Samuel - 3.5 years

Some things I don't want to forget about Sam at 3.5 years old....
- Loves to play church. ALL. DAY. LONG. He opens the hymnal, sings a song, preaches, plays his "cello," then each of his cars takes their turn at the pulpit. Mommy is usually in the nursery taking care of Emma and the other babies. There are a lot of rules in this church and it's not open to everyone (a.k.a. Emma), but we are working on that.

- He also loves to play football. Every day he changes his clothes several times (If I will allow it), so he can have a different football number on his shirt. It is Mommy or Papa's job to be the "talker about football" and give the play by play of the game.
- He also gives the play by play of Emma's actions, "Emma's drinking her juice." "Emma needs you." "Emma's crying!" "Emma's not supposed to do that." "Emma's walking all by herself!" Love to hear Samuel rejoice when she develops new skills!
- We are assigned a number every day and when we call him, "Samuel" he corrects us and asks that we call him by his number. He asks very politely though.
- We are working on writing letters and numbers. Numbers are his favorite (of course). He is definitely improving and becoming more legible. He recognizes when they don't look right and often tries to fix it.
- We are also working on recognizing beginning sounds of words and he frequently asks me to "smell" (spell) words for him.
- He has such a tender heart. I left the kids with Papa a few nights ago and Emma started crying the second I walked out the door. Samuel put his arm around her and said while fighting back tears himself, "It's okay Emma, Mommy will be back soon." So sweet!
- He's probably ready to give up the nap, but I'm not willing to do that yet. He still sleeps great at nap time (2-4 or later) and actually puts himself down when he's tired. But, at night, he lies awake till 10:30 or later every night and he's up before 7 in the mornings. He is sooo grouchy if he doesn't sleep though, so I'm not messing with it for now. I enjoy nap time too much anyway. :)

I borrowed a friends camera lens the other day (50mm f/1.4 for those who are interested) and decided it would be a good opportunity to take some 3.5 year pictures of Samuel. I've got to say, I love this lens! There are more pictures on my photography blog.