Samantha 7 Months

Samantha 10 months

After many, many weeks of no action on this blog I am back to fill you all in on our little Samantha who is now 10 months old. That's only 2 months shy of 1 year.

How is that possible??

At 10 months Samantha:

• loves to swing.
• has started to eat our table food with the help of our baby food grinder.
• loves chopped up cherries, grapes and as of this morning, blueberries.
• is very obsessed with her sippy cup ... as in I have to hide it at the table or she would just fill up on liquids. AND she has to have the straw kind because she refuses my help to tip up the cup and won't do it on her own. :)
• rocks to the music when we sing our mealtime prayers.

• is very attached to me... following my every move (notice above picture)... making it very difficult for others to hold her when I am in sight... even for Daddy and Grandma.
• has started giving us the strong arm shove and reaching for her crib at bedtime before we can even get the whole 1st line of Jesus Loves Me out.
• has a bedtime of 7:30
• is again waking up 1 to 2 times to nurse at night after sleeping through the night for a week. I think this is my issue not hers... right?
• takes a nap at 9:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
• gives me lots of very wet kisses as I'm putting her to bed. I usually wipe my cheek as I'm closing her door. :)
  

• loves to chew on straps.
• continues to love her jumperoo.
• squeals at the sight of water, both the pool and the bathtub. She loves being in water.

• is really close to crawling. She gets ticked off when she can't move on her belly. She screams and kicks all arms and legs.
• is able to spin around on both belly and bottom.
  
  
  
• has recently decided this pacifier is a great toy. Funny since she never took a pacifier. She even cried when Morgan took it a way from her the other day. She chews on it more then she sucks. Fine with me if it keeps her pacified. :)
• continues to be a pretty chill baby... unless she's tired or hungry, naturally.
  

I love you Samantha... you and all that chub!

Spring Break in Iowa

The girls and I took a road trip out to Iowa over spring break. Dave had to work so I made the trip solo. We made it, but I'm not planning on doing it again anytime soon. I have to admit I became acquainted with and a big fan of 5 hour energy. :)

Once we were there, we had five fun filled days with my family.

This is where Morgan and Adrienne wanted to be, watching the lambs. Pretty sure they would have stayed there all day ... every day if we had let them. It really was great. They were able to see new baby lambs and even help give bottles. Every day more sheep had lambs. I think by the time we left Dad said they were at around 50 and about 2/3 done. How fun that this was all happening while we were there!



We all know how Morgan LOVES to help. She discovered she also loves to help Dad with his chores. She thought she was pretty hot stuff!

I can't even begin to try to count how many times my Mom and I were asked "Go see lambies?!?" Adrienne was so excited to go see them, but once she was out there, immersed in their LOUD BAAAAs, she was a little intimidated and wanted to be held.

After a couple of days she was brave enough to stand by the fence on her own.

Eventually she even helped give a lamb a bottle!

Mom got in A LOT of reading through out the week. Baby Bop's Purse was one of the favorites.

Samantha even loved it. In fact, Mom took this book away from Samantha during church because she was chewing pieces off it and she cried. It was the first time she had ever cried because we took away a toy.

Of course Samantha continued to enjoy her toes. Gotta love a toy you can't lose or drop!

Samantha really liked hanging out with my Dad. It was crazy how long she would be content sitting with him. It was great!

We also got to see Becca and my great nephew again. Did you catch that ... I'm a GREAT AUNT! I know ... crazy. I don't feel old, but that sure sounds old.

It will be fun to see these two grow up together.

And of course we also got to spend a lot of time with my brother Chris which is always fun. The girls love him! They usually are shy at first, but that doesn't last long. He is a great uncle and the girls have so much fun playing with him.

So I have to admit I'm proud of myself for making the trip by myself. It was worth it for sure. We had a great time!

The Introduction

Samantha has officially been introduced to baby food.

Surprise... surprise... our ultra chill little girl wasn't too moved by the new taste of baby cereal.

Her sisters both gave us some comical faces with their first tastes.

The most we got out of Samantha was a few flairs of the nostrils.

She was however very into the bib. I only put bibs on my kids during meal time. So this was new and interesting.
She also liked to grab the spoon. She has mastered the reach, pull, and munch. I'm sure as far as she was concerned the spoon was no different than any toy she has.

Of course both her big sisters wanted to be in on the action. Little Miss Samantha has quite the fan club. I can't wait to watch these three sisters grow up together!

We ended the event with some big smiles.

Walking

This Saturday Dave and I, along with our girls, will be walking in the Elkhart March of Dimes walk with our friends Chris and Lindsay Good. Many of you already know their story, but for those of you who don't ... In the summer of 2008 their precious twins, Lia and Mason, were born. They were several months premature and their little bodies just weren't strong enough to survive. So this Saturday, April 17, we will be walking to honor their lives. Last year we walked with the Good Twins team for the first time and had a great day. We are excited to be part of the walk again this year. If you would like to support this great program, just click on the icon to the right of my blog.
Thanks for your support!
We're looking forward to another great day, honoring Chris and Lindsay's angels.

Easter

Dave was able to get tickets to the Final Four this year and was excited to take his dad. Since Art and Donna would be out in Goshen Easter weekend we had a Chupp Easter at our house.

Donna helped the girls dye eggs. Every time we tried something creative it was a big flop. Eventually we just went with the classic colors. Maybe next year the creativity will be more productive.

The Easter Sunday family picture.

It was a little chilly, but the kids didn't mind. They had a great time on their egg hunt. They all worked together to find the eggs. Morgan did a great job of letting the younger ones find some of the eggs too.

Samantha also had a chance to explore and learn about Easter eggs.

We also celebrated Dave's birthday. As you can see he had plenty of help opening his gift. Even Samantha got in on the action.

Big Day

Today was a great day!

I've been feelin' a little frazzled lately. So that is a statement I haven't made for a while.

Waking up to the sun shining and Dave telling me that it was supposed to be 75 was a nice start.

We arrived to pick up Morgan from preschool to find her walking on air. This morning they had baby chicks, ducks and bunnies outside for the kids to hold. She was also holding her Easter Basket from her teacher which contained a decent amount of candy. Right away, after telling me all about the animals, she was telling Adrienne that if she ate her lunch she could have some of her candy. What a great big sister. This actually is the norm with Morgan. She is always sharing her candy with her sister. Even though it's the norm, it never gets old. It makes my job so much easier that she is willing to include Adrienne and share her special things.

From there we headed to the doctor for Samantha's 6 month check-up. As I was putting Samantha's diaper back on after getting weighed both Morgan and Adrienne irrupted with "DADDY!" He just showed up to help me. Dave often meets me there for appointments so I don't have to go myself with the three girls. However today I hadn't even asked him to meet me because I knew he was super busy at work. What a great surprise!

After naps we headed outside to enjoy the beautiful day. After giving Morgan one big push on the swing I turned to help Adrienne. Morgan started yelling "I'm doing it Mama. I'm doing it. I'm pumping!" I'm just a little excited about this. She is seeming so old to me recently. Here is Miss Adrienne, also seeming quite old on the big swings this year.

Love this picture.
Samantha had several firsts today. She got to swing with her dad and as you can see she LOVED it. :)
Her toes were introduced to the grass.
And best of all ... she sat up ... on her own ... for more then 2 seconds! I was so excited! Of course I promptly took many pictures. :)

I was finally able to capture what happens almost daily at our house.

Tackle!

It won't be long before Samantha is getting in on the fun.

I hope you are having a great day, wherever you are.