Samantha Makayla Updates!

Continued.....

2011-08-01T13:25:00.000-07:00

April was a busy month for us. Perfect weather for a lot of outdoors activities. So we went to Out of Africa, which was extremely cool.

We also went to a really cool park in Scottsdale called the McKormick-Stillman park for a picnic that has a railroad, carousel and some fun play structures to climb.

We went to Build-a-Bear and built an E.B. from the movie Hop
and then we went and saw Hop at the movie theatre. We love Freestone Park and had a picnic there. She wanted to wear her blue tutu and got sooo many compliments on it. She pet almost every dog at the park and loved chasing the ducks.

We did the Schnepf's farm Egg-Citement for Easter.

We had a great Easter and Samantha is still a great egg hunter, just like last year. She found even the most difficult, well hidden ones. She's so super smart.
May was even busier than April... We did a lot of swimming in our community pool. Samantha is getting really good at swimming. It won't be long until she's swimming without her little vest thing. We also have fun with water balloons and squirt guns. We went to the zoo a couple of times. Samantha even met her boyfriend's friends.
We went on a big vacation to California. It was sooo much fun. We went to San Diego, La Jolla's beach, Coronado beach, Corona Del Mar's beach, Seal beach and Disneyland!!!!! It was a great time with our great friends Megan and Cristian. He turned 4 when we were at Disneyland.

Memorial Day was filled with family and fireworks. Samantha likes family...fireworks not so much, maybe next year she'll find them as cool as we do.
Samantha, all ready to go swimming at 9:00 at night. Lol. "Bed time."
June time. Samantha and Daddy set up a train track in our movie room and she loves to put toys on the train and on the train track so she can save them. It's a lot of fun, she loves trains.
We got another dog this month, this makes number 3 for us. From left to right they are: Alf, Jack and Charlie. Aren't they cute? Charlie is the most recent and still a pup.
We went to Canyon lake a couple of times and even had as many as 23 people all together once. It is always a good time BBQing, swimming, .
drinking,
and getting sun with our friends and family

Our friend Megan got discounted tickets to the circus. So we all went and it was amazing! This is Samantha all ready to go to the circus.
Samantha was intrigued by it the whole time. We went to the pre-show where Samantha tried to dance like the dancers in the show. Oh, how I wish it was short enough for me to post here. Soooo cute.
I especially liked the tigers and elephants. Brandon liked the acrobats. :)

July was another amazing month for us. We celebrated the 4th of July at my mom's house, swam
and set off our own fireworks
(Samantha's still not a fan), but she likes sweeping up the debris from them.
We went to the mall a couple of times and even saw Rio, which was super cute. The second time we went to the mall was mostly disappointing, but we did get to ride the carousel (Samantha chose the Ostrich).

We've decided on the location of Samantha's 3rd birthday when we went to Makutu's Island again. We have the best time there. Samantha is even getting great at getting to the top of the play structure and going down the 40 foot banana slide all by herself (little daredevil).
This time was fun until someone stole my phone and camera and ditched them in a toilet in the men's bathroom after I called the police. Neither work. :/ I shouldn't have left them unattended; so I had to get a new phone and camera. Moving on to the end of the month. My mom had vacation time so we went to California! 3 times in a little over half a year, I am getting spoiled. We walked the Oceanside pier, went to Dana Point and Corona Del Mar for the tidepools, walked the mall, took a boat out to see a blue whale and tons of dolphins, drove down to La Jolla and saw the seals that hang out at the Children's pool, had a picnic at the Oceanside beach, took Julia "Maid of Honor" dress shopping and checked out the harbor gift shops. We had an amazing time!!! Here's a slide show of it:

The next day when we got back we had another lake extravaganza. I love the lake and our friends! :)

Soooo many babies... my cousin just had her 2nd baby in June, his name is Walt.
2 of my closest friends have been pregnant in the last month, one just had her baby last weekend, 2 months early, her name is Marlie she weighs 3 lbs. 14 oz. The other is due next month.
So we'll have all sorts of new friends to play with soon. :) Samantha refers to every young person she encounters as her "friend" it is super cute and she is sooooo popular! We celebrated my brother's B-Day a little late since he went to Vegas for his birthday, I never did get an answer on whether he won big money...
We also got to see our friends Kristen, Seth and their kids William and Paige. Samantha had a blast playing with them.

