Sa'min Family

Weddings and dreams

2010-06-23T22:22:00.005-06:00

A few weeks ago, my dear friend Anne got married. It was a beautiful wedding, and Zaria got to be a flower girl, which was really special. We're still getting to know Suren, but he seems to be a really great guy and we're very happy for the new couple.

Jamin and Zaria do a father-daughter dance before the real dancing begins.

The new bride and groom, Anne and Suren!

L-R: Me (Sara), Suren, Anne, and Cassie.

Zaria, dancing along the mirror and enjoying her "spinny" dress at the reception.

Xander and Wesley, dreaming together in the backseat.

Sitting still

2010-04-20T13:53:00.002-06:00

We were quite amazed on Easter when we arrived at my aunt and uncle's house, and Xander and Wesley sat right down in a couple of little chairs . . . and just sat there for several minutes like they were part of the "adult" crowd. The first photo is actually later, after lunch, when they discovered the chairs again and were looking up at Grandpa Lee.

Above is a picture of all the grandkids on my (Sara's) side of the family. Becca is the oldest at 5, and then we have two sets of "twins." Zaria and Trish are only 5 weeks apart cousins, and dressed alike for their Great Grandma Alpha's 100th birthday party. Then we have the twins that are just one minute apart, Wesley in green and Xander in red. Xander has a similar expression on his face to the left below, back in those great little chairs.

Summer winding down

2009-09-06T21:52:00.002-06:00

It's been forever since we've blogged, which feels a little strange after I used to do it everyday in my 29thyearinpictures. I felt a whole lot older this year, turning 31.

I'm sad to say we've probably lost a bunch of pictures from about April to August after a computer crash. I'm afraid to even put photos on our computer right now, but Jamin tells me there is space. There were some fun pictures I had from my sister and family visiting in June, my cousin Megan's wedding, and my friend Anne's engagement ceremony that I'm very sad to loose. We have a friend looking at our old hard drive to see if he can recover any of that, but I'm not holding my breath over it.

The kids have had so much growth-- it's exciting to see so much change every day. Xander and Wesley seem to be following a similar path of mobility that Zaria had, which means they only do an army crawl, but they also do it quite fast. Zaria's moving along with potty training. Some days are really good (like today), and some days are really bad (like yesterday). She is an amazing talker for a 2-year-old. After her preaching session I put on here about Jesus pooping, she now knows a couple of actual Bible verses that I've taught her in song. She learns a lot better with songs, just like me. She knows John 14:6 and "Jesus wept," and almost knows Galatians 5:22-23 (the fruit of the Spirit). It's fun for me to go over some of the old verses I learned back in elementary church choir, doing musicals like "J.T. and the Halo Express."

Little preacher

2009-05-05T14:17:00.003-06:00

I was putsing in the kitchen yesterday and heard the boys laughing uproariously (in their baby way), so I went into the hallway to see how Zaria was entertaining them. She had a mini New Testament out and was preaching to the boys:

If you didn't catch what she was saying, it's "Jesus pooped." Xander and Wesley didn't really understand what she was saying, but our little potty trainer has learned that Jesus was fully human when he was born. I've mentioned that Jesus was born as a baby, just like her brothers, which means that he had to have his diaper changed just like any other baby. She's made her own conclusions. It's a nice reminder that God really did have to be subject to all of what makes us humans when he became a man.

Still, I'm trying to teach her an actual verse from the Bible so she doesn't have to make them up the next time she's preaching to her brothers.

January pics

2009-02-15T23:40:00.002-06:00

Zaria has been a great entertainer for the boys. She often participates when they're doing "tummy time" and demonstrates how to roll for them. We've been checking out the "easy reader" books for her lately, which she loves. She also loves to "read" to her brothers by showing them her books and telling them something about them (not necessarily the written story). Above is Xander in the Bumbo chair in blue pants, and Wesley on the floor. A nick name I have for them is "Xander Blue" and "Wesley Bear."
The boys are surprisingly tolerant of Zaria playing with them. She can be a little rough sometimes, but she tries to be gentle. She pulled Xander out of one of the swings a while ago and we didn't realize it until we spotted him nearby on the floor. She must've been fairly gentle since we didn't hear him complain at all. Still, we have been very careful to buckle them in since then.
The boys are growing so fast, it's hard to keep up. These pictures are from a few weeks ago-- last we checked on the bathroom scale, they're both around 16.5 pounds. Xander seems to be just a few ounces under his brother's weight. We'll see if he's caught up at their 4-month appointment this week.

