Some of Samantha's Milestones

First and foremost, we can tell you that Sam is teething. As you can see... nothing is safe from the wrath of her mouth!

And just when we were starting to think that all this teething never resulted in anything, Samantha's first tooth emerged on Sunday (1/18). Even though there isn't anything she could have done to prevent it, we're still really proud of our beautiful, one-toothed little girl!


Let's see... what else is big in Samantha's life. She started eating solid foods about two months ago. That's a misnomer, by the way. There's nothing solid about these foods! I'm master of all that is pureed in our household and I make sure the foods are an excellent consistency for our little munchkin. We introduce all the different foods about 4-7 days apart to make sure we'd be able to detect an allergy if there was one. So far, Samantha has eaten rice, millet and oat cereals, mango, papaya, pear, banana, winter squash, green beans, avocado, and sweet potato. And don't forget the 5th food group... Gerber Puffs! :-) Yogurt is NOT one of Samantha's favorite foods... we'll try again in a few weeks to see if she finds it any more pleasing.

Samantha has been a wonderful (and entertaining) eater from the very beginning. She likes to help by grabbing the spoon and bringing it to her mouth which makes a mess, but is so important for her development. She is also very noisy... this girl likes to let everyone know that she is enjoying her food. I'll have to post some video one of these days of her mmmmm sounds (when I have a chance to sort through the hundreds of video clips we've taken so far).

In December, while most of the country was experiencing crazy snow storms, Las Vegas did too. Ours lasted all of 1 day, but it still was exciting to see inches of snow accumulate on the Vegas ground. And of course, we had to snap some pictures of Samantha in her first snow. Think about it... how many people in this world can say that the first time they EVER saw snow, it was in Las Vegas, Nevada!? =)





Another milestone is that Samantha is sitting so well! It's crazy how we barely noticed going from that "hovering" parent because Samantha falls over at the slightest imbalance to the parent that sits her down on the floor to play while you run to the bathroom. Please don't let me make it sound like I have no worries about her hitting her head. I'm amused to admit that we have a 4' x 8' blue gym mat downstairs so Samantha has a place to crash and tumble on the tile floor. It's not too great for the decor, but it's a life (and noggin) saver.

Samantha's first Presidential inauguration
In honor of the historic inauguration of President Obama today, here's a picture of Samantha declaring her ambitious future goals... :)

It reads: "President (some day)"