I'm A Big Girl Now ...

Samantha has finally reached the minimum weight required to ride facing forward in her carseat. So, before Steve left for China this week, he took the old "baby" carseat out of the car and installed the new "big girl" carseat ... facing it forward.

Sam and I went to pick my mom up on Monday so that she could come and stay with us while Steve was out of the country this week. Because I teach in the evenings, she was able to watch Sam for me while I was at work. This trip to pick up my mom was the first time that Sam rode in her new carseat and viewed the world from a whole new perspective. She loved it!

A whole new world ...

Tigerfest 2010

On Saturday, Steve and I had tickets to go to Tigerfest 2010. This is a special event that takes place at Comerica Park and is a chance to meet some of the Detroit Tigers players (we are HUGE Tigers fans). In addition to tons of Tigers memorabilia, you have the opportunity to sit-in on interviews, take tours and potentially get some autographs from the players. At first, we were a little worried that it was going to be a waste of time because the lines were so long ... but, we were pleasantly surprised and had a great time.

The field behind us had snow on it (which is weird to see)

Posing for an impromptu hug with Paws, the mascot

The four players from left to right are Nate Robertson, Magglio Ordonez, Ryan Raburn and Adam Everett. This was the first panel of players to be interviewed. Three more groups followed for a total of two hours of interviews. It was so much fun! And, we got to meet some of the new players that were signed for this year.

A snapshot of Leyand's office (the manager)

Sam stayed at Aunt Deb's house for the day and had a good time there. In fact, she really didn't want to leave. She has so much more room to roam and explore over there, plus she loves playing with her cousins. All in all, it was great day for the Lapinski family!

** I have a new announcement: I discovered yet another tooth this morning that is poking through -- one of the bottom side teeth (I've been waiting for one of these to poke through for a while now). That makes a grand total of 3 teeth coming through at the same time!

First Molar Tooth

Samantha started cutting her first molar this week. While I have been feeling her gums a lot lately, I didn't think to check along the sides where her molars would be coming in because I highly expected that the next tooth to break through would be one of the bottom side teeth.

This tooth is the first one that she has cut since October 1st. It is her 7th tooth (she currently has only 2 teeth on the bottom and 4 on the top). She seems to be doing all right with the molar, but I did notice that she had a fever on Tuesday this week. I am sure now that this was due entirely to the new tooth coming through.

Amendment: After I posted this earlier this morning, I now noticed another molar coming in on the other side. That means two molars at the same time! Ouch ...

Blueberries, Anyone?

I was reaching into the refrigerator this morning and I accidentally knocked a carton of blueberries out onto the kitchen floor. Blueberries went EVERYWHERE! I scrambled to the floor and immediately started scooping up the berries by the handful. Since Samantha is never too far away from Mommy at any given time, I knew that it would be a few short milliseconds before she started squashing them and getting them (and their stains) everywhere.

Sure enough, in the blink of an eye, she rounded the corner and was in heaven as she started visualizing the mess on the kitchen floor. Before I could stop her, she grabbed one and tasted it. Yum.

( This was after I had cleaned up the majority of them)

And so it began ... she was literally stuffing them into her mouth, three or four at a time. I knew that she liked blueberries, but I didn't realize that she LOVES blueberries. I think that in total, she consumed about 8 of them before I cut her off.

Caught in the act!

While the blueberries were definitely not as clean as I would have liked, they are organic and more safe than non-organic ones. I am a huge fan of organic foods, especially milk, fruits and vegetables. I also try to buy all natural meat for Sam as much as possible. Samantha has been raised on organic foods to this point and I hope to continue that as long as possible. While organic foods are a little more expensive to purchase, I truly believe that the rewards of having healthy food far outweigh the cost.

Tub Time

Until recently, Sam had been taking a bath in our kitchen sink every night. She LOVED it in there and it had been so convenient for us. Well, our little girl is growing and it was finally time to move to the "big girl tub."

One of my all-time favorite pictures of our "Bubble Princess"

The first time that we tried out the "big girl tub" (about 10 days ago), it was not a pleasant experience for Samantha. She cried the whole time and begged me to just get her out of there. After a few nights, she seemed to enjoy the tub a little better. We decided to look into getting her some sort of "tub insert" that would not make the tub so big for her and would ease the transition. I found one online and it is perfect! It will protect her if she falls and is just the perfect size for her (with even a little growing room). It arrived the other night and after we inflated it, we put it in the living room so that she could get used to it and play with it before bathtime.

All of her friends decided to sit in the tub

That night, I was on "tub duty" by myself and it was such a positive experience! Sam loved her new tub and the best part is that she reaches for her toys in this tub. In the "big girl tub," if her toys floated away, she wouldn't bother to get them -- reaching was too scary.