3 Christmases of fun

2009-01-07T13:27:00.003-06:00

We have three wonderful sets of grandparents, and had three Christmases this past year. They're in reverse order in the photos.We celebrated with my Dad and Stepmom on the day after Christmas. This was the first year in a long time that we got to see my stepsiblings Scott and Katie for Christmas.
In back (L-R): Becca, Lauren, Linda, Tim and Kurt
Middle: Judy, Grandma Alpha, Grandma Wilma, Sara (holding Zaria) and Renee (holding Tricia)
Front: Dad, Dawn, Katie (holding Xander), Scott (holding Wesley) and Jamin

We spent Christmas Day at Mom and Dave's. Here Mom is holding Zaria and showing off her new jewelry.
Here's Xander while his Santa hat was still on!
We saw my stepbrother Brian, brother Jason and his wife Caralee at Mom's this year.
And after watching the Christmas program at Jamin's folks' church, we had his folks and his brother and family over for dessert. Pictured here are Dan, Gwendolyn, Zaria and Jamin.
And here's Jamin's mom, Marla, holding Xander by our Christmas tree.

Inside out

2008-11-21T14:43:00.004-06:00

Rewind the clock a little.
This is me the day before the twins were born, 37 weeks 3 days.
This is less than 24 hours later, just after the boys were cleaned up and diapered. How did these guys fit inside me? No wonder it was hard to get around.
And these were my prize-winning red hot chili peppers on Halloween.

Identical? Perhaps . . .

2008-10-24T20:35:00.003-06:00

Welcoming the twins

2008-10-22T10:47:00.008-06:00

We added a couple of family members to our ranks last Monday the 13th, Xander James and Wesley David. They are wonderful babies, though we're still working on changing their sleep patterns to nighttime instead of daytime. (= Part of last night's troubles were my fault for letting Grandpa Lee hold Wesley and let him sleep in his arms most of last evening. Who wants to sleep in a crib after being held for hours and getting plenty of sleep already?

I'm also starting to wonder if the boys might be identical? Though they've looked a lot alike, I had thought one had bloopy earlobes while the other had fixed and that their noses were different, but as they're putting on weight, they seem to be getting more and more alike. Perhaps time will tell or we'll hear something from the hospital.

This photo is from Saturday. I've had a pretty easy time telling them apart until the last couple of days. Both of them have gained enough weight to surpass their birth weights, so they are growing very well.
Zaria is enjoying being a big sister and tries to help with baby care-- sometimes good, and sometimes bad. It's pretty hard to resist touching little newborns and she's usually pretty gentle, but then she also enjoys rocking them in their carseats quite vigorously or climbing on top of them to give them a pacifier when they're fast asleep. This continues to be a challenge, especially while I am recovering from the c-section and I can't forcibaly move her around. My stepmom, Dawn, has been here this week to help, so she's helped me try to keep Zaria in line. My Mom has also been around to help out. We've set up a Pack N Play upstairs and down to keep the twins safe as needed now. (=
Here's Grandma Dawn getting Xander ready for a diaper change.

Here are Grandpa Dave and Grandma Joy with Wesley and Xander, respectively.

Family reunion pics

2008-08-22T09:18:00.005-06:00

Life goes on

2008-06-08T21:16:00.004-06:00

It's been a while since we've posted here since I post daily on my picture blog for this year, but it's high time we post a few outtakes and other family shots for the Sa'min family.
Jamin and Zaria on Memorial Day.
Me reading to Zaria before bedtime. She usually wants at least a couple of "tories" before she goes to sleep unless she's really tired (and not overly tired). And here are X and Y! We recently found out they're both boys and we're sure they'll be a very fun addition to the Sa'min family. These ultrasound photos were taken in early April and the boys are due in late October (though twins have an average gestation period of more like 36 weeks). I just had an ultrasound this past week, but I didn't take any pictures of the kiddos. There are a lot of pictures.

