Wordless Wednesday

Kisses

Samara has been giving us kisses for a few months. The new thing? Chasing down the cats and planting a big wet one on them. Robbie hasn't let her get close enough to try but Charlie has always been a bit braver around her. He was sniffing her mouth and when she kissed him, he looked shocked and then ran away!

Here she is kissing her puppet. And yes, that's how she kisses. It is delightful, although a bit slobbery!

Friday Night Leftovers

Friday night again already! Check out the host for Friday Night Leftovers here.

* I still REALLY, REALLY, REALLY loathe ING. Today I got the 6th mortgage amendment papers after informing them of errors in the other 5. The numbers are all finally correct but they neglected to add room for signatures.

* ING also informed us that while we qualify for our new mortgage, we do not qualify for interim financing. So...?? This means that if the lawyers don't distribute the funds quickly enough, we will be homeless the entire weekend we should be unpacking. Oh and as an added bonus, we will be paying interest on top of it!

* This is the last ING related bullet, I swear! I finally lost my cool with them today. I have tried so hard to be patient while they mess with our lives. But, I lost it. Big time. I may have yelled and used the F word...twice. After speaking to a higher manager I feel NO better. They are clearly patronizing me and couldn't care less about my complaints. That being said, I have to finish up my complaint letter this weekend and mail it off and dismiss the negativity from my mind...before I lose what's left of it. I fully know nothing will come of the letter...we're stuck with them whether we like it or not but I have to expel it. Kind of like an exorcism of the negative ING voodoo in my brain right now!

* Samara was the crankiest crankypants today. SO cranky. SO SO SO annoying. Love her like crazy but wow did she test me today.

* I spent $50 on a pair of walking shoes for Samara yesterday. I had such bad buyer's remorse that I couldn't get to sleep last night. So I decided that while I can't return them, I can exchange them for 2 cheaper pairs.

* Samara said "mama" today but she said it to the rocking chair so it probably doesn't count.

* One of my close girlfriends let me know today that in Hinton, Alberta, someone shot her parents' 14 year old dog and drove away. This makes me sick. The dog is okay for the time being but an inch either way and she would not have survived. Let's just hope that karma or the law or whatever you choose to believe catches up with whoever did this.

* Is it possible that there are ruder people than doctor's office receptionists? I have been trying for the past couple of weeks to find a family doctor for Samara and myself in Lethbridge and there is not a pleasant one in the bunch. No, there are no doctors accepting new patients, no, we don't care that you will have to take your beautiful, innocent and precious little girl to the walk-in clinic and wait 4 hours with the dregs of society. Sigh...I was holding out hope for a female doctor but at this point I will take anyone with an actual degree.

Have a lovely weekend!

New Stroller

I've been looking for a new stroller for awhile now. The one we have is fine but it's big, hard to handle and takes up a lot of space. It was perfect when I didn't want to take Samara out of her car seat to pop into the store for something quick but now I don't use that feature. I found an umbrella stroller yesterday and it's perfect. The really basic models of umbrella strollers don't have the canopy, storage underneath or a tray for snacks so I upgraded a bit...it's not super small but it will hopefully do the trick. We put it together last night so when Sam got up this morning and saw it, she was PUMPED.

She pushed it.


She dragged it.


So I opened it up and she saw that she could put toys in the storage underneath.


She could take the toys out and play with them!


She could push the stroller around. All in all, it seems to be a hit so far and we haven't even used it properly!

First word?

Samara has been babbling up a storm lately...mamama, dadada, bababa, etc. BUT, I'm not convinced she knows what she's saying nor does she seem to use the "words" correctly. So we still do not have a first word (which means there's time for MAMA to come out of her mouth unexpectedly!). It does seem like she's working on 2 though. There is this blue ball, which if you've been over to our place, you know the one! She just loves it and whenever she digs it out of her basket, she proudly holds it up in the air like it's a trophy. She says "BA!" when she does it so I'm thinking she's trying to say ball. The 2nd word is banana. She is hugely fond of bananas and we end her supper with that for dessert every night. I get out a banana and ask her if she wants some and she seems to say "anana". One of the picture books we have has a page with bananas on it and when Shawn was reading it to her the other day, he flipped to that page and she said "anana". But then the other day she called one of the cats "anana" so who knows?!

When Daddy's Away...

