Better Role Model

I am realizing that my daughter is going to start picking up on the things that I say and do. She's been too young to be aware of what's going on around her so far, but she's quickly entering the copy-cat stage of her life.
Sometimes my language leaves something to be desired (I was a sailor for 5 1/2 years after all!). I don't want one of her first words to be a word that makes me cringe.
I almost always talk on my phone when I'm driving. This is by far the habit I need to break with the most urgency. Not only is it dangerous, I don't want her to grow up thinking it's okay. I don't ever text when I drive though, so I have that in my favor.
There are many other things that I need to consider cutting out of my life in order to live as a 'better' example for Samantha, and there are things I want to start doing too. I know I'll never be the perfect parent, but I also know I have to try.

The Canadian female olympic hockey team motivated me to think about these things. If you didn't catch the game last night, there was a news story on yahoo this morning looking at how they celebrated their win. Check it out here.
Apparently they decided that drinking and smoking on the ice after the game was a great idea. I'm not judging them for that. What I am saying is that I don't especially want my daughter to look at that and think it's an appropriate way to celebrate a win of any kind.
I don't want to shield her from the world so much as I want to be a good example for her.

Stat Post

Birth:

6lbs 8oz
19 1/4 inches

Month One:
8lbs 12oz

20 1/2 inches

Month Two:
9lbs 14oz
21 inches

Month Four:

11lbs 11oz

24 1/4 inches

Month Six:

13lbs 14 oz
24 3/4 inches

Month Nine:
15lbs 4oz
26 1/4 inches

Month 12:
16 lbs 5oz
28 inches

With more to come...

Samantha's Second 1st Birthday Party

We went to Oak Lawn this past weekend for Samantha's second 1st birthday party. We thought we were maxed out on birthday fun after her Cedar Falls party. We were wrong!
Samantha went home with a load of new books, a fun ball toy, a bunch of new Baby Einstein dvd's, a homemade hair clip (check out the other ones Kris has made here, they're awesome!), a Nalgene sippy cup, a fleece Bears hat, stuffed animals, clothes, a wall hanging, and a monkey pillow. I'm sure there is something I'm forgetting, but you get the idea. She's got some really cool new stuff. Just like her last party though, she was more interested in the balloons than anything else.

On Saturday night Chris and I went out for coffee with my friends Tony and Kristin. I say my friends and not our friends because I went to high school with Tony and have gotten to be good friends with his wife Kristin since our kids have been born. They live far enough away that Chris really doesn't get much of a chance to get to know them. Anyway, we all went out for coffee and had a great time. It's fun to get to catch up with such awesome people, especially when you don't see them but once a year, if you're lucky.

We enjoyed our time with my family this weekend too. It took Samamtha a little bit to warm up to everyone, but once she did it was 'game on'. She was getting into everything and playing with anything she could get her hands on. By the end of the weekend we were all exhausted. Samantha was passed out for the last hour of our trip home, and Chris & I crashed on the couch Sunday night instead of unpacking. A 7 hour drive will make you feel about 20 years older than you really are!

Coffee & Diapers

You know you're going to have a good Friday when this is your breakfast:

I don't normally go to Starbucks in the morning. In fact, I recently completely gave up my morning coffee, so today this was a treat. Our Starbucks never has croissants, so imagine how happy I was when they said they did today!
Yesterday we received our box of diapers in the mail. I heard about a great deal on diapers.com from one of my friends who is just amazing with coupons. Good stuff.
I do think Samantha is way more interested in the giant box than what came in it though. Enjoy your new toy little girl. We got it just for you.

A post for Wednesday...is it the weekend yet?

