What We Love About Fall...

there are waaaay too many things to list, but I'll try to capture a few!

While the sunny summer months are great, both Allen and I love when the weather turns a bit colder and the fall/winter months are upon us. Our reasons for loving the fall however, are vastly different. For me, it's all about the cute hats, warm jackets, scarves, holiday festivities--and best of all--the cooking! For Allen--the fall means one thing--DUCK HUNTING.

Over the past few months, Allen and his friends have been planning and prepping for hunting season. While I'll never understand the allure of spending the night in a smelly trailer, only to wake up before the sun rises and sit in a cold blind, I am happy to report that I have gotten Al to start taking pictures of his hunting escapades. Though I may not fully understand this hobby, he has such a good time and especially loves to take Scout out with him now!

The dog in this picture isn't Scout...I think his name is Sutter

The guys are especially proud of their duck hunting trailer. They all pooled their money during high school to purchase this beauty...While I have never had the opportunity to spend an evening inside this abode, Allen claims that it is quite "homey"

Al decided to take the weekend off from hunting in Los Banos, which worked out quite well as I had to work in the morning. Samantha and Allen spent much of Saturday together and made it out to the farmers market in downtown Morgan Hill. They were even so kind as to think of me and bring home some flowers. :)Today, I decided to make butternut squash soup. Now that we are a family of 3 (5 counting the dogs), I love having Samantha as my sidekick in the kitchen. Since her head and torso control are getting better, she is able to sit on the counter in her "sit up" seat! She was quite the helper...She picked a beautiful organic squash at Whole Foods...and after roasting it with sage and garlic, she helped me get everything ready to be pureedand I have to say that the finished product was quite good! Sammy Jo is quite the little chef!

After all our hard work, she needed some time to lay low in the play gym

And of course some time watching football with dadHappy November!

Samantha and Scout - BFF Part 2

Whenever Samantha is in a grumpy mood, our new surefire way to make her happy is to get her playing with Scout. She loves that crazy black dog!

If you listen closely, you can hear classical music playing in the background. That's another new trick for keeping Miss Samantha happy. Maybe we have a future musician on our hands???

Mmmm...Rice Cereal

For a little while now, Al and I have been thinking about trying Samantha on rice cereal, and while I have been trying to put it off, we decided that today would be the day. That's right--here's one for the baby book--November 1st, 2009--Samantha had her first taste of rice cereal.

We decided to try this after her first morning feeding, and all in all, I guess it was a success. I made the rice cereal, and I have to say that it didn't look very appetizing...

We must start with a picture of Sam pre-rice cereal!

And so began the feeding....

Hmmm...not so sure about thisWell maybe...Actually, no...

By the time we were done, it looked as though there was more rice cereal ON Samantha, but I am pretty sure that it was a good introduction of what is to come!Full and happy!And we decided to burn off all those extra calories by going for a walk! :)

Halloween Fun

We had a great Halloween weekend packed with a lot of fun activities. To start, I had Friday off of work, so Samantha and I spent the morning together--getting ready for her very first Halloween Party. After a good nap, we packed up and headed to Shelley's mom's house for a special afternoon with all of Sammy's good friends. The party included moms from prenatal yoga, baby boot camp and other assorted friends. All of the babies had costumes and there were some really creative ones out there. Besides the great snacks, witches' brew punch, and fun activities for all the little ones, it was especially fun to catch up with all the moms from my prenatal yoga group. We even had a chance to take an updated version of our original picture from our BBQ in May!


From left to right: Shelley and Dominic (dressed as a crab), Sara and Payton (dressed as a hot dog), Sam and I (dressed as a monkey), Carla and Kaylee (dressed as a ladybug) and Marianne and Addison (dressed as a Tootsie Roll). When we took our first picture, Dominic was the only baby who had joined us, so it is so fun to have all the little ones together for their first holiday! Dominic will be quite the ladies' man with all these girls as his playmates!



As usual, Shelley was an amazing hostess and Sam and I had a great time. We hope to continue with fun traditions like this as we head into the holiday season!


Sara and Miss Payton--loved her "Frankenfish" onesie!



Marianne and Addision--one month old and so adorable!



