March 2011

March was in like a lion, out like a lamb (as far as Samara goes at least)! Samara had a cold at the beginning of March which led to some long nights of waking up because her nose was stuffed up, but after that it was back to happy baby girl like usual. She is a great sleeper, going to bed around 8:00PM and waking between 7 and 8AM - which we are very thankful for!
March was a big month of changes too (do we expect anything else really with a baby though?!). She just keeps learning more and more - now can identify words really well besides just Mommy and Daddy, she will pick up a toy if you refer to it and point to things that she notices. She can "scoot" across the floor on her tummy, which is quite humorous and we are glad to have it on video. But, she complains the whole time and much prefers walking - holding our hands, along tables, chairs, walls, whatever works really. She even has a walker toy that she can walk with until she bumps into a wall (or Daddy, which she thinks is very funny). By late March she was able to stand by herself for minutes at a time and progressed to actually taking a handful of steps all by herself! She also started crawling while we were in SLC, but only for a bit them dropped down to her scooting technique as it was faster. Oh, our patient little girl - okay not really.

She is almost too heavy to carry in her car seat now so she has been enjoying shopping carts while shopping and high chairs while eating out. She loves to feed herself puffs or cheerios while we eat our dinner and will keep signing "more" so she can eat like the big people. She has also learned to drink water from her sippy cup, for which she is acts very pleased with herself, but ends up with quite a wet tummy usually. :) She has three teeth now, all on the bottom, and a fourth bottom tooth is working its way in. You can see them all when smiles her cheesy grin! She laughs more for Daddy than anyone else, but definitely wants Mommy when tired or uneasy at all.

We ventured out for our first family vacation at the end of March to Salt Lake City, Utah where Amanda's grandparents live. Jeff was able to get his projects at work to a stopping point and we drove out to SLC (in Papa's truck so we had space for ALL of our stuff we had to take). Samara did really well in the car on the way there since we drove at night, and she slept most of the way, but then Papa and Daddy had to pay because they were tired the next day! Monday was our first day skiing at Brighton and there was new snow coming down and we were getting back into the swing of skiing. After our 4th run Jeff hit a weird spot of snow and ended up falling and twisting his knee. His injury was bad enough to end his skiing for the trip , but thankfully not anything severe (he is basically back to normal now). So, Great Grandma and Grandpa only had Samara all to themselves for one day and Jeff ended up spending his days lounging at their house instead of cruising the slopes - bummer! My Dad and I skied Tuesday at Alta and then I stayed home Wednesday. So, we went for an afternoon date to a movie and to get ice cream. Thursday just my Dad and I skied again - a warm day, but still had good snow from Monday's snow. So, the two of us had a good couple days of skiing together! Thanks for having us Grandpa and Grandma! Jeff got news that his Uncle Ken Green passed away on Thursday of our trip so we headed out on Friday morning so that he could join his family on Sunday to drive to Chicago for the funeral. Jeff was very glad that he was able to spend the time with his Mom's family, even though it had to be for a sad reason. We keep the Green family in our thoughts and prayers for sure!

Well, that's March (or at least most of it) and April will have come and gone before we know it!