Getting closer....

Well we are officially 4 weeks away from Baby C's arrival. The time has been flying by and we are slowly and surely getting ready.



We even broke down and bought a double stroller (a sit and stand version). It is currently sitting in the box in the baby's room. But this is what it would look like once we put it together...

Sam is still not sure about it. We took her with us to the store when looking and she was a little leary of sitting on the back but I think once she gets it she will love it.

Also I had Dan install the baby car seat base in my car last weekend. It is very weird to see that in the back seat but better to have it ready to go just in case. Also it has been good for Sam to get used to it. She keeps telling me the baby needs more toys etc so low and behold all her toys are now currently riding in the baby's car seat. Heck not going to complain too much at least she is starting the whole sharing process.

Sam is a girl after my own heart (she already has it but you know what I mean)

Sam LOVES shoes..She always has. She loves putting on her own shoes, daddy's shoes and Mommy's shoes. Her favorite activity is to go in the closet and pull out all of her Mommy's shoes and try them all on and I must give her credit she walks really well in most of my heals....

So this past weekend was tax free weekend and I had a coupon for 20% off at my favorite place to get Sam new shoes. She needed her new Fall/Going back to school shoes. So Friday she had the day off from school and spent the day with her Daddy and I worked then went to her schools meet the teacher event. Love her new classroom and she gets to stay with her 3 best friends and keep the same teacher..YEAH I was so relieved I even cried. We love her two teachers. Yes I know I am a hormonal mess so crying was just par for the course... So anyway I digress I met Dan and Sam after that at the mall around 5pm.

Sam was such a trooper and had her feet measured (she had grown almost a whole shoe size over the summer) and eagerly tried on at least 10 pairs of shoes. She finally settled on a brown leather pair for every day wear and a pair of sneakers. She was very opinionated on which ones she liked and which ones she didn't. She loved this one black leather pair but they were just real dressy so we settled on the brown ones...

She wanted to put on and take off all the shoes and then we showed her how to go look in the mirror and she would run over with every pair and do a little dance in front of the mirror..too bad I wasn't quick enough to get that on tape....Next time....

New Dining Room Table

When we moved into our new house (3 1/2 years ago) we really just tried to use the furniture we had and thought we will slowly but surely get new stuff or stuff period to fill up the house. So one of those rooms was our formal dining room. We had used Dans super old table in there that really wasn't all that big so not great when the whole family comes over. In the kitchen we had my old teeny tiny apartment table. Which is not very well equipped for a family of 3 (almost 4) eating on it on a daily basis. So one our way home from dropping off Sam at her grandparents for the night about 2 weeks ago we stopped into a consignment store to see if they had an nice patio furniture..No dice there...However we fell in love with this beautiful travertine (I think that is what it is called) table..It was huge and gorgeous and would look perfect in our dining room. Again this is not what we had been envisioning for that room we had already picked out a dark wood table about a year ago but had been gun shy about purchasing it. The stone table also had 8 gorgeous parsons chairs...We fell in love with it and it was a steal of a price so we rushed home and measured our space to see if it would fit as clearly we can't bring it back if it doesn't. So we purchased the table and they finally delivered it last week...LOVE IT....Now all we need to do it get some art work and put a runner down the center and a center piece (aka add some color) and we are all set....

And Sam seems to love it too. WE also think this table will hold up much better with having all the kids in the family now and really not being able to destroy it is a huge plus. Also it is gorgeous... As you can tell Sam was very fascinated with it and wouldn't let me take a picture of it without her in it...

The Grocery Store is her new playground...

Well Sam and I got the grocery store every weekend together. Well this week one night I needed to pick up 4 things one night after work so Sam and I stopped in the grocery store on our way home from school. Sam loves to sit in the cart and help me with the list and sometimes if we go early on a Saturday she likes to run around (which I don't' mind as there is no one else really there that early)...But this trip was a little different..First I am about 8 months pregnant and not as willing to walk all over the place. Second she found the smaller carts that they have for kids. They have always been there she just never noticed them. Well she finally did and insisted she push one..Which I was fine with we only needed 4 things like I said. But of course they were all on opposite corners of the store..Sam kept up pretty well and enjoyed pushing the cart and seeing things at her own level..She didn't even seem to want to try and sneak anything extra in the cart. I just have visions of our fun/easy trips on Saturday's turning into much longer now that she needs her own cart...Should be interesting...Also I managed to take a picture of her pushing the cart as I am running ahead and she is running trying to keep up with me so sorry about it not being the best....

