Reese is 2!!

Wow! How can it be that the baby of our family is 2!?!?

When I think about Reese and look back at the last 2 years and really almost 3 years, the one word that inevitably comes to mind about her, is SURPRISE!

I think almost anyone who reads this blog, knows that learning we were having Reese was an unexpected, yet truly amazing surprise we received in Feb of 2007. You see, we had just had a baby...who was barely out of the newborn stage.

Pictured below is the lovely Ava, just barely 4 months when we discovered our next bundle of joy was coming!


We spent the next 8 1/2 months planning for the addition of another baby. Reese's due date was Oct. 16, just 2 days before Ava's 1 yr bday. It was around midnight, the morning of Oct. 4, when I decided my sister better come over and stay with Ava, b/c SURPRISE Reese was making her appearance 2 weeks early. We welcomed her to our family at 11:59 am on Oct. 4, 2007.


Here's a picture of Reese on her 1st bday last year. Ava started walking right around her 1 yr. bday, so I just assumed Reese would do the same. Surprise, this girl was not walking until 15 months!


Here she is today celebrating her abbreviated bday. The real deal bday party is next weekend.



Everyday, Reese continually surprises us with all of the things she says and does, and of course the many faces she makes!

Reese you truly are a one of a kind! We love you so much! Happy birthday sweet baby girl!

Lake Geneva

At the end of August we traveled to Lake Geneva with Nana and Papa Birky for an end of summer trip! Lake Geneva is Seth's new favorite hang out. If he has his way we will be going there every year!

We stayed at the Timber Ridge Lodge which has an indoor waterpark. I think it's safe to say the girls got over there large indoor waterpark phobia and had a blast! We don't have a lot of pictures, but by the end of the weekend both girls were going down the toddler waterslides as fast as they could and face first!! I was asked to edit what I posted on here, so I can't show proof, but even Nana went down the waterslide more times than I could count!! The girls loved it!

I took some artistic liberties with this collage that just look wrong, but it's taken me almost 2 months to get these up here, so I'm just going with it!

We also spent some time on Lake Geneva. This was the girls first experience on a boat. Although it was windy, a little rainy and FREEZING, they enjoyed themselves. As long as i kept the snacks coming we were in great shape....and then the snacks ran out....and the life jacket finally proved to be too much for little Reese and the last 15 minutes were spent hightailing it as fast as we could to the dock, so Reese could get that thing off as fast as possible!

We played lots of games in the arcade too. I think everyone had a good time earning their tickets for prizes! The girls redeemed their tickets for candy bracelets and real bangle bracelets.

Nana and Papa were such great sports! We all had so much fun, and hope to do it again!

This is what happens when daddy's in charge....

Blow-up mattress in the living room, dinner in front of the TV and pretty much anything else you want to do that maybe you shouldn't be doing! :-) Well, with that going on I'm free to load my pics to the computer and work on the blog. I guess I should be thanking daddy!?!?

I know, I know.....

I'm back to that place where loading my pictures to the computer seems like some terrible chore, and if I don't have pictures then I can't blog...in my mind at least!!

I have a much over do post about our fun mini-vaca to Lake Geneva and our trip to Tanners. That's about as many pictures as we've taken over the last couple of months.

We are about to embark on our busy month, Oct! Reese turns 2, Abby Cadabby makes a visit (the girls bday party), Ava turns 3, and then it's Halloween!!

In other news, Ava is pretty much potty trained, yay! And Reese's update....let's see....I'm guessing if we really worked with her she could be potty trained too, but I'm just not ready to go there yet. Hey, when you've been living and buying diapers for 2 for the last 2 years, what's the rush right??? :-)

That's my update for now, more to come...

Jacob Beauties

I recently had the girls pictures taken at Roots Photography here in Bloomington. They did such a great job and few of the pics are posted on their blog.

These pictures made me realize that somehow we blinked and they're not babies anymore they're little girls! Ok, even though we have a lot of daily emotional melt-downs, I still think I'm ok if time slowed down just a little bit!

Dells 'cation!

Friends and Family,
Brace yourself....I've learned how to make collages and I have not held back, yes I'm going over the top with them! And I'm also some technical difficulties, but with 2 girls pulling on me to go, I don't have much time to work on it, so I'm just throwing it out there as is!

I'm finally able to take a minute and blog about the 'cation (Ava's word for vacation) we took a few weeks ago. The Samford/Jacob/Davis families blew into the Dells and I'm not sure any of us have totally recovered yet. It was 100% chaos 100% of the time, but we look back on it with great memories of our 1st trip with the girls and little Jaxon! :-)

We stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge. Thanks to Ryan we got the best unit in the place, so we all had plenty of space (especially when others needed a little break from the Jacob girls!). Ryan and Nicole have Jaxon who is 5 months, so you might think having a baby there would be a little much at times. Ummm, no! I don't think I heard our little Jaxon make a peep the entire time! He's just the "little angel" of the family. That's for you Aunt Cole!


















Thankfully, grandpa brought his camera and captured all of these photos for us! Here's what happens when you hang out with grandpa on the balcony without mommy. I couldn't breath for a couple of seconds when I saw the pictures of the girls hanging on the balcony railing!! Thanks Dad!

Here's the montage of our water park shots. The girls really weren't too into the water, they wouldn't even go down any of the little slides, but they did warm up to the wave pool.

Some hanging out in the room time in the room.

And our last stop the deer park. I've never seen Ava feed an animal and I thought this place might put over the top, but she completely surprised me and didn't mind hundreds of deer hanging out with us.

Thank you to my mom and dad for a great trip! The twist of having 3 kids under the age of 2 brought a whole new dynamic to the Samford family trips!!

Reese's 1st Pony!

Ava was practically born with a pony tail in, in fact when the nurses took her into the nursery after she was born to get cleaned up, she came back to me with a little little pony and pink bow.

Reese on the other hand has never been bald, but her hair didn't seem to want to grow. This summer though she's growing it out and we even got it into a pony. FINALLY! :-) Of course I think she's one of the 2 cutest pony tail girls!

Wisc. Dells pics to come...