Trick Or Treat

Tonight was Trick or Treat night. Samantha has been really looking forward to getting to dress up again. For a week Samantha has been watching Halloween episodes of Bubble Guppies and Dora. She has been not stop talking about "getting candy". And we were all excited for her first year of actually being excited for the whole Holiday.

Jeff took Samantha door to door since I was still too im-mobile from dislocating my left knee. He said that she was very brave and would walk right up to the door and say "Trick or Treat". He also said that she was very polite and told everyone Thank you.

Showing off her loot!

Somewhere along the night she caught up with some other kids and would go up to the doors with them. Jeff said that if the house was particularly scary then she would ask him to go up to the door with her and carry her bucket. Daddy's are so good at making things less scary :)

Catching up with the other kids.

"Trick or Treat, Smell my Feet, Give me something good to eat!"

Trunk or Treat

Last Thursday, Jeff took Samantha to Trunk or Treat at Nick and Mandy's church. We bought her this pirate costume last year (on sale) and it fit perfectly! Argh...

The doo rag "hat" had built in hoop earring's that were just too cute. (But not cute enough for me to actually let her pierce her ears.)

So proud of her earring(s).

She was a little confused why her bucket was empty when we told her candy would be put in it. But she figured it out quickly! Jeff said that she was very brave and walked right up to the trunks to say trick or treat. I think that she might have been a little afraid, but the allure of candy out weighed any possible negatives!

Sunday morning was a little cold so Jeff got her all bundled up for church. He has gotten so good at doing Samantha's hair and picking out cute outfits. Our next little girl is going to benefit so much from the practice Daddy had with Samantha :)

Family Fun Weekend

Saturday Morning Jeff and Samantha made us pancakes for breakfast. Samantha loved standing up on her stop stool "helping" her daddy cook. It was really one of the sweetest things a Mommy can witness.

After breakfast we went to the local nursery and bought a bunch of mum's and bulbs to plant. As soon as we got home we went straight to work! Samantha loved putting the weeds in the bucket and just helping in general. She followed direction well and really helped alot, especially when planting the bulbs. Hopefully we will have pretty flower beds in the spring!

We got to church a little early this morning so I asked Samantha if she wanted to go up front and sing and she said yes. So she went up front, all be herself, and got on the stage and pretended to sing. She was a little embarrassed but she stayed up there and kept "singing" her little heart out. So cute!

Locker Soccer Academy (10.20.11)

Last Thursday night was Samantha's first soccer class at Locker Soccer Academy in Gahanna. She walked right in and was so excited to do whatever it was they were going to do. She did not stop smiling and moving for the entire half hour class.

Class started with a stretching session. Each kid got a colored circle (Samantha picked purple of course) to sit on to do their strecthcing and her daddy did everything with her! Samantha did a really good job listening to the teacher.

One of the little activities was to take a balloon and try and keep it off the floor using only your feet and head. As you can see Samantha supplemented with her hands as well too.

(You have to watch this little video with your head turned to the side, but it is still cute.)

Circle S Farm

(I had to steal this picture (and the one below) from Mandy's blog and add them to mine! Thanks Mandy!)

Tonight, Jeff and I took Samantha to Circle S Farm with The Hague's. (It has now become a yearly tradition.) Above: Samantha was pointing to her dimples for her Daddy.

Cow: Me (figuratively) & Pig: Samantha (mostly accurate)

Samantha climbing the hay bale stack to get to the slide.

She made it all the way to the top all by herself!

We took a hayride out to the pumpkin patch and we got to pick out a pumpkin. It was a perfect afternoon to be out on the farm b/c it was semi-chilly but the sun was out and kept us warm! I cannot wait 'til next year.

New Baby Girl - Anatomy Scan @ Riverside

We had our 18 week anatomy scan (ultrasound) at Riverside in the Women's Center. Since Samantha and I have 3 kidney's my doctor wanted to send me here for their Level 2 scan b/c it is much more detailed than what my OB/GYN has. (Above: a cute little profile shot.)

The ultrasound technician was able to confirm the earlier ultrasound, IT'S A GIRL!

Two little feet and ten toes! That right foot was dancing a little so it is more blurry.

All curled up showing off her little booty! I love this little girl so much already. Samantha and I talk about her all the time and just cannot wait to meet her!