Samantha's BIG girl room

Well Samantha's BIG girl room upstairs has been a work in progress for several months but I think we are almost done. We have one thing for the wall still on back order until the end of August but everything else is pretty much done so thought I would share a few pictures...

First and foremost almost all of the heavy lifting (painting the walls, moving furniture around, hanging pictures and moving her stuff upstairs) has all been done by my amazing husband..So thanks babe for creating Sam's big girl room with me and then basically executing all the big stuff...hehehe

Here is her bed right when you walk in with her name above it...That is also a trundle that can be pulled out in order for her cousin Alyson to come over and spend the night. Currently we leave the trundle pulled out in case she falls out of her bed but she has been really good about that for a few weeks...

Here is the view from her bed of her gorgeous dresser. I have ordered a really pretty butterfly mirror to go above that so that is really the only thing we have left...

We saw this sign at a store while up in Michigan this summer with Dans family and just had to have it for Sam's room so we were lucky enough that Dan's parents could put it in their car and drive it back for us..We love it and think it looks just perfect...

And finally I was up in Sam's room last night taking these pictures right before bath time and Sam came running in and wanted to show off her room (she has been in here since July 4th weekend) as we still make a big deal about it being her big girl room... So she hammed it up for me on her bed so I had to include one of her in her room. She is so beautiful and special!!!

Trip to Michigan post 2 of 2

Okay so to finally finish up this post we have two more parts of our trip. After we left Dans Grandmothers town we went to Lake Michigan to spend a few days at his sister Amy's lake house. We absolutely love it there as it is so peaceful and a great way to spend some family time together and swim and enjoy the beach. Sam had never seen a lake or a beach so it was a lot of fun showing those to her. Of course the sand freaked her out at first but after she got over it and we got her a few sand toys she was good to go.

Sam and Mommy on the beach the first morning we were there. It was still chilly from a storm the night before but still so pretty.

We spent the whole afternoon down at the beach and once Sam got over the feeling of sand on her feet and we gave her some new toys (buckets and shovels and plastic boats we found at the dollar store) and she thoroughly enjoyed her time that afternoon on the beach.

The last morning at the lake I had remembered how pretty the beach was and wanted to get a few family pics so I packed some hopefully photogenic clothes for us to wear and we went down to the beach to take some pics. Sam was not super cooperative so here is the best family pic we got that morning.

Here is another attempt of getting a picture on the beach of us walking away. Again not super cooperative but turned out to be a pretty cute picture.

This also has become one of my favorite pictures of the whole trip as it is just so perfect. It is Sam and Uncle Doug sitting at the top of the steep stairs leading down to the beach on our last morning there. I think Uncle Doug was relaxing outside enjoying his cup of coffee and Sam wanted to join him. So I had to run inside and grab a camera and get a quick pic of it as Sam does not tend to sit still for very long.

So we left the lake and headed back into Chicago to spend the last few days with my BFF Seetal and her beautiful family. We had so much fun but definitely not enough time. We went to the Taste of Chicago on Saturday which was so hot but the food was super yummy... The only pictures I took were of Sam's first train ride as we took the train in..

We also had our traditional dinner at our favorite pizza place Lou Malnatis yummy and a fun brunch with another family we know through Seetal. It was a wonderful trip overall and so glad we did it this summer.

On the way home we got delayed out of Chicago about 2 hours and Sam was ready to go home too after being gone so long that she completely melted down right before we finally got on the airplane I think because she didn't want us to put her stroller away. Needless to say 5 minutes into take off this is what we saw...

I think everyone around us was so surprised but she passed out on me for the whole flight about 5 minutes into take off..She slept until it was time to get off the plane and we then had to wake her up. It was not my most comfortable flight as she was laying on my bladder (which 6 1/2 months prego is not ideal) so I went with the flow and fell asleep for the flight as well.

Sam the Ballerina

So Sam started ballet classes through her school 2-3 weeks ago... She was all excited the weekend before we tried all her clothes on. And even took a little video with her in her dance clothes for the first time twirling around...

In the classes the first week it appeared she sat on the floor playing with her shoes and watching everyone else. She has ballet shoes and tap shoes and seems fascinated with both...

Last week she did better and this week a little bit better..She likes to observe and then participate so hopefully she is getting comfortable and will start participating more...She was moving and hoping around some last week..yeah!!!