Gratuitous Samuel Update

Eric's done a good job lately of keeping you updated on our family's situation as it's been changing almost by the second. But I've done a terrible job of keeping you updated on Samuel. Sad day! He's too cute to be keeping all to ourselves! So this post might be a little scattered, but I promise to add in lots of pictures and a couple random videos to make it worth your while if you make it through :) I'll apologize in advance though that most of these pictures and videos were taken with our cell phones so they're not the highest quality.

Sam at Eric's graduation. Isn't he cute in that suit?
So, Sam will be 6 months next Friday. I can't believe how fast the time has gone! He is extremely wide eyed and curious about everything. I think we've decided he can officially crawl, but he still prefers to do more of an army crawl because he can get around the room wicked fast doing so! His favorite thing to play with is anything that has to do with technology (surprise!) He loves grabbing power cords and playing with our cell phones. Lately he gets the biggest kick out of "talking" to people on my phone... which generally means that he's chewing on my cell phone and pushing buttons while I put his Grandma or Uncle Cody on speaker phone.

Yup, Sam definitely takes after his parents in his love for technology!
He still sleeps with us in our bed because it's where he's happiest and there's nothing quite like getting to cuddle with a baby. It also makes it easy to take care of him in the middle of the night. However, I think that I can say that he is now "sleeping through the night"... his night just starts later and ends later to sorta sync up with his parents' schedule. We want to work towards putting him in his own crib at night but first we need to dig out his speaker that we use to play his white noise (it's one of the few things that hasn't yet made it out of the boxes from moving). I have started trying to have bedtime routines with him so that he realizes that it's time for bed rather than just a nap. We'll read a story, change into PJs, and feed him to sleep. So far I think it isn't really working, but it makes me feel good so I'm going to keep doing it :)

Uncle Jayson's iPod might not qualify as white noise...
One of the fun things with Sam lately is to see how much he wants to be like the men he sees. He is totally a boys' boy. He likes any attention, but you can tell that when he gets attention from his dad, or his uncles he LOVES it. He starts showing off all of his cool tricks that he's learning and wants to be just like them. That goes ten fold for his dad. I think it's adorable to see how much he is still just totally enamored with Eric (not that I blame him :) ).

Oh yeah, so cool!
He also recently got a little doorway jumper that my Uncle Paul and Aunt Stacy are letting us borrow. He has had a blast with it! He loves to jump and stand. He's starting to climb. I discovered this the other day when we were all waking up in bed and Sam was just crawling around and playing with us. Then he saw the clock on Eric's nightstand. But since Sam was on the opposite side of Eric from the nightstand I thought it was ok. Nope! He climbed up, and got over Eric to make his way towards the clock.

Sam trying out the jumper for the first time

One of the best parts about Sam sleeping with us is seeing him wake up in the morning. When Sam is well rested he wakes up and is very smiley and playful. It is so adorable to see him in the morning. And of course, the first thing he goes for is his dad... even though his dad is usually still fast asleep from working late shifts. It's so fun to see the two of them interact.

Eric got some bubble wrap with a package... Sam really liked the bubble wrap!
Another thing Sam has really gotten into lately is blowing raspberries. He gets the biggest kick out of blowing raspberries on people's arms, cheeks, or whatever might be exposed. If I'm feeding him and he's not tired I know that he's done because he will stop eating and start pouncing on me to try and blow raspberries!

Sticking his tongue out

Sam blowing raspberries on Eric's mission buddy Vance Lewis
We started feeding him some solids over the past couple of weeks. We started with bananas, which he really liked, and then went back to the rice cereal. However, he hadn't been sleeping real well after introducing the rice cereal, so I've taken him off of solids for the last few days and he's been doing better. Although, he'd also had a slight fever so the two might not be related, but I wanted to get him back to normal before pushing the envelope with the solids. One of the best discoveries with starting solids is actually finding one of his new favorite toys - baby spoons! He can be entertained for a good while just holding one of those rubber spoons, and chewing on it, and banging it on things. Who would have thought?

Another random toy Sam found... the door stopper

I think that pretty much covers him right now. We're taking him in for his 6 month check up in a couple of weeks so we'll be sure to let you know how that goes and what his current stats are once that happens as well!

Sam in his Grandpa Anderson's gaucho hat that I bought for him in Argentina
By the way, for anyone who is interested... Samuel's Facebook account got taken away because he's too young :( However, we made a fan page for him if you want to be his fan click here! Also, all of the pictures in this post are in his photo album on his fan page and the pictures are links to the pictures in the album, if you want to comment on any individual picture you can do it there too :)