Samantha at 6 Months

We can't believe how fast time has flown by!  Samantha just turned 6 months old this past week (November 16th) and now she is half a year old.  She is such a big girl and is loving life!  She loves her rice cereal now, as you can see from these pictures.

She also still loves to be in her car seat and go on walks.  She is just such a happy, mild-mannered baby almost all the time.  We are so lucky to have her pleasant disposition, and we hope she always is this way.

To go along with our monthly tradition of taking pictures of Samantha on each month birthday, along with a sign, here are some great pictures showing off Samantha's sitting skills!  One thing remains the same, she still likes to eat her sign!

Even though Samantha didn't care, we went out for pizza on her half birthday.  We tried this Chicago pizza place, and it was pretty good, but it was more about just going out and having fun as a family.  Samantha does so good at restaurants.  While we were there, an older lady came by to say hello to us and told us that she has a granddaughter that is three weeks old and was wondering how long it's going to be before she is sitting up at the table babbling like Samantha was that evening.  We are even able to use high chairs with Samantha when we go out now because she can sit up so well.  Samantha always attracts a lot of attention wherever we go.


Over the weekend my parents, sister, and her boyfriend, Matt, came down to visit because Samantha was going to be dedicated on Sunday at church.  On Friday night we went out to dinner with my parents and when we came back she was just sitting on the couch hanging out with my parents, looking at my dad's iPhone at the flashlight app that had changing colors on it.  She was so cute sitting there with her hand draped over my dad's arm.

Here is another one of Samantha's favorite activities, her exer-saucer.

When my family was down for the weekend, we decided to make a Thanksgiving meal for them, since we weren't going to be in Chicago for Thanksgiving this year.  We busted out Samantha's high chair for the first time, and let her sit with us at the table as we had our Thanksgiving meal.  We decided to let her try some mashed potatoes, and let me tell you, she was not a big fan!  She made this terrible face and then proceeded to gag and spit back up any potato that had gone down her throat.  These pictures tell the story well.

Samantha has become so much more interactive lately, from playing with her toys, to engaging with people.  Oh yeah, and she also always seems to find the tag on any toy that she has.  She seems to love to suck on the tag more than anything else.  Lately, she has been doing something really funny where she is constantly moving her hands and feet.  It is almost like she is doing wrist and ankle circles.  When she does it with her hands, it looks like she is conducting an orchestra.  I don't know why she does it, whether she has just discovered that she can move her hands and feet around, or what, but it is certainly funny to watch!

Then on Sunday, it was Samantha's big day!  She was going to be dedicated in the 11:00 service at our church, Evangelical Community Church.  We invited our families and planned to have a lunch afterwards to which we invited our family and friends.  A couple weeks ago, Ben's parents bought Samantha a Christmas dress, and we decided to have her wear it for the dedication as well, just minus the red velvet sweater.  The dedication was so sweet and special.  Samantha did great up there, even though it was right in the middle of her nap time.  She let Pastor Bob hold her, tried to grab the microphone, and even put her fingers up by his mouth and chin (which she has liked doing to many different people lately).  Afterwards, the pastor gave us a certificate of her dedication and a children's Bible.  Here are some pictures from the Sunday of Samantha's dedication.

Besides for my family, Ben's parents, as well as his sister, Jeni, and brother-in-law, Andrew, and their daughter, Alaina, all drove down for the church service and the lunch afterwards.  One of my student's dads works for Chick-fil-a, and was kind enough to donate a chicken nugget tray for our lunch.  We made pasta salad, got a fruit tray from Kroger, and Ben's mom provided three different kinds of desserts for us.  We had a nice turnout of friends and family, and it was great to celebrate Samantha's dedication (even though she was in the nursery taking a nap for the first half of the lunch).

Sometimes thinking about raising this sweet little girl is a daunting task.  I praise God for giving us Samantha to take care of, and I pray every day that He would help us to know how to bring her up "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."  I look at my little girl and thank God for her every day.  Ben and I both reflected back on the last six months of our new life as a family of three, and as your daddy so eloquently phrased it, number one, we can't believe she has been with us for that long, where did the time go?  And number two, we already don't know what we would do without her.

