Rollin' in Style

Check out Samantha in her brand new "big girl" car seat!!!

Lovefest!!!

We had a great Valentine's day weekend, packed with lots of activities and I actually managed to catch a lot of them on camera!

On Saturday morning, I was up early for work as it was my last Team In Training Saturday before I start my new job (but more about that later).  Allen and Samantha met me after the event and we headed off to celebrate Aiden Schembri's third birthday.  Aiden is the son of my friend Jen and one of the few "older men" that I will allow Sammy to hang out with.  The party was at Pump It Up in Sunnyvale and it was a lot of fun. 

Hard to tell, but Al and Sam are coming down the big slide

The jury's still out as to whether or not she liked the slide.  I'm sure that in a couple of years, we won't be able to pull her away!

She loved rolling around on the bouncy surfaces

And was looking oh-so-stylish in her new giraffe jacket!

The party was finished off with pizza and banana cupcakes and Aiden even got to sit in the birthday throne!  That Aiden really knows how to party! :)

Tuckered out after a fun afternoon!

The rest of the weekend was really busy for all of us.  On Sunday, Samantha spent the afternoon with Grandma and Grandpa Ishibashi and Allen and I went to a Valentine's day lunch at Santana Row.  We had a great time enjoying the beautiful weather and window shopping.  After Sammy went to bed, I made chocolate fondue and we watched the Olympics with Scouty and Peter.

Scout was our third wheel and spent most of the evening trying desperately to join our fondue party

She finally gave up and laid down on her extension cord pillow

Fun times on a family walk

Nothing like a good book in the morning...

8 Months Old

Wanted to share some of Samantha's "official" 8 month pictures.  If you look at some of the comparisons, it's pretty evident that getting her to sit still long enough to actually take the picture is no easy task!  We missed her official 8 month birthday, so these pictures were taken a couple of days late.  Though you can't see it in the picture, she has another tooth coming in.  This one is on the top toward the right.  Fingers crossed that the emergence of this tooth isn't too traumatic for our little bear!

These chair pictures have definitely become a 2 person job!

Starting to look less than thrilled

Wait a minute--I don't feel like sitting in this stupid pink chair!

Yup, I think I'll just figure out how to get out on my own

Fine, you win...for now

Definitely a far cry from month 1!

Family Christmas!

Wanted to share some pictures from our Chrismas celebration with the Mello side of the family.  Since we were in Tahoe for the "real" holiday, we had a great night at Nana's house recreating Samantha's first Christmas.  She definitely scored some great loot and while she wasn't quite into the whole process of gift unwrapping, I think she'll catch on soon enough!

One of Nana and Samantha in Nana's favorite chair

Samantha and I getting ready to have dinner (pizza and spaghetti--it was delicious!)

A "Daddy's Little Girl" sweatsuit.  SUPER cute and oh-so-comfy!

Auntie Kim got Sam her very own cookie plate for Santa Claus visits.  Can't wait to use it next year!

Hard to see in this picture, but Auntie Em got Sammy an adorable purple polka dot dress!

Her very own Klean Kanteen sippy cup!  It's already a big hit!

Finishing off the night with AJ.  This was a giant card that played music from Nana's 90th birthday

and Samantha was loving it.

Christmas Eve celebrations at Nana and Papa's house were always one of my favorite things growing up and I am so happy to be able to share this tradition with Samantha as she gets older.  

Milestones and Updates

It's been awhile since the last blog posting, and a lot has been happening. 

As usual, we are keeping very busy (so busy, in fact that I haven't updated the blog in nearly a month!).  My work schedule throughout January was beyond insane and I am so happy for February.  Things will slow down a bit for us and I can't wait!

So, let's start with Samantha's 7 month chair pictures...

This was one of the few pictures in which she was sitting somewhat still

As you can see, she loves to put everything in her mouth these days...which leads us to the title of this post

Big Milestone Alert: Samantha has her first two teeth!

Here's how it all went down...

While I was at work on Thursday, January 21st, I came out of a meeting to see that my phone had a voicemail.  The vm message was from JoAnn and was as follows:  "Call me as soon as you can--we have BIG NEWS!"

After about an hour of phone tag, we finally connected and she told me that we had confirmation of the first tooth bud.  It is quite ironic that JoAnn was the one to discover Sam's first tooth, as she and I have attributed any bit of fussiness over the past 2 months to "Sam's teeth".  I guess now we are actually somewhat warranted in our claims! :) 

The first tooth came through pretty quickly and the second one was right there as well.  She now has a cute little gummy grin dotted with two tiny white teeth on the bottom (center) of her gums.  All things considered, the teething process hasn't been all that horrible (knock on wood!).  We did have a rough weekend with naps, but I think she has been quite a trooper throughout the whole process.

Just when I thought we were set on the milestones for awhile, Sammy surprised me with another big one the Saturday after her first tooth popped through (1/23).  While I was packing us up for a big day at work (that's right, Sammy Jo helped us with Team In Training recruitment this year), I glanced over at Samantha in her play gym and caught her rolling from back to tummy.  She's pretty mobile these days and is on the verge of crawling--yikes!