The Big One Oh

Where has by baby boy gone?!  Here's what our ten-month-old Sam is up to:

• Absolutely loves his cousins (Kage and Dray, specifically - pulling their hair and eating their watches, especially
• His cheesy full gum + two teeth smile melts me
• And now that he's got three more teeth on the top (!!!), that snaggle-tooth smile melts me, too!
• He never stops moving! - church is extra hard these days since he doesn't want to sit on our laps and when we set him down to crawl he is a huge distraction for the primary kids we teach
• Big time charmer/flirt - we witnessed this in a big way with the sister missionaries and other teenagers behind us on both flights to and from Portland; he will smile and then put head down in bashful sort of way and look up at you through his long, lush lashes.
• He's started to give high fives (when he feels like it)
• He crawled up the stairs on the deck (and then has not repeated the feat, though he did it easy as pie.  Normally, when confronted with stairs to climb up, he'll stand there and lift one leg like he's going to put it on the step, and then he'll lower it back to standing again.  Rinse and repeat.  But going nowhere.)
• Can open the cupboard doors (the garbage can is no longer safe!)
• I love his little Mowgli crawl on tile, grass - and he's fast! (There are two video links there, so don't miss 'em!)
• He can stand up against anything and everything (and even without holding on to anything in the middle of the floor)
• He's started cruising along the couch, coffee table, seats in library and he's getting a little daring now trying to transfer between things, too
• He was cutting four top teeth (three are in, one is still coming) at once on the top = disastrous sleeping for all involved.  Side note: the middle ones were not first to cut through, it was the ones next to the middles.  Currently his teeth go like this: side, middle, gap, side.
• Loves to eat anything we give him
• Started copying sounds we make: singing, screeching, patting the table
• Tries to sing - and it's the cutest thing you've ever heard.
• Peek-a-boo can always get a smile from him, even when he's the most grumpy/tired/teething
• Will take some steps while holding my hands
• Discovered how to get sips of water from his sippy cup
• LOVES playing ball/catch with himself or others
• Finally will sit somewhat still for a short story - he's always loved to pull them off the shelf and open them and turn the pages and eat them, but he hasn't always been great about sitting to listen to the words.
• He's smiley and happy (minus the teething week) and has such a fun little personality that is just brimming out of his little body.

And yes, I did take a few bazillion pictures.  Glad you asked!

It's hard to get a holding still pic these days
so I'm learning to embrace the blur.

Busy, busy, busy.

Don't mind Cal's bedhead (this wasn't her photo shoot, obviously)
but she wanted a pic and Sam adores her and this snap shows
that, I think.

There's that standing action - last month
I had to put him in standing position for a
pic.  This month? He does it all the time!

And again.

Nothing is safe anymore!

Watch Samuel grow: 9 months | 8 months | 7 months | 6 months | 
5 months | 4 months | 3 months | 2 months | birth