9 months...

Month #9 gets a post all of it's own, basically because I could stare at his photos all day long. Samuel can make you smile with ease. He is so happy. He laughter is the most precious thing you have ever heard. He loves being outside. He loves swinging, riding behind my bicycle in the cart, going in the stroller, and hiking / walking in the backpack. However, his most favorite thing to do is to be pulled in the wagon. At 9 months he has 8 teeth, he is 22 pounds, and 30.3 inches. He's in the 99% for height. He's wearing 18 month clothes and a size 4 shoe. Did I mention he's huge?! You know how people say, "he's all boy?" I hear that and say, "okay... whatever that means." Now I know what that means. Example: He wants to play in the toilet water, chew on plugs and cords, eat books, crawl up the stairs, climb on the gate, eat the grass (and anything else in reach, really) , and then have two jars of food for dinner! He's so busy. But it is also good entertainment for Madison. :-)
Sadly, for a kid who loves to be outside, he also has terrible allergies and eczema. Some days his poor little face is so chapped that you just know it is sore. All that slobber dripping down his chin definitely does not help the problem!

Here is Samuel at 9 months:

 

and then his happened...

 

(please note the continued smile - I did say that he smiles ALL the time!)

Samuel had crawled into the bathroom where big sister was, because besides adoring Madison, he loves the bathroom for some weird reason! She was standing on her two tier step stool washing her hands, he pulled up on it to see her and we didn't know that he had pushed in too far until it was too late. His eye caught the corner of the step stool. The scream was unlike anything I have ever heard and my heart panicked. The blood just poured down his eye and face. I was able to stop the bleeding, call Jason and get him into our doctor, who said they could do stitches in the office. He didn't end up needing stitches because it took a chunk out rather than splitting open. The hole was rather large so it got some liquid covering and bandaged up. Mama said it 's because he's a "Vaughan boy." Both Jason and Uncle Justin had stitches and have scars on their heads from when they were young.   I really did feel so sorry for him. The last 3 months have been so hard on him health wise and then he now has a busted eye. I couldn't help but feel guilty. Luckily, no one blamed me since I was the one home with him (By the way... thanks for that Jason! :-) ) I was really worried about the scar, but then after a week of keeping it clean, dry and covered, he still looked pretty cute. I decided  I had to document 9 months again, the way he really looked later that month! :-0

It turns out these are my favorite photos yet. In true Samuel form,  he's all about loving the camera!

Happy, laughing, and smiling the entire time!

This boy is amazing and what a blessing he has been to our family. We are all a little bit more crazier since his arrival, but really the nuttiness makes sense in our house! You probably wouldn't want to have dinner with us or anything like that. Yeah, somehow we are that crazy family.... :-)

 

 

 

Little Mister Man...

Samuel is a little "big" man these days. No seriously - he's big. He's kind of huge, actually. A sweet little old man at church was holding him and referred to him as a "tank" and it kind of stuck with us. He is indeed a tank and he'll roll right through you or anything else in his path. However, he is the sweetest, most precious little guy you may ever come across.
At 6 months he has the fastest army crawl you have ever seen. It's not a real crawl yet,  but he can definitely get anywhere he wants!
Here he is a 6 months...

 

He has this smile that never quits. He even smiles when he cries and its hilarious. His laughter is more like a high pitched cackle and he just squeals! He really has just been such a fantastic baby #2. To all those people who said that baby #2 was going to be so hard and that you don't get two good babies - you're wrong. We lucked out! :-)

 

At seven months he is busy, busy. He has that perfect crawling form. All at the same time, he got up on all fours, took off towards the bathroom, climbed on the step stool and started to open the cabinets. Totally serious. Jason and I just looked at each other and said, "holy crap."  He also has a mouth full of teeth and slobbers on everything all the time! We are having trouble keeping him clothed warmly in the winter because he's busting out of everything very quickly.

Here is Samuel at 7 months:

 

At 8 months Samuel is go, go , going with no breaks. I basically just follow him around. He does not sit still. He pulls up and cruises around anything and everything. He wants to be vertical so badly! He's pulled many a toy on top of himself in month #8. i.e- Madison play kitchen and tool set. The first few times it happened he cried hysterically. The next few, he continued to chew on whatever toy it was that he was reaching for that made the toy fall on him in the first place and waited for us to fix it. He's a mess. A fabulous mess indeed. He puts everything in his mouth, which has actually been scary a few times with sister loving crafts and stickers. My heart has panicked on more than one occasion with this boy!

 

Here is our little big man at 8 months:

(And really - cant you just see all his happiness in those big blue eyes?! They just shine!)

In months 6, 7, 8 Samuel was in the ER / Hospital twice for croup / stridor and he also had RSV and pneumonia. It was a super hard winter for us. He handled it like a rock star. He is amazing, I tell ya!