Christmas 2012

* Picture heavy post!  You've been warned! :-)

Merry Christmas!  This year was such a fun Christmas.  We had all our Christmas' in one day, and they were all on Christmas Day!  We didn't stress or play up the whole Santa Clause thing this year with Sara Kate because she doesn't really understand yet.  She was just excited about Christmas and that was fine with us.  We had my mom and dad here with us so we did our family Christmas with them first.  After she went to bed on Christmas Eve we got all the presents out and around the tree.  

 

We got her up around 7:30 and brought her into the living room.  She was so excited about the 'presents' as she kept saying.  We attempted to get her picture in front of the tree (1 shot is all she would allow!) before she helped me hand out the presents.

 She loved being a big helper, although she occasionally got distracted with the presents!

 

 It was finally time to open!

 

 

 

 

 Her big present from us was a play kitchen and we saved that for her to open last.

I love this picture.  She looks so happy and so big!!  Unfortunately we didn't have time to put it together then because we had to hurry and make breakfast and get dressed to go to Chris' parents.

We were at Chris' parents house at 11 and we had Christmas with them.  The whole family was there...his grandpa, his sister, her husband, our niece and nephew, and his family from Texas, which includes his uncle, aunt, and 2 cousins.  With his family we buy presents for the kids and all the adults do a gift exchange.  It's fun, although it was a gift card Christmas, which was fine with all of us!!

 

 

 

 

 Even on Christmas Hayden is the most serious child on the planet!! :-)

 Zachary and Uncle Ron

 Brandon

After we did gifts, it was time to get ready for lunch.  My mom and dad came over and we had a big feast with everyone.  It was so nice having so much family together in one space.  We missed having my brother and his wife there, otherwise it would have been complete.

Now for silly snap shots...

 

 

 

A grin!  Can you believe it?!

After the meal, the kids had SO much fun playing dress up with Hannah's Christmas present!!

This boy doesn't stand a chance with girl cousins!!

According to the weather, we were SUPPOSED to have a white Christmas, which I was so excited about because I've never had a white Christmas, but we only saw a few flurries.  The big snow storm went south of us.  But we had a great Christmas.  We were so blessed to get to experience so much family together on such a special holiday.  Sara Kate has had so much fun playing with her kitchen and doll and puzzles and Elmo game and zoo train and books, etc!  She was really fun this year, and I know it'll only get better from here.  Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!!

Charlie Brown Christmas

Last year for Christmas my best friend gave Sara Kate the book, 'A Charlie Brown Christmas.'  It has the buttons off to the side you can push to make sounds that go along with the story.  She didn't care much for it last year but has LOVED it this year.  I think we started reading it back in October or November.  Her favorite part is at the end when the kids all sing 'Hark the Harold Angels Sing' and it ends with them saying 'Merry Christmas Charlie Brown!'  She will sing along at the top of her lungs, doing her best to get the words.  It's precious and I got it recorded last weekend.  

In other Christmas related news, I think we're about ready!  We got our tree up the Sunday after Thanksgiving and Sara Kate quickly learned not to touch the tree!  In fact, her favorite thing to say is 'don't touch the Christmas tree or you go to time out!'  I touched it the other night and she said, 'Mommy!  Don't touch the tree!  You go to time out!'  Sassy little thing.

 

 

 

We only put on the red and gold plastic ornaments.  I didn't even put on my silver bells this year.  With her grabbing ornaments and running daily there for a while, I didn't even want to risk breaking something.  We need a new tree skirt also, which we never bought so it's kind of sad looking, haha.  It's not perfect looking this year but our pastor preached a great sermon a couple weeks ago about while we're trying to find the perfect tree or perfect strand of garland or perfect poinsettia, that's not the purpose of the Christmas season.  What a great reminder, as the day before I was trying to buy the perfect poinsettia's for the church and every day I think about how un-perfect our tree looks this year.  But I suppose it is perfect for this season in our lives.

