Patches, I salute you!

I (Bonnie) have a confession to make.  I know it's utterly shocking, but I still sleep with a teddy-bear.  And no- he didn't disappear when we got married, and yes - he's traveled with me across the world and been to basically every sleepover I've ever been at for the last 23 years.  His name is Patches because he came with, you guessed it, patches (yep I've always been super creative and imaginative- even when I was five).  Well since having Samantha, Andrew and I have both woken up multiple times on top of Patches in the bed utterly scared that he was Samantha, and we had, in fact, crushed her in our sleep.  Note this is not even plausible because she is sleeping in her crib, but we are sleep deprived and a little delusional in the middle of the night. So we decided we had to see if they actually were the same size or if we were going crazy.  So we had Samantha meet Patches.

Clearly she was not really thrilled with him.  Maybe because she knows her mommy will not be handing him over anytime soon.  (But as you can see we were not, in fact, so crazy- the size is pretty similar).

But then we got this gem of a picture.  Clearly she knows she needs to respect this long time member of the family.  

"Patches, I salute you!"

Week Three with Samantha

Week three was the first week I spent at home with Samantha by myself (although Daddy working at home some mornings has provided me some much needed sleep).  Here are some snapshots from Week 3!

Wrapped very tightly for her morning nap.

Snuggling with Daddy. Being a baby is very tiring!

She's starting to really enjoy her swing.

And is staying awake at least a couple of hours a day, showing us her big beautiful eyes.

We've taken to calling her "Squirms"and "Squirmy Worm" sometimes because flailing and kicking is her style.  Here she is in action.

And Samantha remains an expert cuddler and face-maker!

Samantha's Visitors

During Week 2 and 3, lots of people came to meet Samantha. We feel very blessed to have had so many visitors and to have so many people in our lives who already love little Samantha!

Busch and Lynn stopped by with dinner!

And Anna and Sarah had lunch with us.

Amy, Christen, and Rhymes spent the afternoon with me, while the boys held a Tumaini meeting in Princeton.  Check out all the work our Princeton boys are doing with Tumaini Tanzania, a non-profit organization started by Lide to provide educational opportunities to students in Tanzania at http://www.tumainitanzania.org/new/.

The whole crew came over for a pizza dinner after their meeting.

The boys were so sweet figuring out how to hold her.

Love this one of AJ!

Jeff is practicing. Can't wait to meet he and Lindsay's little one in May!

She looks so small with Chris!

Careful Duncan.

Ted also stopped by, and Samantha decided to grace him with her first rocket poo. First outfit change because of a poop- check!  Sorry about that, Ted!

Katie brought us some lunch!

And Christina and Deborah and Tom brought us dinner!

Thanks, everyone for visiting!  Being stuck inside for several weeks during flu season is made much better by visitors!

Grandma Citterbart's Visit

During most of Samantha's second week, Bonnie's mom was here to help us. We felt so thankful to have her here to help with Baby Samantha, keep up with cleaning and cooking, run errands for us, let us get some extra sleep, and let me get out to do some shopping (and eat my first sushi in 9 months!).  She was wonderful.  Thanks, Mom!

A lot of her time here was filled with sleeping and hanging out on the couch.

There was also some baby-grooming- nail filing and bathing!

And some play time.  

Playing with "Freddie the Firefly"...

...led to a licking response.

The swing was equally thrilling...

And clearly "Tummy Time" needs a little more work...

We experimented with the moby wrap and hope to become expert baby-wearers soon!

And finally we were lucky enough to celebrate my mom's birthday with her.  Happy Birthday, Mom!

So skeptical of Grandma...

Three generations!