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).