We can't wait to see Sara Kate on Christmas this year.  She is very aware of the tree and lights around town and the songs and her Christmas outfits, and that is so exciting.  So as everyone finishes their last minute prep, we hope ya'll have a great weekend-before-Christmas!!

Saturday Fun

We had a nice relaxing Saturday spent at home just doing alot of playing.  Chris has been working quite a bit lately because of the time of the year so Sara Kate was mega attached to him on Saturday.  We had no real plans until the evening so we enjoyed our day at home.  We did a little of this...

 A little of this...

We, and by 'we' I mean the 2 and 1/2 year old living in our house, threw an epic tantrum for no real reason and Sara Kate was not pleased about the fact that I took her picture during said tantrum...

 

Once the tantrum subsided we ate some sandwiches and changed clothes to go outside and play.  We did some of this...

 A little of this...

 Had some fun on the slide...

And loved on the puppies...

Before going in for a nap.  

After nap Sara Kate's day got really exciting because she went to spend the night with MeMe and Poppa!  Chris had to work and we had a wedding to go to.  Unfortunately I had to go alone but I had a good time with friends.

 

 

Chris got to the reception in time to photograph the bride and groom's exit to sparklers.  I won't share any pics now but maybe another time!  He has such a good eye!  Big congratulations to our friends Leah and Wade!

Now that football season is over hopefully we can enjoy more relaxing Saturday's with lots of play!

Notes From the Teacher

I've had some very amusing notes come home from Sara Kate's teachers, and I've been stock piling them in a list with this blog topic in mind.  Some notes are good, some notes are not so good, and some notes are just plain hilarious.  This topic might even pop up on the blog from time to time, depending on what Mrs. Dawn and Ms. Natasha have to say! :-)  And by the way 'Lonely Street' is their time out bench.  How sad is that?!  Haha!

 - Sara Kate was trying to pull her nap mat over by her friend during nap time.  When I asked her not to, she looked at me and said "no" and did it anyways.

- Was so helpful this morning!

- Had an "off" day - not really herself today. :-(  She was very sweet though! :-)

- A friend fell down on the playground today and Sara Kate helped them up, dusted them off, and said "don't cry, shake it off!"  Super cute.  :-)

- Sara Kate is really starting to do good on her worksheets!  She really tries to trace!  Getting great pencil control!  Using her listening ears! :-)

- Not following directions on the way to the playground.  But she ate a great lunch and loved dance time!

- Love her!  She wants me to pat her back to go to sleep!  She is listening much better!

- Had some trouble following directions, would tell the teachers "no" when asked to do something.

- She is such a good helper.  She cleaned up a big mess another kid made without being asked to.

- I asked her to do something today and she looked at me with the sweetest smile and said "No!"

- Had a rough time with listening ears and being gentle with friends.

- Sara Kate had a hard time listening and following directions.  She enjoyed story time and did a great job at circle time.  She played great with her friends!
 

- She got sent to Lonely Street for not listening and following directions.  When I went to talk to her about why she was in time out, she smiled and giggled.  So she stayed longer.

Mommy (when I went to pick her up): Hey, Sara Kate!

Sara Kate: Mommy, mommy!  I went to time out today!

Mommy: Oh, you did?  What did you do to get in time out?

Sara Kate: asldf jkadsjf lkadsj alksdfjk adsjf (jibberish)

Director Greg (saw him in the hall as we were leaving): Sara Kate and I were not buddies today.

Mommy: Oh really?  Why not?

Director Greg: Well, we were out here in the common area doing something and I asked her to do something and she looked at me and said "No!"  So I put her in time out.  She didn't like me very much after that.

Mommy:  *blank stare* Well, she told me she went to time out and now I know why!

I had a parent teacher conference a couple of weeks ago with her lead teacher, Mrs. Dawn, and she assures me that Sara Kate is doing VERY well.  They are really figuring out what makes her tick...what makes her happy, what makes her upset, etc.  She loves helping so if she's having a rough time they get her to be a big helper.  She's very much a follower so if she sees another kid doing something they aren't supposed to do, Sara Kate will unfortunately follow and do it too.  An example is last week Chris picked her up and she said, 'I went to time out!'  He asked her why and she said 'I hit Maddie.  I hit Maddie in the face.'  He asked her why she did that and she said 'Maddie hit Ka Kate (what she calls herself) in the face.'  Lovely.  She's had a string of good reports lately, but this week has been rough.  But I was assured all the kids have been overly crazy this week for some reason.

