Birthdays, Bicycles and Buns

It's been a fun couple of weeks in the Lamas household! We've had a lot going on - well, for us, anyway hahaha. Bad news first: we had yet ANOTHER hit and run with the mini!! The universe just doesn't want us to sell this car, I guess. Paul was driving home from work after a 14 hour shift, and early morning traffic drove him to take the frontage road home, which has a lot of hills in it. He passed an Astro van that was going slower than the speed limit, but just a normal pass - nothing crazy and no cut-offs. On the other side of the hill, Paul sees the van barreling down the hill doing what he estimated to be about 85mph, coming right up on him. There was a stop light coming up so he couldn't do much, and the van came right up on his bumper, then swerved into the lane to the right. He looked right at Paul, then steered his van into Paul's car. Luckily they were significantly slowed by that time, for the red light, and Paul went into the left turn lane when he realized what was happening. Then the guy went into the right turn lane and took off! Paul chased him down and got next to him right before the freeway onramp and, um, somehow persuaded him to pull over. :) Anyway, Paul wasn't hurt and the damage to our car wasn't very bad, but it was a crazy situation. Here's some pics - now we just need to jack up one more fender and our car will match!

The 7th was Aidan's 7th birthday, it was so fun! Sarah's been trying for weeks to get him to commit to staying 6 for another year, but in the end he just didn't like her that much, I guess. :) Here he is, totally excited about the present his dad got him - can you tell?

Check out this cake that Sarah made - SO cute!! I can never compete with her culinary genius.

Next we had Sammy's friend Eli's first birthday. I was lame and forgot the camera for the party, but here are some cute pictures of the big guy from the week before.

I made this gift box for his present and really liked it, so while I was at it I made one for our friends' new arrival, too! What do you think?

Paul said he wanted a bike for Father's Day so he can bike around with Sammy and me. I went with him to a few stores and got an idea of what he wanted, then put a deposit down on the sly at a shop that gives a great police discount in Paul's area. Of course, then Paul became obsessed with the bike idea and began calling everyone on Craig's list and dragging me to every bike shop in the LA area. I gave every excuse in the book to him for each bike he got excited about, but after about 2 weeks I was just done with spending all our time in bike shops, so I caved and gave it to him early. Every surprise I've ever planned for Paul has totally failed! Somehow (could it be the asking for something and then obsessively shopping for it RIGHT before the holiday/anniversary?) he always ends up finding out about it. Anyway, we've been doing a lot of biking together and we LOVE it! Here's a picture of our virgin voyage

Sammy loves the trailer and the bike ride but HATES his helmet. When we take it off of him he holds it and hits it with both hands for a while. At least he doesn't repress his anger, right? :)

Sam is also going through some serious teething lately. His top 2 teeth poked through around the first of the month, and the 2 on either side of those are working their way out, too. This makes for a lot of fussing, a lot of biting (oh, yes, and Paul has the bruising to prove it!) and a lot of adorable sleeping pictures. (oh, and the freaky looking marks on his high chair are because I washed it. According to the directions. Anyone have a pattern for making a new cover?)

I just have to take a second and point out how very sexy my husband looks in this picture. Man, he's hot!

I decided that it'd been too long since Sam had the opportunity to air out those cute little buns, so I let him crawl around for a while one day. Of course I couldn't resist some pictures. I especially love the one with his socks on haha.

He's learned how to play peek-a-boo and LOVES it. He'll put something over his face until we say "where's Sammy?" then he often like keeps us in suspense for a second before he'll pull it off, laughing as we yell "THERE he is!"

Another tubbie time moment, go figure. :) I love that he's starting to put meanings to sounds and words, it's so fun! He's waving bye-bye (and adios) and claps when we say "yay!" - or any time he wants attention. :)

Sorry for yet another superlong blog, I always start it and then just end up adding to it for like 2 weeks, haha.

love,
mary