Happy Halloween!

Halloween just happens to fall smack in the beginning of deer season, so Samantha and I got to hang out at home by ourselves for most of the day. We did some running around, but mostly we played, watched Baby Einstein, and played some more. The first part of the day was spent with Samantha dressed in her black tights with an orange ghost onesie.Once the trick-or-treating hours came she switched it up and put on her duck costume. Too bad our neighborhood is full of old people and college kids, nobody got to see her dressed up. :(
We skipped out on going trick-or-treating for a few reasons.
1. The stupid pig flu (H1N1) is making its rounds in Cedar Falls. Thanks, we don't want any of that.
2. Samantha can't eat candy, and Chris & I shouldn't either.
3. It was too stinkin cold!

She had fun anyway. We'll probably dress her up as a duck a few more times before she grows out of the costume.
Her friend Isabella (and Isabella's mom Jessie) stopped by for some emergency surgery on her Tigger costume. I didn't realize that Samantha has gotten to the age where she can play with other kids. She was 'talking' to Isabella and kept grabbing on to her shirt trying to stand up with her. Isabella is around 16 months old, so she didn't really understand what the heck was going on. She just wanted to play with Samantha's toys. Everytime she walked away Samantha would crawl after her as fast as her little arms and legs would go.
They hugged before Isabella and Jessie left though, that was pretty cute.
And that is how our Halloween went. A pretty typical Saturday with a super adorable duck thrown into the mix.

Pumpkin Carving

Tonight after Samantha went to bed we decided we needed to carve our pumpkins. It was only after I had everything on the dining room table ready to go that we realized Chris' pumpkin was rotting. It's not moldy or gross yet, but there is one big patch on it that when you touch it the skin gives way and you get a handful of mush. Definitely not carving material. So Chris sat this one out and I carved up my pumpkin. Every year I try to think of something cool do carve my pumpkin into, and I always end up doing something stupid. This year is no exception. I'm not really happy with how it turned out, I guess there's always next year. I found a picture of a pumpkin someone had carved into The Death Star...That would be the ultimate pumpkin! Maybe next year I'll be this ambitious.
Okay, so here's what mine looks like.

And so I don't get yelled at by the blog police, here are some pictures of Samantha. Her skeleton pajamas still fit! (barely)
This one is the only picture where you can really see the bones on her pj's, but she has a really strange look on her face. Oh well, what can you do?
We might carve her little pumpkin tomorrow, or we just might let it hang out until it starts to get old.

Sad to see the weekend go

This weekend Kiera and Mike came out to visit us! We had a blast, and really enjoyed visiting with them. We did some baking, watched The Proposal, found Kiera an awesome winter coat, played with Samantha, and made a trip up to the park. We were sad to see them leave on Sunday.

On Sunday before they left we were crusing around and found one lone garage sale. Look what we found! They had a foam play mat in the shape of the US for $3! It takes up a lot of room, and we probably didn't really need it, but it's educational, and it will save my kid from smacking her head on the bare floor.

Halloween Costume

Kiera and I (well, more Kiera than I) found this costume at Kohl's today. It was like 40% off. I know I wasn't going to dress Samantha up this year, but I couldn't pass it up. Stay on the lookout next weekend for more pictures of this kid dressed up as a duck!

There's no stopping her now!

As you well know, Samantha has been mobile for what seems like forever now. She is now leaving her comfort zone that is the living room and venturing into the unknown world (aka: the dining room and the kitchen). She chased her little yellow ball under the dining room table and came face to face with one of the cats. Of course, the cat didn't stick around for a photo op, but Samantha did! I wonder how many bruises she's going to end up with on her head from trying to crawl under these chairs.