It feels like it's been such a long time since I've put up a new post with pictures and everything!
Things have been pretty mellow and normal around here. Nothing really exciting and worthy of a blog post, which is why I've been so quiet. Here are just a few pictures to keep you up to date on how quickly Samantha is growing and changing.
We are now (finally!) able to get her hair into a little tiny pony tail thing. She actually leaves it alone too! Very cute. :)
Hot dogs for lunch! Yay! I mean, argh mateys!
If you look really closely you can almost get a glimpse of a couple of her top teeth in this one. They're probably hard to see because of the picture size, so you might have to just take my word for it.
Busted! We caught all of our pets sleeping near each other on the couch. Crazy...this almost never happens, especially with Kitty in the picture (the white cat up top)
Standing on the couch is fun, as long as you don't fall off. It's okay, she didn't fall off.
Standing on your chair and looking out the window is even more fun than standing on the couch!
Hanging out with your mouse is fun too.
My boss and his wife gave Samantha a gift card to a kid's boutique downtown called Peekaboo! It's a really cute little store with tons of baby and kids stuff. One afternoon last week I took her down there and let her pick what she wanted. I figured she's old enough to gravitate towards what she likes. I tried to encourage her to go for the bath toys or the books, but she wasn't really interested in them. She went for this mouse:He was quite possibly the most boring and plainest looking stuffed animal they had. I showed her the bright green frog, a fluffy poodle, a yellow lion, and a corduory pink bunny. Nope, she had a death grip on this mouse. We tried a monkey who made noises when you smacked his butt. She liked him for a minute, and then it was back to the mouse. So we went home with the mouse. He doesn't have a name yet, but she keeps walking around the house saying "bob, bob, bob," so I'm thinking it won't be long before he is dubbed "Bob the mouse" or something similar.

New video from the weekend

I had every intention of putting up a new blog post with pictures and everything, and then I forgot to bring my camera cord with me today. Ugh, of all things to forget on a Monday!
Until I get myself straightened out you'll just have to settle for a little video. Apparently Samantha has taken a bit of a liking to looking out the window....

There are a few other videos that I have uploaded to our You Tube page. There is a link to it on the left collumn here on the blog, but if you can't find that the link is right here too: You Tube

Happy Birthday Samantha!

I don't have much to say, other than I can't believe our little girl is a year old! It's gone by quickly, and it's been a long year all at once.

Samantha's First 1st Birthday Party

Saturday we had Samantha's birthday party in Cedar Falls. It was a nice little party with everybody here in town.
She had a cake shaped kind of like the caterpillar from the Baby Einstein line. I say kind of because I made it, and I'm not a baker, so it turned out kind of funky looking. She enjoyed hitting it for a couple of minutes, but didn't even attempt to eat it.

She got a few little fun toys, and really enjoyed playing with them after her nap with Isabella.
This morning we caught her watching her Baby Einstein dvd while sitting on the pillow Great Grandma Shirley made for her. We have a video from her cake 'smashing', but I don't have the time to upload it right now. I'll let you know when it's on youtube!

8 pacifers lost their lives today...

I drove up into our driveway today to the sight of Bandit (our husky) sitting in the front window.

Great.

Wonderful.
Fantastic.
Why is she roaming free in the house?
And what did she destroy?

These were the thoughts running through my mind at that moment.
I walked in the door, and surprisingly, the house was still in order, or so it seemed.
I saw 2 pacifiers on the living room floor. Or at least they used to be pacifiers. They were laying there in little tiny pieces, scattered on the rug.
We continued on to the bedrooms upstairs. Yep, my suspicions were confirmed. Bandit had jumped into Samantha's crib and removed all the her pacifiers, sentencing them to a slow and painful death by chewing.
I found one on the rug in Samantha's room, 2 on the floor in our master bedroom, and 3 on the bed in our room. That brings our grand total to 8. Thank goodness we still have 2 left, or we would have had to make an emergency pacifier run to Target, seeing as Samantha can not get to sleep without one.

Oh Bandit, you drive me insane.
One last thing. Tomorrow is Samantha's birthday party with the family in Cedar Falls. Check out her birthday banner. It's pretty nice, if I do say so myself. :)

Playing at Great Grandma Shirley's House

I think that other kid is Samantha's best friend. She loves looking at herself in the mirror.

Katie

Sometimes the most responsible thing to do is extremely difficult to follow through with.
Today we said goodbye to our dog Katie. There are few things harder in life than saying goodbye to a member of your family, and she has absolutely been a part of our family for the past 3 1/2 years.
We'll miss you Katie. Go get the birds.