Samuel's Dedication

"Don't let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity." 1 Timothy 4: 12 (NLT)

The verse above is what we picked for Samuel before his dedication and it is one that we hope will guide his life until he is old enough to choose his own verse that speaks to him.

We chose this verse because we want Samuel to know that the scriptures in the Bible are meant for him. They aren't reserved for adults or for him when he gets older. We want him to know that God is speaking to him, and he's never too young to be an example of God's love.

This verse also gives us a specific way to pray for him. I do hope that we can be an example for him so he can do the same for all others that he meets. I want him to be that little kindergartner that is kind to everyone else and includes everyone and isn't afraid to show God's love his whole life! The thought of it makes my heart smile already.

We dedicated Samuel to the Lord on Sunday, February 7, with many of our family members there to support us. We first went to the church service and then all gathered in the chapel for the baby dedication. Samuel was one of five babies dedicated that morning.

First, Pastor Mark Ashton gave a message and then all of the families gathered up front to have their babies dedicated one by one.

One by one, Robert Murphy, one of the pastors at the church, took the babies, said the meaning of their first and middle names and then said a prayer for them. He spoke to each baby, impressing these wishes upon them.

Hearing Robert state the meaning of Samuel's name and pray directly for Samuel, made me happy and brought tears to my eyes. We put a lot of thought into Samuel's name and hearing it said aloud made that even more special to share that with everyone there. We named Samuel, Samuel Davey, because it is a family name. Samuel is the name of Trent's Great Grandpa and Davey because that is my dad's name. We also wanted a Biblical name, which Samuel is, and it means "asked of God." We definitely prayed for Samuel before he was conceived and before he was born and we were blessed with a perfect little boy that we continue to pray for now.

We were lucky to have almost 20 family members and friends there to support us as we committed to raising Samuel as a child of God.

Samuel's Grandparents

My friends, Denise and Julie, from my Bible study were there to support us. 

After the dedication was over, we all went back to our house for lunch of soup and sandwiches, cake and ice cream and some good quality time. I absolutely loved having everyone there. It was such a great day with so much to celebrate!

The cake I made for Samuel.

 

Me and my baby

Loving on his new lambie from Aunt Mel, Uncle Russ and cousins Taylor and Jenna 

Kisses from Great Grandma Kock

You are loved and supported by so many, Samuel Davey.

Christmas 2015 - Kock Christmases (Part 1)

This year, my immediate family had our Christmas here in Omaha once again.

Everyone arrived on Friday night and we watched some TV, worked on a puzzle, Wade and I played a few games of Cribbage, and just hung out. 

Saturday morning was our "Christmas morning" so we got up and opened presents. It was Samuel's first time opening gifts. He would grab onto the paper and pull on it, but he really had no clue what was going on. Eventually he just decided to fall asleep while we continued.

All the kids

 After the presents were opened, we moved the party into the kitchen and made the big traditional breakfast of eggs, French toast, butter braid, sausage, bacon, egg nog, chocolate milk, fruit and an egg bake. After we were all full, we just hung out and rested and took naps and gradually got ready to head out for the Christmas Pageant.

This was the third time we've attended the Christmas Pageant at Westside Church here in Omaha. This year's show was titled The Waiting Room. It was once again a grand show with lots of music and dancing and live animals to accompany the story of Jesus birth.

After the pageant, it was back to our house for supper. We had lasagna and hung out for a while until everyone had to pack up and head out. The time went way too fast.

Thankfully it was just the first of many Christmas celebrations and we were all going to be together again in a few weeks!

Samuel Davey - Five Months

Weight:
It is a non-doctor appointment month, but from our estimate on our scale, he's at least 20 pounds... We shall see what he officially is next month!

Height:
Not sure here either, but he definitely seems longer!! Especially since some of his 9 month onesies are starting to seem a little short!

Clothes:
He's still wearing 9 month and 12 month clothes. Some of the 9 month things have gotten to be too tight or too short, but most are still in the rotation. I put him in an 18 month onesie a few weeks ago, and it was still very much too big, so I'm not sad about that :)

Sleep:
We hit a few rough patches this month in the sleep department, but that only lasted about a week or so and then we got back to what seems to be our relative normal. He averaged a little under 9 and a half hours a night in the last month with his longest being a little under 11 hours and 45 minutes and his shortest being 5 hours and 25 minutes. On the nights when he did wake up in the middle of the night, he usually would go right back to sleep after I fed him, but there were a few nights around Christmas when he'd wake up around 4:30 or 5:00 and did not want to go back to sleep. Those were some odd and not fun nights! Still, though, we have it pretty good in the sleep department.
I'm pretty sure that his sleeping problems had to do with the business around Christmas, not getting enough naps in during the day and not sleeping in his own bed or something. Things seemed to get back to normal for the most part a few days after we got back home from Christmas and when he got used to the whole daycare routine.
He spends most of his days at daycare now, so his napping is dependent on how good he does there. He sleeps in the car to and from daycare 95% of the time, so he gets a good 20-25 minutes nap each way (or longer if there's bad weather and it takes us longer to get there). His first few weeks of daycare were a little rough because he wasn't napping all that well. He had some days where he slept less than an hour total (like this last Monday when he slept for only 38 minutes!). He was pretty much a zombie those days... The end of this last week, though, he had three consecutive days with longer than 2 hour naps! So hopefully that will be the new normal! He's so much more pleasant in the evenings when we get home and we can actually spend a little time with him if he gets a good nap during the day! 

