Christmas!

Sara was really looking forward to Christmas.  Christmas Eve we went to her Tutu's for dinner.  Mom stayed behind for a bit and got ready for Christmas and then we all had a nice dinner.  Daddy realized that one of Sara's main toys didn't arrive so he was panicked looking for a replacement at 11 p.m. with no luck.

Sara went to sleep and was told that Santa was coming but he was going to make sure she was asleep before he left presents.  She said if she heard him she would wake up and tell us but Santa was really quiet.  Dan and I got the presents ready, we laid out the skis and ski trailer.  Then we finally made it to bed about 1 a.m.
 
A very groggy Dan got up at 6:30 a.m. to turn on the Christmas tree lights and then Mom and Sara got up at 7 a.m.  Sara was still pretty sleepy so she and Daddy sat looking at the tree.  Sara went to her stocking first and started to unload it.  Next we opened presents.  Her favorite thing was the camera she got.  Followed by books and a great alphabet train puzzle.  Unfortunately we didn't have snow to go try out the ski trailer or her new skis.

Sara digging through her stocking.  She was insisting the chocolate orange we got her didn't come from Santa because she saw us sneak it in the cart at the grocery store.  She got lots of different flavors of hot chocolate in her stocking because Santa knows what she likes.


After opening the presents,  Sara asked to go on a walk so she could take pictures and she took a picture of EVERY house  (click link to watch video) we passed, sometimes several pictures.  It was quite a long walk but she had fun.  Her camera also takes video. It must have a huge memory card because she has probably taken 500 photos already.

 The gyro bowl from Auntie Tina.  Also, I need to get a picture, Auntie Fara gave her two really awesome Wildlife t-shirts, and Uncle Ben stopped by to deliver Toby the tram.

 Passed out after Christmas.

 About to take her new camera on a walk with Brennan.

When we got home, Daddy and Brennan helped her put together the alphabet puzzle (click link to watch video) from Grandpa and Granny Karen.   She loved it and so did Mom and Dad.  Tomorrow, Grandpa and Grandma visit and more festivities and then Nanna comes the next day, so much excitement!

I can't wait for next Christmas when Brennan can get into the action.

Another Dancing post

More Sara dancing.  She likes for Mr. Moose to be watching her dance, hence he is lurking in the background.

New Ornaments

Sara got 2 pretty new ornaments for her tree from Grandpa and Granny KP! She loves ornaments that she can hang up herself. I think the deer may not have been an ornament necessarily but we put a ribbon on it because she wanted to hang it up and it looked so cute!! Sara really loves our Christmas tree. Actually she loves everything about Christmas. This year we have extra to celebrate with Brennan here. It feels like we are a real family. Several nights we've driven around looking at the Christmas light in our neighborhood. Also we've been to the Spanish Fork Festival of Lights about 4 times now. I love this town. It has so much for kids to do. Tomororow we might drive to Riverwoods to see the lights. We were there the other night with Dan's Sister for dinner and it was amazing but Sara did not get to go. I can't wait for Christmas. I'm excited for Sara to see her skis and her new kids camera and for us to try out the new double ski trailer. We need some snow first!!

So Busy!

We are so busy that I haven't had time to post anything recently. All of Sara's cousins are here and we've been doing something with them every night. She has been playing and playing and no one has been getting much sleep. I think we're all done. Saturday, everyone went tubing at Soldier Hollow. Dan and I were pretty sure Sara would be scared but she charged right ahead and wanted to do it. She even wanted to pull her own tube. She and Dan sat in separate tubes and he held on to hers as they went down the runs. I did it once with her and it was really scary for me actually. You get going really fast and it spins around so you're facing backwards and you can't see. I'm glad we didn't hit the walls, I'm not sure what I would have done to avoid it. If you put your feet down at all, snow would fly in your face and you couldn't see. Dan learned the best way to go down was on his belly so that if he put his feet down snow didn't fly in her face. Dad and Sara probably went down the hills together about 10 times. This gives me hope she's ready for bigger and better things. I got her a pair of cross-country skis for Christmas. I'm so excited to see what she does with them and I hope we get snow soon so she can try them out, even if it's on the sidewalk. I also hope she can take ski lessons next year. Sara is really looking forward to Christmas, it's going to be a fun day!