 

I'll mention one last story that involves a bad day that included a visit to the directors office according to her take home sheet (WHAT?!?).  I saw one of the directors a day later and asked what a visit to their office meant, and she said just being pulled away from their class may make them think about why they are in trouble.  She assured me that it's definitely their age, and that everyone in her class (and then went on to list several kids) is having a hard time with the listening and following directions.  Not that that is good, but I'm so glad my kid isn't the only one!!

That's all for this installment of 'notes from the teachers.'  Join us next time and maybe there will actually be more positive notes than negative ones (positive thinking, haha!)!

Disconnected

If you are my friend on Facebook (or a family member), you know my iPhone took a little spill Friday night.  I was giving Sara Kate a bath and as she was about to pour a cup of water out of the tub onto the floor, I reached to stop her and my phone flew out of my hand and right into the tub.  It was one of those slow motion things.  OMG!  FREAK OUT!  I grabbed it and dried it off with the hand towel.  And what did I do next?  Well, I posted on Facebook, right from my phone, right from the bathroom, asking friends what to do.  Chris laughed at me when he found I did that, but Sara Kate was in the bath!  What else was I supposed to do?!  Strangely enough, my phone did not turn off upon taking a dip, and thanks to some quick responses from friends, I turned my phone off and put it in a bag of rice (after Sara Kate was out of the bath, of course).  Thank goodness for the iPad because I face-timed my mom and told her to send Chris a text that everything at home was fine but he couldn't get a hold of me.  What on earth would we do without technology??  Haha!  So I have felt disconnected all weekend without my phone.  Once again, thank goodness for the iPad!  I was able to check Facebook and Twitter to get my news fix off and on through out the weekend.  Isn't that weird that those are my outlets for news?!  Chris laughed at me one night last week when he asked what I was doing and I said I was checking the news...and I was doing it via Twitter (hey, it's informative and entertaining!)!  Anyway, I think the worst part of not having my phone was not having the CAMERA readily accessible at every moment of the day.  I use my phone constantly to take pictures.  I'm able to capture silly moments, sweet moments, cute moments, bad moments, and random moments...you get the point. I do try to use my big camera as often as possible, but taking a cell phone picture is so quick and it's immediately right there!  So I certainly missed that.

We had to run a few errands Saturday morning, including going to Sam's Club so I could buy poinsettia's for church.  Sara Kate got a red balloon and she was thrilled!  But I couldn't take a picture of that moment.  Which made me sad.  Except I was able to after all because I grabbed Chris' phone and did it.  :-)

But the rest of the day I didn't bother Chris with using his phone.  I used my big camera, as we had a fun afternoon and evening with Hannah and Hayden at the playground and playing at our house.  There is something to be said about the big camera versus the cell phone camera...some good shots can come from the big camera!

 

 

While Chris grilled lunch today (yes, grilling in December), I took the opportunity to take some pictures of Sara Kate wearing her first Christmas dress of the season.  It's one of last years dresses, and I just love getting 2 years of use out of dresses like this!  And yep, it's like 75 degrees today...certainly doesn't feel like Christmas is less than a month away!

 

At noon today, I held my breath and turned my phone back on.  Thank goodness, everything seems perfectly fine!  Apps work, camera works, music works, phone calls work, texts work...sooooo thankful!!  And I was so happy to be able to snap simple little pictures again with my phone...

Like Sara Kate and I playing in our bed after lunch...

 And her reading ME a story before nap...

 And sneaking in her room to see my sweet baby sleeping...

Yes, I felt very disconnected from the world all weekend, but I also got to just be in the moments, which is something I strive for all the time.  But I am also so thankful for technology and all that it allows us to do!  :-)