My mom went on a date. They decided to be friends, but it is nice that she's putting herself out there. She's painfully shy and doesn't like stepping far out of her comfort zone, which is sitting in her living room watching the baseball game or a good movie. Curtis couldn't have turned out to be a better uncle, he really does enjoy Samantha's personality and Samantha loves her uncle. We still meet up as a family every week and chit chat over half priced appetizers. The wedding is sure creeping up on us, 65 more days. We have mostly everything payed for. The venue, my dress, photographer, honeymoon, and a lot of other odds and ends. We're taking some engagement pics today and hope to have invitations out next week. So I got my hair done and absolutely love it!
The hair stylist did a great job, going from dark brown to mostly blond in one day takes time, but I am so pleased with the results.
Samantha's 3rd birthday is coming up too, only 97 more days! :) I love my beautiful girl. Whenever I do her hair and ask to see afterwards she tells me, "I'm beautuful." or "I pretty." It's adorable. She is my world.

It's Been Too Long.....

2011-07-20T14:32:00.000-07:00

Like the title suggests, this is going to be a loooonnnnnnggggg update. We'll start in November: One of my best friends, Megan, and I started a ritual on doing some sort of activity together with our kids every week. The first activity was Mesquite Groves Aquatic center. Jambos was our next adventure. Daddy found Samantha a Cardinals outfit that was super cute on her.
Happy 2nd Birthday Samantha!!!!! We celebrated her birthday on the Saturday before her birthday with a Tinkerbell themed party. She was very spoiled with presents and a bounce house slide.
For her actual birthday we took her to Chuckee Cheese's and let her play games. :)

The next week we did a picnic with Megan and Cristian. Sooooo cute. :) At this point she already refers to him as her "boyfriend." We entered Samantha into a Christmas beauty contest. She won best smile. :) The next week's activity was held at Makutu's Island (a giant indoor jungle gym that has a 40 foot slide that is amazing.) Here's a great video of Samantha and her little cousin Mollie on Thanksgiving:
We liked Makutu's so much that we decided to go again with Brandon the very next week. Samantha doesn't like the maskot and ran from him like she was running from the bad guy off of a horror film. We went to a couple of holiday festivals. One she got to get on a steer. And Sanata's lap (She's not a huge fan yet.) We went on the Polar Express train, it was so much fun. Unfortunately I lost those pics due to an SD card error, but it was a great time. There was snow and everything made it really look like we were in the north pole.
We also went to Zoo Lights and Samantha loved it even more than last year. We had a great Christmas. Samantha was spoiled by Santa Clause with a trampoline, Barbie jeep, Easel and lots of other amazing presents. I got the perfect camera and Brandon got a dual wine cooler.

We even caught Santa in our house!!! These are our Family Christmas pictures. They turned out so cute.

We also went to SeaLife aquarium and learned about all sorts of cool fish and sharks. We are now in January. We spend a lot of time at the zoo and Samantha loves to feed the giraffes. And she also likes to pretend to pet the babboons. Doesn't it look like she's in their with them. :D We also went to California this month with Daddy to visit my sister. We went to the beach and of course Sea World. It was a lot of fun.

The week after's activity was Kiwanas Park with these three little amazing people.

Samantha "I can't reach it." Lol. She's trying to get the Basketball and she'd jump in to get it if we'd let her. We also went to Disney On Ice. Even got her daddy to come (this isn't exactly up his ally), but he enjoyed himself. He especially liked the Toy Story part. On to February... We went to the Renaissance Festival twice this year. We enjoyed ourselves both time. Samantha even dressed up one of the times and went on the Bunjee jump trampoline (which she loved!)
Samantha was excited about meeting a Fairy the second time and I was excited to meet Toothless off of "How To Train Your Dragon"

We went to the Children's Museum with Megan and it was soooo much fun and really neat. :)

This is Samantha with her closest friends minus the little girl in the background that we don't know.
We had a great Valentine's Day full of love and chocolate, who could ask for more?
We went to the Zoo with Megan and Cristian, who also have memberships so we can go as often as we want. We rode the camel together and fed the giraffes together. :) We also learned during this trip to the Zoo that Samantha is terrified of poop. One of the goats pooped those little balls that look like dog food and Samantha threw the BIGGEST fit EVER! I turned 23 on the 23rd. In celebration of my "Golden birthday" we had a Luau, it was a lot of fun with both close friends and family. Delicious food and beautifully decorated.

