Go Pats!

Sarah has been learning very early in life that the Pats are the best football team on the planet! She already owns a pink and white Pats jersey, and while cleaning the other day I found a Pats cheerleader outfit that she wore for Monday night football last week when the Pats played the Ravens. As you Pats fans already know, we almost beat ourselves last night. The first picture is what poor little Sarah looked like at the beginning of the game. The second two are of her discovering that football and snacks go very well together (and yes, her eyes were actually glued to the game lol). The last picture is of her getting bored in the third quarter and discovering mama's magazines. The Pats did win (although peewee went to bed before the fourth quarter), but hopefully we won't get a scare like that out of them again. GO PATS!

O Christmas Tree

Yesterday I cleared the corner in our living room for our Christmas tree. Well, that corner looked rather lonely to me, and I have been in a very Christmas-y mood for the last week or so, so I decided we needed to get a tree sooner rather than later. The problem with that is, it is a month until Christmas, and a real tree (and I LOVE real trees) would die before Christmas. That, and with the price of them these days, we decided to get a good looking fake tree. So mom took herself to Target and bought a tree. Which I actually really like. I assembled the tree late this afternoon. Natalie helped me put up the new star (I hated our old one lol), and mom put the lights on the tree.

Well, once the lights were on the tree, Ms. Sarah decided she had to go explore. As you probably noticed in the picture, the lights are just out of her reach (we did that on purpose lol). Sarah likes the Christmas tree! :) It was so cute to see her trying to figure out what that was!

After admiring the tree, Sarah moved on to play with her brother. She happily hit him on the head, then sat on his head in her attempt to get to her activity table. Apparently, his head makes a good seat lol.

Thankful for Sesame Street

I'm quite sure I've mentioned before Sarah's unending love for all things Sesame Street, especially Elmo. When we put on Sesame Street, she makes a bee line for the TV stand, pulls herself up, and talks and sings along. It is quite the hoot. The sad part is, she knows when it's coming now. As soon as we start flipping through the On Demand menu (we can access SS any time of day or night lol), she gets very happy. Well, we have taken our love for Sesame Street to a whole new level. A week or so ago, I put on Sesame Street, put up the gate to keep her in the living room, and went to the kitchen to do some dishes/cleaning. Her big sister Erin (who shares her fondness for Sesame Street, although not quite to the same degree), was in the living room with her. Suddenly, Erin came running out to the kitchen to tell me that Sarah was sitting on the TV stand. I didn't quite believe her at first because there's really not that much room up there. So I come around the corner, and sure enough, she has squeezed her little butt onto the TV stand and she is petting Elmo on the TV. Of course, as things go, my camera batteries were dead, and I wasn't able to get a picture of this.

Well, last night, Sarah and Erin were sitting down watching Sesame Street as we were winding down for the night. I went to check on Tim in our room (which is adjacent to the living room) and came back out to see Sarah happily sitting on the stand again, this time happily patting Cookie Monster. This time, I got pictures!

Thanksgiving was fabulous this year. It isn't technically Sarah's first Thanksgiving, but considering she was only a couple weeks old this time last year, it feels like it's her first. We had dinner at the Galvins on Thanksgiving Day. Sarah slept through dinner but woke up just in time for dessert. Auntie M made mini pies, so we gave a cookies n cream one to Sarah. In case there was any doubt, this child LOVES dessert. :) Yesterday we had Thanksgiving dinner at my mom's house. Sarah was awake for dinner this time, and tried some turkey (which she seemed to like...she ate a good bit of what she was given and happily played with the rest). We went outside to watch the Christmas parade at 3, then it was back to Meme's for dessert, where Ms. Sarah decided my piece of pie belonged to her. She ate the whole thing. Thankfully, Meme brought me some pie later to make up for what Ms. Sarah chowed. :) Chocolate mint pie is definitely her thing lol.

So to wrap this up, I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and that you have a blessed and happy Christmas as well.

