New Years Eve

New Years Eve party and Brew-hu's means opportunity to spam snap pictures of Sam! She's so much bigger now and she feels a lot less breakable when I hold her.

Happy Sam with toys!

Nom nom nom:

And this is just too cute (although she only stayed put for about 10 seconds before trying to fuzz her way out of it):

Sam is starting to like the teething toys now... chew chew chew:

"New" Faces and Places

Christmas gatherings created multiple opportunities to get Sam out of the house and into the arms of family members that haven't seen her for a few weeks or more. First we had a houseboat trip to watch the New Port Boat Parade, then Christmas at Uncle Rob's, and then finally babysitting by Aunt Michelle and dinner with the family.

Here you can see Sam's little head with Grandma Nan Ping

The houseboat trip, thanks to Great Uncle Randy and Great Aunt Sheree was Sam's first time out with others besides mom, dad, and the grandparents. Sure, Sam has gone with us to shopping and for walks around the neighborhood, but it has been one long month since anyone else got to hold Sam, and several months since she visited anyone outside the home - so this was a big event for her, and boy did she let us know she was unhappy about it! Sam cried after the first two minutes and didn't stop for about an hour. Every time she began to settle down she'd turn her head and see all these strange faces and then start her crying with renewed effort. Eventually Grandma calmed her down and she enjoyed a few hours of boating around New Port bay with the family.




Next came the big Christmas party at Uncle Rob's. Sam did so well! She cried on and off but generally gave everyone at least one full minute of bonding time before the tears started rolling - much better!

Sam Opening her First Christmas Gift!

Grandma and Sam on Christmas Day

After all that excitement on Christmas, Sam went with me back to the Inland Empire the next day to take some family photos. Before the photos though, I went to go watch the 3 hour long Hobbit movie. Aunt Michelle was an amazing babysitter and Sam hardly cried at all the entire time, and then only because it was nap/bottle time.

After hanging out with Aunt Michelle and cousins for a few hours, everyone got together to take photos at a studio. Sam didn't fuss once the entire time! She simply looked around at everyone and observed, not caring who held her or that there was a dozen people all making a racket and moving about constantly with bright lights flashing randomly. After the photo shoot we went out to dinner. Grandma had some great bonding time with Sam!

Griffith Park Photos

Yan and I went out to Griffith park to take some photos with the family. The location is the same area where we got married. Here are a few pics with super cute Sam!

Thanksgiving Sam

Sam is over 3 months old now and it's been awhile since I posted any pictures so I will put up extra pictures for this edition of Growing Up Sam :P

Sam with mommy, and Sam with daddy:

Sam got a stocking about as big as she is from grandma! She still weights less than the turkey, but that's probably going to change soon...

And last but not least, Happy Turkey Day!!!

Found a sleepy Sam

Sam's head looks so much bigger now. And here's Sam sleepyhead!

Sleeping with her mouth open :P

I could only get one decent picture of her awake (supposedly, or she could be sleep moving)

:P :P :P :P :P She goes.

Science with a Baby

So I was hanging out with Sam and wanted to give her something to play with. So I gave her a rattle. The problem was she has no coordination and can't lift anything. Knowing this, I held the rattle in the general path of her constantly batting arms. After a few bops against the rattle, she took notice of it and really started paying attention and began to bop it a bunch more. Thinking that I may have just been fooling myself because Sam moves her arms around a lot and randomly, I conducted a scientific experiment. 

The hypothesis: Sam will bop the rattle more often than she would generally just move her arms around randomly.

Protocol: Hold three sessions, two experiment sessions, one with each arm, and one control with no rattle. During a session I counted the number of times she moved the arm next to the rattle and the number of times she moved the arm not next to the rattle. Each session was recorded with my Android phone. Counting began after a 30 second period was given to allow Sam to adjust to the new rattle and phone position. Counting continued for 150 seconds. Transition from one session to the next was performed as quickly as possible.

Results: The first session was with the left arm. The second with the right. And the third with no rattle. Sam was most active during the first session and progressively grew more sleepy, falling asleep shortly after the conclusion of the third session.

Raw Data:
Session 1 - Rattle on Left - 26 left arm, 21 right arm
Session 2 - Rattle on Right - 3 left arm, 20 right arm
Session 3 - No Rattle - 6 left arm, 14 right arm

Video of Session 1: http://goo.gl/xAAcF

I probably am doing the maths all wrong, but the Chi squares test for sessions 1 and 2 is 5E-23 and the Student's T Test of all 3 sessions gives p < 0.005.

Conclusion:
Sam was observed playing for the first time!

T-3 days until 2 month birthday

Sam's in charge of this household and demands your attention! She's turning her head a lot now to look around when she's getting "walked":

Sam: "Do as I command or I will..."

Smart little kiddo. Growing big too - it's tiring holding her up for a period of time now!

Remember the 3 week old picture when she was on a baby bouncer? Check this out:

 

Woot!

Almost 6 weeks... almost 10 pounds!

Sam is one tall baby! She looks long and weighted in at 9.8 pounds. She's looking around more and turning her head a bit now. And you can catch her smiling at things!

Wish I could get a non-fuzzy picture but she's an active little one >.> Yarrr!

Or not... *yawn*

Milk... or sleep... or milk... or sleep? mMmmm sleep won halfway through the bottle...

*TV voice* Thank you for tuning into this episode of Growin' Up Sam... Until next time! *TV voice*

Week 4 - T-1 day to One month Birthday!

T-1 day to Sam's 1 month birthday! She's now even more alert and she would stare at random things. She even seemed fascinated by my striped shirt for a little while. What a cutie!

She has such big and pretty eyes! Who's jealous?

First video I took of her... Om nom nom-ing daddy Brew's finger...

Before I go... I'm making sure Sam is going to be a Bruin baby!!!

The clothes is for labeled for 0-3 months old but it's still way too big for her, so we just laid it on top of her for the picture for now. But no worries, she will grow into it in no time!

Week 3

Baby Sam growing up so fast! I actually caught her mostly alert the entire time I was over. She was fixating on people when we watch and make faces at her now.

And way too cute on the baby bouncer:

Already working on her fist fighting skills:

Week 2

Baby Sam plopped into my arms... No idea how to hold her!

It wasn't easy getting a picture of her with her eyes open!

She's looking a lot like mommy Yan, but I think she has the daddy Brew look here!

Week 1 - Sam's 1 week bday!

Sam's 1 week birthday! Slept through most of the day... Awwww!

Until daddy Brew came to wake her up. Understandably, Sam gave the, "What do you want?" look:

Week 0

Baby Sam was born on August 12th. Excited to watch her grow up!

Photo jacked from Brew-Hu's facebook :)