We went up to Flagstaff as a family to see snow, it was soooo much fun. Samantha likes to eat the snow, we built a snowman, sled down the hill, made snow angels and had a snow ball fight.

She's also starting to piece together her own outfits.... Lol!
Moving right along into March now. We Tatted up Samantha's arms and got her picture taken professionally. They turned out sooooo cute!

We went up to Prescott to visit Malaysia, who is only 2 months younger than Samantha. They had a blast being monkeys jumping on the bed. We spend a lot of time at the Zoo. :D

This time we went hiking afterwards, it was fun too.

Since this post is getting pretty lengthy I'm going to go ahead and end it here and start in April with a new post.

Better Than TV

2010-10-19T09:46:00.000-07:00

Samantha has become so entertaining over the last few months trying to make sense of how things work and the world around her. Comparing her to TV doesn't even do justice to how entertaining we find her. Samantha's daddy got a great idea to decorate Samantha's arms with fake tattoos, it was a lot of fun. She's getting to be so big, the average guess of her age is about 4 and yet she just turned 2. She weighs in at about 36 lbs and is 37" tall. She has also become very resourceful when it comes to solving problems. I don't approve, but it is kind of funny to see what she comes up with sometimes. It seems like now-a-days the only good pics I get of her looking at the camera is when she's buckled into her car seat hmmm....weird huh? Ha ha ha! She's getting into playing dress up. We had a lot of fun in the sun this summer. Here's a cute video of Samantha trying to figure out the slip and slide. Ha ha ha!
My mom moved out in September into her beautiful Mesa home. She loves it. :D I'll have to take pictures and post them now that she's completely unpacked. I got a job in September as a Certified Nursing Assistant at Advanced Healthcare of Scottsdale, it's a rehab facility for mostly post operation patients. It's nice cause I get my 32 hours of work done in 2 days and have the rest of the days to play and school. October was one of our busiest months, but soooo much fun. Brandon proposed to me, we're getting married next October I can't wait.

Samantha will be our gorgeous flower girl. :) We had lots of advetures this month. Samantha is quite the animal lover. Here's a funny video of Samantha chasing some ducks a couple of months back.
She'd prefer to be outdoors as oppose to indoors any day. :) Samantha had breakfast with Dora the Explorer with her daddy. She had so much fun. Samantha has a new friend too. His name is Cristian, he's the son of my friend Megan. We've been going on playdates weekly and have been having so much fun. Samantha is so funny and has been attempting to put on make up lately. She painted her arm with my eyeshadows. Sometimes she even takes my mascara to her beautiful lashes. Our Halloween craft Before & After: We also carved pumpkins: (From left to right: Samantha's, Mine, and Brandon's) Samantha has become extremely self sufficient always wanting to do for herself. She gets herself an apple and hooks her baby up with pudding and a spoon. Lol. She's sooo fun. We went to a couple of fall festivals this year. This one had fun activities and prizes for the kids. > This one had rides. Since Samantha is so tall she got to go on her first Roller Coaster TWICE! She loved it! We also went to the Arizona State Fair!

Samantha was Tinkerbell for Halloween. Tinkerbell is her favorite right now. :) I wish I could've been there for Halloween because I heard it was quite funny. My innocent daughter thought that she was visiting each house they trick or treated at and walked right in the front door. Yes, we still need to have the stranger danger talk.