One Year Old

Monday marked the passing of one year since Sarah was born. I still cannot believe how fast this year has flown by. It seems like just a day or two ago that I was in the hospital giving birth to her. And now she is a year old. Amazing. And a little sad, too, because she's not a baby anymore, and she's my last baby to boot.

I have to say though I cannot begin to put into words how much I have enjoyed the last year. And I am so looking forward to the next year, and all the years to follow with this sweet little girl who has made our family complete.

First Birthday Party

Today marked a momentous occasion...Sarah's first birthday party! The party was today at 2pm at Sarah's friend Bradyn's house (his mom and dad offered us the use of their place to help us out a bit). The theme of the party was Sesame Street, namely Elmo, who is Sarah's absolute favorite. Sarah's friends Bradyn and Hailey came over, along with their parents, and Beepah and Kathy (Kathy is Bradyn's grammy). The kids watched Elmo's World, and then we did presents. Hailey helped Sarah open her presents. Sarah was more interested in the package of socks and the little bag they came in that Beepah gave her, and Hailey was more than happy to "open presents". After presents came cake! And boy, was that cake a hit! We bought a Sesame Street birthday cake to share, and bought Sarah a small little round cake for her first taste of the confection. I am attempting to attach a video to this blog for the first time ever so you can get the full effect. A good time was had by all and the birthday girl is currently crashed out in her crib!

Trick or Treat

This month marked Sarah's first Halloween ever. We believe in Halloween at our house, but we do believe in having a little fun, so we do allow the kids to get dressed up and do some trick or treating in our neighborhood or Nana's neighborhood (or both, as was the case this year). It's fun for them and good exercise for mom. :)

Sarah's costume was a bumblebee. We went to a harvest party that the church here in South Berwick put on the Wednesday before Halloween, and then we went trick or treating on the 30th (that is the night our town does it). Sarah loved trick or treating in our neighborhood. It was still light out (because daylight savings was a week late this year). She sat in the stroller and sang and talked the whole way.

After walking a few streets in our neighborhood to show the neighbors our costumes...oh, I forgot to say that Erin was Snow White, Natalie was Juliet, and Connor was Obi Wan Kenobi...we met up with daddy and Auntie M at Dunkin Donuts to get coffee for the grown ups and go to Nana's for trick or treating. When we got to Nana's, she wanted to take lots of pictures before we left. As you can see by her expression, Sarah was not thrilled with this idea.

After all the photo ops, Mommy, Auntie M, Glen, and the kiddos, including my neice Maddie, who was a duckie, set out trick or treating. This was all well and good....until we got about halfway down Nana's street and realized that Sarah had my coffee coozie in her hand with no coffee in it. You guessed it, my ice coffee was sitting beside her in the stroller upside down. This effectively ended her night of trick or treating (her butt was covered in ice coffee...it smelled awful good lol). I took her back to Nana's to get changed, and she stayed with Nana, Oso, and daddy to hand out candy while I went back out in search of the others. All in all it was a fun night, and as you can see from the last picture, Sarah likes Halloween candy (I gave her a mini Hershey's bar yesterday during the Pats game).

Leaps and Bounds

It's been a little bit since I last posted. Part of the reason for that is I lost the cord that connects our camera to the computer to download photos. But I found it tonight, so here we go.

Sarah is getting SO big! I cannot begin to believe that she will be a year old in a few short weeks. She and her little friend Bradyn are getting more and more vocal and interactive with each other, and Candace and I are absolutely enjoying each play date a bit more every time we get them together.

Sarah is cruising around the house now on her little hands and knees. We had a little problem at first with her trying to get into the bathroom to get into the cat food. She doesn't seem to be so interested in that now though, because she has discovered the stairs. She now spends a good portion of her day gated into the living room so she can't get access to places like the stairs where she can get hurt.