So happy in our new tub!

14 Months Old!

Samantha is 14 months old today! It seems like the time has flown by and that she has grown so much, both physically and developmentally. Every day, there continues to be more and more milestones ... especially now that she is beginning to "chatter" and has started taking more risks when it comes to climbing and walking by herself. She will stand in one location for a short period of time, just balancing, and has attempted on more than occasion to then take a step. She is still a little shaky, but I predict that she will begin walking by herself in the next few weeks.

She loves to look at books (Steve and I get such a kick out of watching the sheer concentration that she has when studying each of the pages). She also loves to hide things -- toys, balls, puzzle pieces -- inside other toys. I've since given up trying to locate any missing puzzle pieces. She definitely keeps me busy; just when I think that I have "child-proofed" a certain area, she finds a way to prove me wrong. I've learned that it's often a bad sign when things get too quiet around here. That means that it's time to locate the little rascal and she is likely getting into something that she shouldn't be. Among all of the chaos though, we have a beautiful little girl that makes us laugh and smile and are so proud to be her parents!

A flash of the past:

Taken this time last year (Sam was 2 months old -- and so skinny!)

Taken today (Sam is 14 months old and a lot chubbier!)

Fun With Letters!

I have a magnet on my dishwasher that has been so useful to me. When the dishes are dirty, I keep the magnet flipped up to indicate "dirty," and when the dishes are clean, I flip the magnet to indicate "clean." For so long, I have always known if the dishes are clean or dirty by simply looking at the magnet. About a week ago, Sam discovered this magnet and makes it her personal mission to remove the magnet about 100 times a day. Now, I must rely entirely on memory (or opening the dishwasher) to know the status of the dishes. You can see the cute magnet below:

Today I went to the store and purchased some letter (and number) magnets for Sam that we could put on the dishwasher and refrigerator for her. Needless to day, she is very excited about them. The only thing is that she is MORE INTERESTED today in only pulling them off the applicances ... and not putting them back on. So, I have been maneuvering around them on my kitchen floor all morning. Soon she will "get the hang of it," and it will be even more fun for her.

Her first attempt with the new letters

Of course, we always have to try anything new out by using our mouth!

Smiling for Mommy

Steve and I decided to do a little "Spring cleaning" in our desk area. We realized that between the two of us, we had held onto WAY TOO MANY old files and documents. Two garbage bags later, we were satisfied with our accomplishment and I concluded the job by doing some very thorough vacuuming. I had JUST put the vacuum back into the closet when I discovered that Samantha had come behind me and purposely dumped the shredder contents all over the floor. Steve and I just laughed ... afterall, the shredder had been empty until now. Steve patted Sam on the back and thanked her for letting us know that the shredder was full and needed to be emptied. And so ... back to the closet I went to retrieve the vacuum.

Babbling Beauty

Over the course of the last week, Samantha has really started babbling a lot. Until today, most of her babbling has consisted of "baa-baa-baa" and "da-da-da." Of course this thrills Steve to the bone because he encourages her to say da-da. I have been working with her to say "mama" (which simply means that I say "mama" all day long and in response to each and every one of her "da-da" babbles). Today, when I went to get her from her crib after her morning nap, I was greeted with the "ma-ma-ma" babbles! Oh, so exciting!

I obviously do not consider any of these to be her first words because she is ... as I have referred to it many times in this post ... just babbling. She isn't making a definitive connection to any of her babbles and the actual noun. But nonetheless, it is still so exciting to here her experiment with her voice. She loves to mimic any sounds that you make -- including coughing. It's so much fun ...

In mid-babble

S-U-P-E-R-S-T-A-R!

I couldn't resist posting this picture of my little superstar! Her new favorite thing is to get into one of my kitchen drawers and pull out all of the ziploc bags (um, that includes snack, sandwich and gallon-sized bags!). She pulls them out individually and then sits on the floor and wrinkles them up. As evidenced in this picture, there are a couple on the floor. I decided to take a quick picture of her in the act and this is how she posed:

Am I cute or what?!

Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

Grandpa's birthday was yesterday (New Year's Day) and we celebrated by going to dinner with Grandma and Grandpa. Afterwards we all came back to our house for lemon meringue pie (Stan's request) and some games. Happy birthday, Grandpa!

Posing for the traditional birthday picture

Helping Grandpa with his presents

The tissue and paper are so much fun!

Pretty soon it was time for Sam's bath, so Daddy got her all washed up and then into her PJs. She was so tired that she went to sleep immediately. While she was all tucked in bed, we enjoyed some fun card games.

All squeaky clean!