Thursday, December 25, 2008

xmas 2008



Opening gifts xmas eve before Grandpa had to fly home for work



"Mr. Sweet Potato"



Anything left?

Christmas has been a lot of fun here. Unfortunately Grandpa D. had to head home early to work, but we had a good time while he was here. Opened some gifts xmas eve before he left. Had dinner out after dropping him at the airport and then left some cookies for Santa.

Sara actually slept in (YAY!), and Santa had been here with some nice gifts. We opened a few more gifts this morning to spread it out for her, which was good. The highlight of the morning was our christmas moment when Sara started passing out one of her Santa gifts for everyone to share. Very sweet.

Merry christmas everyone.

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Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Xmas cookies



Sara helping to make a batch of Christmas cookies this afternoon



'Nuff Said

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Saturday, December 20, 2008

Let the holidays begin...

So, I am back from a week-long meeting in San Fran and ready for the holiday "break" (yeah, I am still going to work this next week, at least a couple of days...). I followed up my landing after a redeye flight with some xmas shopping and a little catnap.

Anyway, Sara did reasonably well while I was gone, though it appears that we have reached the age where she truly does "miss" a parent being gone now... just to make it even easier to travel...

Danette is doing well, and so is the baby, it seems it grew even in the four days that I was gone somehow. Grandma and Grandpa D flew in last night for the holiday, so the holiday has truly begun.

Today we took Sara to a holiday concert for young kids (3-6) at Severance Hall. A very fun brass quintet from the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra did a wonderful job of playing great music and teach about their instruments... Sara was full with an amazed and exhilarated smile the whole time. She had been looking forward to this day all week and it clearly did not disappoint.

Given that the holidays are upon us there will undoubtedly be more pictures to come, but here are a few taken in the last couple of weeks.



Sara in a new coat that she wore to the concert



At the concert



Laughing



Sara and Danette



Self-portrait for two

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Sunday, December 14, 2008

New camera



Sara consenting to sit still (and eat a snack)

Finally followed through on my "one camera per child" plan for ensuring that each kid has ample photos taken of them.... good to be a consumeristic American, I guess. Anyway, the camera arrived this week (a new Canon XSi) and I have been clicking away ever since... and definitely glad we made the plunge on a new camera. There are more pics to come, and certainly more when the baby is here, but I like the one above, so there she is.

Sunday, December 07, 2008

December cheer...

Looking at the archive of the blog it appears that I started this thing just over 4 years ago now... that's a pretty amazing to me that something I started on a whim just to see what a "blog" was is still active.... anyway, it is and now about what you are really here to see....

So we are starting off this month well. Sara is now sleeping exclusively in a "big girl" bed, which is great, except that we now have 3:30 am visits to our room that we didn't before... we are hoping that the up in the middle of the night and up early bit will wear off after she gets more comfortable sleeping in the new bed... getting her to go to sleep is a bit more of a challenge too, but that is probably quite normal.

We had her 2.5 year appt with the doc, which went well, not even a peep during her flu shot - a first - and she is back into the 95th percentile on both height and weight... she has grown over 2.25 inches in the last 6 months alone to 38". And our arms are definitely feeling the extra weight that goes with that growth.

We've started getting into the holiday spirit here too. The tree is up and decorated and the other decorations are up too... we actually have Danette's Santa Bears out for the first time since Sara was born, so that has added a little excitement to the living room :) Sara is also all about Frosty the Snowman lately too, having watched it on DVD, and singing along with the music at school.

Yesterday was pretty crazy, the little girl was up a bit too early shall we say... we actually went out for a little breakfast and Home Depot time and back home by 9am or something like that. Then in the late afternoon, Sara had her first serious birthday party to go to. It was at a local place that has a bunch of those inflatable bouncers for kids and the whole place can be rented for a party. Man, did she have a good time, and got a serious workout (as did I helping her and a few of her friends up the largest inflatable slide, hmmm, maybe I shouldn't have canceled that gym membership....). After the party (complete with ice cream birthday cake) we went straight to another party, my department's annual holiday party (read, more chocolate and cookies within Sara's reach). We stayed just a little while, but needless to say it was a long day, but she did great.

Danette and the baby-to-be-named-later are doing well too. The little one is doing more stretching and swimming around and trying to keep up with her big sister's growth spurts as well. 28 weeks down now, less than 3 months to go! We are making a little progress on physical preparations at least, the new dresser for Sara arrives this week so that we can move the one with the changing station into the baby's room. Also, keeping up with my plan for making sure that all kids have sufficient pictures taken of them, a new digital camera is arriving this week, basically I will only have myself to blame for poor pictures now :)

And speaking of pictures...



here is a pic of Sara reading to herself yesterday



Sara in her xmas dress for some pics for holiday cards, etc.



Another pic of the happy girl all dressed up.

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