Summer Time

2010-07-15T16:42:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been a while. We've been pretty busy. My mom moved out of her old house and moved in with us temporarily while she continues to house look in Mesa, AZ. She hasn't been having much luck, seems like every time she becomes remotely interested in a house it's gone. Although I don't see or hear from Curtis very often, he is doing good. His birthday is coming up and he's going to San Diego to see a game and visit some old friends. It seems like he's starting to be a lot more entertained by Samantha now that she's talking more and taking on her own crazy personality. My friend/sister Julia, from California, came to visit in June. It was so great to see her. I wish I could see her more often. Here's a pic of Samantha and her watching the new Alice in Wonderland ♥ Samantha saw a bunny in the patio section of Fry's Marketplace, it was kinda cute how she was trying to call it by patting her leg and making kissing noises like she does for the dogs. She decided to get closer when that didn't work. She is also picking up on some bad habits. I know it's bad, but the itch feels so good. She's seen mommy and daddy using Q-tips improperly and now we have had to put all of the Q-tips out of reach from her. Not until after I snapped a picture of course. Another bad habit she has picked up on is drawing on herself and calling them tattoos. It's adorable that when she does give herself tattoos they're always symmetrical. If there's one on one hand you'll find one on the other hand. :)She had her first play date with one of my friend's son, they were too cute playing with each other. For Father's Day we went out to eat at the Olive Garden. Samantha gave daddy a frame she painted at As You Wish and colored a card for him. :) Static! She's also quite the little swimmer with her intertube. She knows how to spin herself to face a direction and then she kicks her feet to get there. Here's a video (I mess up on talking in it), but still super cute: ♥

She definitely takes after her mommy, my little water baby. :) On the 4th of July, we watched one of our neighbors set off fireworks in the street. Samantha kept saying hot and we got her to say oooo ahhhh, but overall she did really well. Alf hated the fireworks. Here's Samantha playing with her 4th of July glowsticks. Samantha has grown attachments to her 2 babies, 2 blankets and a toy pull along dog. Here's how we have to put her to bed: SHE IS TOTALLY POTTY TRAINED!!! No accidents ever. She wakes me up at 3 am to take her potty and then goes back to sleep...on the potty. Ha ha ha. Otherwise, she takes herself potty throughout the day without needing reminders. It is so cute to see her running around in her tinkerbell undies. One of the best things about Summer is watching Samantha play at the splash pads. Samantha has also started wearing hats, she'll only wear them backwards though. She's a lot of fun, she pretends to read big books, she compiles odd outfits that makes some sense, she takes her dog for walks, and she climbs into too small boxes. We took her to her first movie. She did really well. We went and saw Despicable Me, she really enjoyed the music. Dancing is her favorite thing to do. It's pretty funny. I appologize in advance for her only wearing underwear and facing away from me, but once she sees my phone she either says cheese or she stops dancing and the underwear thing, it's summer, it's hot. :P
And no I don't dance like this, she picked this up all on her own. Ha ha ha. Sorry this post is so long. I'll wrap it up. I'm enrolled in school at Central Arizona College for the Fall semester taking 13 credit hours. They have no wait for the nursing program so I'm hoping I'll get in in the Spring so we will see. I'm still a stay at home mom, but am getting really good at saving us money. I can't think of anything else that's new. I'll try to get better at posting once a month so they're not so long.

It's Been a While

2010-05-31T09:17:00.000-07:00

We've been busy busy. Where to start? We'll start off with Easter. Here's a picture of her with her basket getting ready to find some eggs. Samantha had a blast egg hunting (many many many times) and she was super good at it too. We camoflauged some and really thought she wouldn't find them, but she found every egg. Smart cookie. This is just a fun picture of her playing with a kazoo her cousin gave her. Our bunny: Brandon and I had a blast dying the eggs. I'm pretty sure if we had no other responsibilities, we'd still be at it. They turned out interesting, some would say we over did it. Samantha dyed a couple. She'll probably enjoy it a whole lot more next year. Her favorite part about Easter besides the egg hunting was the giant chocolate bunny her daddy gave her. Grandma got her a wagon for Easter, it's fun to take her to the zoo in. She went through a growth spurt last month she is now 35 inches tall! (This explains all of the sleeping in random spots she was doing last month) Here's another one. Here's a new family photo of us: And here's a cute picture of Samantha. Samantha has been getting into dressing up with accessories.

