Isn't this a sweet picture?!

This is the closest I could get to all three looking & smiling! ha!
HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!

Our little man...

Cade is our "little man". He seems to be in such a transition phase right now between "baby boy" and "big boy". He's physically grown a lot
since his birthday in November, and a lot has happened to him, too (bless his heart).
His intial move to a big boy bed was very smooth. After being so sick, though, and taking such crazy meds, he has thrived on getting out of his bed REPETITIVELY after he was laid down. (I'm talking sometimes an hour to make sure he stayed in the bed. Talk about exhaustion on the parents' end!) He's coming off a good week, though. I'm very proud of him. Four nights in a row staying in bed and one naptime staying in bed is awesome!
We're hoping this trend continues!
He's not too interested in using the potty yet, but will on occassion. (Potty training has not been an issue I've been willing to tackle until the bed issues were resolved.) I think as the weather gets warmer,
we'll be able to focus more on this.
Cade is our Jekyll & Hyde baby. He can be so sensitive & so rough, and so sweet & so ugly sometimes... He can turn on a dime!
His speech and vocabulary have always been good, but lately, he's begun resorting back to "baby-talk" more often. Sometimes I don't think he's sure he wants to grow up! (That's OK, little man, sometimes Mommy's not sure either!) He has said some really cute things this week...
1) Cade was with me at an appointment this week and we were reading one of his tractor books. A farmer is mentioned in it, so I asked him if he knew a farmer. He said NO. I said sure you do! He said NO. I said Papa is a farmer. He said NO HE'S NOT and laughed. I replied yes he is. Again he laughed and added, PAPA'S NOT A FARMER. HE'S A PAPA. (sweet boy)
2) Cade is a big singer. Sometimes he talks himself to sleep, but most of the time he sings. Tonight he went to bed singing to a familiar tune, "Mommy & Daddy, they love me, they love me, they love me... Mommy, Daddy, love me, love me, love me." Yes, we do, little man... yes, we do.

Mia's Birthday

On Saturday, our niece MIA had her 3rd birthday party! She and her family came in from Gallatin to visit and celebrate her birthday... and we are so glad they did! Everyone had a wonderful time! We went bowling. How fun! I think it was the first time bowling for several of the kids. Mia had her turn at bowling, but preferred the other games. Maddox and Hudson split their time pretty evenly between bowling and the games. Cade bowled most of the time, but discovered the basketball game toward the end of the party. Even babies Eli and Wesley had a good time! (They are such sweet, growing boys!) We had pizza, and cake, and presents... who could ask for more?! I wish I had pictures to show from the party, but, unfortunately, my brain was not working that morning and I forgot my camera! Yikes! I did go back and find some older pictures of the birthday-girl to share, though...

Baby Mia (5/06)


Mia's 1st birthday (3/07)


Mia's birthday #2 (3/08)


Mia at Christmas '08... And she was actually wearing this raincoat on her 3rd birthday in 3/09!

HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY, MIA!!! We are so glad we got to celebrate with you!

Brooks' Birthday

On Saturday, we celebrated our nephew's birthday. Brooks turned two-years-old this weekend, and hosted an awesome birthday party! One of those inflatable places came & set up a jumping area with a slide for the kids. They had a blast! It was the perfect birthday party for Brooks. He loved jumping! They really didn't want to stop to eat, but they were ready for cake & ice cream!

Here's the birthday boy checking out his cake. He just wanted the train off the top!

Yuuuummmy!

Mmmm, mmmm... that's good stuff!

Dig in, everybody!

Thanks Uncle Ru-Ru and Aunt Sa-Sa for such a good time!

May all your birthday wishes come true, Brooks! We love you!

Double Birthday Wishes

This weekend, Howie and I BOTH celebrated our birthdays! Yes, I said both. We share a birthday. How cool is that?! Hudson went to one set of grandparents, and Cade went to the other, so Howie and I had some quality time to ourselves. (Thanks, grandparents!) Ahhh... It was very nice. We spent the day out Saturday... shopping around (can't "browse" with the boys!), grabbed some ice cream (and didn't have to share! ha!), went to a movie, had a peaceful dinner... very nice. We were happy to see the boys again on Sunday, though. :)

I had to go back to October to find a picture of just the two of us. I was surprised when I found this one! Funny how after you have kids, the pictures of the two of you seem to disappear. I'll have to get Hudson to take a few... ha!

Thanks, everyone, for all the birthday wishes!!!

Weekend Report

What a super-nice weather weekend! Makes you wish spring was already here! A few more days of nice weather, though, and then the temperatures are supposed to fall again. Oh, well... we plan to enjoy it while it lasts! The boys have loved being outside in the warm weather - riding bikes, playing ball, you name it. Howie & I have enjoyed being outside, and watching them, too.

A rare picture of me & the boys taken in Feb. at a show.

Hudson had a playdate on Saturday with his friend, Cam. They seemed to have an awesome time together! I hope they can get together to play more. (For pictures, visit "The Sampson Den" blog.)

Cade had a wild weekend. ha! After a successful surgery last week, we were hoping he was on the road to health. After only a short week, though, we hit a roadblock. A runny & stuffy nose has led to breathing treatments, AND he's had STREP! That medicine threw him for a loop - literally! He's feeling better, though, and we're hoping all those crazy meds will be out of his system very soon!

Our sweet, little nephew, Wesley, has been very sick this weekend. Unfortunately, he had to be hospitalized on Saturday with a nasty staph infection. He's being well taken care of, though, and we hope they are able to come home very, very soon.

Wesley back in Dec. with the boys.

Uncle Grumpy, Aunt Sweetie, Mia, and Eli were in town for a quick visit. Unfortunately, though, we never actually got to see them - planned to, but just didn't all work out... too much sickness and too much going on. We'll have to spend extra time with them next time!

So... parts of the weekend were great, and parts not so great. We'll take the good with the bad, though, and keep trudging on. :)

"Snow" much fun!!!

Saturday & Sunday - the last day of February and the first day of March - we had a super-duper snow!!! It's the most snow I can remember seeing in Tennessee for a very long time. We all had lots of fun playing the pretty, white snow. Take a look!

Hudson absolutely loves the snow! He could play in it all day.

Cade enjoyed the snow a lot at first, but on Sunday, the depth of the snow proved a little challenging for him!

Here are my 3 favorite fellas in the snow. You can see how much it was snowing on Saturday evening.

Here's our front yard flag. The L picture is Saturday evening, the R is Sunday morning!

Our house Sunday morning.

Howie measuring the snow. We had 13" in the front yard!

Sledding with our neighbors, C & S.

They built 2 snowmen - one in C & S's yard, and an extra large one in our yard!

Daisy-girl loved romping around in the snow, but she was a "pooped puppy dog" that night!

Nothing like a warm bath to end a day playing in snow! We made some snow cream after supper, too, and it was delicious! Cade ate 2 bowls! We sure hope we get a nice snow like this next winter! :)