It never seems to fail that whenever Shawn is away, Samara reaches a milestone. She sat on her own when we were visiting Mom and Bill during the summer. She learned to crawl when he was working the Flames game one night. And so on. Shawn in in Lethbridge again overnight so in true Samara form, the following happened today:

-she walked 15 steps in a row! Twice!
-tooth #7 poked through
-she climbed up on the ottoman in her room and down again
-threw every single bath toy out of the bathtub and watched it make a splash on the floor
-started laughing the most hideous laugh that sounds pretty similar to choking

Breastfeeding

There is so much controversy surrounding breastfeeding. It seems to be a common opinion that EVERY mom should breastfeed and if you don't (or can't), your baby will suffer and will not get the best start in life. I think it's a very personal choice and can very much understand both sides.

I chose to breastfeed for several reasons. It's free (who can beat that?!), the milk is always the right temperature and available whenever, always has the right nutrients that the baby needs, rich with antibodies, and let's face it, especially at the start, I had enough to do without worrying about making formula and sterilizing bottles and nipples.

That being said, at the beginning I was counting down the weeks until I hit the recommended 6 months. It was hard, painful at times (even more so with one case of mastitis!) and incredibly time consuming. Samara refused to take a bottle, even of pumped breastmilk, so I had ZERO breaks. And she was not a baby that only ate every 4 hours...no, it was more like every 20-30 minutes at times. But, I persevered (like I had much of a choice with a baby that screamed when she saw a bottle!) and eventually, it became a sweet moment for the 2 of us...where I could cuddle my uncuddly child...we could take a few moments in our busy days and just be mother and daughter. I began to see the appeal. I actually began to love it. That was around 4 months. And now? At almost 11 months? I'm still breastfeeding.

It seems like you are judged if you don't choose to breastfeed, or can't. BUT...the judgment I am getting is from breastfeeding too long. It seems that if you don't wean the day your little one turns 6 months, you're kind of a freak. I have gotten more than a few strange looks when it happens to come up in conversation that I'm still breastfeeding. People often ask how long I plan on breastfeeding for. And honestly? I don't know. When we're both ready I suppose. It's not yet though. I have weaned a couple of feedings a day, but that had more to do with Samara not gaining enough weight and my supply issues. So for the time being, I am still breastfeeding my baby and I don't know when I will stop. But it surely won't be because of the shocked and disapproving looks on people's faces when they find out!

She's getting the hang of it!

Friday Night Leftovers

How is it possible that it's Friday night again already?! Check out the host for Friday Night Leftovers here.

* My battle with ING continues. The financing did go through in time for us to remove the condition from the purchase of our next home but they are STILL messing up the details. If you're counting (which I TOTALLY AM), they have messed up the pre-approval 4 times and the approval 5 times (all 9 times the errors were caught by me which leaves me with very little confidence in them doing anything right from here on out). I have started writing a letter which I will snail mail and email to as many addresses as I can gather but it's already 2 pages long and makes me sound like a raving lunatic. I might need the dust to settle a bit before I can compose myself enough to be taken seriously.

* The diamond in my engagement ring popped after I banged it against the cupboard putting away dishes the other day. After a frantic 5 minutes of searching, I found it. Luckily. Not so luckily, it will cost $160 to fix it and I'll be without it for another 2 weeks.

* After Samara's first steps on Sunday, she has taken a total of 2 steps, 3 times all week. I keep thinking maybe I made it up.

* Samara has a nasty little bruise on her cheek. I saw what caused it too. She was crawling and somehow forgot to use her hands and propelled herself forward, crashing face first into the hardwood floor. That's my graceful girl!

* I have been sleeping so horribly lately. I wait to go to bed until I feel really tired and then lie awake for at least an hour. This usually leads to tossing and turning all night. My best sleep is after Shawn goes to work and I sleep like a log for about 2 hours and wake up feeling like a zombie. I bet it's the stress of moving and whatnot.

* I started watching Grey's Anatomy awhile back and tonight I finally finished the most recent episode. I have watched something like 150 episodes in a couple of months. That's actually pretty sick. Imagine what I could've got accomplished in that time?

Names

Sometimes it seems like Samara doesn't know her own name. Maybe, just maybe, it's because we call her all of these:

Samara, Sammy, Sam, Samshine, Sammyshine


Pumpkin, Pumpkinhead, Plumpkin, Pumpiekins, Punkin, Punkin Munkin, Punk, Punkamunk


Monkey, Munk, Funky Monkey, Munkin, Princess, Muffin, Mufkin, Blue Eyes, Munchkin, Munchiekin


Fusspants, Fusspot, Fussmuss, Crank, Crankiepants, Crankpants, Crankpot, Chubbycheeks, Sleepyhead, Beauty, Pretty Girl


Big Girl, Little Girl, Honey, Hummy, Wigglebum, Bummy...I could go on but you get the point. I guess it might be a little confusing.

