She also can't quite jump yet but she loves to swing around. It's actually really funny because she'll get frustrated (usually because she can't get one of the toys in her mouth) and try to throw herself around. Well she just ends up spinning in circles - which just makes her more mad. It's really quite entertaining! 
Another pic while waiting:
And a close-up:
And, finally, with Santa:
It's tough to get a great picture when there's no real way to ensure that the baby will even look at the camera, much less smile! The teenage girl taking the picture kept calling her name over and over and over again - I told her that Samantha didn't respond to her name yet but that advice went ignored. We tried everything we could just to get her to look at the camera, we failed utterly at our attempts to get her to smile. She wasn't in a bad mood - she was just chilling with Santa. She liked his vibe...
Wooooaaa - look at that toy!
Hey mom - What happened to my arm???
And some giggles on video (and an example of how quickly her mood can change!)
As you can see, she has full control of her limbs now and loves to bend and flex them. She stretches out much more than she used to and has really strong legs. She doesn't like to lay flat on her back anymore unless she is staring up at the new mobile that we got her. She loves the one in her crib but it only plays for like 5 minutes and you have to wind it to get it going again. Plus, Kirk doesn't like to put her down all the way back in her room during the day (unless she's napping - which she rarely does). So we bought a Rainforest mobile that stays on 15 minutes, runs on batteries and has a remote control! We put it on the side of her pack and play out in living room and she LOVES it. She lays there and just giggles at it. She's getting much better about spending time on her own now. She's finally started to like sitting in her bouncy seat too. She can flail her arms and legs and get the seat to bounce her and the animals to move too. She's pretty content there for 10-15 minutes at a time.
Mainly, she likes to sit and stand. If you prop her up in the corner of the couch, she can stay sitting up on her own for a while. And she loves getting to see what's going on around her from that perspective. She's sit next to us on the couch and watch tv (I know, bad parents). Scary, she already loves the TV - getting more and more like her mom everyday! We don't leave it on much but she is facinated when it's on in front of her!
Our girl is a great sleeper now. She goes to bed anywhere from 7:30 to 9:00 and rarely wakes up again before 6:30 or 7:00 the next morning. Sometimes she'll get up once for a snack around 3:30 or 4:00 but she's only up for 30 minutes or so before she goes back to sleep for another few hours. We consider ourselves incredibly lucky to have such a great sleeper! Unfortunately for Kirk, she hasn't settled into a routine yet for her naps. She tends to take about an hour long nap around 9 in the morning and then another 45 minute nap a few hours later. And sometimes she'll lay down a little later but her naps tend to get shorter and shorter as the day goes on. Diminishing returns as Kirk says. She still loves the Baby Bjorn though - maybe even more so since she faces forward now and can see what dad is doing. So Kirk is able to put her in that and work around the house on some projects. He's ramping up work on the house since we might try to put it on the market in a few months!
As you can see, Sam is big enough and has enough head control to face forward in the Baby Bjorn now. She loves it because she can see everything and her favorite thing to do right now is just stare at everything around her and take it all in. Here's a picture of Sam all bundled up for the hike (yes, those are socks on her hands, they work much better than gloves!):
Along the trail, there were awesome rock formations. Here's a good example of one:
And, as expected, the leaves were beautiful! I think we were actually a few days past the peak time though because tons of the leaves were on the ground rather than on the trees. Here's a picture of some leaves on the ground that shows off the great color:
Much of the trail was back in the woods but we got great views towards the end of our hike.
This is the view from the end of the portion of the trail that we hiked - at Snooper's Rock.
And here's one final picture of the family (minus Rosco - he was off blazing the trail) standing on Snooper's Rock at the end of our hike. Sam was turned around because she was taking a nap.
Well to remedy our scratching situation, I decided to try to use the nail clippers to cut her nails. We have these special nail clippers that have a magnifying glass on them so that (theoretically at least) you can see exactly where the nail ends and the skin begins. I did the four fingers on her right hand just fine. Got the nails cut and only the nails cut. But when I cut the thumb nail, I got the nail plus a chunk of her thumb!
WAAAAAAAA - WAAAAAAA - WAAAAAA! Sam was cursing me out for the next 10 minutes. I think she was crying out of pain for the first 2 minutes. After that, she was crying out of frustration because I was holding her on my lap trying to get the dang thumb to stop bleeding. IT WOULD NOT STOP BLEEDING! You would have thought that I cut a major artery! Or maybe it just felt like that to me...
I did finally get it to stop bleeding and got her bandaged up.
The red spots on her face are from the exertion of her crying and crying and crying. Man did I feel guilty. Needless to say, the nails on her left hand stayed long. The little scratches on her face were better than the missing chunks of finger. Not using the nail clippers again - gotta figure something else out.
We got Sam a few new toys the other day. This is her new mirror that she's really into these days. It has these "tags" that hang off the bottom and make animal noises. She's too young to push on them but Rosco has a habit of stepping on them and they completely freak him out when the noises come on. He'll nudge the mirror like "what the hell, man?" It's awesome.