Har clips

Sara has a ton of hair clips and they are always spread out everywhere so I made her a cool ribbon thing to hang them on. I glued the end of a ribbon over an old key ring. She loves it.

A Bead in the nose is worth two in the pot

This week has been quite eventful. Sara has really gotten into playing with beads and as she was playing this week she decided to stick one up her nose. It happened really fast and she acted shocked about it but she was calm too, just surprised. I had Brennan so I told Dan to help her. He went and got the tweezers and laid her down on the couch. He used a flashlight and worked the bead down, luckily it was rather large and easy to grab. It ended up just falling out once he worked it down. We scolded Sara and told her not to do that again and we took her beads away for two days. I don't think she'll do it again, she was traumatized we took her beads away. Also this week, I caught her putting her fish from her fishing game in her mouth, which could also be choked on. Tonight she had her flashlight completely in her mouth when I went to tell her good night. She's almost four year old and you'd think we would be past this stage, I guess we aren't getting out easy. She seems to be acting out a lot more too. I've been trying to read to her more and Brennan will sit still longer while I do now. She is acting a little more jealous of him now too. I think the lack of sleep is not helping either. She and Brennan aren't getting to bed until after midnight. I'm not sure what's happened, they are taking the same naps during the day but they just won't go to bed. I hope this is over soon, it's really exhausting. I'm wondering if she's big enough that she does not need her afternoon nap anymore. One funny thing Sara does is she comes out of her room late at night saying she needs water. Dan and I are usually watching Food Network TV and she is craning her neck to see what we're watching. Tonight she was looking behind her and tripped over her rocking chair while trying to see what we were watching. Also, she's run into the wall before. It cracks us up. She doesn't like to miss anything. Apparently my blogger program does not do spell check anymore or paragraph spaces, not happy :(

Making Christmas Cookies

Sara and her Dad made Christmas cookies tonight. Dan made some really tasty cookie dough this time and some frosting. Sara had fun rolling it out and doing the shapes. Sadly, Dan made some fantastic frosting for the cookies but when we let Sara taste test it she was throwing up within 2 minutes. We're pretty sure she has an egg allergy but we wanted to try anyway. He made the frosting with powdered egg whites. We ended up throwing it away and he made cream cheese frosting instead and she was perfectly happy with that.

Also, Sara is really into making necklaces and stringing beads. She's made probably 10 necklaces that she wears a lot and we've recycled some of them. This was one we recycled. I showed her a pattern to do where she did one butterfly spaced by 2 or three round beads. She did it pretty well and I think this is one of the nicest necklaces she's made. She was really proud of it and since she wears them every time we go out in public, now I can be proud too.

Sara was back to making up lyrics for Christmas songs. Today she was singing, "Ho Ho the Mr. Toe, hung where you can't see". It was pretty funny.

Looking forward to Christmas

Sara is learning to leave the Christmas tree alone but it's taken a bit of convincing. I gave her plush ornaments to play with and she's done a good job only playing with those. She was asking me about the "good" ornaments today and why they were special. I think I got her to understand that they were not for her to play with but she still probably thinks the Christmas tree is a big toy. This year I'm putting my glass ornaments at least 4 feet up, so the top 2 feet of the tree will be decorated but most of the rest of it will be the non-breakable ones or bare.

She was also really interested to watch me wrap presents. She wanted to help out so she watched me wrap Daddy's presents, handed me tape, and stuck bows on. Then when he got home, she started to describe to him what we were wrapping. I knew that was going to happen so I didn't tell her what the present was called. Luckily she didn't know what it was, so all she could do was talk about the pictures that were on the outside of the box, which really confused Dan, secret safe.

