For He's a Jolly Good Fellow!

 

 

Dinosaur Egg Hunt

Pin the Horn on the Triceratops

Digging for Fossils

Wa-wa!!!

The bounce house was destroyed by an earthshake, and a few dinosaurs.

cousinsCOUSINScousinsCousins!

These are Sam's cousins who introduce him to others as "the coolest kid EVER!" and ask questions like, "Can I see the door to your tummy, please?" or "Can I see how Sam eats a Happy Meal" These boys have a lot of fun together!

Hi Babble

Sam's introducing himself to the bunny.

Actually...  the rabbit's name is Mabel.  It's adorable when Sam says it though.  For more pictures of Mabel in action, check out this blog post by Maryn.

The Spiral Jetty

Promontory Point

The shore near the oil jetty

Nearby there were a couple dudes (who may or may not have been wearing clothes) taking pictures of each other in the water (not pictured).  That was pretty weird.

Salt

On the oil jetty with Drew and Andee.  Sam is trying to blind me.

Somewhere on this expedition I ripped a hole in the butt of my pants (not pictured)

So we spent a couple hours exploring the oil jetty, thinking we were on the spiral jetty, and that the spiral part was just submerged.  As we were getting ready to leave someone told us we should go check out the spiral jetty, since we'd driven all this way.  We felt pretty stupid when we realized we were only three minutes short of our destination.  When we saw the actual spiral jetty, we were pretty underwhelmed.  We decided to run out to explore it anyway, and I came within a foot of stepping on a rattlesnake, which gave me a good scare. 

Family Portrait Circa '11

Cystinosis Research Foundation 2011

Cystinosis Research Conference

Ashton went to a conference in Newport Beach, California back in May for the Cystinosis Research Foundation.  She was able to meet with lots of other children with cystinosis and their families, as well as hear the most up-to-date research from physicians, scientists and pharmaceutical companies.  Here are some photos:

This is Sam's new friend Tina Flerchinger.

This is Sam's buddy Hank, featured in this other post.

Animal Sounds

His rooster sounds a little constipated, and he still doesn't quite understand what a cat says, but his other sounds are pretty legitimate.  

In other news, Sam went to the doctor today, and he is now in the tenth percentile for his weight (woot woot!) and the third percentile for his height (finally on the chart!!).  We are elated.

Dinosaurs

Boys are from the Cretaceous and girls are from the Victorian. 

Yes and No

Sam knows his "yeahs" and "oohs" pretty well.

Zoo Zoo Zoo

Sam wanted to leave the bird show to go to the carousel.  Once he sets his mind to do something he is pretty tenacious.

As soon as the bird show was over Sam booked it for the carousel, not even minding the throngs of people racing back to their strollers.

Even though Sam was bent on riding on the carousel, he wouldn't get on without someone else.  Most of the ride he was trying to get me to take him off, except for the split second when we passed Ashton and he'd pause to wave at her.

Sam is mimicking the giraffes (not pictured)

Sam looking at the elephants. That strange tuft of hair on Sam's head is actually my hand.  Weird.

Here we are gazing into a perfectly good swimming pool that has been empty every time I come to the zoo.  It's like the elephants think they are too good for it.

This is, of course, a spider monkey.

1st Report Card

Over the past six months Sam has been working with some amazing therapists in order to get him caught up with other children his age. Due to his kidney damage and malnutrition he fell behind in several areas but is now catching up. He has a speech therapist, a swallowing therapist, and a physical therapist. Just recently he had an evaluation to tell us approximately where he is developmentally. There are six areas that the therapists observe - gross motor, fine motor, cognitive, language, self-help, and social/emotional. We are happy to report that he is caught us in almost all of these areas. We are still working with his gross motor skills (he's still new to walking) and his self-help skills, which entails speaking. He understands and communicates very well he just doesn't use his lips to do it. We feel no rush there. He will start when he is good and ready :)

Hooray!!!

Just one more week and Stephen is done with his first year of medical school!!! Sam can play with his dad all he wants! I'm going to take a nap.

Word... to your mammas

don't forget to get your mom a gift!!!