Summer update!

Hello everyone! I finally am sitting down tonight to write a new entry into our blog..it's been 1.5 months. To those that still may be reading, thank you for checking back! Life has been busy in the Helm household, which is a good thing! I feel like before Samantha started walking, I had a lot of time to sit and get on the computer. Now that she is running around and getting into everything, our time sitting down is greatly reduced.

Here are a few highlights from our summer so far (since my last post):

Samantha

1. She will no longer let us feed her with a spoon - so we are at the mercy of her feeding herself (aka. hands must go in hair after hands have been in food). Our kitchen is pretty messy after each meal!

2. She can run - fast. We have to keep an eye on her constantly or she's going up the stairs, trying to get out of doors, climbing on chairs, etc. It's great she's so active!

3. She had her first ear infection just shy of 15 months. We found out after her ear drum had busted...she's such a trooper and showed no pain the entire time. Thankfully it has healed completely, and Mommy's anxiety over a busted ear drum is now over :-)

4. She now can say a few words. Phil and I love to say "alrighty" or "alright", and the other day she said it after us. It had to be one of the cutest things I've ever heard. She also says the word "hot" (like it's hot outside, which she hears from me), and "up please" when she wants to get into a chair. On the way home tonight I said "I love you" (I say this all the time to her, of course!) and she said it back - well, something similar...which was enough for me!! I love that she tries to repeat words...she is just soaking all this knowledge in.

5. She LOVES books and reading. This is her favorite thing to do. She brings us books any time we are at home, crawls into our laps and waits for us to read. Some of her favorite books are Dr. Seuss board books..."Are you my Mother", "Put me in the Zoo", "The Foot Book", "The Nose Book" and many others. We leave two books in her crib at night, so that when she wakes up in the morning, she will have something to look at. We will hear her through the monitor talking away or reading away with her books. So sweet!

6. Her nap time has adjusted to much later than just 3-4 months ago. She's now going down around Noon/12:30 or so and wakes up around 3...it used to be 10:30/11-1. She stays up until around 7pm now, which is one more hour than what it used to be. We are grateful for this during the weekdays!

7. Miss Independent, Miss Independent, Miss Independent!! :-)

8. I updated her growth stats....the left side of the page. She's growing like a weed!

Phil and Shannon update

1. We are doing lots of updates around the house!

• Remodeling our master bath - it's almost done after three weeks! We completely gutted our 1983 shower, tore up the floor tile and took out the ceramic bath accessories. We also repainted in "bleached denim". We used Rebath for the shower and it looks great!


• Landscaping - Spent weeks killing and digging up monkey grass (this stuff is a pain to deal with!!). Whoever lived here before loved it, as it's everywhere. Problem is that it never dies! Phil spent a solid week pulling 3-4 inches of monkey grass sod up every night. Now it's pine straw and we purchased natural stone and lined part of the front yard.


• We are about to paint our bedroom a shade lighter than the bathroom. Both rooms will go from periwinkle/purple to shades of blue. Will feel like a whole new set of rooms!

2. We are having our first overnight date without Samantha next weekend. Although we will miss her, it's a much-needed time for Phil and I. Rarely do we get to have that much time together, so we are really looking forward to it. We are staying in Raleigh, but have a bunch of fun things lined up :)

3. I've started working out with a personal trainer now (for about one month so far), and I love it. I still have quite a bit of baby weight to take off. So far, I've lost 6lbs or so, but I think at least some inches are gone! I am exercising six days a week now. This takes up a lot of my free time, but it is well worth it!

Well, that's a lot for one post....sorry for the delay in keeping you up-to-date! We are having a blast and enjoying the summer. We hope you are doing the same :-)