Sam’s latest milestone

| December 28, 2009

Just a few hours ago, Sam achieved yet another big milestone — she rolled completely over!  She has been rolling onto her side a lot when she is in her crib or on her playmat, and she likes to sleep that way now so we have been trying to get her out of the habit of being swaddled to sleep at night.  She was lying on her playmat tonight just rolling around and I said to Mark, “she is going to go all the way over soon, she is almost there” and just like that, while we were watching, she flipped over from her back to her belly!  It was very exciting!  She seemed so shocked, then got upset when she couldn’t roll back.  I have a feeling that is going to be happening a lot now, so we’ll always have to be close to come to her rescue!

Sam’s first Christmas

| December 28, 2009

This Christmas was the most special one that Mark and I have ever had.  Sam made everything so wonderful.   It was so nice waking up on Christmas morning to Sam’s smiling face.  Here are some pictures from our Christmas Eve and Day.

First of all, here is a picture of her first Christmas tree. Every year, our tree is a little different.  Some years we use clear lights, some years multi-colored ones, some years ribbon, other years not, etc.  The very first Christmas tree Mark and I ever had together we decorated with purple and clear lights, with purple ribbon, so we decided to do the same for Samantha’s first tree.

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This is our house at night.

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On Christmas Eve, we took some family photos.  Our parents were here, so we got some nice pics of Sam with her grandparents.  They traditionally come over to our house every year on Christmas Eve so that they can visit with each other, since they don’t see each other on Christmas day.

Sam is wearing her very cute baby’s first Christmas jammies that our neighbors, Joe and Debbie, gave to her.  They have reindeer feet and a reindeer face on her butt 🙂

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Here are the proud grandparents.

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Before everyone arrived, we also took some pics with our other babies, Zephyr and Muffin.  Muffin is being his usual cooperative self…

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Sam’s stocking (in the middle) was hung by the chimney with care…

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then Mark read her The Night Before Christmas, as we had planned, before she was tucked into bed to wait for Santa.  It was really sweet.  She looked at the book so intently the whole time he was reading it.

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Christmas morning, we opened gifts at home before starting our trek to both of our parents’ houses. As you can see, she is wearing her other new set of Christmas jammies.  She is one stylish little girl!

Sam gave her daddy some pancake molds so that he could make her shapes, and she gave him some photos we had taken while he was in Germany of her in an angel outfit.  Sam gave me a necklace with a bunny on it because I always call her my little bunny.

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Sam got a lot of presents including this adorable puzzle that Mark brought back from Germany.

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At Mark’s parents’ house, Mark took this picture of his parents with all their grandkids.

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Poor Sam was so exhausted, she collapsed into her crib while the rest of us were opening presents and eating our raviolis!

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Here is one last picture of Sam checking out one of her outfits at my parents house. The poor little tyke was so tired by the end of the day, we didn’t get a lot of pictures of her once we left our house.  But all in all I think she had a great first Christmas.  We all can’t wait for next year, when she is toddling all around and tearing off her own wrapping paper.  Every year will be better than the last and we can’t wait.

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