28 Weeks Old

Samantha continues to amaze, entertain, and also frustrate her parents. Although some say to try to get your child on a schedule, she changes so much so fast it is hard to do that. Unfortunately, Samantha hasn’t advanced any more in the way of crawling. Mom is even to the point where she wishes she would crawl. Samantha is very frustrated with what she’s doing. We keep trying to help her learn how to crawl. However, she just can not get the hang of taking one step after another. We believe that once she is getting around on her own, she will be a happier child.

Thursday we went to lunch with Marie. She is a good friend of Travis. They met while he was doing temp work at Horizon Milling. Marie was kind enough to give Samantha a walker as a gift after she was born. Samantha is about two inches too short for it right now. It will not be long though.

We had another busy Sabbath. The weather has been great and as you see, we took lots of pictures in our yard. The trees are absolutely beautiful so we took advantage of it. That evening we walked on Southern’s campus and enjoyed the quiet of the campus. Saturday night, after pizza at Rafaels our friends David and Mindi came over (a BIG congrats to them as they are expecting. The adventure has only begun!). They played a game with Dad while Mom got Samantha to sleep. Well, she put her down toooooo early and Samantha woke up and was awake until midnight! We were all tired by then!

Sunday Mom and Samantha went to Christy’s baby shower in Dalton, GA. She got a ton of beautiful and useful gifts. Everyone there commented on how well behaved Samantha was. She did do a good job.

27 Weeks Old

I know we’ve said it for several weeks now but Samantha is so close to crawling. Mom and Dad almost bet when she was going to do it. Mom said by Christmas, Dad said by Thanksgiving. Well, thank goodness they didn’t because Mom would have LOST! She snakes her way around to wherever she wants to go. She’s so close Dad almost wanted to bet she’d do it by Halloween! It seems she totally skipped the stage where babies roll to get where they want to go.

This week Mom found Samantha gnawing on the hearth of our fireplace. As you know, everything goes in the mouth so she decided that the brick must to be ok. Friday we went to get a guard for the fireplace so now she can no longer gnaw on it and she won’t be able to hurt herself on it.

For Mom it was a tough week. Samantha spit up on her twice (we’re talking down the neck, down the shirt and even once touching her jean), she peed on her and last, had a big blow it. Hopefully that won’t happen again soon.

Sabbath was a pretty quiet day. We went to Sabbath School, Church and then came home for a yummy lunch. Samantha generally has a tough time napping on Sabbath because of everything that is going on but this week she got a two hour nap. Yippee! That made her in a great mood to spend the evening with Scott and Christy.

26 Weeks Old

With the exception of Samantha’s doctor’s appointment, this week was pretty quiet. Now the weekend, that was a different story.

Samantha had her six month doctor’s appointment on the 11th. Doctor Carter commented on how alert she was and checking everything out. We found out she weighs 16 lbs, 4 oz. Somewhere along the line her height measurement was messed up so we aren’t sure how long she really is. This time they said 25 ½ inches long. With these measurements she is in the 50% percentile all the way across. Again, we got more shots. This time we got 5 including a flu shot which will have to get the second dose of in a month. Samantha did much better with her shots this time and is well recovered.

Sabbath we spent at Cloudland Canyon, a Georgia State Park. It is one of our favorite parks that we’ve been too. We were hoping that the leaves were turning but they really weren’t. We went with our good friends Tracy and Cheryl and David and Mindi. It was a little chilly but we were prepared and dressed for the weather. After a worship everyone headed out for a walk with the exception of Mindi and Mom. We stayed back and visited. Samantha had a great time but since it was nap time she went ahead and slept in her front carrier. She did end up falling asleep again later with Mom. We had such a good day and are looking forward to doing it again.

Sunday morning we went to Tracy and Cheryl’s for a Sabbath School function. There were lots of kids there and Samantha got to play a bit. She also got to show off how well she sits and that she can get where she wants. Her Dad decided that he should show her off and dressed her in the Kansas City Chiefs outfit (compliments of Grandma Linda and Grandpa Willy). She was a hit at the brunch but unfortunately it didn’t help the Chiefs today.

Happy 1/2 Birthday!

Delivery day...


1 month old...

2 months old...

3 months old...

4 months old...

5 months old...

6 months old...

