Nine Months Old

Well, here we are, February 25th - Samuel is now nine months old. I can't believe he is that old, yet, it seems as if he has been with us for much, much longer than that. We can't even remember what life was like before he arrived!

He is just so much fun right now. He loves to mimic us when we clap, make funny sounds with our lips, or just make noises in general. He smiles and laughs all the time and just brings us so much joy every day. He actually will follow me or Oscar around the house with his speedy little army crawl. When he sees that Peter is home from work, he gets really excited and smiles and army crawls all the way from the living room to the kitchen to say hello.

Last Thursday, we FINALLY started to see his first tooth pop through. We were beginning to think we were going to have a toothless kid! He handles teething like a champ though and doesn't put up much of a fuss - at least so far. He still loves every food we give him (except that darn cottage cheese) and definitely lets us know if we aren't feeding him fast enough! He's a great sleeper too, which we are both grateful for. Okay, enough of me blabbing. Here are some pics:

Even though he can easily crawl around his exersaucer,
he always seems to want to crawl UNDER it!

Sam with friends from ECFE class

Happy Monday

I didn't have class on Thursday night, so I was able to spend Valentine's Day at home with Peter and Sam. We ordered some take out food and had a great dinner at home and enjoyed LOST, our favorite show!

We joined my sisters, Mom, and Grandma Helen on Saturday for lunch. Sam tried a lemon, and surprisingly, he really enjoyed it and wanted more!



Though his army crawl is getting FAST, he still isn't crawling on his hands and knees yet, although, he does get up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth, so it's only a matter of time.
He also discoved his toy basket in the living room this weekend. When he gets bored with the toys we give him to play with, he army crawls over to the basket, tips it over, and pulls out all the toys. Now, if only we could get him to pick them up again....

Just over 40 days until our big trip to Florida - we can't wait! We hope everyone in Minnesota is staying warm. Have a great week!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

A little snippet from today...

Brrrr...

Since we woke up to 14 below today, with wind chills much, much colder than that, we decided to have a low key day in our warm, warm house. We had a nice "stick to your bones" kind of dinner, and I made enough baby food to last Sam for probably a good three weeks (!). I also made some homemade oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies while Peter and Sam enjoyed the ProBowl - way to go Adrian Peterson! Last weekend, when it was warmer, Oscar enjoyed some playtime outside in the snow...

This past Friday, we enjoyed a great dinner with John and Amber - thanks for having us over! Here is their cute little puppy, Finnigan. We are going to get him together with Oscar for a puppy play date sometime soon!

Sam is sleeping through the night now most nights - yeah! He really loves to go to our ECFE class, probably because there are so many toys different from those at home he plays with all the time. He still doesn't have any teeth yet, but I'm sure they will be coming soon. He reaches for someone now if he wants that person to hold him, which is pretty darn cute. He absolutely LOVES Oscar and giggles with delight when he sees him (see the video clip at bottom of post!).

Clapping and Splashing

We've been cooped up in the house a lot lately with the frigid weather, and Sam was getting a little restless. When it warmed up a few days ago, we had several outings to malls and stores just to get out and about. Sam absolutely loves being in his stroller because he can see everything going on around him. He is wide-eyed as he takes it all in. He has also learned to clap when he is happy or excited about something, which is pretty cool.Another new thing he loves to do is splash around in the bathtub. I'll have to catch it on video, but he can get both feet and both hands moving to make quite a splash AND quite the mess. Luckily water is pretty easy to clean up in the bathroom! We think we will start him with some swimming lessons at the Community Center in April because he seems to really love the water.

We woke up to find a coyote in our backyard the other morning. We've heard them a few times, but this is the first actual sighting. Hopefully we won't run across them when we have Oscar out for a walk! Less than two months to go before Sam's first airplane ride. We are definitely looking forward to a little break from winter, even if it is in April. Two to five inches of snow expected today, which will be nice to cover up the dirty, crunchy snow that sits out there right now.

Sam has officially refused his first food - cottage cheese. I don't know if it is the taste or the texture, but he makes quite the face. He doesn't spit it out, and he doesn't swallow it. He just keeps his mouth open and it sits on his tongue until I remove it for him. Maybe we'll try again in a week or two!

Congrats to the Giants!!!!

We had a great time with some friends last night as we cheered the Giants on to victory against the previously undefeated Patriots! Even though we don't let Sam watch television, it was unavoidable last night in a room with a big screen TV - and he LOVED watching the Superbowl:-)