New Home

We found a new home in Lethbridge and removed the conditions today. Remember this post? The one where I was bravely accepting the possibility of living in a crappy, tiny, outdated 1 bedroom house with an outhouse and a homeless man living in our garbage? Okay, I exaggerate, but you get the idea. Well...we found something so much better. I still can't believe we get to live there. It's 400 square feet bigger than what we're living in now, only 3 years old, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms (including an ensuite), a walk in closet, deck, gas fireplace...it's beautiful. Sure, it was cheaply built and it has carpet upstairs (causing me to lose sleep over the nasty-ness that lies inside it), it lacks adequate storage, doesn't have a garage and no finished basement. But I love it. And I can't believe we get to live there and I get to stay home and not work and just (HA! Just?!) be a mom.

Speaking of carpets (shudder), the last 4 years we have not had a shred of carpet in our home. We actually do not even own a vacuum. Now I'm in the market for one as well as a steam cleaner. The thought of carpet really grosses me out because I see everything on our hardwood floors and I don't believe there is a vacuum cleaner invented that can get it all. But I digress...the house has carpet, we can't afford hardwood right now so I need to suck it up. Any recommendations? Anything to steer clear of? I've researched a bit on Consumer Reports and have it narrowed down to a couple of possibilities but would love to hear your opinions.

Phone Skills

Shawn is in Lethbridge overnight so he called before Samara's bedtime to talk to her. I put him on speaker phone and gave her the phone. It went something like this:

Shawn: "Hi Sammy!"
Samara: Looks at the phone
Shawn: "What are you doing?"
Samara: Looks at me
Shawn: "Did you have a good day?"
Samara: Heavy breathing
Shawn: "What did you have for supper?"
Samara: Licks the phone
Shawn: "I miss you"
Samara: Continues slobbering on the phone
Shawn: Do you have anything to say?"
Samara: Hangs up the phone

It's a good thing she's so darn cute because her phone skills are a bit lacking!

Venting Time

I just slammed the door in an old woman's face. How awful am I?

But wait! I have an explanation. First of all, it's naptime. Naptime is SACRED. I don't like the phone to ring, the cats to fight, anyone to flush the toilet or to sneeze. It's quiet time in our house. I never wanted to be the type of person to tiptoe around the house while the baby sleeps. But when you find out your baby is not a great sleeper, you do what you can to make sure there are no other factors waking her up...including memorizing every squeak in the floor and using the bathroom downstairs. Ringing the doorbell is NOT COOL. If it's to sign for a special package that I didn't expect? Okay. Publisher's Clearing House wants to give me a million dollars? Fine. But an old woman from Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints? Sorry, that's where I draw the line. I do not, will not EVER appreciate someone coming to the sanctity of my home to preach at me. I am not a religious person but my home is the closest sacred thing I have and it just boils my blood for someone to cross that line. Am I overreacting? Maybe...but it's my home, my choice. And yes, I have a clear NO SOLICITING sign posted because I'm such a grouch when it comes to that.

Sigh...luckily Sam didn't wake up.

She's walkin', yes indeed...

Guess who took her first steps today?!?!

She was playing at her basket of toys, looked over at her walker toy and just walked 2 steps over. I told Shawn and we got her to do it a few times. I tried to get it on video which of course made her stop doing it. Very exciting though!!

Twist and Shout

Early Morning

It's been 2 full months since I've had to consistently get up with Samara in the middle of the night. Glorious, glorious sleep. I'm definitely not bragging because I know how fickle sleep (and tempting fate!) can be. So, we were due. And sure enough, at 4:30am this morning, I got the Wailing Wakeup. I waited a few moments to make sure the problem wouldn't resolve itself and then got up. I went to her room and picked her up and she immediately snuggled against my chest and stopped crying. So I got cozy on the rocking chair and just rocked while she slept on me. And enjoyed every minute of it. Peaceful, blissful, amazing snuggling.

