When the walls come tumblin down!

Well now that the holidays are over, the tree and ornaments are put away, the exterior lights are down and the family has been visited, its project time. We are taking on perhaps our biggest project yet, outside of traveling to Russia twice last year to pick up a certain someone. Our house is known as ad Arts & Crafts style Craftsman. This was a popular house in the 30's and Sears actually sold this style house at one time. We love our house very much and it lets us do projects on it without much hassle. To date we have completely renovated the kitchen, as well as the upstairs bathroom. We have refinished the floors in the bedrooms and the sunroom. We have replaced the windows in the sunroom and done some minor renovations in the mudroom. Our last project took us outside to the garage and patio area where we resided the garage, replaced doors and windows, and moved the brick patio. So, what is this new project you ask? We are taking down the load bearing wall that separates the living room and the dining room. The finished project will have built in bookcases with seating on top where the walls once stood. This will give the house a new look on the inside and open it right up. At this point we have removed all the drywall and lathe and are looking at wall studs. Here are some shots of the action. Sam is doing great!

Fortunate Son

The tree has been shook! The good thing about this Christmas is that Sam does not know its Christmas. Sounds funny, but as many times as we told him that Santa was coming and bringing gifts, he really did not comprehend it. Not to say that the boy does not enjoy opening gifts! So, Christmas morning for us started around 7 AM when Sam got out of bed. Mommy and Grammie were waiting downstairs with baited breath for his arrival, and he made em wait. The first thing he ran for when he got downstairs was .....a cup. He was really excited about the cup too. He eventually warmed up and got into almost everything. He has to take all the paper off the gift before he says "wow". We opened everything and played with it all. He really loves the kitchen set that Santa brought and as soon as he figures out how to steer the Jeep, he will be big time. The little guy is really tuckered by this season as he has taken to sleeping in until 8 and taking 3+ hour naps. We are heading to Louisville this weekend to see Pop Pop and Grammy Re. Merry Christmas!

Dont look at my bum

This is Auntie Em and her new boots, I have removed the unauthorized portion of the photo....

Party at the Peters

Yes, yes tis the season. We just got back from a weekend excursion to Michigan to celebrate Christmas with Cheri's family. We flew up on Friday morning and Uncle Robbie and GrandPa picked us up at Flint International. The flight was uneventful as Sam is as Sam is a seasoned traveler and enjoys flying. There was little traffic at the airport and nobody at security when we left on Friday. On Saturday, all of Cheri's cousins, uncles and aunts came over for a family Christmas dinner and gift exchange. Sam had a great time playing with his cousins Andrew and Ryan all weekend long. Sam got a WHOLE bunch of gifts up there, his favorite part of opening the gifts was making sure every single piece of wrapping paper was off the box. His favorite part of the whole weekend was singing the ABC's at the top of his lungs at 6 AM both days. This made Auntie Em really happy. All in all we had a great time and it was great to see everyone up there. Merry Christmas.

Christmas Party!

Last night was our annual Christmas party. We have been doing this event since we got married 6 years ago. It is always a fun event and the invite list grows each year. Last year we started the tradition of inviting the kids and having Santa show up for a bit. Santa is a great sport and nobody has any clue it is the same guy they were just enjoying meatballs and crackers with. I am going to play Santa at Sam's holiday party on Thursday, should be fun. Anyway, this is always a hectic week for Cheri as she goes into max party planning mode. One of Sam and my responsibilities was to make the sugar cookies for the party. So on Thursday I made the dough when I got home and Sam and I made the cookies after dinner. He had the best time spreading the flour out on the counter and decorating the cookies with sprinkles. He kept chanting eat, eat throughout the whole process. Cheri did a great job with the party and everyone had a great time as usual. On a side note, my fantasy football team, the Amish Rake Fighters put up a great fight but will probably be bounced from the playoffs a week too soon. Thanks for listening.

Yet another singing video

Do you know that Sam loves to sing? Well he does! He has a wide range in his vocal ability, and has several tunes in his head. You should see him on the piano, its pretty cool. He can set up all the beats and tracks by himself and rock out. He also discovered a new trick, which you can see at the end of this video. He is quite the acrobat...only 11 more shopping days.

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Ho Ho Ho

Sam is really picking up on who Santa is and anytime he sees anything that resembles santa, he says Ho Ho Ho in his little voice. Today we took some Christmas photos in front of the tree and we actually got him to pose, which is tough to do. We also went over and played with Aidan and Evan during the football game. He is doing so good, in fact we missed his 6 month anniversary home with us. He loves school so much and even better, they love him. His speech is getting better and his therapist is working on pronouncing words correctly. He might as well be the posterchild for potty training. After graduating from Co Co's potty training bootcamp he has not looked back. We put a rubber sheet on his bed a week ago and he has not even tinkled a little bit. He is so casual about it all. He still loves his Mommy very much and if he could be surgically attached, he would.