Christmas and 15 months

I am a little late in posting about Christmas, but I guess better late than never.  We had a great family Christmas in Decatur.  We stayed at my parents house and my sister, Jennifer, and her family were also there.  My other sister, Michelle, lives in Decatur and she and her family came back in town on Christmas Eve.  It has become sort of a tradition to read the Christmas story by a grandchild.  My sisters and I use to take turns doing it at our grandparent's house and now our parents are continuing the tradition.  My niece Faith read it this year.  She is the oldest on my side and it's so funny to see how our family has changed in a year.  Christmas 2010 the only grandchildren were Faith, Brayden, and Samuel (who was only 2 months old).  In 2011 we added two more boys to the family and in 2012 we will be adding at least one more boy, WOW.  Lots of family growth over the last two years.  Anyhow, I had a point with all that and it is that our family is growing and it is so much fun to be around.  Christmas was a blast and I am kind of sad because I know in a few years, we will be making some of our own family traditions and we won't at my parents for the entire Christmas holidays.  Sam had a great time being the oldest toddler boy.  My nephews Riley (10 months) and Parker (6 months) were fun for Sam to play with.

We also hung out with Paul's family and they had a lot of family growth too.  There were also 3 boys born within about 16 months of one another.  His brother, Nick, and his family were in town from California.  While at his sister's, Autumn, we tried to get a boy picture with 4 boys in monkey hats and and well let's just say it was quite the site for 4 kids to sit still with ages ranging 4 to 2 months.

Here are a few pictures from Christmas.  I did a horrible job taking any family pictures but I plan to work on that over the 2012.

Sam's Favorite Christmas present

On January 11th, Sam turned 15 months.  I am happy to report that he finally started walking on his own.  He started about 14 1/2 months with a few steps and now is walking exclusively.  My back thanks him very much for deciding to do it on his own.  He still has about 10 words in his vocabulary but repeats things a good bit.  He can use a fork and spoon pretty well but still likes his fingers too (this is usually after he gets tired of using an utensil.  He weighs 23lbs 6 oz and was I believe 31 inches.  He still has small feet (still wearing size 3 shoes) and 18 month clothes.  He loves milk and pretty much drinks it exclusively.  His favorite foods are spaghetti, raisins, bananas, and anything sweet.

Here is a picture of Sam from last week helping me clean, we lost a few rolls of toilet paper and well we gained a lot of germs.

I think that is all the update for today.  I hope you enjoyed.