However, I soon developed a massive pain in my neck and my one arm fell asleep and I was reminded that my little girl is no longer a 7 pound baby but a 17 pound infant. I put her down in her crib, she fussed a bit but I patted her back and she immediately calmed down. Then I oh so carefully tiptoed out of the room, avoiding all the creaks I learned about in those first few months when the slightest noise would wake her up. But my stealthiness didn't matter...she saw me leaving and immediately started up again. So I brought her back to bed with me. She then thought it was party time. And back and forth we went. I tried to mean business but kept picking her back out of her crib and of course she learned quite quickly that I didn't mean business at all! Eventually at 630am, we were both asleep...in our separate beds too! Score 1 for Mommy!

My Other Weakness?

Besides lacking patience for myself, my other weakness is being a perfectionist. So I stayed up later (my eyes hurt now) so I could retry and get that darn white border back. I obviously didn't take the pics though, they were taken when I was 36 weeks pregnant with Samshine.


I've also realized that the image needs to be bigger (bigger width and height) for posting on the blog. If you want to see it bigger though (without me re-doing it AGAIN), you can click on the picture and it will load a new screen with it much bigger.

Learning New Things

Learning new things can be fun. For sure it can be FRUSTRATING. Especially for someone who lacks patience. Yes... I admit it. I lack patience. Mostly I lack patience at myself for the length of time it takes me to learn new things. Like snowboarding for instance. I gave up during the first trip to the mountains. I didn't even make it the whole day before I was leaking tears as I landed yet again on my butt and watched a 5 year old whiz by me with the greatest of ease.

Anyways, here's another attempt at Photoshop. I DO NOT know why there is no white border on the center photo. I realize it's missing but I can't for the life of me figure out how to fix it without restarting and I'm too tired to restart. Also, I realize that the right picture looks a bit warped because I didn't use the same size picture to start with. So...I may be too tired to fix it but I will try again tomorrow. I typed that just to make sure I followed through and didn't give up!

House Hunting

Yesterday, we went to Lethbridge sans Sammy and looked at as many houses as we could fit in. We saw 7 in total. My summary:

• People are pigs. No, really. I don't need to see your body hair on the toilet seat. EVER.
  
• Covering an 87 year old house with new materials does not mean we can't feel the floor sinking as we walk on it.
• It's a good hint that you're not in a great neighborhood when a bag lady pushes her cart full of bottles past you.
• Heavily perfumed carpet powder does little to cover the scent of smelly dog. Instead, it mixes together to form a smell worse than either on their own.
  
• Painting your closet doors the same colour as the walls is perhaps not the best idea. It's made even worse when the rooms are sky blue, light purple and yellow.
• Keeping ALL original decor from the 70s (padded wet bar, flowered red and orange shag carpeting, wood panels and patterned mirrors) is not retro and funky. It's just old and outdated.
  
• Painting your bathroom a pink so bright that you would need sunglasses to use it is not super appealing.
• You can only advertise your property as being 3 bedrooms if in fact you can fit a BED in it. I kid you not, one room was so small you wouldn't fit a crib in it. Or much of anything really. We thought maybe a time-out room?!

So...not a whole lot of choices. But we did fall in love with 1. And 1 is all we need. So we've put in an offer this evening and we'll see how it goes from there. As luck would have it, it's a bit above what we can afford so they would have to come down in price. Fingers crossed.

And how did I do leaving Samara for the day? Quite well, actually! She was having so much fun with Nana that she didn't care at all that we were leaving. As I was driving away, I was waving and she wasn't even looking at me. Once we got to Lethbridge, we were so busy that I only called 3 times to check in! She had a blast with Nana and I know Nana enjoyed having one on one time with Samara.

Friday Night Leftovers

Friday Night Leftovers idea taken from this blog.

• Samara was a cranky, cranky, crankypants this morning. Maybe she's trying to annoy me so that I won't be sad to leave her tomorrow?!
  

• I had the urge to make cookies today...chewy M&M ones. YUMMMM. Too bad I was halfway through mixing the batter and Sam woke up from her nap. I had to make a double batch of cookies with her awake, whining, pulling on my pantleg and generally being clingy. Very hard to make it to the oven when the timer dings, change pans, roll new cookies, transfer to cool, not burn the baby on the oven, etc. Most annoying baking session EVER. Not relaxing in the slightest!

• Shawn let me know that the lawyer was looking for our property report. I looked where I knew it was. And it wasn't there. I remembered giving it to the real estate agent when we listed the house and couldn't remember if he had given it back to me or not. Normally I'm distubingly organized but I couldn't for the life of me remember. So I destroyed the house looking for it. I didn't find it but succeeded in making a huge mess. Did I mention Sam was cranky and clingy? Yeah, all this was happened during the cookie baking session. Turns out the real estate agent had it all along and was filing it for safekeeping. ANNOYING. But at least we didn't have to pay $700 for a new one.
  