Six months ago our lives truly changed. They are now centered around our little bundle of joy. When we go out, we carry along a bottle, formula and thermos full of warm water. We never leave the house without her pacifier, blanket and burp cloth. We live our lives in three hour increments, beginning and ending when she needs to eat. We never go to Barnes & Noble just to hang out anymore, but that’s ok, we have Samantha.

Here are just some of the things we love about her….

*Her big beautiful deep blue eyes.
*The way she smiles when her Dad walks in the door after a long day at work.
*Her hearty laugh.
*How she’s ticklish underneath her chin.
*How she naps for ½ hour in her crib but will sleep for up to 2 hours if you hold her.
*How she sleeps all through the night.
*How she loves the outdoors and would spend her entire days out there if we’d let her.
*How she gobbles up her rice cereal and food.
*How she blows bubbles with her food.
*How she gets excited when she sees a bottle, even if she’s not hungry.
*That she is determined.
*She arches her back when she’s tired of her car seat.
*She loves human contact and would hang on to your finger forever if you’d let her.
*She’s not afraid of strangers.
*Everything goes into the mouth, not matter what it is (and she’s not teething!).
*She manages to get where she wants although she isn’t crawling.
*She splashes in the tub and puts the entire head of her rubber ducky in her mouth.
*Smiles when we whistle.
*Loves adventure.
*She’d rather stand instead of sitting sometimes.
*How she has one long hair on her head, apparently she never lost it after being born.
*She thinks peek-a-boo is the best game ever.
*She is the happiest baby and full of smiles right after she wakes up.

Our precious little girl is growing up so fast. We fall deeper in love with her every day. We can’t wait for the next few months, when she begins to crawl, walk and explore. Our future is so bright and it all centers around Samantha.

25 Weeks Old

This week was a bit different week at the Renfro household. Mom worked 3 of the days so that meant that she couldn’t watch Samantha. Samantha spent one day with our dear friends Abbe, Anna, and Aaron. I love leaving her there because I have total faith in Abbe that I don’t worry about Samantha all day. Now, I do worry that she will behave herself but I can’t do much about that. We so appreciate them watching her for us. On Thursday and Friday she got to spend the time with Dad. Those two are like two peas in a pod and love to spend time together. She was a great girl while Dad had her. They went to the mall, visited a friend and spent quite a bit of time outside. He must have pooped her out because Friday night she slept from 9:30 p.m.-8:00 a.m.!

Sabbath was her first day at her Sabbath School. We have been taking her with us to ours but she has been getting more and more antsy during this time and Mom spends most of the time in the gym waiting for it to be over. At least in her Sabbath School it’s a little bit more forgiving as it’s filled with about 20 other kids from birth-two years old. Right now she can’t do a lot but we hope that she will learn the songs and begin to learn about Jesus and His love. We think she’ll also make great friends in there.

Samantha continues to love food, this week we tried squash and she wolfed it down.

Sabbath we met up with friends David and Mindi again. They joined us on a walk near the Tennessee River. We had a great time outside enjoying the fall air. After our walk, we went down to Ross’s Landing and saw the Nina, a replica of Columbus’ ship. We had to take pictures to let Samantha know that she saw it because she was asleep!

24 Weeks Old

We can say that Samantha is sitting up by herself. If we can get her in the sitting position (she wants to STAND) she can sit there for several minutes. We were even able to get several pictures of it.

Sabbath evening we had another “oh my” moment. Samantha is well on her way to learning how to crawl. She got her knees under her several times and tried pushing. Perhaps someday soon we will not be able to find her and she will be peeking behind the couch.

Sabbath we had lunch with our friends David and Mindi. After lunch they suggested that we go and feed the ducks. Samantha enjoyed watching the ducks get close enough to feed and gobble up the bread. They were quite eager and not afraid at all.

This past week we tried putting Samantha in her jumper as we were looking for something else to keep her busy. She is really bored with everything we have here at the house. Unfortunately, she is just a few inches too small yet to use it but she enjoyed trying it out.

We should mention that Travis’ cousin Jaime was so kind in passing along not only her jumper, but a swing and a couple of other things. Thanks Jaime and Cameron!

We have been feeding Samantha rice cereal for some time but Sunday we started with vegetables. She gobbled up the green beans!