Merry Christmas!

We had a lovely Christmas here. The morning started (after coffee was made) with Shawn reading the story of Jesus' birth.


Present time!



Our favorite presents - Shawn's Dad drew these from photos. Amazing! These pictures don't do them justice, really.



My present from Shawn, Sarah and J - a mother's ring. It's kind of funny - Jeremiah's birthstone is the pinkish one and Sarah's is the blue one.


After a lazy morning we headed to the park to feed the ducks.




Grandma and Grandpa G came over and we ate well - prime rib on the grill! YUMMY!



Little guy was all tuckered out after an exciting day.


Merry Christmas!


In other news, Sarah is 9 months old today! She's getting so big - today she took a couple steps on her own!! Oh man. J was walking by 10 months and the way she acts (very much like he did) I wouldn't be surprised if she was as well. She's getting better with food - she can feed herself things like pasta, bread, but if I give her small pieces of vegetables, meat, or fruit she gags on them. So she's still eating baby food for those, but she's doing okay. She loves to eat, that's for sure. Her check up is on Tuesday but I'm guessing she's 20lbs and 30". She's huge.

(Almost) Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Our archway in the house. I hung up the banner for a "Happy Birthday Jesus" playgroup we had the house and just left it up - a reminder of why we're really celebrating.

Every year, MOPs does a little program with the kids - they always sing "Away in A Manger" and "Jingle Bells." J...didn't do so hot.


"Baby's first Christmas" ornament from Grandpa Dan and Grandma Karen - thank you!


I'm going to patent this - my new baby containment device.


We took a trip to Grandma and Grandpa G's house (Or Buh-buh Buh-buh as J calls them!) J took Dusty for a walk.


And Sarah tried In & Out fries for the first time. She loved them!


This picture reminds me so much of J. A little blurry though, sorry.

So busy!

Life has been crazy (like I'm sure it is for everyone right now!) Bailey turned 3...


Sarah's top 2 teeth popped through. (J loves this photo, he says: "Saza laughing")


These two eat as many Cuties as humanly possible without turning orange.


They made me a stylish hat. (Jealous Jen?)


We saw SNOW! (Okay, shaved ice in a parking lot)



Date night!


A cute moment of sharing.


Happy birthday Jesus playgroup - making no-bake gingerbread houses...


And learning about Jesus being born.

Yay Christmas Tree!

Jeremiah's been asking for a Christmas tree every day since we started seeing them (BEFORE THANKSGIVING) in the stores. We finally picked ours out yesterday.

We found ours really quickly!


J helped Shawn take it off the roof.


J helped me decorate. Unfortunately, he didn't understand that you're not supposed to hang all the ornaments in the same exact spot. I had to go back and 'fix' his work after he moved to another spot. But he was a good helper, and was so excited to help out.


Shawn and I went to the Barrett-Jackson Auction party at Barney's at the Scottsdale mall. It was fun, but literally out of our league! We're talking $300 hats and belts. And designers I had never even heard of - this is like beyond Louis Vuitton, Armani, Coach, Burberry, etc...a whole other world. We did have a nice time, though.


And just a cute picture of the kids on J's couch. Sarah has gotten so big!

(when she was first born)

8 months!

This mom thing the second time around is so different! I know that every month when Jeremiah turned whatever month during his first year, I wrote a blog post about it. This time I can barely get organized enough to blog once a week! Poor baby Sarah. She's getting so big and even though sometimes it feels like the days are long, they've really flown by.

She's just precious and funny and I really hope she always smiles as much as she does now.


She was cracking up!


Shawn and I were still eating dinner and we excused J and let Sarah down - this is what we found.


How a lot of my time is spent - with a baby hanging off me! Ha ha! (J was helping me make salad dressing.)


J has been loving the dogs lately - it's sweet.


Sarah loves to be outside. I can't wait til she's walking so her crawling all over the sand and grass won't gross me out anymore!


We had an amazing Thanksgiving - J went without a nap (and did pretty good!) and Sarah napped for 2 1/2 hours in my mom and Ronnie's bedroom in the pack 'n play. It was better than I could have imagined. I'm so thankful to have such a wonderful family here in Arizona to celebrate with!

Just a cute shot of J.


He ate with the kids - and he loved it!

So much to update...

And so little time. I'll try to be as quick as possible.

(beautiful family pics done by Andrea Whittle.)

Sweet baby Sarah is growing up very quickly. She's full on crawling now and is pulling up on everything and everyone. She's slowly cruising furniture and has tried to walk from one object to another and fallen many times. She's tough though. Her allergy tests did come back 100% normal, so we've forged ahead with solid foods. Right now she only eats Cheerios, sweet potatoes, and applesauce. I'll be adding more as she gets older - she did sneak a french fry from Jeremiah the other day - yikes. She's getting less clingy - I've been able to leave her in childcare without constant screaming - YAY! However if I'm in the room she will do her best to wiggle out of the arms of whoever happens to be holding her to get back to me. If that doesn't work, then shrieking begins.



My wild child Jeremiah - he makes me laugh all the time. His language skills are really taking off, even though it takes a little while for people other than Shawn or I to understand him, it seems to improve daily. He speaks in sentences most of the time now and he says the funniest stuff. Yesterday on the way home from a friends house he told me "J grow up and drive Buh-buh's (Grandpa G) car." I'm not sure where that came from, I think I must have told him at some point that when he was older he could drive. It was a very random thought but made me laugh.

We've had such a fun busy week or two since I last posted! Bubbie (Shawn's mom) came to visit us and we had such a fun time! J was attached to Bubbie like crazy and asks for her every day after his nap since she left. Sarah...was Sarah and screamed if I was in the same room while Bubbie held her. :(

A quick happy moment.


Milking the cow at the zoo!


Phoenix childrens museum.


I came downstairs one night after putting Sarah down to find the boys doing this...yikes.


On Sunday the 15th, Sarah was dedicated at our church, Poiema. It was such a blessing because not only did my mom and Ronnie come but Anita was able to be there too! She never saw Jeremiah's.


A shot of Bubbie, her son, and his son. Cute!


Since we had our family pictures done, I decided to finally update our 'picture wall' since baby Sarah's been around for...oh...7 1/2 months and there were no pictures of her up on the wall! I'm terrible. So this was before...


And this is after...turned out ok. (I just went to Goodwill and bought a bunch of 5x7 frames for $1 each! what a deal!)