Weekend Update

First of all, for everyone who is wondering, the sleep training is going very well. Samantha goes to bed with very little crying now, and is usually asleep within minutes of us leaving the room. She's gotten really good about getting herself back to sleep at night when she wakes up now too, except for on the occasions that she has thrown all of her pacifiers overboard. Thankfully she has so many of them in her crib that usually she can find one after a few minutes of scooting around and searching through the tears.
We have been waiting for months for her to hold her own bottle, and I think we are finally there.
On Saturday morning Samantha and I did the grocery shopping. When we got home I could tell she was ready for a bottle and a nap, but I had to at least get the refrigerated food put away. I put her on the living room floor, gave her a full bottle and told her to make it work for a few minutes. I checked on her a few minutes later to find her still drinking while holding the bottle and nearly fast asleep! After she finished eating I swapped the bottle for her pacifier and she was out for half an hour. She isn't that easy every time she's hungry, but now we know what she's capable of. Just this morning she was holding her bottle in her car seat while we were getting her ready to leave the house.
I didn't even realize how tired she looks until I uploaded this picture. Maybe you should take a nap little girl!
The monkey in her lap is her newest favorite toy. Yesterday we went to Old Navy because I had a 25% off coupon that I wanted to use to get her some fleece pants for the winter. On one of the end caps in the kids section there were stacks of board books, piles of toys, and bins of stuffed animals. I showed Samantha the owl they had because it was really colorful and (I thought) kind of cool looking. She didn't even really look at it. I held up a few more stuffed animals, and then I showed her this monkey. The second she laid eyes on the monkey she squealed so loud that everyone in the store heard her, then she proceeded to do her weird hyperventilating laugh that she does when she really really really likes something. Needless to say, the monkey fit into our budget for the trip, so he got to come home with us.
Here's another picture of her feeding herself. Way to go Samantha!
While we were out yesterday we also made a stop at Jo-Ann Fabrics. We were strolling down the aisles with the Christmas and Halloween decorations and found some fun Halloween masks. Well, either that or a baby Barack Obama jumped in with Samantha...you be the judge.
Not too long ago I posted a picture of our crazy monkey child climbing on her blue chair in the living room. She is no longer content with climbing. Now she is standing on it and it kind of looks to me like she's trying to escape through the window. Don't worry, Chris was right behind her out of the range of the camera while I took this picture. We don't let her stand on the chair, but I left her on there long enough this one time to get a picture. Here's some crazy hair for you. Bath time has gotten intense. If one of us doesn't keep our hands on her at all times she'll try to barrel-roll like a shark. In all honestly she'd probably roll once, get a ton of water in her face and mouth, and then she'd have a meltdown. That would make for a fun bath.

Sleeping Update

Here's the update on our sleep learning.
We started a new "program" with Samantha on Sunday night because we have just had it with nobody (other than the dogs) getting enough sleep in our house. We now start her bedtime routine around 7:00. Every other night she gets a bath, then it's up to her room for a bottle, a little time playing with some soft toys, and a few chapters from her children's Bible. After all those things we kiss her goodnight, throw about 6 pacifiers in her crib, lay her down, turn out the lights, and leave the room.
According to the plan that we are following we need to wait 5 minutes after we put her down to let her cry. After those 5 minutes we walk into her room, stop a few feet away from her crib and verbally reassure her that she can go to sleep on her own and that we haven't abandoned her. Then we wait 10 minutes. If she is still crying we do the verbal reassurance again. Then it's a 15 minute wait, and it continues at 15 minute intervals until she falls asleep.
Hearing her cry herself to sleep is hard, but I've seen so much progress over the past 3 nights that I can't deny this plan is working.
On Sunday night she cried for about 24 minutes before she settled down and went to sleep. Monday night she cried for about 12 minutes, and last night she cried for about 5 minutes. Not only that, but I have seen a significant decrease in the number of times she wakes up throughout the night. Sunday night she woke up a lot, and cried a lot. I followed the plan and did the verbal checks with her instead of picking her up and rocking her back to sleep. Monday night she woke up some, but got back to sleep very quickly on her own. Last night I think I heard her whine a little bit a handful of times, but it was so brief every time that I wasn't sure if it was her or one of the dogs whining to go outside.
Her naps are a completely different story. We've been trying to use this same method to get her to sleep on her own when she naps during the day, but it isn't even coming close to working. She literally did not nap yesterday. Every time she was put in her pack-n-play for a nap she screamed the entire time. Apparently there was even a point where she pulled off her socks and pants, and then took her diaper off too. She was one mad little baby. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of this to share with you. You'll just have to imagine what an angry half naked baby would look like standing in a pack-n-play.
I think our game plan for the naps is going to be put on hold for awhile. She's doing great sleeping at night, but she needs to get her naps in during the day too. Maybe once she has the night sleeping down we'll attempt the naps again.