Likes:
Samuel loves attention! He loves to be talked to and played with and held. It just puts the biggest smile on his face! It's a good thing that he has lots of people around that want to give him all that attention! When he's laying down and someone is talking anywhere in the room, he will contort his body so he's able to see them and usually gives them a huge smile!
Samuel still loves to put everything in his mouth! His hands are the go-to thing unless he has any other object in his mouth! :) His teachers at daycare brought in snow for them to explore this past week and, of course, their comment about him was that he kept trying to put it in his mouth!
He went through a phase of squealing a lot and now he has been grunting and making different noises. I love it when he is vocal like that! He loves to stick his tongue out, so his sounds are normally accompanied by the tongue sticking out!

He also likes to be sung to. If he's getting crabby, we can usually hold it off for a little bit by singing to him in silly voices and getting his mind off of why he's getting crabby. That only lasts so long though! 

Dislikes:

Samuel really is a happy and content baby, so there isn't much that he seems to dislike on a regular basis. He doesn't like it when he's left along without getting any attention for an extended amount of time. Thankfully, that doesn't happen too often, so we don't have to worry about that much.
Of course, he gets crabby with certain things every once in a while, but there isn't anything consistent that he doesn't like!

Milestones/Development:
Samuel tried his first food on the 28th! He had prunes and he did really well with it. At first, he would try to get his hand up there to grab the spoon, but he figured out how to swallow the food pretty much right away. He didn't have much of a reaction other than his eyes got really big after the first bite, then he acted like he'd been eating them his whole life! Here's the video we took of his first bites! We'll stick with the prunes throughout this next month and then we'll venture out and he'll be able to try new foods!

On the 28th he also started to sit up on his own a little. We had sat him up a few times before that, but this was the first time that I really noticed that he was able to sit alone for an extended period of time (30 seconds or so) and balance on his own. Since then, he's gotten even better at it. I'd say it was about the 20th of January when he was able to start recovering when he'd get off balance. He will still try to straighten out his body or whip his head back and fall over, but he has learned that he can catch himself with his hands and sit himself back up to recover from his little wobbles. He needs to build his stamina with the sitting because it's hard work, but I can't believe how well he does! It makes him look so grown up to see him sitting up straight by himself!!

He seems to have discovered his tongue on the 3rd of January. He started sticking it out on that day and licking his top lip and now it has evolved into him just always sticking it out and squawking away. Very cute!

Samuel started daycare on the 4th of January at the Union Pacific Child Development Center. By the end of his third week, he has started to figure out their routine there. I think everything has been going great. We're kind of falling into a routine now. I'm sure it will continue to evolve as we figure out what works best for everything, but I think we're doing pretty good. You can read about Samuel's first day here.

Samuel having fun at daycare!

Samuel has discovered his feet and reaches for them every time he's laying down. He's even gotten the foot in his mouth a few times! You can see what I mean in the pictures below!

Some other 'firsts' from this month were Samuel's first time to a restaurant, which was The Emporium in Webster City when we were there visiting Great Grandma Fredericksen.

At The Emporium with Nana and Taylor

Samuel went to Lauritzen Gardens for the first time this month. He stayed in the stroller this time, so he just got to look around from there. We have a membership to the gardens, so I know we'll be back as he gets older and I'm excited to take advantage of all the kids' activities they have available there during the year as he grows!

And Samuel also went to his first sporting event on his 5 month birthday which was a UNO hockey game. He did really well at the game. He spent the first period looking around and was real happy and content and then right after the start of the second period, I held him so he couldn't look around anymore and he pretty much fell asleep right away and slept the rest of the time.

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Samuel is still mostly Buddy and Baby to me and occasionally Honey Bear (I seem to use that one the most when he's crying and he doesn't do that too often, so it doesn't get used much). Trent still calls him Stinker and Stinky

As I had mentioned last month, we were gone from the night of the 21st until the 27th to celebrate Christmas with our families. As I mentioned above he had a little trouble sleeping a few of the nights, but other than that, he was his happy self, maybe just a little sleep deprived version. Samuel was absolutely spoiled by everyone and we are so thankful that everyone wanted to show him love through those gifts. He did help to open a few presents because he likes to grab onto anything, but mainly just wanted to eat the paper. He didn't quite get what was going on other than that, but he'll figure it out by next year. We were so blessed to spend our first Christmas as a family of three this year!

Trent and I gave Samuel a few presents from us after we got home from all the celebrations away from home. I know he will have no memory of opening the presents and that we did it just for our sake, but it makes me excited to start our own family traditions with him next year that will continue until he's all grown up!

See how much Samuel has grown:
One Month
Two Months
Three Months
Four Months

Some extras!
(as you can see most of my pictures were blurry this month, so I was getting super frustrated. I don't know why I can't figure that out! He's so cute and it makes me sad that they're blurry!)