A funny story...we had to take Sarah to the ER last Saturday because she woke up from her nap with conjunctivitis in her eye, and of course the docs office is not open. It was a very long day, so we got some pizza on the way home. I was heading back into the kitchen for a second slice when I discovered that Sarah had sat herself partway onto one of the chairs at the kids' table across from Connor and was happily patting the table (and also noticed while taking a picture of this cute sight that she had peed through her diaper). What a little goose! I've tried letting her have a snack there periodically this week but she only likes to sit there if someone else (preferrably Connor or one of the girls) is sitting at the table as well. My little girl is becoming a big girl!

I will post more soon as Halloween is coming up, as well as Sarah's first birthday party, and many other cute moments in between I am sure.

Activity Table

I was shopping a couple weeks ago for a birthday present for a friend of Natalie's when I noticed this little activity table on sale. I bought it thinking it was the right height for Sarah, brought it home and set it up. Sarah LOVED it!! She even shared time at her table with her friend Bradyn a couple days later. Now the funniest thing about this table is, she loves to stand at the table and growl at the various toys on it. It's hysterical!!! But she's always smiling while she is growling, so I know she isn't upset or anything.

Her other new thing is to mug for the camera. She has realized that when the flash goes off it's time to smile. However, she waits until the flash goes off, meaning the picture is already taken. So it goes like this...mom takes picture, flash goes off, Sarah mugs with big grin. I have managed to get off another quick shot to capture her "mugging" however, and it is quite cute.

Milestones

Sarah just hit two milestones in the last two days. She cut her first tooth yesterday evening, and today at Fort Foster she figured out how to crawl on the beach!!! She is getting so big...I can't believe my baby is almost ten months old!! She loves to get around the house (up till now she's been rolling, that is obviously going to change quickly lol), and her favorite thing to do is reach behind the TV stand and pull out the cable cord (the only one she can reach). So now I need to come up with a way to block her reach in that one small spot in a way she can't get past.

Another thing of note...her father is a huge Red Sox and Pats fan. Sarah now owns two more Red Sox onesies in the official colors (in addition to the two pink ones she already owns) and a pink Patriots jersey, all compliments of daddy. She makes a cute fan, I must admit.

I will post pics of her new tooth when she lets me (right now she's not very fond of showing it off, but has no problem biting with it lol) and crawling when I catch her in the act with my camera (unfortunately I didn't have it with me today).

Vacation

We just returned this past weekend from a week's vacation at a wonderful cottage on Sebago Lake. We all had a wonderful time, and the place we stayed at was absolutely beautiful. We hope to stay there again next year.

Sarah absolutely loved the lake. My inlaws had bought her a baby tube that she could use in the water. This was all well and good for the first couple trips into the lake, until she decided it was no longer acceptable that her arms couldn't reach far enough over the side to splash the water, which of course is her favorite thing to do. So she decided she wasn't having any of that any more, and mommy had to carry her out into the water so she could splash. And splash she did. Happily and noisily. Nat, Connor, and Erin would come up to us in the water and splash along, which made her even more happy.

However, our happy baby came very close to cutting a few teeth (they're almost there, barely any gum covering them) last week as well, which made for some rough moments and a LOT of poopy diapers and a yucky diaper rash to go with it (I changed more poopy diapers in one week than I think in the past six months lol). But thankfully we found some ointment that was not zinc oxide based that did the trick and made life a little better for Ms. Sarah. She also slept quite a bit, partly I think due to exhausting herself in the water and partly as a coping mechanism due to the teething.

I am including a few pictures, but only a few for the moment because most of ours didn't come out as well as we had hoped. Hopefully I can get my mother in laws pictures (or a copy of them anyway) so I can post more.

Tubby Time

We have discovered that Sarah LOVES water (except cold water). She has figured out how to splash, and now that she sits well on her own bath time has become more fun....she LOVES tubby time!!! She is completely fascinated by the water, the faucet, the little switch that you flip to keep the water in the tub or drain it, mommy's little scrubby ball, etc. It is so much fun! We've also discovered though that bubble baths are not a good idea, because she thinks the bubbles are for eating (the same is also true for the sand on the beach). She is also really close to figuring out how to crawl. My baby is getting too big already!!