So that's the sleeping news! On to some new pictures.
Samantha has figured out that she can use her own hands to feed herself!

This is how she watches Baby Einstein. Can you tell that she loves those videos?

And one for the dog lovers. Last night we were watching The Biggest Loser, and a commercial came on. It was the car commercial where two people are driving all over town looking for their dog and squeaking her toys out the car windows. I guess Katie thought they were looking for her, because that commercial had her undivided attention. The poor dog loves squeaker toys, but she's not allowed to play with them. She can only have the super tough industrial strength Kong toys because she destorys everything else. No squeaker toys for our dogs anymore, it's just a waste of money.

In desperate need of a change

Night time has gotten absolutely ridiculous around here. Samantha has been sleeping in our bed with us more often that I would like to admit, and even then she wakes up multiple times at night. When I say multiple I'm talking in the neighborhood of 5 or more times. Not cool.
We've finally decided enough is enough, this girl is going to learn how to sleep. I did some looking today and found a book that has a lot of promise. It's called The Sleep Easy Solution, their website is sleepyplanet.com. They promise their method will work 100% of the time, and they say that it should work within 3 to 5 days. We started the 'sleep learning' tonight, and Samantha was asleep 24 minutes after we put her down. She did a lot of crying, but eventually she fell asleep. The hard part will be dealing with her according to this plan as she wakes up throughout the night, but I think we can stick to it. I'll check back in a few days and let you know how it's going. Hopefully we'll have a baby who is sleeping through the night!

Eight Months Today!

A few months before Samantha was born I was more than ready to just have her and be done with being pregnant. I think those last 3 months were the most uncomfortable months of my entire life. The funny thing was all my friends who had children or babies were telling me to enjoy the last baby-free weeks I had.
What?! Enjoy being humongous with all sorts of random pain and soreness? Enjoy not being able to go an hour without visiting the bathroom? Enjoy feeling like my baby is going to be a martial arts master when she's born because of how hard she can kick my ribs? I don't think so!
Every day I was couting down and impatiently waiting for Samantha to be born. On February 8th she was, and I realized that my friends had more wisdom than I gave them credit for.
Having a baby to care for has been one of the biggest challenges I've had in my life. Hands down, it has been the most rewarding, but it definitely hasn't been easy. Priorities have shifted. Things that seemed like they were alarmingly important before tend to be neglected. Our house is not as tidy as it once was. Bedtime is nowhere near as late as it used to be. On the weekend we're lucky if sleeping in means sleeping until 7:30.
Just last weekend though I realized that we have finally made it into official parent territory. I was holding Samantha on the couch when Chris finally said the thing that I had been told we would eventually say. He said something along the lines of,
"You know, she can really be a nightmare sometimes, but I don't know what we would be doing right now without her."
It's the truth. What did we do with all that spare time we used to have? Life must have been so boring before she was born, because it sure isn't now!
One last thing I want to mention. Congratulations to my cousin Andy & his girlfriend Trisha, their baby boy Nova was born today!

Mirror Licker

I guess she thinks the mirror tastes good.
Samantha decided that scaling her chair was going to be a lot of fun. Then she dropped her pacifier behind it. For a minute I thought she was going to flip herself over the back reaching for it.
Somebody is turning 8 months old tomorrow. I won't tell you who...but I will try to put up a blog post about them if I have time.

Samantha wants to know how flexible you are...

...because she thinks she has you beat. She was sitting in my lap when she did this. Oh, and she was trying to eat her toes in the bathtub tonight too. I guess when you learn a new cool trick like this you have to try it everywhere.
We took a little trip to the park yesterday so the dogs could run, and man was it cold! Seriously, even the pictures look cold! I love the cold fall weather, but I wasn't prepared for how windy it was going to be. Next time we will bring hats. Samantha has grown out of the bootie/slipper things that she used last winter to keep her feet warm, so I have been on the hunt for something that will fit, look cute, and keep her feet toasty. We found these moccasin looking shoes at Blain's Farm & Fleet yesterday. They're nice and long so they'll keep her legs kind of covered too.
I just thought this picture was adorable, so I'm posting it even though I don't have a story for it. This one is right after she was done licking her toes, so maybe she was thinking "Mom was right, my toes do smell kind of gross".
P.S. Check out the hobby blog for an incredible recipe!