I've been trying to explain things to her more in depth now that she can understand and she asks a lot of questions. I recently tried explained why we go to music class and I think it helped her see that we were there so she could learn to play piano music like Daddy. When we ask her to practice what the music teacher said to practice sometimes she says, "I don't know how". I think it helped her understand that we're try to teach her how to play and that it's OK to not know how to di it because she's learning how.

I still struggle to spend time with her during the day. Luckily Brennan is happier to sit with us and read books, so at least I'm able to read to her a little more. He also likes to sit in her room and watch her play or watch her do crafts or beads at the table. I really have to supervise them though, I'm worried she'll hand him something he could choke on. Luckily she hasn't tried to hand him anything yet and I've tried to explain to her what choking is but I think the best thing is just lots of parental supervision and not leaving them along too long together.

I'm really excited for her to see her Christmas presents, she is going to love them. I got her a calendar of her own so she can watch each day for Christmas to come and for when Nanna comes for a visit.

I'm so happy with the way she's been helping with Brennan. I let her hold his bottle when I really need to do something and she does a pretty good job, although she gets distracted and sometimes walks away. She really likes talking to him and entertaining him and she always has hugs for him at night. Tonight she squeezed him so tight that he grunted and I told her to be careful not to squeeze the juice out of him, she thought that was funny.

I just hope they like each other while they are growing up, it would make life a lot easier.

Dan finally showed me how to access this photo on my computer, it's a great pic of her. She is growing fast too, she already looks older than when this was taken a few months ago.



Here is one of her wearing her glow-in-the-dark Thomas shirt.

A job to do

I've been trying to involve Sara more around the house. She seems to really like being kept busy and feeling useful (Thomas engine reference). So she helps with the laundry, helps entertain Brennan and bring him things, and she does 10 minutes of clean up on her toys every night.

I really think it's so important to teach kids to clean up after themselves, less for the cleaning and more as a lesson that it's important. I've been in a house with little kids where they do not clean up after themselves and they literally drop food and whatever they are wearing, diapers, dirty clothes everywhere. It's like one of those "hoarding" shows except with baby stuff. It's really scary. On the other hand, some houses are neat and tidy (ours isn't) but the Mom does all the cleanup and the kids never learn to do any of it. Then they either grow up thinking the woman is supposed to do it all or they don't have to and they are not responsible for themselves, both are not cool.

I want Sara to learn to be responsible for herself in small doses now so that when she's older she can be self sufficient and she does not expect people to be doing things for her. Also, she thinks it's really fun to help out. She likes to sweep and help out in the kitchen too.

Today we were making a stew and I figured she could help me wash the potatoes. She had a blast doing it, especially because it involved water and she kept thanking me for letting her help. It was a win-win.

Caramel Bells and Fleas Navy Dots

Sara is loving her Christmas music this time of year. She listens to the entire Celtic Woman Christmas album every night before bed. She doesn't really know the lyrics yet though so she says what they sound like to her. She calls "Carol of Bells" "Caramel Bells" and she likes the song she hears on the radio called "Feliz Navidad" but she calls it "Fleas navy dots".

This is an unorganized post, mostly because I'm so tired but I want to write down some things before I forget them.

Sara is such a mother-er. We hung out with Camilla and she has a little 8 month old daughter. Sara really fell in love with her. She ran right over to her and gave her a hug the minute she saw her, it made me reconsider having another kid for a second (but not really). I've never seen her do that with boy children. It was funny. She also was really concerned with the girl's jacket coming off and kept trying to put it back on.

We were at a memorial park with huge ship guns as kind of a statue in the park. The two boys were climbing on them but Sara was scared and when Camilla put the little girl on the gun platform Sara was saying, "Camilla, you can't put that girl up there, she does not have any safety". Also Sara kept asking me what the guns were called. I told her they were just guns and she said, "Bubble Guns?". So I said yes and she got all excited that they might shoot out bubbles, if only.

