Sami Sami Sami!

This blog entry is dedicated to Deidre who I talked to the other evening and admitted that I was completely lame because I never blog...uh...ever. I'm not much of facebook person either. I don't know...I guess I'm just not on the computer that much and really, we only got involved in this stuff so that we could try and keep in touch with everyone else. Pretty much we know what everyone else is doing, and no one knows anything about us. Ha ha. Well, Samantha is almost 6 months old now! Its been crazy fun. This little girl is our little stinker baby...way too smart for her age, has been since she was born. She is very alert, pays attention to everything around her. She has what Kyle and I call a "work laugh" (those of you who watch Friends know what this means). It is pretty funny. She is our little "boo boo," happy as can be. I just took her in for her check-up and the Dr. said she is growing beautifully. She is now 18 lbs., 27 in...putting her in the 90th percentile for both weight and height...what a chunk. At least she is even all around :) She can sit up now pretty well and is on the verge of crawling. She screams at her toys when she pushes herself backwards instead of towards them. And she loves to slobber all over her books (luckily they are plastic). My parents recently went to England and brought her back a Paddington bear which she is now in love with. She chewed off his tag though, something I have kept to show her when she gets older. Ha ha. That thing will be disgusting by the time she is 2 years old. My dad says that Paddington wears rain boots because Sami is the barfy baby. For those of you who didn't know, we have a spitter...big time. She's been a lot better since she's been on some medicine, still some barf here and there but its much less frequent. We've started solids, oh how joyous that has been. She tries to feed herself by grabbing the spoon and flinging the food at us. The other day my mom came down and we were shopping. I tried to bring out the rice cereal to feed to her and she just laughed and tried to grab the spoon...stinker baby. She's had her first sickness, a lovely cold. She's been doing quite well though, not too grumpy or fussy because of her stuffy nose. We love her sooo much. Her mommy is very attached...everyone can attest to this fact. Kyle was called in May to serve in a single's ward bishopric. We go to church every Sunday in the MARB on-campus. The ward is a lot of fun and we try to go to as many activities as we can. He's also working hard in the lab trying to crank out a few publications before too long. Such is the life of a researcher. I'll leave you with some pictures of Sami...she's a cutie!

Sami's bathtime 2 mths

Sami sucking her thumb 2 mths

Sami playing on her jungle mat 4 1/2 mths

Sami modeling her new hat from Grandma Olson 5 1/2 mths

Sami playing with Mommy on the bed

Welcome Home Samantha

Our biggest news is of course the baby. Several requests were made for pregnant pictures, so here is one with only five weeks until our little girls due date. This one comes from a video we made to send to Candace's sister in Germany. We have picked out Samantha Ann for her name, and we think it fits. We are doing really well. Candace was feeling ready as the due date came and went. The doctor scheduled an induction for Friday morning, and so Candace went into labor on Thursday. We joke that Sami wasn’t about to let someone else dictate when she would come. So here is what you have waited for, pictures!

We went to the hospital at one in the afternoon on Thursday, and at 12:25 Sami made her appearance. She was 9 lbs 8 oz and 20 in long. Candace was a trooper, she did wonderful.

Sami wasn’t sure if she wanted her hair washed.

She did get a minute to rest after all the poking and prodding.

Then mommy got to hold her, this was about 4 am.

We thought she was really cute in her car seat as we packed up to go.

Both of her Grandmas are very excited.

And the Grandpas too.

The rest of these are fun faces