Family Fun on Medicine Lake

2008-02-07T14:01:00.001-06:00

We went to the Art Shanties gallery on Medicine Lake last weekend. Though most of them didn't actually have any fishing involved, the one below did. There was a platform above, so you couldn't actually see the fisherman above in this space where kids were looking down the hole. It was comforting to see 2 feet of ice below us, though.
I sang Linda Ronstadt's version of "Heat Wave" since it was a balmy 31 degrees outside. One of the karaoke requirements was that you had to draw a picture of yourself singing. Jamin took care of that for me and added my red scarf as a nice touch.

Merry Christmas everyone!

2007-12-22T20:14:00.001-06:00

This is the photo that was on our Christmas card this year. (See below)

This is to demonstrate that it took a few tries . . .

God bless you this Christmas, one and all!

Family Pic on our 6th Anniversary

2007-10-15T21:07:00.000-06:00

It was a bright, hot day for October. On our wedding it was about 37 degrees, and this year it got up to 83. But that's why we live in Minnesota-- so we can have an adventure with the weather.

New Blog

2007-09-23T22:53:00.000-06:00

I know, I know, you probably have enough blogs to read. But I started a new one that I'm attempting to update every day for a YEAR. So if you're upset that no one is posting anything new, check it out. The link is to the left on this page or you can go this way:
http://29thyearinpictures.blogspot.com/

I've got 21 days done so far, but the idea is to have one picture for every day of the year. I'm trying to keep my commentary down since the focus is more about the photos. I think it will be fun. Hopefully I can find time to keep it up!

Here's an extra photo of Zaria trying out her new jumper:
And look who's enjoying playing the piano. Of course she looks serious as soon as I get the camera out, though.

Trying out a video post

2007-09-07T22:11:00.000-06:00

I just grabbed this from our California trip -- this is a short video taken while in the aerial tramway.

Fun with Family in California

2007-08-06T17:32:00.000-06:00

We took a LOT of pictures while we were on vacation in California, so I'll upload a handful (not in order). It was a great trip, and Zaria did surprisingly well on the airplane, getting to know all sorts of new relatives including 4 second cousins (all boys), and dealing with some serious heat in the desert-- 107 degrees in Indio. We kept her in AC areas most of the time while in the desert since the heat was pretty unbearable. She was extremely observant of new faces, and only seemed to get scared when she met men with beards.Zaria playing with 1-year-old second cousins in San Diego (Amber's twins), Lucas and Nicolas. Their older brother Jaden had a lot of fun poking at Zaria's cheeks.
Zaria and Joe (son of Jamin's cousin Anne) meet for the first time.
A group shot in Oceanside, at Marc & Mimi's place. L-R: Liz, Jamin, Sara (holding Zaria), Jennie, Mimi, Marla and David
Cousin Anne, Aunt Mimi holding Zaria, and Mimi's sister-in-law Marilyn over for a celebration of Grandma's 84th birthday.
With all of Jamin's family that we visited, I also got to see my mom's cousin, Joey, who gave us a great lunch on our way out to the desert and enjoyed visiting with Zaria.

The three of us in the shade-- a hot day at The Living Desert Zoo. They actually are only open from 8 am to 1:30 pm in the summertime. We got there in time to see the giraffes finishing their morning meal. They have a baby giraffe there-- not sure how old since one guide said 7 months (same age as Zaria) and another said 11 months. Here he is if you want to guess his real age:

We took a break from the desert heat by going up a few thousand feet on the aerial tramway. Here's a group shot before Jamin, Jennie and I headed down for some hiking. We went from 107 degrees down below in the desert to 71 degrees up in the mountains. It was beautiful, and a welcome relief.