Day after Thanksgiving

Dan's Dad spent the day at our house. Before he came over though he had been to three stores to try and find Sara the game she wanted, braving the black Friday crazies. Sara really enjoyed having Grandpa here. He played games and then he and Dan put up Christmas tree.

I gave Sara a bag full of plush ornaments that I had and ones that she couldn't hurt. I told her that she could either play with them or put them the tree. She spent HOURS putting them on the tree, taking them back off, and putting them back on. Tonight she put a lot of the plush ones in her bed to sleep with.

Sara and Dan love the Christmas tree. They sang Christmas carols tonight and sat with Brennan in the rocking chair looking at the tree.

I'm so excited for this time of year. Christmas is more fun with kids. They get so excited about the smallest things and there is so much to be thankful for.

Handimals

Sara has been really sick this week. The doctor said she might have been coming down with walking pneumonia so she's on antibiotics . I've been trying to come up with one new art project a week to do with Sara, especially since she's sick and we can't go outside as much. Today we did hand animals. I mostly traced her hand but she wanted to try to paint around it herself. Then we glued and glittered it up. We're working on sending these out in the mail.



Also, Sara's Grandpa was here visiting from Barbados this week. He spent lots of time with Sara, playing trains and reading to her. She really took to him. Also, when she was coughing and throwing up later that night, he held a bucket for her and wiped her face with a cold rag. Also, she asked him to wipe her butt when she went potty, which is a huge honor she usually only reserves for Daddy. I told her that we don't make guests wipe our butts though.

Techie

Sara is super smart. She had Dan's iphone totally figured out, she could navigate it, take pictures, pull up pictures, turn on music, get games, etc. We wondered how long it would take her to figure out the Kindle Fire and the answer is a couple of days. Dan says it's not quite as intuitive as his iphone but it didn't take her any time at all.

She plays educational games on the phone, she's great at matching, picking which word starts with what letter, and she's working on learning numbers and simple math.

Dan really got the Kindle Fire to be her entertainment device. It plays her shows and music, such a neat little thing. When she was sick tonight we let her use it in her bed to watch her shows and I know it helped her feel better by taking her mind off her illness.

The sickies

Sara is a very sick girl tonight. She caught what Dan had last weekend, which I think is what she had originally, they've been passing it around. She coughed until she vomited tonight. Grandpa Glade was here and he was a wonderful sport to follower her around with a puke bucket and wipe her face with a cold rag.

I finally gave her some cough medicine and she was able to fall asleep with her humidifier on. I layered the bed in towels however just in case she wakes up sick. I hope she feels better tomorrow but if it's what Dan had, we're in for a good 3 or 4 days of this :( I just hope Moosey boy can stay well.

Before Sara got sick, she had a fun afternoon with Grandpa, they played trains and read books. Sara even wanted him to wipe her bottom when she pooped, which is a huge "honor" in her book. It means she likes you very best. She usually only reserves that for Daddy.

Don't say that, say Uga Looga

Sara has learned some new words from her cousins, "Hate" and "Stupid". She overheard Timothy saying that he hates his sister because she's stupid and so now she's peppering her vocabulary with these words. It's kind of sad but it was sure to happen eventually I suppose.

We've tried to tell her that those aren't good words but then we've noticed that we say them all the time in basic conversation too. Sara has taken to correcting us, she says, "Don't say hate, hate is a bad word." Then she makes up a silly word to use instead, something like ooga woo.

She has also been asking us if all kinds of other words are bad words, like "weird" or "crazy". She is really over-analyzing it but she seems really concerned about it. She is very expressive so I think words are her expertise and she wants to have a good grasp of them.

Here is a pic of them playing together. She likes playing with him and he's fascinated watching.

Stuff we do in the Fall

It's fall now and the leaves are falling off the trees in droves. This week we raked a big pile of them and the Sara spent hours playing in them, even Brennan got in on the action.


