Samantha 11 months

Little Cedar Getaway

On the Move

Our house was filled with happy squeals yesterday afternoon.

Morgan, Adrienne and I squealed and clapped as we realized that Samantha was crawling... really crawling! Then Samantha let out some squeals of her own as she realized we were carrying on for her. :)

I love this stuff!

I kept saying that I wanted her to wait to crawl until our house remodel was done... and she did. What a good girl.

I love the look of determination as she focuses on her goal - the little tin cup.

Of course this opens the doors wide open to a new world of exploration and discovery. The good news is that she is content on the floor because she can finally get where she wants to go. The scary news is that she can get were she wants to go!

I'm feeling a little unprepared for this new stage.

She is also discovering that it is sometimes harder to get out then it was to get in. :) She is showing a high level of tolerance for the amounts of head bumps that go along with all this discovery.

Head bumps and all, I think it's safe to say Samantha is pretty excited about her new skill!

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!