• After such a frantic morning, during Sam's afternoon nap I treated myself to a clean house. Sounds weird, right? Well, the house has been cleaned like crazy lately because of showings and open houses. But that was cleaning for WORK, not for pleasure. Yes, I'm a total weirdo. I actually enjoy cleaning the house (when I have the time). So now the house is spotless and smells so clean. Ahhh...I can actually breathe again. Does anyone else get frazzled when the house is a disaster? CAN'T. HANDLE. MESSES. I'm getting a bit more relaxed since Sam refuses to cooperate with my OCD-ness with having a clean house...but it still lurks waiting to strike at any moment.

• Tomorrow is house hunting day. We've got 7 appointments lined up...hopefully 1 stands out because I'm not sure we're going to be able to make a second trip before we have to move.

Separation Anxiety

I've posted before about how Sam has been experiencing separation anxiety. This time, I'm talking about myself.

In 10 months, Shawn and I have only been on a date a handful (if you lost a couple of fingers) of times. I have only been away from her for as long as 4 hours twice. Now this is going to change because:

-Lethbridge is 2.5 hours away from Calgary. A round trip equals 5 hours on the road. Samara can handle 30 minutes comfortably.

-We don't have any family or friends in Lethbridge that we can stay with and make a weekend trip. We could get a hotel room and spread the drive over 2 days but what do you do in a hotel room when the baby is napping? Stare at the walls and try not to breathe too loudly? Where does the baby play and release some energy? On the nasty, disgusting, gross foot traffic carpet of the hotel room? GAG.

-We need to find a new place to call home and have a very real deadline. It will be a HUGE day with the driving time and looking at many properties. At the end of the day, we need to make a decision. It would be very hard to do that with a baby needing naps, playtime, feedings, attention, etc.

So, a quick phone call to my mom who is 2 hours away (unfortunately not the direction we're going!) and she confirms she can babysit. So that means that on Saturday, for the first time EVER, I will be away from Samara for the entire day. From 730am until sometime in the evening. I will leave when she wakes up and probably won't get back until after she has gone to bed. I'm freaking out.

She will be with my mom. My mom who spent over a month with us when Sam was a newborn. It's not that. It's that I won't be with her. It will be like spending the day without my leg or my arm. I'm being ridiculous. I logically know that. But it does not stop me from freaking out just a bit (or a lot) about it. I will miss her SO SO SO much. Will she miss me? Will she be sad? I hope not. It has only been 3 hours since we decided to do the trip without her and I've cried 3 times thinking about leaving her. Tell me it gets easier. Tell me we'll both benefit from this break from each other. Tell me I'm being silly. I just reread what I wrote and it sounds so silly. My name is Natasha and I'm suffering from separation anxiety.

In other photo related news, check out this cool technique I tried tonight
(Super Sam, Comic Hero):

SOLD!!

Well, the house is finally sold! It was on the market for almost 2 months but felt MUCH MUCH longer. Keeping the house impossibly clean and having to leave with little notice was very difficult and stressful with an active baby destroying everything in her path. We now have until April 30th to find our new home in Lethbridge. We ended up selling for less than we had originally planned for a variety of reasons. I was really bummed out about it the other day since it would mean less money to put on the next house. Shawn and I had a long talk about why we were moving. It was not so we could get a bigger, better, nicer house. It was a huge step up in Shawn's career but more importantly, it was so I didn't have to go back to work and could stay home with Samara and hopefully in the future, her brother or sister. That's the important thing right now...not that we have many bedrooms, an ensuite, a walk in closet, double attached garage, air conditioning, finished basement, jacuzzi tub and so on and so on. Those things are amazing. But they're just things. They can't compete with the fact that I will get to continue to wake up in the morning to Samara babbling away in her crib, snuggling in bed together while we get ready to face the day, eating our meals together and basically doing whatever we feel like each day...whether it's going for a walk to ride the swings, running errands or just having a pyjama day. To me, that's worth more than living in a mansion. In a perfect world we could have it all...but what I've come to realize is that we already do have it all.

More Pics

Sorry, too many posts in 1 day! I was just working on some Photoshop techniques and wanted to post my results. I appreciate ANY constructive feedback!