We moved into our new place out in San Tan Valley. We love it, it's just the right size and we get to see her daddy a lot more. She really enjoys dancing, Brandon and I are going to enroll her into dance class when she turns 2.
She has picked up so many words in the last month, it's amazing. It's a lot of fun how she will mimick almost any word we say. Here's a couple of videos of the new things she has learned:
We also have her just about potty trained. She has an accident here and there, but over all does really good. She loves wearing her big girl undies. :) We took Samantha bowling it was fun, she and I need practice. Her daddy was great though. Bowled a 197. In other news: My mom is doing good, she sold her house and is house looking in Mesa (closer to family). Curtis is doing good too, he's just been working and stuff. I got my CNA license number, still job looking, but enjoying my time with Samantha in the mean time. :)

March Memories

2010-04-02T09:30:00.000-07:00

I started a CNA course March 1st. It was 2 weeks in classroom (8 hours 5x a week)and 1 in clinicals (12 hours for 3 days). So thankful that her nana and dad were able to watch her for me. I graduated March 19th and passed my state board tests on March 27th. I'm still waiting for my license number, which I should get at the beginning of May. I am also currently on the wait list for the nursing program. Hopefully I'll get a job interview at Banner soon. So on to Samantha: she has decided that Gizmo's toy box is a fun place to be. She empties it on a daily basis and gets in it. Her daddy put on her first stick on tattoo (he googled to make sure it was safe first, he's adorable), but I heard it was pretty funny to watch her try to wipe it off when she first saw it. She got used to it and just pointed at it every once in a while. She also has learned how to give dirty looks when she doesn't get her way. It's pretty difficult not to laugh when she does it. She used to just do the eyebrow thing, but now she tilts her head down and everything. I took Samantha to see the Easter Bunny. This is her dressed up in her Easter dress followed by her sitting on the Easter Bunny's lap (She wasn't a fan, but was a good sport). When she first saw him she started shaking her head no furiously and wouldn't walk up to him voluntarily. Family is in town, so we drove down to Casa Grande to go swimming in a heated swimming pool my aunt Linda built. Samantha has no fear of the water. She was trying so hard to swim away from me. I'm going to have to get her one of those swimsuits that have floaties built into it so she could be more independent, but still safe. Here's an adorable video:

We also took her golfing, she had fun hitting the balls around with her plastic golf clubs.

She hasn't been feeling well these last few days. Turns out, her ears are infected. She usually doesn't fall asleep anywhere but her crib, but lately she's been falling asleep sitting up, at the dinner table, in her swing, just about anywhere.

Samantha gives the best hugs. Gizmo enjoys them.

February Fun

2010-02-24T19:16:00.000-08:00

Well Brandon, Samantha and I have a dog now. His name is Alf (Alien Life Form). You know, off of the old tv show. He's a lot of fun, Samantha just loves him soooo much.

This is Samantha saying bye bye with her bowling kit.

She likes to go bye bye. She strapped my diaper bag to herself and is trying to unlock the front door with her tinkerbell keys.

We always go to the Renaissance Festival around Valentine's Day. Samantha had a blast. Here's a slide show.

She's starting to have a little mommy in her. This is the baby doll she takes care of, wrapping her in blankies, taking her potty, etc.

I just had my 22nd birthday. It was so much fun. Brandon planned this amazing romantic dinner for me when I got home. He was the waiter, cook and my date. 6 course meal, well thought out with floating candles, pool side with the water fall softly trickling, fire pit for warmth, soft music playing in the background, it was breath-taking and entertaining. For the family we went out to Oregano's the day after my birthday. It was a lot of fun. Samantha really wanted to hold her little cousin Mollie. So cute. Here's the slide show.

