Hi everyone!  Just a quick note to say that we're going to start placing Samuel Thanh's pictures in quarterly batches.  Don't worry, we still will take tons of pictures but instead of having a zillion and one galleries to go through, you will have about four a year.  Check out the new arrangement!

In Samuel Thanh news, he surprised us the other day by sounding out "slide" and spelling "Jeff" (his favorite person outside mommy, daddy, ba ngoai and di Michelle).  Did we mention his love of Jeff?  It was a hoot to see him sound out the letters then spell it out with his alphabet magnet.  :)

Samuel Thanh is almost 2.5 years old!  We have had a busy few months!  Here is a quick recap of what our little family has been up to so far:

•  in March 2007 we took a family trip to Europe.  After much passport hassle (Samuel's passport was lost in the mail, which we found out the day we were suppose to fly out) we were able to leave for our trip.  We visited London, took the chunnel train to Paris, then rented a car and visited Normandy and the French countryside.  Beautiful and fun!  Samuel is a great traveller and had so much fun visiting with his Parisian relatives.
• in April 2007 he had his second birthday!  Can you believe it's been two years already?
• in June 2007 he attended the commencement ceremony for Di Michelle's graduation from the UW Jackson School of Business
• at the end of June 2007 right before the fourth of July we took our first family camping trip to Moran State Park on Orcas Island.  Samuel had so much fun, he loved camping and was a great little hiker

He loves the english alphabet and can recognize almost all the letters and tell you what sounds they make.  He can count to 20 in vietnamese and to 6 in English (to 10 with help).  He's talking more and more these days, although he's not a chatterbox by any means! 

Samuel Thanh's second birthday is almost here!  Where did the time go?  In the last month he's grown a little taller, and his feet are a little bigger.  Some of his favorite things to do lately is pick out what clothes to wear (he particularly loves his orange hat), and putting on his own shoes.   In other news we got Samuel Thanh's first professional haircut, at the barber shop that dad also goes to.  After 15 minutes of pure screaming, 2 different haircutters, and two stressed out parents, he finally got his little curls chopped off and now looks like a big boy!

We leave next week for a two week trip to Europe, and we'll have lots of pictures to share when we get back!  Until then enjoy the new pictures posted and the videos we have of our little guy.  :)

Hello everyone!  Samuel Thanh is growing and learning so quickly these days.  He started talking in sentences last week, with his first sentence being "throw ball", followed by "I love mom".  He also says "thank you" and "you're welcome" consistently.  He also learned to jump with both feet, but half of the time he still lands on his butt.  He is very close to doing a forward somersault on his own, and keeps trying to figure out how to do a handstand against the wall like mom.  Also, when you tell him "say cheese" he will go "CHEESE" and give the camera a goofy grin.  He is still shy around strangers, and often still takes an hour to warm up to a room.  But once he warms up, look out!  The boy never stops moving and shaking.

He finally has all of his teeth in, except for his two year molars.  He didn't really like playing with the snow that we had last month and this month, but he does still enjoy playing outside at every opportunity.  He loves slides, drumming, and walking around with his hands in his pockets.  We hope to take him on a couple of trips in the near future - europe this spring, and Kansas this summer to visit relatives.  That should be entertaining to say the least!  :)

Video of Samuel helping Todd wash the car!   Check out how much he mimics his dad - when dad stands up, so does Samuel.  When dad crouches down, so does Samuel!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_bth-1p_lw

Also, bonus video of Samuel playing chess with dad!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7778613221249110761

Samuel Thanh is almost 15.5 months old.  Todd and I can't believe where the time has gone.  Our little baby has definately run full stream into toddlerhood.  We had his 15 month appointment today, and he's looking great (still 40% for weight, and dropped slightly to 65% for height).  He's tracking for all his cognitive, physical, social, and emotional developments and his doctor isn't worried about anything at all.  He's a very healthy little boy!

Some of his favorite things lately are:  playing outside, playing ball, kicking ball, playing with cars, picking blueberries and blackberries off the vine, feeding his parents, and basically making our life a joy.  He's such an observant and awesome little guy!  His newest thing is saying "please" when he wants something.  So adorable!

His vocabulary has skyrocked in the past three months.  He has a repetoire of 40 signs he can make (and a lot more he understands).  He also says around 30 english words, and 10 vietnamese words.

Signs: dog, cat, lion, gorilla, sheep, fish, bird, butterfly, elephant, bunny, eat, milk, all done, please, water, boat, car, hot, bath, bye, toilet, hat, ball, baby, bib, cereal, cookie, more, airplane, light, change (diaper), stars, up, music, book, flower, socks, shoes, telephone, balloon.

English: dad, mom, ball, dog, boat, duck, bird, bat, mine, hi, bye, night, brown bear, gorilla, please, me, bib, meat, 'mo (Elmo), book, lion, bee, beep, 'raffe (giraffe), broom, knee, bubbles, cookie, tickle, box. 

Vietnamese: ba, con meo, mu, bong, nuoc, ca, may bay, con bo, be, den