"It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!!!"...a few months late.

Okay, so I'm an awful blogger. We all know that. Here's the plan: I'm going to finish out December, do a highlights/picture post of the beginning of 2009 and then be diligent with regular, but more brief updates after that. Let's see how it goes. Like I mentioned - Christmas was so much fun with Sadie Beth this year. In fact, our Christmas tree embarrassingly enough stayed up through the middle of February. I just couldn't take it down any sooner, though, because each morning Sadie Beth would still run into the living room and shout, "TEEE! Ahhh...(indicating how pretty it was) and then greet the ornaments you see behind her individually, each with a sweet, "Hi!" She was sad when the tree came down and still squeals gleefully any time she sees a picture of it.
Christmas card pictures, however, were not so much fun - but she was quite the trooper. I wasn't sure if I got any good ones here at home, so we headed over to my Mom's where we tried taking another gazillion pictures of Sadie Beth in the rocking chair.

Out of about a hundred pictures over there, I think we got 3 good ones.

At the end of that day, about all you could do was crash. Sweet girl.

Sadie Beth spent a lot of time with my socks on her feet for awhile.

Sadie Beth loved the Nativity. She learned the donkey sound in Sunday school and loved pointing him out.

And we still do this a lot....but the pictures just don't get old. At least not to me or Sadie Beth's adoring fan club in Seattle and Portland. :)

Here is Sadie Beth's cloth nativity. We talked a lot about Baby Jesus in the manger and the different animal sounds. She carried Baby Jesus around so much that it was often an all out search for him through the house when we couldn't find him.

Somehow, Sadie Beth seems to always escape when she's naked these days. She loves to be chased from one end of the house to the other.

Here she is "feeding" the zoo animals their snack.

Time to adjust the car seat straps! Sadie Beth looked so pretty in her Christmas dress.

We filled up the stockings before we went to bed Christmas Even night. David and I only did stockings for each other this year...the funny thing? We both bought each other the same (very large) bag of candy this year. One has yet to be opened, and I don't think it will be for a long time.

I love Christmas trees and decorations. I wish I'd taken pictures of the rest of the living room.

(drumrolls please.....) This was the fruits of several hours of labor on Christmas Eve. This was Sadie Beth's Christmas present from my dad. We were up until after 2am assembling it.

It was worth it the next morning! She was so excited about her kitchen and she loves making "haha" (translation: oatmeal - "hot hot")

And she "calls" her friends just about every day. Most frequent calls are made to Grandma, Grammy, Amelia (Rah-rah), Kendra (kah), Henry (Hee!), Addie (Aaa), and Annie (Een).

Her Christmas presents from David and I were her Cabbage Patch doll "Prudence Susanna" aka "PrudieSue" aka "proo," and some play cars that are quite fun though she hasn't quite got the hang of them yet.

David cheated. We decided no presents, so "Sadie Beth" got this present for me...and I loved it.

The princess crown from Grammy-Grammy is worn regularly around our house.

And Grammy Grammy got her a fun drum set too....

Whoo! Christmas morning was almost too much. We decided to wait and have her open her other present from David and I a few days later because she was so overwhelmed with all her goodies. We are very blessed.

I had a BLAST with these beautiful ladies, who happened to be some of my oldest, dearest friends. In Junior High we were inseparable....and though we probably haven't all been together since then - we picked up right where we left off and talked for hours....I didn't get home until after 2am. I can't remember the last time I voluntarily stayed up that late - let alone was out of the house until that crazy hour. Girls - what a blast. We must do it again very soon. You all are beautiful ladies, inside and out and I'm thankful to have you as friends.

And a few shots that don't need much commentary...

The Wonder of a Child...

Sadie Beth loved our Christmas decorations this year. She was mezmorized by it all. She enjoyed the nativity, her cloth nativity, the snowmen, and oh the Christmas tree! Initially I was worried about her being able to get to the ornaments but was thrilled that she learned that she could only touch them with "one finger." The Christmas tree mesmorized Sadie Beth, which is perhaps one reason why it still stands in our living room on February 5. She still gets up every morning, runs to look at the tree, and greets her favorite ornaments with the trademark Sadie Beth, "Hi!" She spent a lot of time doing this over the holidays.

We have since implemented the "1-finger rule" in just about any situation you can think of. I let her touch just about anything (at the store, at home, etc) with one finger. I got this idea from another blog a long time ago and it sure does work. Getting to touch things with one finger allows her to satisfy the intense curiosity innate in every toddler on the face of the planet but still sets an appropriate boundary for Sadie Beth, teaching her she doesn't have full access to anything her little heart desires.

This picture is a blurry but I love the awe and wonder you can see in her face. I hope through all our Christmas festivities maybe Sadie Beth started to understand that we celebrate this special day to recognize the most important birthday of them all.

Ahh!!!!!!!

Sadie Beth loves drinking grown up drinks, not that she really knows what a grown up drink tastes like. She loves walking around pretending to drink our cokes and finishes each sip with a contented, "Ahh!!!!" Like mother like daughter I suppose...

On the day after Thanksgiving, my Mom came over to watch Sadie Beth at about 6:30am so we could venture out into the shopping madness. When we got home, Mom reported that Sadie Beth didn't wake up until 9:45am...which has never ever happened before, and sadly will probably never again. After David and I got home, Mom and I took off again in search of more bargains. I finished almost all my shopping in this one day!

One of our purchases that day was a new coat for Sadie Beth. We decided to go with the 12-18 month size since she was 14 months at the time, but were surprised to find out that the coat was a little big.

She could hardly walk wearing the coat at first, and kept falling over backwards.

After awhile, she got used to it and has since grown into the coat a bit. Unfortunately it is still big on her so she hates wearing it in her carseat. Maybe it will fit next year too!