Guess what Samantha can do?!!!!

December 1, 2009 Samantha is officially walking! She had taken lots of small steps - two to three steps to get from the couch to Mom or Dad, but she started walking across the room yesterday. Yay! She is also talking up a storm...she sings the Elmo song, she says cookie, giggle, tickle, mine (that's fun!), turtle, frog, moo (for a cow), tigger, and of course Elmo, Elmo, Elmo - her absolute favorite thing!

We posted a video - see below! Also after way too long here is the link to her 1 year pictures taken by Carina at Kat's Photography - Samantha 1 year. Here's a preview too!

Samantha turned 1!

Hi everyone! Our little girl turned 1 year old on September 27! She is doing great - she is so close to walking. She has taken a few steps, but only does it when she isn't paying attention. It's only a matter of time. She is also talking a lot. She likes to repeat after you. Her eating is also ramping up - which we are quite happy/relieved/excited about.

We had so much fun celebrating her birthday - twice! First, with family up in Michigan on her actual birthday and then with our Houston family a week later. Here are some highlights from our trip to Michigan and the parties...all the pictures are posted here - Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, First Birthday - Michigan, and First Birthday - Houston.

Lenny, Samantha, Jon and Mathew heading to Michigan Stadium.

Samantha up in Michigan - Grandpa and Grandma Fischer's backyard with pumpkins from their garden.
Samantha with Grandpa Fischer at Lake Michigan - she really likes the beach!

Samantha with Grandma and Grandpa Fischer at the beach - Grand Haven.
Samantha and Ann in Grandpa Cassady's wagon. The hair must run in the family!
The Tigger cake Amy and Kalena made for Samantha's Birthday!
Sam got a cammo hat for her birthday!
Happy Birthday Samantha!
Swinging with Grandma Cassady.

Samantha with Mommy and Daddy at her Houston Party!

Videos

Samantha is learning to stand. She also has a hilarious laugh. Here are 2 videos to prove that.

Pictures!

Okay - demands have been made! Here are some pictures of Samantha. I know it's been far too long. She is doing great! She started crawling full force on her 9 month birthday - June 27. She has just gotten speedier since. She is pulling herself up on furniture now and walking along it. She can climb one stair step too! She also has four teeth now - her two top teeth came in last Friday (July 17). She talks up a storm - she says "wow", "whoa", "ut-oh", "dog", "no", "hi", "dada", " mama"...it's great! We are now working with a nutritionist to figure out a way to get her interested food other than her bottle. It's coming along. It's mostly Lenny and I getting reassurance that we aren't doing anything wrong and that Sam is doing just fine - she will eat eventually! Well some pictures...there's more at this link - Sam - June 2009.

Samantha at 9 months!


Sam at 9 months.

Look at those teeth!

Crawling girl!

Hi!

Samantha with Daddy, Grandma Cassady, Cousin Matthew, Aunt Kalena, and Cousin Ann at the zoo!

At the beach with Aunt Kalena, Matthew, Mommy, Grandma Cassady, and Ann.

I love the ocean!!!

Samantha with her cousins Victoria, Elizabeth and Kelsey.

I'm exhausted!

This is a video from Samantha's first time in the community pool.

Happy 8 Month Birthday Samantha

Samantha turned 8 months old yesterday! She has grown so much... she's weighing in around 19 lbs now! Remember when we were so worried about her getting back to birth weight - how time flies! She is still in the scooting backwards phase - I swear she is going to crawl any second now. No hurry baby girl - we still haven't put the gates up! She is "talking" with more syllables now - "ga", "goo", "la", and "ba" have been added to the already popular "da" and "ma" - I will give one guess as to why she says those two so much :)

She definitely keeps us entertained! We put up a swing in the back yard and she likes it, but isn't 100% sure about it, so we put her in it for short times. We also got her a little kiddie pool that she loves to splash around in. We are planning on taking her to the neighborhood pool this weekend. We also want to hit the beach sometime soon to see how she likes to play in the sand. Her hair is getting longer now too...it's definitely coming in as reddish blond. It is so cute - it sticks straight up in all directions. Her second tooth also came in about two weeks ago - her smile is so cute with her two little teeth!

So Happy Birthday Samantha! Here are her 6 month professional pictures we had taken by Kat's Photography. Better late than never!

