Who's that baby in the mirror? and other recent movies of Samantha playing :)

She LOVES looking at the mirror in her room.

And playing peek-a-boo...

And scratching Daddy's head...

And talking to Mommy...

And then there's piano drama :)

Eating real food!

Just as Samantha turned six months, she started sitting up on her own.  The books say when they start to sit up on their own, they are ready to try real table food.   We're hoping to try Baby Led Weaning, but if we need to do a little spoon feeding- we aren't opposed. At first, we didn't think Samantha could actually coordinate her hands enough or understand that food should go in her mouth.  Literally last week, she seemed to have no interest in picking up broccoli.  And then suddenly in this past week things have changed.  She has tried avocado, sweet potato, squash and pasta!  All of which she has gotten into her mouth on her own.  Most of this has involved sucking on these foods (still no teeth to be spotted over here) and admittedly very little is actually being eaten, but she clearly knows what to do with it, and it is so fun watching her pick things up in her little fists and attempt to get them in her mouth!

Avocado toasts.

Full on avocado mess. Loving that the beginning of this process corresponded with summer-and makes no clothes baby + dinnertime a perfect combination.

 Clearly Samantha also makes this face when she tries sweet potato.

Almost in her mouth!

Got the squash right in her mouth!

And clearly eating food is exhausting. Samantha passed out in the swing right after eating the other day- her first swing nap in ages.

Reading :)

We've been trying to read to Samantha since she was born, and our reading efforts have met with varying degrees of success.  Sometimes she'll lay with you on the floor listening and reading and sometimes she rolls away or stats talking, while we're reading.  Even if she doesn't show it yet, we hope she's developing into a life-long reader!  Here are some recent reading efforts.

She now sometimes tries to grab for the book herself.

And of course some reading time with daddy is a favorite.

Samantha's favorite books these days are anything she can feel and the ones that have finger puppets to grab :)

Trip to the pool

We took Samantha to the kiddie pool in our development last week.  The pool was really warm temperature and not much of a hot weather relief, but most of you know I'd rather have that than too cold!  Samantha seemed pretty happy in the pool although fairly frozen- just staring at everything going on around her.  

The pool was exhausting!  Literally one minute into our five minute walk home from the pool, we had this...

The Montagues visit!

Last Saturday John and his wife Mari and their son Cornelius came to visit.  We know John from our manna days when he served as the staff leader for the small groups Andrew and I led to together our junior and senior year of college.  Luckily his wife Mari has roots in Princeton so we've gotten to see them a few times when they've been back visiting, and this time we got to meet their darling son, Cornelius.  Cornelius was born exactly one week after Samantha (but he was actually due on the day Samantha was born!)  It was fun to see these two start to interact with each other.  Hope to see you guys again soon and see how Cornelius grows!  And maybe then we'll remember to take some pics of the mommies as well!

Checking each other out!

Daddies and babies!

And then there was this tummy time sequence of cuteness!

Oblivious of each other...

Samantha notices and is skeptical of Cornelius...

Cornelius's turn to be skeptical of Samantha...

And then they've made their peace...hand holding already :)