The Things Children Pick Up On

2010-01-25T06:11:00.000-08:00

The discovery stage cracks me up. Last month, I was messing around and did this face with a la la la la (like off Elmo's World song), and now she does it. It's much cuter when she does it though. She also has figured out how to put shades on. She found Daddy's shades in his room, put them on and looked at us, needless to say I was in tears from laughing so hard. Another couple of things she's figured out recently is how to use a broom and that keys unlock doors. Don't ask me how she figured that first one out because I don't mean to brag, but I don't clean all that often. Ha ha. We went to the zoo again. It seems like everytime we go she has more fun. She tried immitating Grandma's crazy driving on this tractor, I'd say my driving, but we all know how great a driver I am. :) He he he. She also figured out what to do with the fake cow's ureters, water comes out when they're squeezed. There's been signs of her picking up on how to use a utensil. Still trying to establish finger foods as oppose to fork/spoon foods. She kinda has them backwards at the moment. She fingerpainted the other day and of course enjoyed eating the stuff luckily I was prepared and made sure the paint was chocolate pudding. Yum, but messy. My Aunt Lorna gave me this great book on how to keep toddler's busy and this was one of the suggestions, she had a blast. This is the outcome. And this too. Bath time. She also has been picking up a limited vocabulary. She says mamamama (me), dad, that, see (lights, she points and says see), da (dance), uh oh, weee, yay, dog, Gizzy (for our dog, Gizmo), Gizzy do (same dog, Grandma calls him this), duck, uh (up), and dow (down). I think that's it. She still signs words like more and food (eat). She understands simple directions like get your blanket, do you need help, come here, do you want to swing, etc. Here's a video of her saying Gizzy she's looking for him, usually he can be found in the kitchen:
We've picked out her Easter dress because my Grandma got married. I love getting dresses for her, but love it even more when she can use them more than once. So cute. I'm entering her into the Regis & Kelly Most Beautiful Baby Contest in hopes she wins the $125,000 college tuition or $25,000 or even the free gerber food. Not picky, just thought it's worth a shot. Cross your fingers. They should be announcing the winners in March. The first picture is our entry, the other 3 were the runner ups.

Christmas

2009-12-30T19:03:00.000-08:00

Random

2009-11-15T11:42:00.000-08:00

First off, here's my little ballerina: We also did our annual Walk to D'Feet ALS. This was our team this year. Next year, we're making shirts. This is Samantha in the rocking chair grandma bought her. Such a little person she is. Gotta love Samantha's big smile. Dada is a Cardinal's fan so he got her this outfit. Halloween was fun. Samantha still didn't quite get it, but she made an adorable pumpkin. Her winnings: Grandma also bought Samantha a ball pit/tent/tunnel thing. We call it her mansion. Samantha is walking more these days, still crawls the majority of the time, but I think she'll get the whole walking thing really soon. Her average is about 10 to 12 steps. And she had her 1st birthday party yesterday. She had a lot of fun. I'm glad it turned out so well. Here's some pictures:

Zoo, Vacation and Finally 2 Bottom Teeth!

2009-09-28T21:08:00.000-07:00

We went to the Phoenix Zoo with Daddy and had a blast. This was the first time it seems that she actually seemed interested in the animals, which were very cooperative by the way. We're pretty sure going earlier in the day made all the difference. Here are some pictures:

We celebrated Daddy's 25th birthday and Samantha's 10 month old birthday with a good dinner and 3 pumpkin pies. Here's Samantha in her party outfit:

Samantha also had her second vacation a couple of weeks ago in Oceanside, California of course. We stayed at the Oceanside Marina right off of North Harbor. Which was pretty cool because the balcony's view was the harbor and the beach waves were just past that. The hotel itself wasn't as nice as we thought and paid for though, but had great potential. While at one of our favorite restaurants there we discovered that Samantha can drink out of a straw.

On Saturday we strolled Harbor Days, which we were fortunate enough to have fall on the weekend we'd be visiting. Lots of cool things to look at. Then we went to the beach. Tons of fun! Samantha loved the sand and water. Oh man did she get messy!

On Sunday we went to Sea World. We had a lot of fun. Samantha really liked seeing the different animals and watching some of them perform. She even pet a dolphin and tried to pet a bat ray.

She also finally got her 2 bottom front teeth.

Update...