I kinda wanted to keep this post about Samantha, but I thought I should add a little update on me. Unfortunately, I had to have my gallbladder removed last week. All through my pregnancy and after I have been dealing with what I thought was really bad heartburn. My doctor said that it should have gone away a few months after having Sam, but it didn't. So I finally went to the doctor again because I was in some serious pain - all the time with severe attacks every week or two (really bad sharp pain radiating up my back and chest causing me to throw up, have the chills, and basically not be able to move for 4 - 6 hours). After describing the attacks in detail my doctor had me get an ultrasound of my gallbladder - where they found gallstones. The stones were high enough in number and size that they recommended removing it. After talking it out with my doctor and a surgeon, I decided to have it removed. The alternative was cutting fat completely out of my diet - which I tried and is nearly impossible to do - everything has a little fat in it. Even then, it wouldn't have been guaranteed that I wouldn't have an attack again because I already had the stones and if my gallbladder flexed (which it does to release bile) it would really, really hurt. So I had the surgery on the 19th. It was a laproscopic surgery so they only made four small incisions. The recovery hasn't been too bad, I was really sore for the first few days and my digestive system is still getting used to it. So far my stomach feels much better! I didn't realize how uncomfortable it was making me. Plus it turns out that not only did I have gallstones, my gallbladder was severely infected and I had crystals forming on the walls - so eventually, I would have gotten really sick and would have probably ended up in the hospital to have it removed in an emergency situation. So in the end, it is a good thing - I will have to report back on how it feels when I am fully healed and have a chance to adjust to eating food again. But that's the scoop...the worst part about it was not being able to pick Samantha up for a week (I totally cheated).

Fun Samantha Video

Samantha has a tooth!

Samantha in a blue bonnet field - it's Texas tradition to take pictures with blue bonnets every spring.

On Thursday, April 30, Samantha's first tooth came in. She had been a little cranky and now we know why! She is handling it very well given how much it must hurt. It's her lower left center tooth. We think the lower center right tooth is not far behind! I can't believe she already has a tooth! Now all we need to get her to do is eat! She still isn't into eating baby food, but we keep trying (any of you parents out there have advice on getting her to eat?). She is also on the verge of crawling - she gets up on her hands and knees and rocks, but ends up scooting backwards. Lenny and I really need to get those baby gates up!

This week our regular babysitter (Jess) has family in town so we are having a bunch of friends watch her this week. On Monday she spent the day with Fred and Lily, today she spent the day with Ami and Reese, and for the rest of the week she will be with Lindsay and Helen. She is doing so well for being hauled all over and staying with different people every day. I think she is having fun actually - I was little worried, but she seems to be adjusting just fine. We do have a big decision about day care make coming up soon too. We need figure out if we would accept a spot at the day care at my work this summer (we've been on a waiting list from the minute I knew I was pregnant) or if we want to keep taking her to Jess. A lot to think about and talk to Jess about - if we keep her out this summer, we would most likely have to wait another year. We don't know if we even have a spot, but if it comes up and we say no, we lose our place on the waiting list. If we move our no earlier than date, we keep out priority on the list, but wait a year. Not quite sure what we are going to do.

Well a lot has happened in the last month so here are a lot of pictures. My parents visited for a week, which was a ton of fun. My Mom taught Samantha how to blow kisses and it's the cutest thing ever! It was nice to have Sam home with them during the day.

Here are some pictures!

Happy Easter!

Samantha's first trip to the zoo on Good Friday.

Sam with Grandma and Grandpa!

If you're happy and you know it...

So Sam started to clap her hands this week! I think it's really fun! She's also sitting up well enough to be able to reach out for toys and bring herself up again. AND she's waving hello and goodbye! She is learning so fast it's hard to keep up. It is so much fun to watch her grow and learn new things.

I went on my first work trip this week and I saw so much of a difference in just 48 hours! It was so hard to leave her overnight for the first time. Lenny did just fine - I was the wreck! I think she missed me too.

For my work trip, I got to go to Kennedy Space Center to check out the space shuttle Discovery after it landed on Saturday for post-landing inspection. My team at work had a flight experiment on this mission - we had a special tile made to stick out into the flow over the space shuttle's belly as it reentered. When you stick something far enough into the flow it changes the smoothness of the flow and the energy that flow puts into the space craft. Long story short...it was a success and we got to inspect the tile. We also got to see Atlantis stacked with the external tank and SRBs for STS-125 slated to launch in May. It was going through the last of it's check outs before heading to the launch pad, which we also got to see when they rolled out. It was a lot of fun and it's trips like that which remind how cool my job is. If you are interested, I posted a few pictures here - STS-119.

Happy 6 Month Birthday Samantha!

"I love sweet potatoes!"

Oh my! Samantha is six months old today. She has grown so much since the very first time we got to meet her. We have been having a lot of fun getting her to try new foods - though she still doesn't quite want to eat it as much as she wants to play with the food :) She has tried rice cereal, oatmeal cereal, apple sauce, bananas, sweet potatoes, and peas. I think she likes the sweet potatoes the best. If we mix just about any of the other foods with the cereal she eats that up a lot better than when it's solo. Not surprising if you have ever tasted the cereal (yak!).

She has totally mastered rolling over and gets around pretty well. If you take your eye off her for more than 10 seconds, she's across the room. Just this past week she started sitting on her own! Before this past weekend she would sit for a few seconds and fall over, but now she can sit for just about as long as it keeps her entertained. She is so much fun and if you can believe it, she gets cuter every day!

