Samantha at 24 Weeks Old

This week Samantha has continued progressing with some of the same developments from last week.  She is getting really good at sitting up, and now can do it for extended periods of time.  We can set her down on the floor with a toy in front of her, and she will play with it for quite some time without falling over.  In fact, today while Ben was putting clothes away in her closet, Samantha sat up by herself on the floor for about 15 minutes playing with her toys.  Here are some cute pictures of Samantha sitting on our dining room table.  (Don't worry, I was standing right next to her in case she lost her balance.)

Samantha has been showing a lot of interest in food lately, watching our forks go to our mouths, and reaching for our plates, so we decided to start giving her some rice cereal.  We gave her her first taste last Wednesday night.  Samantha was not so sure of the rice cereal upon her first tasting.  She would lean towards and reach for the spoon, but then when she got the taste in her mouth she would make an awful face like she didn't like the taste of it.  We have tried it with her several more times since then, and I think it is growing on her.  The last couple nights she has really seemed to like it because she doesn't make the awful face.  She doesn't do so good at swallowing it all, for sometimes it seems like more comes out than stays in, but she will eventually learn where she has to put her tongue and how to swallow the food.  Here are some pictures of her first experience with rice cereal.

This past weekend we went out of town for my cousin's wedding in Chicago.  We stayed at my grandma's house and had a good weekend of eating Chicago pizza, hanging out with family, and attending a beautiful wedding.  Samantha did really well the whole weekend, and we were able to get her to take some good naps.  On Saturday morning, she took a nap for almost two hours, which really helped her not get too crabby at the reception that evening.  After a while we changed her into her pajamas and Ben held her out on the dance floor.  She feel asleep in his arms, and it was so adorable.  Here are some pictures from our weekend in Chicago.  It was great, and we had a wonderful time, but we definitely felt like we need a weekend after our weekend.

Also, this week Samantha experienced her first Halloween!  We met up with friends from our small group and went trick or treating around their neighborhood.  We got a costume from Melanie that she used with her youngest boy when he was a baby.  Samantha was dressed up as a little teddy bear!  In order to feminize the bear (and so people would know that our baby is a girl), we attached a little pink and a little purple bow, one to each ear.  She looked SO adorable, we just couldn't get over it.  Here are some great pictures of Samantha with the boys trick or treating.

Other random news about Samantha: 
We have officially moved to size 3 diapers.  She was probably ready for them a couple weeks ago, but we were trying to finish off our last box of 2s.  She is eating 4.5 ounces on a regular basis out of her bottle and is able to space out her feedings a lot more now.  She normally eats six times a day, only five if she sleeps through the night.  Samantha has also taken to sleeping on her tummy almost all the time now.  As soon as we lay her down, whether for a nap or for the night, she will sometimes instantaeously roll over and get comfortable on her tummy.  It still makes me nervous because of SIDS, but I don't think there is anything we can do about it.  She obviously prefers to sleep on her stomach.  We also no longer have the pack n' play set up in our room next to my side of the bed.  Samantha doesn't use it anymore as she sleeps the whole night in her crib now.  When we came back from our trip to Chicago, we decided not to set it up again, and I have to confess that it made me a little sad.  Each small develoment is so exciting, and we want her to become independent, but it makes me sad for the things of the past, things I will never experience again with Samantha.  She is such a big girl, growing more and more everyday, always learning new things.  We dearly love our little girl.

Samantha at 23 Weeks Old

There are so many things for me to write about this week!  Many developments and firsts, so bear with me as I describe them.  The first thing she started doing on a regular basis this week is rolling over onto her tummy, especially during naptime, and sleeping that way.  We always lay her down on her back to start, but she must prefer to sleep on her tummy (like her daddy), so more often than not, she is flipped over when she wakes up.  We actually had to change the bumper pads from the padded, decorative ones, to these mesh, breathable bumpers so that if she were to roll over into the side of the crib she can still breathe.  Samantha still hasn't learned how to roll back once she has gotten on her tummy.  Here are some cute pictures I snapped after she had just woken up from a nap on her tummy.

Samantha has also started to suck her thumb a lot more.  Every once in a while we can get her to take a pacifier, but it is not really for sucking, just for chomping down on.  Here are some pictures of our little girl sucking her thumb, wrapped up in a towel after her bath.  She continues to love baths and now has mastered the art of kicking her feet into the water and splashing everyone and everything around her (including Mommy and Daddy)!

The other new development is that Samantha is sitting up!  She has been working on it for awhile, and she still isn't completely sturdy, but she can definitely do it for several minutes without support.  I think she will really enjoy seeing the world from this perspective!

I don't have any pictures of this, but Samantha has seems to already understand that dropping objects, like her toys, is a fun game to play.  She really enjoys playing in her exer-saucer and can very easily turn herself all the way around to play with the various toys.  The other night when she was playing in it, I gave her her rattle to play with also, and Samantha kept pushing the rattle off the side of the exer-saucer, I would put it back, and then she would continue to push it off.  This is the first time of many, I'm sure, that we will play this game.  It was cute because our little girl is starting to learn cause and effect.


