a long weekend to catch up

last weekend we were relieved to have a three-day weekend together with not much going on (i think it was the calm before the storm with all the holiday plans piling onto our calendar) after a crazy week that included samantha's 18 month checkup, an evening spanish class and two days spent moving my classroom INTO the building(wohooo!) I was, without even knowing it, exhausted....so i turned in early all three nights...one of them i fell asleep at eight, holding the pile of magazines that i have backed up from july...yikes.

between resting we enjoyed a long bike ride, a burger dinner at the beach for sunset and lots of playtime at home. oh and let me not forget to include precious-sweet-gentle samantha's first major temper tantrum at the grocery store. ahhhh...no pictures of that one but thankfully we made it out of the store in one piece. so here are the pictures of our little moments together last weekend....

librarian sammy mac reading and babbling through her books, sometimes she gets her babies in on it and she reads to them....

her latest trick...she opens the pantry closet all by herself, flings open the dog and cat food bins, scoops out their food and dumps it in their bowls....i'm thinking its her first real chore, ha ha!
making sure not to drop any.....too bad she wants to do this about ten times a day
so proud of how she cleans up and puts things away and follows directions....

grilled cheese in one hand and a clump of sand in the other....this is our latest get-way, just the three of us

i really can't get enough of her and on the weekends i kiss and squeeze and love on her little cheeks as much as possible..i read one more story and sing one more song and push her one more time on the swing all because i miss her so badly during the week.

checking things out at sunset
so this is when the lump in my throat really just gets me....my samantha macKintosh turned eighteen months and i again am beside myself that she is halfway to two and this is going by so fast. here it is...a moment where i ran and got tyler and choked back the tears and grabbed the video camera and soaked in as much of her as i could....she's wearing my nightgown that i wore as a little girl. beautiful and cozy and so grown up....she clutched her new mini babydolls tight as i stared and felt oh so thankful.