Radio on in the morning + Samara in a good mood = twirling and dancing.
Later in the day, we checked out the Dover Fall Festival. It was a bust as most activities Samara was totally not interested in. The one activity, cookie decorating, that she was mildly interested in was ruined the minute I put frosting and sprinkles on her cookie. Apparently she is a sugar cookie purist.
Samara hasn't been eating vegetables very well recently. If I give her a bowl of mixed veggies, she will pick out the corn, leaving everything else behind. In an effort not to waste food, I have only been giving her corn. Tonight, I gave Samara a banana after dinner. She apparently thought that eating it like a corn on the cob would be fun.
Seth, Samara, and I headed down to NJ this weekend for a wedding and to visit Grandma and Pop Pop. We went to a diner where Samara started breakfast off right by drinking some milk out of cream containers.
Then her french toast came and she had lots of fun dunking it into syrup.
After breakfast, we headed to a farm for some fall fun. We went on a hayride, climbed some hay, and went through some mazes (with a little help from Pop Pop).
Today Samara and I hosted playgroup. So, all the toys that Samara has ignored for the past 6 months have become really interesting to her because other kids were playing with them. For example, her activity table is always out for her to play with, but she hasn't touched it in a while. After the playgroup ended, she pulled it out to the middle of the floor and started playing with the ball ramp. She has finally realized where the ball goes after it goes through the middle, retrieves it, and does it all over again.
Samara is finally starting to string words together. I am trying to make "please" and "thank you" a normal part of her vocabulary. Here is how it is going so far:
Today Aunty Sarah came over to hang out for a little bit. While Aunty was there, Samara rediscovered the curtains. Of course, when I grab my camera, she gets distracted by something outside so the total cuteness is not captured on film.
Later, Samara found Aunty's Uggs and had to put them on.
Every now and then Samara will wear Seth's shoes. Here, Seth came home from work and Samara wanted him to put his shoes back on. She even says "shoe" in the video.
Samara has continued doing swim lessons with Seth. She finally outgrew her old bathing suit, so here she is modeling her new one.
As you can see below, cleaning things with wipes hasn't gotten old yet.
After swim class, we headed to the Needham Harvest Fair. First up: sitting in a big backhoe.
Next: standing on a fire truck not smiling.
After that, we tried a bunch of soups and voted for our favorite. Then we tried to get Samara to do some activities that she had no interest in. Finally, we got some cotton candy that Samara seemed to enjoy.
Seth was listening to some music on his computer and Samara started pushing buttons. She discovered that when Seth pushed a certain button, the music turned off. If she pushed the same button, the music returned, which she thought was pretty cool.
She then started turning the music off and on, which entertained her even more.
While waiting for the oven to pre-heat, Samara found my wipe container. When she opened it, I was expecting her to start tearing apart the wipes and making a big mess. Instead, she started cleaning the oven door, dishwasher, and floor all on her own. It was awesome.
Grampi, Grandma, and Aunty Sarah visited today. Aunty Sarah had recently come back from New Mexico and bought Samara some gifts. One gift was a pair of maracas, which I am assuming was chosen due to their noisy nature.
Samara has been improving at putting on shoes. Not only does she have a better idea as to what shoe goes on what foot, but she is getting quite good at walking in them and, with sandals, knows to put the thong between her toes.
I especially like the part where Samara remembers where the flip flops were originally located and puts them back in their exact place.
Samara also got to play a fun game of peek-a-boo behind the curtains with Aunty Sarah.
Finally, Grampi and Grandma brought some money to add to Samara's piggy banks.
For Samara's 1st dinner, she enjoyed a nice burrito. When I say enjoyed, I mean she took a few bites of it, specifically picked out and ate the kidney beans, then ate just the wrapper.
Then Daddy came home and warmed up some pizza for himself, making Samara want second dinner. Here is one of Samara's first bites.
At one point, Samara shoved the pizza away, then proceeded to pick off just a pepperoni and stuck it in her mouth. I guess she already knows what the good stuff is.
It must be really hard being Samara - being so cute and all. Here she is modeling her bear hoodie.
Here she is checking herself out in my front-facing camera.
Oooh, this has ears.
Sometimes when Samara is acting a little restless, I pull her onto my lap and we watch old videos of her. The video below is when we are watching the old Spaghetti giggles video.
Samara LOVES noodles right now. As you can see in the video below, Samara is enjoying her shrimp scampi, minus the shrimp and vegetables. She is also perfecting the technique of the two-handed noodle delivery, followed by the sucking up of extra long noodles into her mouth.
She had pasta for lunch at daycare this week and her teachers told me how hilarious she was sucking up each individual noodle strand. As a result, she came home covered in sauce.
Today Grampi and Grandma stopped by on their way home from Maine. Samara and Grampi had fun putting buckets on their heads like they were big fun hats.
Samara likes to eat in places that are less than ideal for someone who likes toddler messes to be contained. I will let her eat yogurt that I spoon feed her on the counter, and for non-crumby foods, I will let her sit at the table like a big kid. Here, she is snacking on some Craisins. Although hard to tell from these pictures, she really does like them.
For dinner that evening, Samara was happily munching on a corn on the cob. Presenting the entire cob is so much more appealing to her than individual kernels in a bowl. After taking a few big bites of kernels, she ends up chomping on the end.
We went out to dinner this evening and got Samara a big plate of stir-fried noodles. She loved them, but picked around every piece of pork and vegetable that was stuck to each noodle she ate. Seth is afraid she is going to be that kid that only eats carbs. Let's hope that doesn't happen.