2009-08-31T18:20:00.000-07:00

Well Samantha just keeps getting bigger and bigger. She had her 9 month appointment last week and she's 29.5 inches long and 21 lbs 8 oz which puts her in the 95th percentile for height and 85th for weight. She has grasped the concept of what to do in front of a camera, accept it's probably the cheesiest thing I have ever seen. Finally, Samantha gave up being lazy and holds her own bottle. I know she was being lazy because A. she's 9 months old and B. she went from not holding it at all to holding it one handed. She makes fun noises like strumming her bottom lip, patting her mouth while going uhhhhh...kinda like you see indians do in movies, and clicks her tongue. She uses the words uh oh in context, but she says it like uh...(long pause) o o o ohh. It's very funny, especially when she does it pre-meditated by saying it and then throwing the bottle off of her tray. Still working on mama and dada, uh oh is just more fun to her I guess. I had some extra quarters, so she rode her first 75 cent moving ride. She had fun. She even got brave and grabbed the wheel towards the end. We like to let her explore different things. Like: a puffs container a football a spagetti noodle a keyboard and a guitar It's a lot of fun. :) This is Samantha and the family heirloom on daddy's side. My cousin Hailey had her baby. This is Mollie Mae White born on Hailey's birthday, August 21st. She's just precious. I can't wait for Samantha and Mollie to play together. They're going to be great friends. It's amazing that in 9 months time they go from this: to this: Samantha can stand all by herself now, but sits after about 25 seconds. She waves hi and bye. Oh, and she dances. Lol. Here's a video. Please mute it so you don't have to suffer through my horrible singing while I try to avoid laughing hysterically, you'll thank me.
This one is better. It cuts off at the end, but she stopped dancing anyways.

Pretty Silly.

2009-08-09T09:05:00.000-07:00

July Fun!!!

2009-07-06T11:07:00.000-07:00

Soon to be walking

2009-06-23T13:58:00.000-07:00

At Home Fun & A Trip to the Park

2009-06-12T09:08:00.000-07:00

Getting Around

2009-06-01T11:27:00.000-07:00

She's figured out how to crawl forwards. It is hilarious!!!! She doesn't like to be on her knees too long so she does this walk-crawl hobble thing. Too much fun. She's complaining in the video. She wants my cell phone, but doesn't want to crawl for it.

Summer Fun!!!

2009-05-27T17:03:00.000-07:00

She ate solids for the first time. Sweet potatoes baby food made by me. We also took her swimming. This is her crab floating thing.Her in her swim suit. She's so funny.

We went to the movies and saw The Watchmen at the cheap theatres. She slept for most of the time though.

First Hair Cut, Mother's Day & Summer Time

2009-05-11T10:04:00.000-07:00

I am no hairstylist by any means, but it was definitely time for a bangs-trim. They were getting in her eyes a lot. Next time I'll definitely do it when she's sleeping. Less movement on her part. It probably would've been easier and maybe turned out better. Ha ha ha!Before

AfterMy World!

We had a big family get together for mother's day. It was a great turn out. Lots of mothers and a mother to be (Hailey) :). It was a lot of fun.All of the mommies!Four Generations.

We're still waiting for the pool to warm up a little bit, but I thought I'd introduce her to being next to the pool. That and it just makes a great background for picturesTotal AttitudeOne Cool Kid

More doors?

2009-04-27T10:06:00.000-07:00

Wow! Just when she figures one thing out it's time for something new. Today she has started to lift her tummy and bottom up in an attempt to crawl. It is a lot of fun to watch. She's just so eager to learn and stubborn too.

Opening new doors.

2009-04-26T10:29:00.000-07:00

Samantha's newest accomplishment is sitting up. It's so much fun because it has opened new doors for her. While she sits up she finds more and more to look at, play with and entertain herself with. We have even busted out the red lazer pointer and she'll follow it on the walls and things around her. Not cruel, just entertaining.

She also started this new thing to let us know when she's hungry. Instead of crying like most babies or even moaning, she has started screaming the most shrilling scream. Brandon and I both agree that we'd rather her make any other noise, at first we thought it was for attention, but now the trend is to occur around feeding time. Ha ha ha. Once I have a video of her shreiking, I'll be sure to post a video, she does it with a smile on her face and everything.

