Samantha 1 month

Little miss Samantha is 1 month old. It's hard to believe it's already been one month. Yet at the same time it's hard to remember what life was like before she was part of our family.
She has been giving us a few smiles here and there. I love it when I am able to sweet talk one out of her. Morgan has even gotten her to smile at her. Of course that makes her feel very special.

She really is mesmerised by looking out our sliding glass doors in the kitchen. Obviously nothing entertains a 4-5 week old for too long. BUT if this buys me a couple extra minutes to eat a few bites I'm a happy mama. :)

Morgan and Adrienne continue to be crazy in love with their baby sister. They are so in to her that sometimes I feel like I have to "protect" her from their love. I try not to stifle their affection, but even a 5 week old needs a break from kisses.

Orchard Fun

We have been wanting to take the kids to pick out pumpkins and pick apples. Between baby Samantha's arrival and cold rainy Goshen weather I was afraid we weren't going to make it this year. However, God and Dave got together and made it happen. God gave us a wonderfully beautiful fall day. And Dave left work a little early to make the trip possible. :)

Adrienne keeps the kisses coming no mater where we are. What a sweetie!
Mom is staying with us right now. So she got in on the fun.

Adrienne was a pretty concerned with how dirty all the pumpkins were. I remember Morgan being the same way at her age. Morgan just ended up picking out pumpkins for both her sisters.

Dave always gets quite the workout on this family outing. The first year we took Morgan he just had to carry a couple of pumpkins. This year he was carrying Adrienne, while pulling our wagon full of pumpkins and apples! What a guy! He didn't even swear when the wagon of pumpkins tipped over on a close corner. :)

Dave and Morgan made quite the apple picking team. She loved getting hoisted up in the air!

Adrienne had a lot of fun too, but preferred to be on the ground.

What a fun little outing!

It's hard to believe ...

that little miss Samantha has been with us for almost 3 weeks now even though she wasn't "due" to join our family until today.

Here she is on her due date - 10-20-09.

Our house has been pretty crazy these past few weeks. Crazy in a good way ... but still crazy.

So far I have had someone here helping me with the girls. Dave was home the first week. Then his mom Donna was here and now my mom is with us. I am so thankful for the help!

Daddy's Week

Much like her big sister Adrienne, a couple days after coming home from the hospital Samantha's Jaundice was bad enough that she needed to go on the light blanket. Unlike her sisters though, Samantha was born nursing like a champ. Because she was eating so well she only had to be on the light for 2 days. I guess I have to deal with the light blanket in exchange for delivering early. :)

Dave is a dad that isn't scared to go out and about with his girls. In fact he is often more adventurous then I am. The week he was home he took the girls out on several adventures. One of the adventures was going to the zoo in South Bend. Morgan had Teddy the tiger from preschool for the weekend so of course he got to go too.

The girls were so excited when they came home. They all had a blast. I was a little sad I couldn't be there with them. But I'm glad they were able to have that special time with their dad.

The girls continue to be in love with their new baby sister. Both Morgan and Adrienne love to hold her.

Samantha is also showered with kisses. Some day I should count to see just how many times they kiss her in one day. Every time they walk by her they stop to give her a kiss, or two. They will also stop what they are playing to come and give her a kiss. I love it!

"Boop!"

This may be the biggest news. Adrienne has decided to potty train herself. One of the last days Dave was home with us we figured out she was telling us when she was going potty, the key word being "boop". So Dave decided to sit her on the potty and she peed. And we all did a dance of celebration. Then a little later she said it again and pooped on the potty. We of course danced again ... even harder. We decided to go for it and had her go bare bottom. I am excited, and still a little shocked, to say that she has only had 4 accidents in a little over 2 weeks.

Grandma Chupp

Our week with Donna seemed to fly by. We continued to adjust to the added activity in our household and Donna was a huge help.

