February 2011

February - another fun month with our little Samara girl!

She keeps getting more vocal and more mobile each day it seems. She now babbles consonants like mamamama, dadadada, etc and shrieks happily. If you say "Where's Daddy?" she will look to him and same for Mommy. She also really likes the quilts that Gemma made on the walls - she will look and often point to the eagle "birdies", snake and frogs. We are still working on sign language with her - started with just a couple signs for milk, eat and more. She recognizes them and sometimes will do the signs. She does not have a rolling giggle yet (much to Jeff's dismay) but has a great smile and will laugh like heh heh heh if in the right mood or when tickled just right. As you can see in the pictures, her hair just keeps getting longer (and lighter)! We have started to pull the front back or it is covering her eyes all the time - thankfully she leaves it alone so maybe we will have a daughter who will keep pretty bows in her hair. :) She is doing well with adding solids to her milk diet. She now has eaten pears, peaches, applesauce, green beans, peas, yogurt, cinnamon spice vegetable-beef baby food and started on some cereal. She is getting pretty good and getting them into her mouth consistently on her own now. She is very good at walking holding onto our hands and along the furniture now. She even just started scooting on her stomach across the floor (that actually just happened in March, but thought you might like the update). I actually caught it on video the first time she did it, so that was cool to show Jeff since he was at work that evening.

Jeff's work is busy so he has been putting in the hours, but we are still trying to keep the attitude that it is better than not having a job! He likes what he does, just maybe not at the project piled upon project rate that it is going right now. He is working hard to keep a balance between work and family time, and I think he does a great job. I am thankful to have a husband that wants to keep his priorities in line. My job is going well too. We are trying to find someone else in our dept so that we don't get behind again since I am only part-time. I like what I do and enjoy the people I work with so we'll keep up the three days a week (my boss is definitely glad for that).

Papa and Gemma went to Tanzania for 15 days during February! Samara got to spend time with a few different sitters during the days, Great Aunt Char watched two days, Grandma Cheryl Derby took off work one day and Amanda's friend Tiffany covered another day(even though she has two kids of her own and is expecting #3 in April ~ super mom basically!). All went well on their trip with lots of pictures taken, villages, country, people and wildlife seen and typically less than yummy food. But, we are glad they are back safely!

Well I think that is February in brief - March will be posted soon enough - she is already 8 months old!!