Morgan's Wedding Weekend

2009-04-19T22:11:00.000-07:00

Traveling with a baby is not easy, but I am so glad that I got a chance to make it to Oklahoma for my cousin's wedding. It was well worth it and a lot of fun to see the family who I hadn't seen in years. Here's a slideshow of our trip and the wedding too.

Easter

2009-04-15T00:31:00.000-07:00

Group photos

2009-03-25T23:55:00.000-07:00

We're going to go visit my dad's side of our loving family in Oklahoma next month. So I'm going to post group photos here. This one is my mom's side of the family. My mom blinking as usual.

(front row from left to right: Aunt Kathy, Aunt Linda, Grandma Roma, Aunt Lorna, Cousin Hailey and her husband Reed, second row from left to right: Me, Curtis, Cousin Brian, Samantha and my mom aka Grandma Gwen and Double G. Ha ha ha)

The rest will be of my dad's side since we don't see them near as often as we'd like so I'm going to take lots of picures.

My big girl.

2009-03-20T17:46:00.000-07:00

She's getting to be so dependent now. She tries to hold her bottle all by herself even though she doesn't quite have the hang of it. She even pushes our hands away while we hold it. She loves her little bumbo seat, that way she can sit up and look around all she wants. Her hair continues to get longer and longer. And every thing goes in the mouth.

1st Vacation

2009-03-18T12:28:00.000-07:00

We drove to Oceanside, California to visit my sis/best friend for the very first time with Samantha. The drive there was a little long with frequent stops, but we had a great time and loved the little getaway.

We went to the Pier for lunch at Ruby's

And of course we had to hit the beach.

Playing in the water, well at least I am.

This is her seashell, we picked it out together.

This is Daddy making Samantha fly. :)

We stayed for a few days and then were on our way home. The ride home went a lot smoother even though we took a ridiculous detour. Thanks to the GPS. This was her most of the way.

And this was me goofing off with Brandon's beanie. :)

Her first car!!!!

2009-02-28T10:33:00.001-08:00

Her car walker came on Thursday too. It's so cute. She can't quite hold herself up in it yet, but she'll get the hang of it. Right now she just leans forward and gums the steering wheel or her fingers. Lol.

Isn't she cute?!?!?

Zoo!

2009-02-28T09:53:00.000-08:00

We went to the zoo on Thursday. It was a lot of fun. She did still sleep quite a bit, but she enjoyed looking at people and some of the animals.

She was our navigator too! Lol.

What's new?

2009-02-15T20:10:00.000-08:00

Well from what we can tell we believe that she's teething. She's slobbering a lot more and it's not uncommon to see most of her fist in her mouth. She's still such a good baby and quite the little trooper just a little more fussy than usual. Still as funny as ever. She likes to play rough. Lol. It's a lot of fun, she gets the biggest kick out of the smallest things. Here's another slide show of her most recent pics as of now.

Good times.

2009-02-04T17:26:00.000-08:00

Her little personality is starting to show. Lol.

This is Love!

2009-01-20T21:45:00.000-08:00

Funny Funny Girl

2009-01-13T11:47:00.000-08:00

Month to Month

2008-12-16T14:55:00.000-08:00

Another post I'll be adding to. This is a month to month watch me grow collection.

First 3 Months:

Samantha's First Christmas

2008-12-08T22:24:00.000-08:00

Professional pictures

2008-11-18T20:38:00.000-08:00

Brandon purchased some professional pictures of her. He's such a sweetheart. These are them:

We'll be getting a cd of these pictures and can reprint them from there, just let us know which pictures you might like and what size.

Samantha Makayla

2008-11-17T21:16:00.000-08:00

Pregnancy

2008-11-14T08:39:00.000-08:00

Expecting

2008-11-12T19:04:00.000-08:00

I'm being induced on Saturday at 10 am. I can't wait to hold my baby girl. I've been anxious for weeks now. I still have to pick a name for her, but I'm sure I'll figure one out once I see her. I already love her so much, she is everything to me. It's going to be a great adventure for the next 18+ years. I'll post pictures of her as soon as possible.