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.