Thanksgiving!

We travelled to Ohio to spend Thanksgiving with the Hubbard-clan. We left on Tuesday night around 9:00 p.m. - Sam's bedtime. Our hope was that Sam would sleep through the drive so we could have a smooth and easy drive. Well, our plan worked! She only woke up when we had to stop and get gas and when we were stuck in construction traffic 15 minutes from Kirk's parents house. She did start screaming at that point but it was no big deal since we were so close. We made the trip in right around 6 hours - which is the fastest we've ever made it I think!

Thanksgiving in Ohio was great. We pretty much just hung out around Kirk's parents house and much of the family stopped by there to see us. Seven of the eight siblings were there for Thanksgiving dinner with most of their families too. I think there were around 30 people - and Kirk's mom cooked for everyone! Only Kirk's mom and niece had met Sam before so it was fun to get to introduce her to everyone.

The drive home actually went almost as well as the drive there. Sam did wake up once and started screaming so we had to stop for about 20 minutes. She got a cold when we were in Ohio (which we expected with all of the new faces/germs she was exposed to) and she woke up with a nasty cough but she's recovering well at home now. Hopefully the trip to KC at Christmas will be just as uneventful!

Smiles - FINALLY!

We finally got a few good pictures and a GREAT video of Sam's wonderful smile. Check them out!

A little smile:

And a big smile:

And some giggles on video (and an example of how quickly her mood can change!)

Favorite Bib

Our bibs are getting a workout - big time - these days. Sam is a drooling machine! Everything goes in her mouth and gets slobbered on. Here's a picture of Sam in her (I mean our) favorite bib:

Three Months Old!

Today Sam turned 3 months old! To celebrate, we took her to the doctor for more shots (don't you wish you could have a birthday as fun as hers???) The shots made her a little fussy for the day. We went over to a friend's house for dinner but didn't bring the Tylenol so we had to leave when she wouldn't calm down. We're super lucky that she's basically never fussy so when she is, we get a little worried (and probably a little over-protective). She ran a low grade fever for a few days but it passed.

At the doctor, they also weighed and measured her - she now weighs 14 1/2 lbs and is 24 inches long. So in 3 months, she's gained 6 pounds and grown 5 inches. Both of these are around the 90th percentile. Dad took her picture again in her 12 month onesie. Here's a comparison of the monthly photos.

One month:

Two months:

Now, three months:

And here's her 3 month video:

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!

Veteran's Day on the Cumberland Trail

Being a federal employee, I had Veteran's Day off. To celebrate, we decided to go for a great fall hike. We chose a portion of the Cumberland Trail - from Indian Rockhouse to Snooper's Rock in the Prentiss Cooper National Wildlife Management Area - mainly because it was supposed to have great overlooks of the Tennessee River Canyon. The fall leaves were at their peak in the canyon (as we saw during our Riverboat cruise) so we wanted to make sure to get some great views.

Here's a picture of the family at the beginning of the trail (taken by our friend Chris who accompanied us). Rosco doesn't like to hang back during a hike, he tends to blaze the trail for us.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.

Mayday! Mayday! Houston, we have a problem!

You often hear about babies having these really long fingernails when they're born and how they scratch themselves frequently. Well we hadn't had any problems with that - Sam's nails always seemed to peel off before they got too long (she must have inherited her mother's weak nails). But recently, they've been growing and she's scratched herself a few times. You can see in this picture that she got herself right on the forehead:

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.

Some Cute Pictures

Still working on getting a really great picture of her smile. She does smile all the time but we just can't seem to capture it in a good picture. She's happiest first thing in the morning but we are not good about getting the camera out then. Maybe this weekend we'll work on that. Here's Sam giving dad a big smile.



Another attempt at getting the smile.

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.

Election Night

We had a few people over to celebrate what we were sure was going to be a big victory for our team (for a change) - low and behold we were right! Big Obama win makes the Hubbard family VERY HAPPY! We got Sam a special outfit to celebrate the victory.

Many people have commented that one of their favorite pictures is the one of Sam watching Obama give his speech when he accepted the nomination. In that same vein, we took a picture of her watching him give his first speech as President-Elect!

Fall Colors Cruise / Sam's First Boat Ride

We took Grandma Hughes on a Fall Colors Cruise today. It was a 4 hour tour on an old-fashioned paddle-wheel style boat (pictured above). The cruise took us down the Tennessee River to the Tennessee River Canyon. The weather was perfect so we were able to spend most of the time outside on the top deck enjoying the views. The trees had started to change colors and it was really beautiful. They had on-board commentary from a guide and it was fun to learn about the history of the area, different geographic features of the river, and other random stories. Inside, there was a 3 piece band entertaining everyone. Sam was great on the boat, took a little nap in her stroller and enjoyed spending time outside. Here are some pictures from the cruise:

Big Night Out!

With Grandma Hughes in town, we had a babysitter! Wanting to take full advantage of that, we arranged to meet our friend Mustafa for dinner and go to a concert at a local bar. We put Sam to bed and, being not-so-fancy people, met up at Mellow Mushroom (a local pizza joint) for our not-so-fancy dinner. We chose the restaurant, not for the ambiance, but for the good pizza and plethora of beer options on tap (let's be honest here, mainly for the beer options. It was our first night out since we had the baby).

After dinner, which definitely lived up to our expectations, we headed over to Rhythm and Brews for the Railroad Earth show. None of us had ever seen the band but we "myspaced" them and listened to a few songs beforehand. They proclaim to be "beyond categorization" but were really a pure and simple jam band. Great musicians playing a little bit of bluegrass mixed with a little bit of rock and roll mixed with a little bit of everything else. The music was right up our alley and just what we were looking for on our BIG NIGHT OUT. We danced and danced and had a few more beers. It was awesome!

Came home and Grandma Hughes reported that Sam had slept the whole time we were gone. I'm sure that was a bummer for her since it means that she wasn't quite babysitting as much as she was housesitting. But she made up for it by taking Sam when she woke up bright and early Sunday morning. What a blessing to have another set of hands so Kirk and I could sleep off our hangovers a little bit longer!

Grandma Hughes's Visit

My mom came in town on Halloween to spend the weekend with us. She hadn't seen Sam since a few days after she was born so it was fun to see her reaction to how much Sam has changed. Here's some pictures from when we were hanging out at the house during her visit. Unfortunately, she was taking these pictures so she's not in them!



Sam loves to blow spit bubbles. In fact, she loves everything to do with spit and slober these days. We're getting A LOT of use out of our bibs.




Her favorite thing to do these days is stand up. Of course, we have to help her balance but she can usually support her own weight. As Grandma Hughes likes to say, she has her mother's thighs!