Zaria with Great Grandpa Jim

Playing with Great Grandma Mary on the floor in Long Beach.
Taking a leisurely cruise on the Duffy. There was a sailboat race going on as we went out that evening.

We rode the Aqua Link over to the Queen Mary (a permanently docked ocean liner) and The Scorpion (a Russian submarine from the 70's--both have tours) with Jamin's folks. Zaria slept on the way there in the sling. We toured The Scorpion, but had to keep someone behind with Zaria since they only had 2' holes to climb through. See me climbing through below.

Zaria absolutely loved the water, whether it was ocean, pool or sprinkler. This picture is at Mother's Beach, which is at a salt water bay on Naples Island.

Sitting in the grass

2007-06-25T11:30:00.000-06:00

Zaria's enjoying the great outdoors, and has been doing really well sitting up. Still doesn't sit up on her own or roll quite yet, but she loves watching the world go by.

I haven't been able to post many pictures because I've had such a hard time with putting photos on the computer without losing them or being frustrated with slowness or other difficulties. Since I finally got some on from last week, I'll post a few more cute pics and then get back to work! We went to a wedding this weekend, and it was so fun. Weddings are always a good reminder to love and to honor the vows we've made. And a good time to dance if we're lucky! Zaria had fun dancing with me and watching the others, kicking her little legs along with the beat.

Happy Birthday Papa! (She's always glad to see her dad.)

Helping Jamin play Settlers of Cattan.

Swimming baby, watch out!

2007-06-12T16:06:00.001-06:00

Zaria as the Michelin Man. Gotta love those roles. We had her try swimming a few weeks ago at our friends' condo, and she did really well.

2007-05-11T22:18:00.000-06:00

We moved! We're settling into our new home, and we're all enjoying Zaria having her very own bedroom.

Below is a pic of the truck we loaded at the old place. It was so awesome to have lots of helpers. The work was done very fast.

But today was rather bittersweet. This morning I went to a funeral for one of my professors at Bethel, Dr. Wayne Hensley. Zaria did amazingly well through most of the service. I still had to roll her out to a side room when she made a little noise because the place was an echo chamber.

It was nice to be able to visit with a few other Bethel people and remember Dr. Hensley. He was my internship advisor, and I had mixed feelings about him. It was his last year before retiring, so I sometimes felt he wasn't working real hard. But I also had good memories of him going completely off topic in class and telling us stories about him growing up in Tennessee or about baseball. He was a huge collector of baseball Hall of Fame stuff.

Then this evening I went to Jacob T's graduation party. I was able to pass off a bunch of boxes from our move for their coming move. I try not to think about it too much, but I'm really gonna miss Jen and Jacob, who of course are moving back to Dr. Hensley's home state.

Both of these events would've been easier to handle together, but then Jamin had a flat tire and couldn't find anyone to fix it, so he won't be home until midnight. And I also realized that today would've been my parents' anniversary (39th I think?) had they not gotten divorced 20+ years ago.

2007-04-09T14:13:00.000-06:00

I forgot to bring the camera to our Easter celebrations, but it was fun to visit with lots of Andersons. Her second cousin, Lauren absolutely loves babies and wanted to carry her around and even stayed with her in the nursery during the church service. Zaria also got to meet an aunt and uncle for the first time, Jason and Caralee.

Though I don't have pics of pink bunnies, here's a fun shot of ZJ doing some great "tummy time."

And here she's helping me with the laundry (this is from a while ago):

Moving on

2007-04-05T23:14:00.000-06:00

It's about time one of us blogs . . . I can't believe the whole month of March just passed us by. In like a lion, out like a --whoah, what was that?

Zaria has more than doubled in size since her birth, right around 15 lbs by the bathroom scale measurement. I'm getting more used to being a mother. It is definitely a tough job, and I have to continually rearrange my priorities for doing transcription training as we prepare for things like moving at the end of this month.