Before:
After:


Before:

After:

Hurricane Sammy Returns!!

Remember when Hurricane Sammy destroyed the bookcase? Well, she returned with a vengeance tonight and hit my drawer!

Doulas

You know that friend you have? You know the one...you've known her for years, you may not chat every day but when you get together you pick up right where you left off? She GETS you? She thinks you're funny even if you're kind of not, thinks your faults are charming and loves you no matter what? The one who you don't have to clean the house when she comes over? That's Janice for me. She just took a doula course and is working towards her certification. She is offering her doula services FOR FREE!!! We really, really wanted to have a doula when we had Sam but after looking into it, it was just too expensive for us. So a free doula?? Jump while you have the chance! If you're in the Calgary or Red Deer area and are expecting, keep Janice in mind. You can find her at her blog.

p.s. - one time I made Janice laugh so hard that she knocked her tooth against the glass of her drink and chipped it. Sadly she got it fixed so she probably doesn't think of me every time she brushes her teeth.

10 months!!

For those of you new to my blog, I started it as a kind of baby book for Samara so every month I write these updates.

Samara is 10 months today. The time is running quickly away from me and I need to remind myself to enjoy each moment as they are all too quickly gone!

At 10 months, Sam is a super fast crawler. She is becoming very interested in walking and will walk ANYTHING around the house, ie. her walker toy, her learning table, her basket of toys, the kitchen chairs, the ottoman, the bar stools, etc! She will walk them until she gets stuck, squawk at us to put her in a clear path and off she goes! She has also started letting go of things while she's standing and playing. She can stand on her own for quite awhile now but no steps yet.

Her favorite toys right now are not really "toys" at all! She loves tupperware, Daddy's racquetball, her toothbrush and face cloths. She still really loves books but is developing a growing appetite for paper so I'm trying to keep her away from her big girl books and just let her play with the board books.

Sam's favorite activities this past month are going for walks in the Beco or the stroller, playing piano, walking around the house (with help!) and dancing. She really loves going to her friends' houses (NEW TOYS!!) and having friends come over to play. Not that they play together really but she seems to like having the company.

Food...well, Sam is a really good eater...when she wants to be. She is really becoming very hard to spoon feed. She's very independent and would rather feed herself. I struggle with that as it's hard to know how much she's really eating and I wonder if she's getting enough. Right now I'm trying to at least get her spoon fed for breakfast so she gets some iron fortified cereal. As far as finger foods, she'll eat anything. She loves any kind of meat...she has tried salmon, chicken, pork tenderloin and ground beef. Her other favorites are cheese and bananas. I swear the kid would survive off just those 2 things if we let her. I'm still breastfeeding. Yes, still. Another post on that later. She has no new teeth this month so has a total of 6.

Sleep is still going well (knock on wood, throw salt over my shoulder, cross my eyes and hold my breath). She sleeps about 12 hours a night and has 2 naps a day. The naps are a crap shoot...anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours and you just never know which one it's going to be.

The separation anxiety is much, much better. She still has her days where she wants to be held the entire time but they are definitely not as often. She will actually smile at strangers now as long as they don't try to hold her. She is getting to be quite the little flirt too. Today at the mall, we were sitting in the food court and she would not stop smiling and giggling at a table of boys. I pretended not to notice because really, what do you do when your child will not stop staring at someone?!

Sam weighs 17 pounds 12 ounces and is 28 inches long. In the past month she has gained almost an entire pound and shot up over an inch! She is in the 25th percentile for weight and is now 50th percentile for height. She still wears quite a few 3-6 month clothing but is now graduating to lots of 6 month and 6-9 month clothing.

Sam is figuring out things around the house like how to open and close doors, open the toilet lid, etc. More babyproofing ahead!

That's about it...2 more months till she's 1. I just can't believe it!!

Enjoy the monthly update picture. It took me 3 signs and 73 shots to get 1 I could actually use!

Dance, dance, dance

After we had dinner tonight, we cranked the tunes and did the dishes. Sam was playing around us. We started dancing and she did too and kept trying to copy us. It was THE cutest thing. No, I didn't get a video because I suck. HA! Actually, I have been using the point and shoot digital camera as a video camera and I didn't realize my new DSLR camera didn't come with a memory card so I had to take the one from the old camera for my new one so now I'm essentially video camera-less until I make it to the store to buy a new card. SORRY! But I did get a few pics that show just how pumped she was to be dancing with us!!