We've also been trying to do at least one new craft project a week. Last week we made a Popsicle stick box, however it got squished, so we'll try that again later. This week we made this puppet with crazy yarn hair out of an oatmeal box, construction paper, a paper towel tube, and orange yarn. It wasn't much to look at but Sara had fun giving it a hair cut for 2 days. When she cuts the hair off, just pop off the top and add more yarn, presto.

Popping packing bubbles is also riotous fun for a three and a half year old.


Sometimes we just like mess around and take funny pictures or sweet pics with our Moosey brother. Sara is getting better at holding him, she will hang onto him tight even though she says he's heavy, floppy, his head is too big, and sometimes his fingernails scratch her.





And speaking of pictures, Sara LOVES to take pictures. She does a really good job with my camera but I'd rather her not take pics with mine. I'm thinking of getting her her very own kids camera for Christmas.

Sara has still been doing a lot of reading. We check out 25 library books every three weeks. By the time we've taken them back, we've read each one at least three times. One book she had mentioned gargoyles and that word stuck with her. She keeps talking about them and wanting to know what they are, as there were no pics of them in the book. So I took her over to a house in our neighborhood that is a huge brick goth house with gargoyles on it and she got a good look at them. She thought they were cool but kind of scary too.

It's her room

Sara is really particular about how she keeps her room and it cracks me up she does this every night. She likes to lay out her toys along the night stand and dresser. She says they "watch" her, kind of creepy but whatever. I think they are like friends to her. She usually lines up all the cars and trains together. She also likes to lay out all her dishes and veggies to play restaurant. She also hangs up her dress every night and her necklace and bracelet on the hardware of her dresser.



Brennan likes sitting in her room watching her play. Tonight he was fascinated with the trains his eyes followed them as she moved them along the tracks. I bet one day he will really be into trains and Lego's, I just hope Sara will still be interested in playing with him and those things by then.

Sara got some cute elephant slippers that she wears around the house. I love their trunks, it cracks us up. It's hard to get her to take things off once she wears them though, she wears that dress every day over the top of her clothes. It's been hard convincing her to take off the elephant slippers to go out in public.

Two fer one baths

Sara likes taking baths with Brennan, they share the tub well. It's nice getting both of their baths out of the way at the same time.


Sara also likes playing with water balloons in the tub. She has a little basketball hoop with suction cups on the wall and she throws the water balloons into it.

Trick or Treat

Sara was so excited to go trick or treating tonight. She even loved handing out candy to the kids that came to the door. She got a bunch of peanut candy that she couldn't eat when she got home. She had lots of fun though, there were hundreds of kids out around the neighborhood.

Her Punkin

We decided to get Sara her very own pumpkin this year and let her decorate it. She decided to use paints and then we put a face on it with stuff we found around the house. I think it turned out pretty funny. She was so proud of her self for decorating it.




Sara got to trick-or-treat at Daddy's work for the first time this year. Sadly Brennan and I were too sick to go. Sara came home with a bucket full of candy.

The unicorn costume I got her really does not fit her. It's way too short. We might be getting her an 11th hour costume to trick or treat in Monday.

We need a break

These poor kids. They have been sick for over a month now. Sara has been the sickest. She has had the flu 2 times. Right now she has a terrible cough and fever. She's been sick since Wednesday and it's now Saturday. Every morning she gets up I keep hoping that today will be the day she gets better but she's just been getting worse. Maybe tomorrow will be the day.

So far no one else is sick and it's some kind of miracle. I'm not sure how we can stay well at this point. I thought it was under my control, that if I kept them away from large groups or sick kids and use hand sanatizer or hanatizer as Sara calls it, that we wouldn't get sick but we're still sick. So it's just something we have to live through I guess.

Sara needs extra comfort while she's sick and I feel sad that I'm not able to give it to her. She waits for her Dad to come home to have someone to sit and hug her. I've been trying really hard to keep Brennan well by not having her sit next to us coughing on us and so far he's not sick. I hope it stays that way, a baby with her cough would not be in good shape.