Here are some cute pictures of Daddy with his little girl whom he adores.

Here is Samantha all bundled up and ready for a walk with Mommy and Roscoe.

This past week Samantha developed a stuffy nose and then on Friday it progressed into a cough that got much worse on Saturday.  She had a rough time sleeping on Friday night because of it, so we took her into the doctor just to check and make sure her cough wasn't in her chest and that she didn't have an infection of any kind.  She was fine, but we felt so bad every time she did her sad, pathetic little cough.


On Sunday, Samantha achieved another new development, she finally rolled over to her right!  Here is a picture of Samantha on her floor gym after she had rolled over to her right.

Across the last couple of months we have had bouts of good and bad experiences with sleep.  When Samantha was younger, she had a hard time going down for naps and being left by herself.  Well, that has obviously improved over time and now Samantha is pretty good at being laid down for naps while she is still awake and falling asleep on her own.  Sometimes she will cry for a few minutes and then fall right asleep.  It is a real blessing for us to have a baby that sleeps better and feels rested throughout the day so that she can be herself in her interactions with others and not get overtired in the evenings.


The next big development of this week was...drumroll please...Samantha now has her two lower front teeth!  She has been drooling and rubbing her gums for quite a while now, and as I posted last week, we thought a tooth might be coming anytime, and we just noticed that they broke through on Monday.  It's interesting that they both decided to come through at the same time.  She wasn't too cooperative when we were trying to get a picture because she didn't want us sticking our fingers in her mouth and pushing her tongue out of the way, but this is the best one we got!

The last week has been up and down with sleeping at night, Samantha was waking up more frequently, sometime even two times during the night.  There were also a couple nights where she seemed unsettled, and we had a hard time getting her to fall back asleep, sometimes taking turns staying up with her.  Now, that we look back on the week, with all the new developments she has made and the teeth breaking through, no wonder she has had a hard time sleeping and has been a little more fussy during the day.  Her little mind and body have been busy growing and learning new things.  However, now that her teeth have come through she is getting back into her normal sleeping pattern and has slept through the night again a couple of times.


My most cherished time of the day is when I get to nurse and cuddle Samantha to sleep at night.  I love being a mom.  When else will my daughter cry for me to be with her at night or cuddle up into my chest for comfort when she is upset?  Even though sometimes I get frustrated when she awakens during the night, when she does sleep through the night I miss her in the morning.  These times I get to spend with my little lady are times that I will yearn for in the future.  At night, as I rock my baby off to sleep, I hold her close, cherish these moments, and I will soak up as many as I can.  I love being Samantha's mom, and I thank God for entrusting me with her care.

Samantha at 5 Months Old

Samantha is growing up so fast.  Every week I feel like I have something new to post that she has started doing.  She has been playing with her feet quite a bit lately, but this past week she has made a conscious effort to put her feet in her mouth and suck on her toes.  It is rather cute.  Don't we all wish we could be that flexible?

When Samantha gets bottles during the day while I am at work, we have started  giving her 4.5 ounces because it seemed like she was still hungry after only having 4 ounces.  That's the one tricky thing about breastfeeding, you really have no idea how many ounces they are eating, they just eat until their bodies say they have had enough to eat.  Here is Samantha attempting to hold her own bottle one day while Ben was feeding her.

We had quite the eventful weekend because it was Homecoming at Taylor University, and it was our 5 year anniversary.  We made plans to go to the 2006 class reunion and also to have a cook out with our friends on Saturday night so we could all get together and hang out.  Samantha was a pretty good sport even though we dragged her around all day on Saturday.  She didn't get very good naps because of all the Homecoming activities.  Taylor is building a new science building and Ben's dad has had a lot to do with the planning of it.  Nevertheless, the building has been a long time coming, so we went on a group tour of the building.  Ben's dad wanted a picture of him and his granddaughter in his new soon-to-be office.  Here is a picture of Samantha wearing her hard hat, ready for the tour!

Here are some more pictures of Samantha at Homecoming:

One thing we realized about Samantha this weekend is that she doesn't sleep very well when we are in other places.  Friday night she fell asleep in her car seat on the way back from dinner, and we just left her sleeping in there until  she woke up at 2 o'clock in the morning.  I then fed her and put her back to sleep.  She woke up again later in night/earlier in the morning and was running her nails up and down the mesh on the side of the pack n' play.  It's like she could tell she was somewhere else and not at home, and it felt different to her.  On Saturday night, because of the craziness of the day, I think she got overtired which made it a rough night.  She woke up several times during the night and one time she woke up she wouldn't go back to sleep and ended up being awake for almost two hours.  Nevertheless, Ben and I didn't sleep much that night, and we were feeling exhausted on Sunday morning.  Luckily, Samantha took a 2.5 hour nap on Sunday afternoon, and we were actually able to sneak in an hour nap ourselves which gave us a much needed boost.

