18 Months!

Happy Halfy Birthday to Samantha! Here are a few recent pictures from my mom's camera. Sam is doing great. She knows at least a few hundred words and picks up new ones all the time. Her imagination is blossoming. She is an amazing child. So sweet, cute, curious, energetic, and all around delightful. What a blessing! Hard to imagine what we did before she was such a huge part of our lives. She has her next doctors appointment on Thursday, so we will see how her weight is then. We cannot get a stable measurement on our scales.

PS I tried to post this yesterday, but the photos would not load.

Three generations. We do all look alike.

Cruisin'

A toy my brother played with (and me too).

The artiste.

Greetings to Blade and Goodbye to Atlanta

Sam has a new cousin, who is not yet named, born last night. He has jokingly been called Blade, so welcome Blade.

In other news, we have been busy with packing and such, but we have added a lot of fun. First some random pictures. This cubs t-shirt was mine because my brother played on the cubs baseball team. And Nick is a huge cubs fan, so it was perfect. And made for some cute pictures.

My friend Sally and her daughter Izzy also came by for a playdate. Sam had a few lessons in sharing :)

Here is Izzy playing Sam's piano toy, which she now plays with and says "Baby Izzy play".

And many may remember Nick was gone for my 30th b-day and it was pretty lame. So he and some good friends of mine came up with a plan to thrown me a surprise going away/very early birthday party. I was invited to a girls night out with some of my closest GT friends. And Nick was going to hang out with a good friend, so that got my mom over to watch Sam. Nick dropped me off and we went to grab Margaritas. In I walked to a huge surprise! Unfortunately I sneezed at the crucial moment, so no perfect timing picture. But I was shocked. It was so sweet of them. I have the best husband and the greatest friends. We will miss all of you so much. Thanks for all the work and great acting. And thanks to everyone for coming.

Sick baby

So Sam has been a tad under the weather, with a fever that topped out at slightly over 102. She now seems to be mostly recovered, although getting her to eat is a challenge. So we have been stuck at home for the last few days except for a visit to the doctors office to check if her saying hurt was really an ear ache or just because. Thank goodness it was just because, she often says things hurt and we kiss them. I used to get awful ear aches, but she seems to just have a cold or some other sort of virus. We also had to miss out on a trip we had planned to go to Sally's mountain house to relax and play with Izzy :( But we should get some play time next week.
Sam has been pretty pathetic, so lots of elmo and we even tried a Barney. I did incidently get outsmarted by a toddler. She wanted more elmo and I was so over it, so I said elmo is not on right now, maybe later. She replied, "On 'mand" for "On demand". She is too smart for my own good :)

Summer fun!

An overdue picture...Many of you may remember when I posted pictures of my parents house with the tree in it. Well, Nick decided to get revenge by making lumber and then furniture for Sam. Here is the table, chair, and bench he built. He is working on a second chair and bench. They are all amazing! And have been quite an undertaking. What an amazing dad! We are so lucky. Sam loves her table, but cannot figure out if she would rather sit on the chair or bench.

Our life is still in chaos trying to rent our house and find a house to rent. Ah, moving fun! Half our stuff is packed and we just are weeks away, but still know very little. But we have still managed to have some fun. Sam and I went and met friends from church play group at the airport (PDK) playground Friday. Sam loved walking up the stairs and to the slide on her own. My big girl!

We also went out to lunch for my mother's birthday! Happy B-day to the #1 Nana! And we went to a GT friend's condo pool for a cookout. Sam loved the pool and even got in the float, but no pictures. We also went next door and were treated to a moving cook out with our favorite neighbors! We will miss you guys! Sam, who will not stay in a baby swing, let me push her on the big swing some. You never know, huh!

Some ants got into my parents house and my dad discovered that Sam is an A+ ant finder. Add exterminator to her possible future careers :) Maybe I can get her toward something more wildlife loving. She does love animals.

And Cheetos!

Catch up post

Xanna was nice enough to burn us a cd of photos from her graduation party, but I just downloaded them because my laptop had to be reformatted. So here are selected photos of our fun. It was great to see so many family members. Sam had a great time playing with Erin and jumping on the trampoline with Xanna. And Nick and I had a great time playing bocce ball with all the family helping out with Sam.

Fun in the ATL!

So we have been trying to squeeze in some good ol' Atlanta fun before the big move. For the 4th, we went to a party at Cara, Shawn and Emma's. It was so much fun and Sam and Emma were so cute. Emma liked to hold Sam, so we got her to hold hands. And once Emma just grabbed Sam's shirt.

We also went to the lake on Emory's campus to feed the ducks. Sam liked it, but it was a bit overwhelming because of all the ducks and geese.

We also made a trip to the zoo with Nick's cousin Maggi and her daughter Xanna. Here is a picture they snapped of us. I did not even realize we were so color coordinated until I saw it!

Sam had a great time and was happy to see Xanna again when she and Zach came to Tech.

Sam just loves seeing the bird, or birdie as she says.

And then I thought it would be fun to make my own playdough. I went with just flour and water to try and get rid of some flour. I left Sam play with it in just a diaper, which she pulled off, making it really saggy looking. She kept saying she wanted to play, but seemed less than thrilled at having it on her hand.

Happy 4th!

Happy 4th of July. My mom got Sam a cute outfit and I bought some cute socks from Target. Sam loves her star outfit. We met up with my parents and grabbed lunch at Wendy's. Sam had a great time dipping some chicken nuggets in ranch. Today was a potato day. She varies a lot on the food du jour. Recently blueberries, figs, and broccoli have been at the top of the list.