I have feelings of guilt because I feel like I'm only half the parent to her that I was before. I only have time to read to her a fraction of the time I used to. Her needs that were always met are sometimes not met or very delayed. Juggling two kids is quite a bit harder than I ever imagined. I can't imagine what people do with more than two kids.

I've tried to carve out special time that I take her places and do things but it seems like it's just not enough. I try every day to sing to her, tickle her, and read at least one book in addition to taking care of her basic needs everyday such as bathing, tooth and hair brushing, sheet changing, dressing, feeding, etc. I'm really thankful she has Dan and I'd really be worried about her if she didn't have him. Brennan takes up a lot of my time but at least Daddy always has time for her.

SNOW!!!!!!!

Sara was so happy that is snowed last week. She kept saying, "Mom, it's Christmas, it's snowing, Nanna can come now." She's looking forward to Nanna's visit and we told her it would be snowing and Christmas when Nanna was here.

Anyway, she wanted to go out in it immediately of course. She also wanted to build a snowman but there was not enough snow. It only lasted a few hours and then melted pretty quickly but she had fun playing in it.

A girl's work is never done

Sara has been helping with chores more and more. This morning she was taking laundry out of the dryer and it was really amusing. She was wearing kind of a house wife outfit and it cracks me up that she gets all the way into the dryer to take the clothes out. I had to get a tape of it. I just realized that the video has its own musical score provided by Daddy as well.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Yodame12?feature=mhee

Day at the Grandparents

Today we went up to Grandpa and Granny KP's house. Sara had fun eating all their grapes and plums. I'm a little worried about how many she has eaten today. She doesn't wear a diaper any more so I hope she makes it through the night.

We thought it was funny that she called the seeds inside the grapes "pits". I think it's because most of our fruit has pits in it and she eats our dates and she hasn't really had many foods with seeds.


She also had fun cutting a rug with Granny Karen. Sara loves dancing. I don't know whether she was copying Karen's dance or vice versa but it was cute. They were listening to yodeling/ bluegrass music.



I noticed that Sara really liked following Grandma KP around like a little duckling, watching what she was doing or maybe it was that G'KP was feeding her and tending to her :) Either way it was sweet.


Dad thought the necklace that Sara made was really special too. Sara is super proud that she made it. She tells everyone that this is the necklace that she made with Daddy.


Thanks to Dad for these great photos. Grandparents are really good for kids and I'm so thankful she has all hers!

Happenings

Sara has been really busy doing Halloween crafts. She has been making foam sticker cards and putting names on them with glue and glitter. I hope we can get them in the mail next week.


Also we picked out a fish shower curtain to go in her bathroom. She has been learning the various names of the fish. I think it's weird though to see saltwater and freshwater fish swimming together, it seems out of place. It's a cool shower curtain though and she likes to look at the fish while she sitting on the toilet.



She's been saying some really funny things as always. There's a song in her music class that says, "The old gray mare just ain't what she used to be". Sara wanted to know what a mare was so I said it's a girl horse. Then she wanted to know why the horse was old and that was a hard question to answer. I tried to explain it as being tired and sad in the context of the song. So she said maybe the horse just needs a bath to feel better.

Tonight Dan asked Sara if she knew was "Married" meant and Sara said that it means to be an old gray girl horse, a mare. I guess they do sound the same, and it's called getting "hitched" and there's a groom, so she may be on to something.

Also, the tractor was bailing up hay in the field in the front yard and she loves to go out and watch it. She yelled, "Mom, the tractor is pooping, let's go watch it!". So we watched it for maybe an hour. The lady driving the tractor waved at her every time she went by and even honked the tractor's horn. It was huge entertainment for Sara.

Sara tried on this cool Halloween costume at Cracker Barrel today. I wish it was practical for her to wear but I have a feeling she would have a hard time keeping it on. She picked out a pink unicorn costume a few days ago so I guess we'll go with that.