Graduation!

Graduation was last Friday night. Sam wore her GT cheerleading outfit and was so cute! She was such a great sport, staying up until 10:30, way past her normal 8-8:30. She had a great time. She really likes clapping right now, so all the clapping was a lot of fun for her.

That's me, with the balloon. They dropped a bunch on us.

Here is Sam with my cousin Linda and her son Blake.

This is me getting hooded by Nick's advisor, Dr. Greg Corso. My advisor could not make it since they cut the zoo's budget and Greg was nice enough to step in and sit through the ordeal.

Sam was not too impressed by Buzz.

Sam taking a few steps

After she tore up the napkin, she decided to leave the scene of the crime and I caught it on my camera. Not her best display of walking or my best example of videography, but it includes a few steps. I hope to get a better example soon.

My little overachiever

So Sam went in for her weight check. She needed to have gained 8 ounces and she had gained 9! She has become a much better eater, but it was a bit of a struggle, so it is great to know our hard work paid off. Here are some funny pictures. She loves to tear paper. I ask myself all the time why we have all these toys. But she got ahold of a napkin and did a great job in her application to be a shredder. She spends most of her time "reading." Here she is with her favorite book. And check out these adorable elephant pj's. They say "Elephants are very big, even the little ones."

10 Months old!

Here are the 10 month shots of Sam and the giant panda. It is getting a lot harder, so there are silly ones, like the one with her hand in front of her face (she was waving at me), and a lot of beating the panda into submission. There is also one of her with the Suess alphabet book, which is a current favorite (thanks Kristin!). She can spend up to 20 minutes at a time flipping through that book. She continues to be such a delight. I cannot believe 10 months have already passed.

So much to be thankful for!

We have so much to be thankkful for this year. Sam is obviously the biggest and best. She did great on Thanksgiving, eating both pureed food and some real turkey and of course puffs. She had a great time playing and the biggest news of the day is that Sam is now officially a toddler. She has been taking steps between chairs or the chair and exersaucer, but Thanksgiving was her first day to basically set off in a direction and she took 10 steps. She has been doing great, but she still sometimes crawls to get places faster. I will try to get walking video soon.

Peace and love to all our faithful readers. We are thankful for all of you!

Almost walking

It is hard to believe how quickly time passes. My baby will be a year old before we know it. She is quite a little lady. She definitely has her likes and dislikes, and quite a temper at times. She loves being outside, loves the dogs and being active. She loves yogurt and cheese and puffs. She is not too good about veggies, but will tolerate them. Same with egg yolks and pasta. So far she has spit out any beef or tuna that I have gotten in her mouth.

She also likes to wave and talk. She says dada a lot, but only says mama when she is in her high chair, generally after a mmmm, which I suppose means tasty. When I ask her to say mama, she says dada, which makes for a fun game when I say who loves mama. Not sure if she thinks she is saying mama, or if she is trying to rename me, but I am currently resisting the name change. She also says wolf because my mom shows her our pictures and Nick has a big wolf one, which Sam likes looking at. Although Sam says it more like "woffffff." She also says car, but it sounds a bit like she is from Boston. And she has now been crawling 2 months. She is super fast at it and cruises all around, too. She has taken a few steps between things, with the longest run being 4. She also walks behind her really cool truck, as shown in the video below. Sorry it is grainy, bad lighting.

Happy (almost) Thanksgiving!

hope all is well with all my faithful readers and a big apology for my lack of posts. You know how life can be. I finally finished editing my thesis, so I am officially "Dr. Kelling." I will be graduating on December 12th! It is so nice to be done. Of course, I have to catch up with everything that slipped through the cracks while I was so insane, hence the lack of postings. Well, enough excuses, here are some pictures. The pack and play ones illustrate that even our amazing baby has her moments of displeasure. Today we went all out and put on shoes!