The girls loved having Grandma here. Donna always has fun little "activities" for the girls. Honestly, I think she likes it as much as the girls do. One of the favorites was decorating pumpkin cookies. Of course Adrienne was not to be denied the fun, although she did more eating then decorating. Adrienne's cookies were easy to spot. She didn't see anything wrong with using candy she had already sucked on to decorate. The cookies were definitely in the "eat at your own risk" category. :)

As you can see taking care of three little munchkins is tough work.

Thanks for all your help Grandma Chupp!

Even with all the help, there doesn't seem to be enough minutes in the day. It's hard to believe that such a little bundle can bring so much joy and exhaustion all at the same time.

I love our little Samantha.

I wouldn't trade her for all the sleep in the world.

Daddy's week

I'm lucky in that I have a lot of help when we have a baby. Dave is always home with us for the first week. Then both my mom and his mom come to stay with us for a week each. It's great!

Aside from the fact that for some odd reason Dave always seems to end up sick the week he's home with us, it's nice to have him around. I have to admit that he doesn't get a lot of sympathy from me. The way I see it, having a baby trumps all.

Glow Worm

We had to put Samantha on the light blanket Saturday because of Jaundice. Thank goodness she came out nursing like a champ. It didn't take long for her levels to go down. I think she only needed to be on the blanket 2 days. Since Adrienne had to be on the blanket too, I've decided that the blanket is my trade off for being able to deliver early.

Dave is all about the outings. I guess the girls are lucky their dad goes stir crazy if he's home too long. In addition to the daily errands he found to run,

Samantha Marie

For those of you who haven't heard the news ... we have been blessed with a new member on our team David's Girls.

Samantha Marie was born September 30th at 6:52 am. Her stats were 6 lbs 2 oz and 18 in long.
Since some might say Adrienne's entrance into the world was a little too dramatic we decided to take the risk of being sent home and headed to the hospital after 1 1/2 hrs of regular contractions. I was checked and monitored for a while and it was determined that I was progressing and that we needed to stay.

Since Dave and I have always been fashionably late for these events we didn't really know what to do with ourselves. I guess that's why they tell you to bring movies and such.

So I thought we needed a picture of the bored but happy couple.

The night was pretty uneventful. I would have several contractions and then they would go away for a while. I was actually nervous that they were going to end up sending me home. But slowly but surely I continued to progress. By 6 am I was dilated to 5 so we decided to break my water to get the show on the road. After breaking my water it took about 5 to 10 min for the contractions to start. Each one was progressively stronger. While I was in the bathroom I had 2 contractions that were out of my mind strong. With the second one I felt like I needed to push. So I of course screamed just that as Dave and I tried to get back to my bed as fast as possible. I really thought I was going to drop the baby on the floor before I could even get into bed. The midwife checked me again, although I could have told her I was complete. :) I pushed once and out came our beautiful girl.

This was obviously much more "controlled" than last time. However the actual birth was still super crazy fast. It was actually so fast that the midwife and nurses didn't even have time to put on their gloves. I'm just happy I made it to the bed. :)

Here we are all together for the first time - Dave and his ladies.

Adrienne kept telling us all "shhhhhh" since Samantha was sleeping.

Grandma and Grandpa Chupp were able to make it out in the middle of the night to stay with the girls the first day we were in the hospital.

Then Grandma and Grandpa Rhodes made it out Wednesday evening to see Samantha and then take over with the girls.

Morgan was eager to hold Samantha from the very start, but seemed to be more and more into her every time she saw her.

We figured out that much like her sister Morgan, Samantha sleeps better when swaddled. Then Dave figured out when she's all wrapped up he can carry her like a football. :) Those of you who know Dave know that he is always singing to his girls. So here he is singing the Armchair Quarterback song to the cutest football around.

It felt really nice to be home, all together.

Morgan and Adrienne were very excited to have their baby sister home. They loved watching her and didn't want to leave her side.

I knew Morgan would be very in to Samantha, but Adrienne really surprised me. She wanted her turn holding her too and was very interested in this newest addition to her world.

This really was too sweet. Morgan thought Samantha might enjoy the bedtime stories. So she held her while Grandma read to them.

All in all we are doing well. It's hard for me to believe that we are lucky enough to have 3 beautiful girls. I feel very blessed.