Shelley and Dominic--even though he isn't super thrilled about his costume in this picture, I LOVE this one of the two of them!


and Sam and I (pre-melt down)

Included in the Halloween festivities was a visit with Amy and Caitlin. Samantha hadn't seen the two of them since late summertime, so it was a lot of fun to meet up with them in the afternoon.

Samantha decided to surprise us with a 5:30am wake up call on Halloween morning. Though it was a bit earlier than we would have liked on a Saturday, the three of us had a lot of fun playing and catching up as a family. After a quick morning nap, we headed over to the Farmer's Market and Samantha even got her very first pumpkin. We attempted to venture out to Useugi Farms (AWESOME pumpkin patch in Morgan Hill) last weekend, but the crowds were too much to brave. I feel awful that Samantha didn't get an "official" pumpkin patch trip this year, but we will definitely make it up to her when it is time to get our Christmas tree!

On Halloween night, we were lucky to have a surprise visit from Uncle Brian, Aunt Allison and cousin Emily (Kayla had a rough afternoon and was hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa). Unfortunately, Sam was eating during their visit, so we didn't get a picture of the cousins in their Halloween costumes, but Emmy looked SO cute dressed up as a Saint Bernard!

We even made it out for a delicious dinner with friends...





Here's a picture of Allison and Samantha



and one of Addison with her Auntie Julie

and yet one more picture of Sammy in her costume...and since it is officially November 1st--HOLIDAY SEASON HAS BEGUN!!!! :) I'm going to go and watch a Christmas movie to kick things off in the proper fashion!

Fingers Were Made for Chewing

I mentioned in the last post that Samantha loves to put things in her mouth these days. A friend took some great pictures last Saturday and I thought I'd post them to the blog. She loves to "chew" on her hands, and while my paranoia about the swine flu causes me to freak out a little (okay--a lot!) over this new habit, but I have to admit that she does look pretty cute!

October Fun

I can't believe that October is nearly over--where is the time going?

Things in Samanthaland are going really well and we are excited about the upcoming fall and winter months. Samantha is growing and changing like crazy--it seems like each week brings a new change/developmental milestone!

Over the past few weeks, we have noticed that Sam loves to "talk" a lot more. She makes some very funny noises and loves it when people mimic her sounds.

She also LOVES to put everything in her mouth. The toy of the week is Sophie, her rubber giraffe, and she chomps on that like no other. I don't have a picture with Sophie, but will get one on here very soon. Along with the constant chomping/gumming comes a lot of drool! Sam has been known to go through a couple of bibs a day. Here she is, trying to chew on one of her rattles!

It feels like each week brings improved head control, and (shocker!) she even seems to be enjoying her tummy time!

She's still not quite sure about the Baby Einstein jumper, but is a bit more intrigued now that we finally got batteries for it!

She definitely doesn't love her monkey costume, but I have managed to get a few pictures in which she isn't screaming her head off!

We're so looking forward to Halloween this weekend. Samantha has been invited to her first Halloween party, which will be hosted by her friend Dominic and his mom, Shelley. Last week, we made it out for another visit with Baby Addison and her mom, Marianne. In addition, we celebrated Allen and Grandma Ishibashi's birthdays with dinner and cake on Sunday evening (I managed to forget my camera, so no pictures!).

Happy Early Halloween!

Samantha and Scout - BFF

I vascillated about putting this post on the blog, but I decided that it was too cute not to include. Our Labrador Retriever, Scout is quite possibly the friendliest dog in the world and since Samantha arrived in our family, she seems convinced that Sam is a new friend that was specially picked for her.

While we have been VERY dilligent about watching Scout's interactions with Sam (she has a tendency to get slightly "overexcited"), she has never, ever come close to hurting Sam. We do realize that with dogs and babies, you can never be TOO careful, so know that Allen was on IMMEDIATE standby when I took the following video.

I love how Scout is so intrigued by Sam and that she seems totally okay with a ginormous black dog snout in her face.

The video doesn't show it, but Peter was perched on the couch for the entire duration of this episode. Whereas Scout seems to LOVE Samantha, Peter is pretty indifferent. He's always been our tempermental child! :)