Samantha: 18 Months, Week 4

Well, since I left off my last post with talking about putting up the Christmas tree, I'll start this one in the same way.  The next day, when Samantha came downstairs, she was so excited to see the tree, and even more excited when she realized that lights on the tree turned on.  After that, it was always the first thing she wanted to do when she came downstairs in the morning or came home at the end of the day.

This week, on Thursday, we took a family trip to the Children's Museum in Indianapolis because they had a Target Free Family Night from 4-8 p.m.  I picked Samantha up from the babysitter's and we headed right there.  Samantha went last year, but of course, she doesn't remember anything about that.  We saw the dinosaurs, which she especially liked.  She also got to play with many other fun things.  She really enjoyed the Jolly Days area for small children and preschool area that both had hands on activities for younger children.

 The best part of the whole evening for Samantha was riding on the carousel.  As soon as we walked into that area of the museum and she saw the horses, she had to ride on the carousel.  Luckily, we had some dollar bills with us so we could pay for the tokens to ride.  Samantha LOVED riding on the horse up and down and around and around.  It's funny because when she really likes something, she gets really serious and doesn't smile much, but really, she is having a great time.  When our ride on the carousel was done and we had to get off, Samantha got so upset and started crying.  She really loved riding on her horse and did not want to get off.

Well, once it was getting closer to 8:00, we decided to head home.  We changed Samantha into her pajamas so that she could fall asleep in the car on the way home.  It took her awhile to calm down, but she eventually fell asleep.

We had several late nights in a row this week, with the Children's Museum, a school Christmas party, and a games night with friends.  Our school Christmas party was on Friday night, and we decided to go since they were providing child care.  Samantha did really well with the other children, playing and eating pizza.  However, we stayed there until almost 9:00, so we had a very tired girl on our hands afterwards.  The next day, we just hung out at home in the morning, went grocery shopping, and Samantha took a nice, long nap.  After her nap, we headed over to the Brashers's house for a last get together before they move to Germany.  The boys and girls had a good time playing together, we shared a meal together, and then after we put Samantha down in the pack and play upstairs for the night, we had our last games night.  It was really great to get all the kids back together again one last time.  We are really going to miss these dear friends of ours.  Bloomington won't be the same without them.