Jamin and I have moved 5 times in the same number of years of marriage, and it has never been all that easy. I like to think that we've made it easier with experience, but I know it'll be way different moving with a baby. At least we're not hauling all of our things (or what remains of our things) across country this time. And I think we'll have more help than we've had for past moves. At some point I'll have to scan some of our moving pics from Portland-- it was scary. We really filled that semi cab to capacity, and I couldn't have fit our little hermit crab cage into the car with me once that got packed.

I need to go and get some sleep, but I'll try to find a cute pic or two to post:

Zaria with her cousins Becca & Tricia on a visit in late February.

Zaria and Sam on our way to our first MOPS meeting.

Early Valentines with the Great Grannies by Jamin

2007-02-11T22:01:00.000-06:00

Happy Valentine's Dinner!

A happy greeting for guests and a gentle chide for the spouse that didn't help until the guests were there. Carefully planned seating arangements with personalized valentine cards and heart-shaped boxes of chocolates. The conversation-seasoned evening was great! The coupe-de-graugh came after the hot fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies with gormet hazel-nut coffee was served: The final item unveiled was buttter-pecan and turtle-fudge brownie ice creams. Excelent and luxurious for the pallet. As we drove the ~90 year olds to their assisted-living arangements, promises to hook up for impromptu day-time scabble games were exchanged.

Seeing through the eyes of those that grew up before the great depression for an evening as they told various stories is still sparking our imaginations. Stories of the weird things they were told by health practioners on how to care for their infants, and the foolishness that most of those things have become now that we know better, and even one story of a thief that broke in while the kids were home alone, and how it turned out to be the neighbor two doors down, with the money eventually being returned.

All the cute things Zaria keeps doing has been very entertaining for her gaggle of grandmas. Sara keeps enjoying the butt-out stretching she does after a car-ride and Jamin the weird circus-seal honking she does while feeding. We're sure the day will come when her antics will stop being so cute, we just are glad it won't be for a while.

Great Grandmas

2007-02-09T19:59:00.000-06:00

Zaria has the privilege of having several great grandparents--two of my grandparents, Grandma Victoria and Grandma Alpha (just before her 97th b-day!) are pictured below. We visited with Grandpa Ellwyn and Grandma Victoria this afternoon, which was a lot of fun. G'ma Victoria absolutely loved listening to all of Zaria's adorable baby noises. She's already doing a lot of "talking" and is a pretty noisy eater. I have to leave our room at night when she eats, because she often wakes up Jamin. This morning she woke up to eat 2 minutes before his alarm went off though, so I went ahead and stayed in our room.

I wish I could've known my great grandparents. All of them were gone by the time I was born, which sort of makes sense since I was the youngest (until a couple of younger stepsiblings came along). I think my older sister only met one great grandma, and she probably doesn't remember her since she was very small, but I've seen a picture. My great grandparents sound like they would've been fascinating people to talk to. I'm pretty sketchy on the details, but I believe it was Alpha's mom that emigrated to the U.S. from Sweden as a 16-year-old and hired herself out as a maid to make a living. I love how interesting and diverse the ancestors of Americans are. So many crazy, adventurous spirits going to make a better life, traveling across country in covered wagons, or even making a hasty exit from a country that would persecute them for their beliefs or ethnicity. I really look forward to meeting some of those people in heaven.

New Year

2007-01-17T22:24:00.000-06:00

Late night babies on New Year's Eve. They're about the same size, but Ariel was a premie and Zaria is 2 1/2 months younger. Zaria was my good luck charm-- I won a couple of games while holding her.
One of Zaria's great expressions while taking her first bath.
Out for a walk on a beautiful New Year's Day.

Our First Christmas with 3 of us

2007-01-12T14:59:00.000-06:00

I'm finally breaking down and getting a regular blog-- much easier to post pics, etc.

The name of the blog is our two names together, Sara & Jamin. We actually were called Sa'min one year at Sonshine because it was easier to meld our names when we were always together. Hopefully I'll have a chance to post once in a while, though our new addition, Zaria Joy, can be a bit of a handful, and I'm also trying to finish up some medical transcription training so I can work at home.