Samuel Sleeps and Benjamin Naps! woo hoo

Lately I cannot even believe how much Samuel looks like Don. He just gives me some looks that some days I feel like I'm truly looking at a mini version of Don.

Plus the fact that anyone that knows Don says he looks just like his Daddy! Today at church, one lady said "When you miss Don all you have to do is look at him and you can see Don".

Well, Samuel finally slept through the night last night. I wasn't sure this day would ever come again. Thank goodness it did. Benjamin woke up at 5:30 a.m. which I attribute to the time change. And Samuel slept until around 7 a.m. He slept about 12 hours straight. phew.

Samuel has two bottom teeth poking through (FINALLY!!!). They are just barely through the gums but they are definitely there. Hopefully this sleeping through the night again is here to stay.


Thanks to the time change we were all set for church early today. Samuel wore the sweater that his Great Aunt Shirley Kemple made and sent him when he was born. She does an awesome job and putting him in it this morning reminded me of the beautiful sweaters she used to knit and send me for my dolls when I was a kid. (I guess that was just practice for the real world! Who knew?) It's an adorable sweater and fits perfect so thank you again Aunt Shirley!

We had a nice morning at Sunday school and church. Benjamin has been attending Children's Church during the morning service and really seems to be enjoying it. It is geared for kids that are at least 4 years old but somehow he's graduated out of the nursery early. Today when I went to get him he was very busy decorating a shoe box that will be sent to a needy child through the Samaritans Purse Operation Christmas Child which is an program our church participates in every year. Our family will be filling two shoe boxes this year... one from Benjamin and one from Samuel.

The highlight of our day was that Benjamin finally took a nap for me today! We have been talking about it since yesterday and he knew the inevitable was coming. But today he didn't fight it one bit. He stayed in his bed and I was thrilled. Just when I was feeling like I was getting a few things accomplished Samuel started fussing. He napped at church but besides that he fought the idea of napping all day. He went to bed exhausted at around 7 p.m. And it was a struggle to keep him going that long. Hopefully he won't be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow. We shall see.

I did manage to get some Christmas presents wrapped and am feeling pretty good about getting some of that accomplished.

We didn't get our weekly phone call from Don this weekend. I kind of anticipated that due to the fact that he is traveling within Iraq this week. But it's a bummer nonetheless. His calls are like taking a happy pill once a week. I don't know how else to explain it. I guess I just feel re-energized to some extent after we talk.

Only a matter of a couple of weeks and he will be here with us!