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.