Samantha at 26 Weeks Old

It's amazing how good Samantha is at sitting up by herself now.  She can sit on the floor and play with her toys for a half hour or so now, staying engaged and amused in her independent play time.

Also, this past Wednesday, something interesting happened.  We went to Chipotle for dinner and on the way back Samantha fell asleep in the car around 6:45.  We left her in her car seat and took it upstairs once we got home.  She must have been really tired because she slept all through the night in her car seat until around 4 a.m.

On Saturday we went grocery shopping and decided to let Samantha sit in the cart all by herself while we went around the store.  She did pretty well, but still has trouble holding herself up in seats like this.  This is also the first day she wore real jeans.  It was pretty adorable-she looked like a little mini-adult!

Here are some cute pictures of Samantha in our bed on Sunday morning.  It almost looks like she is sick in bed for the day!

Here is Samantha after her bath.  It looks like she wants to follow in Daddy's footsteps by reading some political science articles.  (To be honest, she more concerned with eating the paper!)

We had a pretty busy weekend overall.  On Friday night we went up to Avon for a birthday party for our friend Tim.  While we were there, he offered us free tickets to the Colts game on Sunday from his boss at work that has season tickets.  We couldn't turn that down!  Even though they lost, it was still a great time.  Samantha and I had our first NFL experience, the seats were incredible, and it was so fun experiencing that together as a family.  Samantha did really well, she got a little fussy during the game because she was getting tired and was overloaded by all the noise and lights, however, in the third quarter she finally gave up and fell asleep in Daddy's arms.  We just love our little girl.  She is so happy and sweet.  Here are some pictures from the Colts game.

I know I have written about this before, but the highlight of most of my days is when I get to nurse and cuddle with Samantha.  Nursing is such a wonderful gift, and I understand that it doesn't always work for every woman, so I am blessed that Samantha and I have been able to share that experience together. I love looking down at her little face with the chubby cheeks.  I love how she holds onto my finger or my shirt.  I love how content and happy she is, and how she just rolls over and falls asleep when she is full, and I am nursing her before bedtime.  I love how I then can just pick her up, with her body completely limp and relaxed, and lay her down in her crib.  At which point, she immediately rolls over and gets herself snuggled up on her tummy for the night.  She is such a blessing.  I love our little family of three!

Samantha at 25 Weeks Old

Samantha is continuing to grow both in size and in knowledge.  She has kind of been fitting in both three month and six month clothes up until now, and I think we have finally got to the point where three month clothes are too tight on her.  We can't believe that she is almost six months old, time goes by so quickly.


We have been giving Samantha rice cereal every evening and she definitely shows more interest in it now.  She reaches for the spoon and bowl and gets really excited about it.  I think she is still trying to figure out how exactly to swallow the cereal and where to put her tongue, but it is a learning process and an introduction to more food to come.


Our little girl is always so social and happy.  We are pretty much able to take her anywhere.  She just loves to be around people and will let anyone hold her.  She gives away smiles and giggles all the time.  We hope that this is an indication of her personality because it is something we love about her.  It will be interesting to see if she goes through a phase of not wanting to be around strangers, and instead just wants to be around mommy and daddy.


Something we have discovered in the last week as well as how much Samantha moves around in bed.  One day I walked into her room and she was grabbing onto her mesh bumper and using it for leverage to move herself around the crib.  It was after that that we decided it was time for us to lower her crib down to the next level.  Now that she is learning how to sit up and his pulling herself around in the crib, we don't want it to become a dangerous place where we will be worried about her being safe.  She continues to roll over and sleep on her tummy all the time too.  Almost every time I lay her down at night she will roll right over and get comfortable on her tummy for the night.  Some nights she will stay that way for the whole night because she has been sleeping through the night off and on for the past week.


This past weekend we met Ben's parents in Indianapolis for brunch.  Afterwards we went to the mall and shopped for a cute Christmas dress for Samantha.  His parents offered to buy it for us.  We went to JCPenney's and found a really cute white and red Christmas dress.  Samantha tried it on in the store, and it looked really cute on her.  It even has a puffy skirt and little, red velvet jacket.  She will look quite adorable!


Here are some great pictures of Samantha sitting up: