Sammy is 4 months old!

Here are pics from Sammy's 4 month photo session.  Normally I just choose 1 official chair photo to post, but I couldn't decide between these two.  I love how she smiles with her entire being.  You can really see that in the first picture.

4 months! And back to work...

Sammy had her 4 month well-baby visit last week (roughly 1 week before she actually turns 4 months old).  She is doing great!  Here are her stats:

Height:  24.5" (70%)
Weight:  12 pounds, 12.4 ounces (39%)
Head circumference:  40 cm (30%)

So it seems likes she's continuing her trend of being longer than fatter and having a small head!

I went back to work on the 10th.  My mom and dad, who have been visiting ever since we had the baby naming, cared for Sammy through the 19th and we started Sammy at daycare yesterday (the 22nd).  It was hard to leave her in the care of other people but I found it easier to do so since I've already been through this drill with Ian.  My mom and dad loved being with her.  My mom did all of the feeding/diapering and my dad pushed her around in the stroller when she was cranky.  It was really sad to watch them drive away this past weekend.  I was crying and my mom was bawling (which she hardly ever does).  I guess she got really attached to Sammy in the 10 days she cared for her.  And Sammy has only been in daycare 1 day but already the teachers there love her.  They said she smiled a lot, drank her bottles nicely and even napped in her crib.  I'm so glad that it looks like she'll be happy there.

Sammy hasn't rolled over yet, but she tries very hard to get into a sitting position while lying down in her bouncy seat.  I'm impressed at her use of her stomach muscles!  So she really enjoys being in her bumbo seat as you can see from the picture below!

And Ian has been doing great.  He's started singing a lot lately and as it turns out, I think he can carry a tune!  So it looks like he may not have inherited his dad's tone deafness.  :-)

Baby Naming

Last Sunday, we had a baby naming for Samantha.  We had 32 people at our house to celebrate Sammy and it felt great to be surrounded by so many friends and family, many of whom drove long distances to be with us.  My brother and his wife and my sister flew to be here with us for the special day.  And many of my dad's first cousins came and so it was like a family reunion at the same time.  My mom mentioned that it was so very nice to celebrate a birth when she had been going to so many funerals these days.

Samantha Grace is named after my paternal grandmother Sylvia and her sister Goldie.  My grandmother and her sister lived together for decades after their husbands died and I thought it was really nice that the two of them would live on in the same person.  Unofficially, Samantha is also named after our fertility doctor, Dr. Grace Lee.  When doing the transfer during our FET, Dr. Lee jokingly made us promise that if our little frozen embryo was a girl, we would name the girl after her.  So we did!

We chose Shayna as Samantha's Hebrew name.  It means "beautiful" and we think it's appropriate because Sammy is such a beautiful little baby.  And my grandma loved using the word beautiful to describe things.  Except she said it as "beaauuu-tiiii-ful".

The rabbi of our local reform temple did a wonderful job with the baby naming ceremony.  One of my favorite parts was when my husband and I took two lit candles and together lit another candle to represent Sammy.  And Ian was hysterical during this time.  He knows that birthday candles are meant to be blown out and so as we were trying to do this part of the ceremony, he kept wanting to blow out the candles.  So he would blow it out and we would light it and then he would blow it out.  Eventually, we let him blow out all the candles and we didn't re-light them so that we could move on with the ceremony.

I also really loved the blessings that my father, mother-in-law and brother wrote and read.  And my sister participated by reading something the rabbi had written.  She said that if she had tried to read something she had written, she would have dissolved into tears.  And speaking of tears, I was so proud of myself for being able to talk about Sammy's name without crying.  My mom reminded me that although she was named after my very loved grandmother who is no longer with us, this is about a happy event and there is no reason to cry.  And so I kept that in mind when talking about Sammy.

So overall, it was a great day.  After the ceremony, we served a TON of food (as you would expect at a Jewish affair).  We had bagels (served with cream cheese, lox, tomatoes and onions), 3-bean salad, noodle kugel, asian-style cole slaw, broccoli pie, tuna salad, egg salad, chicken salad, fruit salad, and a vegetable platter.  And my mother-in-law brought her roasted garlic-eggplant salad and her red bean/walnut salad.  And my great uncle brought home-made challah.  For dessert, we had banana bread, mandel bread, chocolate chip cookies, rugelach and chocolate truffles (brought by my mother-in-law).  After this week, I think we've finally finished all of the leftovers.

I'll sign off with some pictures.  The first one is the money shot.  I can't believe how beautiful my little girl looks.  I love her so much.

My sister, me and my brother.

Me and hubby

My brother, Ian and my sister-in-law

My sister and Sammy

My little babies

My mother-in-law and Sammy

Our awesome family of FOUR

Ian and my dad and mom