It's amazing how much of a schedule Samantha has gotten herself into, and a change in that schedule, even as small as sleeping in a different place other than her crib, really seems to throw her off.  The last time we traveled to Ben's parents' house the same thing happened with Samantha having trouble sleeping.  The last couple of days has been just trying to get Samantha back into her routine, and she has slowly been catching up on sleep and turning into her more normal, less tired self.

Also, this past Sunday Samantha turned 5 months old!  It's hard to believe she is that old already, and it is getting harder and harder to get any good pictures of her because all she wants to do is eat her sign!

Samantha has been doing a better job with trying to sit up on her own.  She is working on it, and if she can balance herself or hold herself by leaning on her arms, she can actually sit up for a while on her own.  We have been letting her lean up against the boppy pillow or sit in between our legs to help her practice sitting up.  That is the next milestone for Samantha to accomplish, along with getting her first tooth, which we feel has to be coming sometime soon with how much she is drooling and how she rubs everything on her gums and sticks everything in her mouth.  Her cousin Alaina already has her first tooth, so we'll see when Samantha has one pop up!

Samantha at 21 Weeks

Samantha has a new development that she has started in the area of sleeping this past week.  She is sleeping through the night!  Yeah!  Last week on Wednesday, I decided that I would start the next phase with Samantha and go into her room and nurse her in the rocking chair when she woke up during the night, and then put her back to sleep in her crib rather than keeping her in our room in the pack n' play.  However, I didn't even need to do that, because that night she slept through the night.  Except for the Friday and Saturday night when my family was visiting, Samantha has slept all the way through the night, from when we put her to bed around 8:45 all the way until I wake her up to nurse her at 6:30 before I leave for school, and then will usually go back to sleep until around 8 or 8:30.  I would be okay if this were a new pattern for her, but I know growth spurts and different things will cause nighttime disturbances still.  For right now, I am really enjoying nights of uninterrupted sleep.  It is also nice having her in her own room so that Ben and I can get ready in our bedroom in the morning without tiptoeing around in the dark.

Samantha sporting her Cubs onesie!

This past weekend my parents and sister came to visit us here in Bloomington.  On Friday night we went to Brown County State Park for a cook out since the weather was so beautiful.  After dinner we went on a trail together and Samantha had the greatest time.  She really likes it when we go up and down stairs, which the trail had plenty of.  It's really funny to her for some reason, and she was just laughing and having a good old time on our hike.

As we were walking, Samantha grabbed onto the leaves of this tree and examined it carefully. 

On Saturday we all went to the farmer's market in the morning and then went to celebrate little Elijah's first birthday.  We had a great time hanging out with friends and watching all the kids play with each other.  Even though Samantha can't play yet, she enjoys watching others and is very social.  She loves being around people.

We dressed her up for the birthday in this adorable little dress.  Isn't she just the cutest thing you've ever seen?

She's not being very lady-like in this picture, is she?

Here are some more pictures from when my family visited:

You can't tell from this picture, but that hat on her head is actually Ben's Cubs hat.

Here is Samantha all dressed up for church on Sunday.  We like to put her in dresses.  :)

What a great family picture!

Another new development with Samantha is that she is responding to her name.  When she is looking away and we say her name, she will turn toward us.  If we say a different name she doesn't respond, so that's really neat to know she is starting to recognize certain words already.  Also, a couple weeks ago, we got an exer-saucer from some friends and she is really enjoying that.  She can exercise her legs and is starting to figure out how to turn herself around in it.  Right now the toys go right to her mouth, but at least they have some purpose right?  We think she may be teething, but won't really know for sure until a tooth pops out.  She has been exceptionally drool-y lately, and she has been putting everything in her mouth and chewing on it.  Samantha has also been much more vocal lately.  It's like all of a sudden she found her voice and now she is "talking" much more than she used to.  Maybe Cousin Alaina rubbed off on her a little bit when they got together a few weeks ago.  Samantha likes to make really high pitched squealing noises.  It's almost like she is playing with her voice, testing out all the different sounds that she can make.

We also just discovered that Samantha has cradle cap.  I wasn't really sure what it was before, but I noticed some yellow spots up by her hairline, along with some dry skin on her scalp, and one of our friends said that it was cradle cap.  In our pediatrician's handbook, it says to use baby oil to soften their scalp and loosen the skin, and then to use Selsun Blue and a toothbrush to scrub it to help clear it up.  We tried that for the first time and putting the baby oil on her head made her hair look so greasy!  I tried it again the next night without the baby oil and that helped with the greasiness factor, but her head still looks pretty flakey because of the dry skin.  It is a very common thing for babies to develop, so we will just keep trying to take care of it and help it to clear up.


It is amazing to me how fast Samantha is growing.  Ben and I were looking through some old pictures of Samantha to pick some to print out and take to our schools, and we were just getting so sentimental looking at how tiny she was when she was born and how much she's grown since then.  She is such a big girl and is such a joy to have in our life!