Below is a short little video of her moving her legs like crazy! Too bad I still cannot feel most of her movements :(

Great Wolf Lodge - Sandusky

Friday afternoon Jeff, Samantha and I headed off to Sandusky, OH to take Samantha to the Great Wolf Lodge. It is a hotel with an indoor waterpark attached. It was cold and rainy this weekend so it was the perfect time to spend some time inside swimming. Every 15 minutes the big bucket on top of the play structure would fill up with water and dump over. A bell would go off 30 seconds before the bucket would dump out and a crowd always gathered at the bottom to be doused with water.

Samantha did not want to be doused with the water but she did like watching the water fall!

Friday night they had a little trick-or-treat thing for the kids and Samantha enjoyed the candy!

Part of the trick-or-treat night they had a pumpkin painting activity for the kids and we came home with one wild looking pumpkin. (Said pumpkin is being proudly displayed on my front porch as we speak!)

Trick-or-treat stop #2. Samantha would not say anything when she went up to the person handing out candy but she sure did put her bag out for them to drop candy into.

Saturday morning we got up and went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast then headed right off to the water park. On our way, we stopped and got this really cute pic of Samantha.

Samantha loved running down the hallway when we were going swimming. She was just way too excited to walk :)

Samantha and I in the shallow pool at the bottom of her favorite slides. (She was actually able to touch and keep her head above the water.)

Sunday morning we woke up and went straight to the waterpark before we had to check out. She loved swimming so much that we wanted to take full advantage before leaving. She had a wonderful time and was really well behaved all weekend. We couldn't have ask for a better time, it truly was a perfect weekend getaway.

Josephine Adele Sima

On Friday Oct. 14th my best friend; Amanda, had her second daughter Josie! She was 7.5 lbs and 18 inches long. And she was such a cutie right from the start. I was able to go up to the hospital on Friday morning and spent some time with Amanda while Josie was in the nursery getting all checked out and I also got to see Josie while she was still in the nursery, but I didn't get to hold her until Sunday when Jeff and I got back in town from our weekend trip (more to come on that later).

Josie with her very proud big sister Sylvie!

The Wild's

This morning; Jeff, Samantha and I met up with Nick, Mandy, Grady and Chase and headed off to The Wild's in eastern Ohio. It was a little over an hour drive to get there but Samantha was really excited to see the animals. We took a safari on a re -purposed school bus for a nearly 3 hour tour. Above is some special kind of donkey. It stood right next to our bus so we got a really close picture.

Up on the hill were 2 camel's. Again, they were some fancy type of camel. But to us, they were just plain old camels.

After seeing the camel's we caught a glimpse of the rhino's but they were too far away for Samantha to see or to be able to get a picture of them. So our next stop was to a little pond area where we got to feed really big catfish. Samantha really enjoyed feeding the fish.

My cute little family.

After seeing the catfish we got to see a huge herd of bison! They too were really close to the bus so we got a great view of them.

They have a few swans there that are tagged with numbers around their necks to keep track of them. They were so beautiful.

These are actually horses even though they look more like donkey's to me. These too were right up next to the bus so we all got a really good look at them.

Obviously this is a giraffe, but man were they cool to see this close up. And I don't have a picture of the baby one, but this is the mom and the baby was just a little bit behind his momma. When the baby was born, he was 5"8' tall!

Speaking of babies. At the top of this picture is a momma zebra and her 1 month old baby. She apparently is very protective of her baby and does not let anyone get closer than this.

Within 2 minutes of leaving The Wild's this is what Samantha looked like. She was even too sleepy to keep her whole thumb in her mouth! She slept for the first 30 minutes in the car but then we had to stop for gas and she never fell back asleep. We thought she would take a monster nap when we got home but she got a second wind and stayed up until 7:15 PM tonight. She will sleep good tonight I am sure.

Overall it was a good trip, but it was probably a little too long of an excursion for the kids. They were all geting angsty towards the end of the trip. But it was totally worth it to see the excitement on their faces as they got to see all the animals.

New T-Ball Set

A co-worker of mine gave me her grandsons old t-ball set. So I told Jeff that when he got home tonight we were going to spend sometime outside. And that is just what we did.

She really liked doing it all by herself. So we just let her whack away at the ball.

After t-ball she wanted to get out her little tykes car. She kept telling us she was going to Aunt Mandy's house and would tell us bye. Then 5 feet later she would say, "I'm Home" and jump back out of the car. At one point Jeff asked her if she needed any gas in her car and she said, "yea". The she walked over the yard and pulled some grass and put that in her pretend gas tank. I thought that was a really cute mix up! For the next week or so we are supposed to have really nice October weather with highs in the 70's so hopefully we will be spending quite a bit of time outside while we still can!