We had her 6 month checkup appointment today. She weighs 17 lbs 9 oz and is 26.5 inches long - both 75th percentile. So we have no idea where she gets her height from - she may end up taller than both Lenny and I by her third birthday at this rate :) Poor Sam had to get three shots too! She did not like it one bit. She is taking a nap now and I hope that when she wakes up it feels a lot better.

I posted more pictures in the 3-6 month link and added her 4 month professional pictures taken by Kat's Photography on the left - enjoy!

Happy Birthday Sam!

Michigan Trip

Sam's serious side.

So we just got back from a great trip to Michigan. Samantha got to meet a ton of her relatives for the very first time! Unfortunately, she got a cold the day before we left and had it the whole time we were up there. Poor little girl! She is just now recovering. The flights went okay - I was very worried about taking Samantha on the flight. The flight up there was eventful...the first 15 minutes on the plane - in which you are required to sit in your seats - she screamed. She wanted to be walked around, but obviously we couldn't do that. After that she settled down and slept for most of the flight, but Lenny and I were "those" parents for the flight. On the way back she was pretty happy. I think it was because her cold was getting better so she felt better.

The trip was fun, we spent the first three days Lenny's folks' house and the last three days at mine. Lenny's sister Kalena and her husband Jon and two kids, Mathew and Ann stayed at his parents too. As a surprise for his parents, Lenny's brother Patrick also came into town from Australia. It was a lot of fun to see them - we had never met Ann (she's about 2 months older than Samantha).

The time at my parents house was busy too, we had a ton of visitors. We especially liked all the time we got to spend with my nieces. I also want to mention that my Mom made Samantha a beautiful blanket - thank you Mom! I want to make a special note here because I know how hard she worked on it - with one hand no less!

So there are a couple of things I really miss from up north that I thought I would write here - besides the obvious one: missing our families...
-Being able to store beverages outside (I love crisp cold pop - colder than a fridge gets it - something I will never get down in Houston)
-Cold water from the tap - I mean real cold water - not the "cold" water we get here
-Fresh air - it just feels fresher up there in the crisp cold
-Wearing thick comfy socks
-Rosy cheeks

Okay, I will stop with the writing...here are a few pictures from the trip and from the last month. I have posted all of the trip pictures at this link - Michigan. I have also added pictures of Samantha from Christmas until now at this link - 3 - 6 months.

Just for an update...Sam has been doing a lot lately - she tried Rice Cereal (and didn't like it...we are still trying), she is rolling over - the first time from back to tummy on January 4 and from tummy to back on February 22, she is talking more and more, she grabs and holds objects, she is very interested in her feet and toes, and she is really getting a little personality now.

Sam's first taste of rice cereal - "why is Mom doing this to me"

I'm cute!

Rice cereal try #2.

Samantha at 4 months.

Happy 4 Month Birthday Samantha

Today is Samantha's 4 month birthday! Yeah! She is doing so well! She is rolling over, holding onto toys for longer, putting everything in her mouth, and definitely talking more and certainly louder. We weighed her this week and she 15 lbs. Her hair is getting lighter and her eyes are still blue/green. I am starting to see a little more of me in her - she is totally a Lenny mini me so it's nice to see some of her mommy in there too! She is pretty attached to us now too - she knows her mom and dad (Grommit too!).

To celebrate a little early, on Sunday we gave Samantha rice cereal for the first time! Too bad she didn't like it! When I put it in her mouth she made a face that definitely screamed "what the heck is this!". She pushed the cereal out of her mouth so I tried again (several times) and she definitely didn't like where the situation was going and started to cry. Poor thing! She did want to hold the spoon herself though. We'll keep trying every once in awhile. I hope to post pictures too...we took a ton!

Laughing

So today Samantha did an all out laugh for the first time! She has been squealing when she smiles, but today it was a full out belly laugh. It was awesome. Lenny was holding her and I was making some silly faces and jumping around - she thought it was hilarious! I can't wait until she gets up from her nap so we can try to get her to laugh again - it's just the coolest thing I've ever heard!

Samantha's 4 month appointment

So Samantha had her 4 month appoint when she was 3.5 months old. Her doctor is moving offices and we had to go early or wait until March - to keep on her vaccination schedule we had to go early (plus it's fun to find out how she's doing).

So we went on January 16 - she weighed 14 pounds exactly (that's roughly 75th percentile) and 25.5 inches in length (90th percentile). We have no idea where she gets the length part :)

She is doing great developmentally - she's rolling over now. She's really good at rolling from her back to her tummy, but the other way (tummy to back) gets tricky for her because her arm gets caught. She is also "talking" more. It's pretty fun! She's also grabbing and holding onto everything and then sticking everything in her mouth!

Since the last post, I have also started back to work. Samantha stays with our friend Jess during the day and she is doing great other there. She's doing much better than her Mom! I really miss spending the day with her. Not that I don't enjoy going back to work, but to be honest I would rather spend the day with Sam. I never realized how hard it would be to leave her, but I also get really mad at people who say I can't go back to work - especially old guy engineers who just tell you that you won't want to back to work. That just grinds me!