Part of what I love about the girls' names is that they were both popular 100 years ago and many people with those names are now great-grandmas. Both names evoke a vision for me of sweet old ladies rocking away together on a porch. I pray Ella and Sadie will live meaningful lives full of love and will be enjoying each other on a front porch somewhere many years from now.
For a while now I've been printing out free seasonal sayings or subway art and putting them in frames around the house. I really like it because it fills my need to mix things up (I rearrange the furniture as often as possible) and adds a new touch but fits seamlessly into our decor since I can just refill the same frames. So, recently I found a tutorial on how to make your own without having to know how to use photoshop or any other fancy or expensive programs. Within minutes I had my own 8x10 printables for Winter/Valentine's Day! Love 'em!!!
Once again I was able to get a great deal and we made a 2nd trip to the Gaylord. It was so much fun last time and I've been hearing about their amazing Christmas Ice exhibits for a few years and had never been. Plus, Ella had a week off school and Chris took the whole week off! Great time for a getaway. We had a great time. The highlights were...
The hotel was beautifullllll for Christmas!
It was pouring the first day but we ran in the rain to the closest resturant to the hotel and...
it was SUPER fancy and I mean SUPER fancy. They had a special little chair at the table for MY PURSE to sit on. Seriously. They also came out and put beautiful cloth covers over our coats on the back of our chairs so we wouldn't be wet leaning against them. Dude. It was FANNNCY. This could have been disastrous with 2 young kids not to mention really expensive.
but...it was pretty empty, the kids behaved well, AND....drumroll please....
It was Happy Hour! This is not great because we could get liquored up and not notice if our kids tore the place apart rather, it was wonderful because all of their sushi and appetizers were half price. This meant we ordered 4-5 appetizers and were all stuffed and our bill was under $40. The Entrees were $40 at this place. Whew! It worked out so well!
Part of the reason we went to dinner when we did was to be back for the nightly Christmas Tree lighting in the hotel. Little did I know people were staking out their spots hours beforehand-it was packed!! We found a tight spot that ended up being pretty awesome for seeing the (unexpected) full on Christmas show featuring characters from Madagascar and King Fu Panda, lighting a 60 foot glass tree that was suspended from the ceiling, lots of music, and a dancing fountain show. Awesome.
We didn't have a suite this time so we were all in one hotel room. So,
Chris offered to put Sadie to sleep and Ella and I went down to the
lobby to have a little date so this could happen. We ended up sitting
in a swanky-ish lounge area near the lobby sitting on a couch eating
cookies and playing tic tac toe while live jazz musicians played next to
us. It was wonderful!
The next morning at breakfast Ella complained that her tooth was hurting and we discovered it was loose!!!!! Her first loose tooth! She is SO excited. I got a little teary thinking that that very tooth was the first one that came in when she was a little baby. Awwww! My girl is getting so big!
Checking out the hotel is one of the best parts of staying here. The hotel itself is an attraction!
This was a pintersest idea we adapted and used at the restaurant-used chopsticks to make a tic tac toe board and whatever you have (goldfish versus cheerios in this case!) to play!
Oh, did I mention Sadie is a full fledged walker?
Part of the Madagascar themed Ice Exhibit! A zillion tons of ice carved by a special team of artisans flown in from China. Pretty awesome.
We had a great holiday season this year hence, I've had no time to blog about it! And it'll probably take 10 posts to get up to date. Ella went back to school today after about 10 days off so I'm trying to get back into the swing of "normal" life.
So, our Christmas started with all the fun pre-Christmas prep, largely involving our tree(s) this year! We bought a tree but it was too small for our stand (and our liking) and kept felling over (and a bunch of ornaments broke) so we ended up getting another tree! AND, the best part was we were able to give our first one away to a family who couldn't afford to buy a tree this year. She was a friend of a friend and mentioned that her kids would be really excited because she'd told them they probably couldn't have one this year. THEN a few days later we got a thank you letter in the mail with a picture of their SEVEN kids in front of the tree! So unexpected and exciting to be able to bless them!
Tree #1
Sadie really loved decorating (and only broke 1 ornament)
On to Christmas #2! Definitely check out the results of the Annual Ornament Exchange on Amy's Blog. We ate and opened presents and enjoyed each other! Here are some of the pics :-) (Thanks to Amy for the first few pictures)
My lovely In-Laws
The Cousins!
BFFs
Sadie and Christopher have an unexpected but great relationship! He surprises me with how much he likes playing with Sadie and seeks her out-they're super cute together.
I look a little kooky here but it's a good pic of the awesome scarf my sister made me for Christmas!
Grandpa and the girls
Reading the Christmas Story. We memorized Luke 2:11 last week and Ella was SO excited to hear it read on so many occassions since it's in the "go to" passage for the Christmas story. It was so cute to see her eyes light up and see her start mouthing the words when verse 11 came around :-)
How is it that ONLY the baby is looking at the camera! ha! I love my little family.
We talked to Stacy on skype (she's in Idaho) and were able to do the whole Secret Sibling gift exchange with her opening the present she'd received in the mail on camera while we watched. Technology is awesome.
The harmonicas Nana put in every kid's stocking were a big hit!
SO fun to have Uncle Dave with us this year. Sadie's taken a liking to him too :-)
Aunt Marissa took Ella shopping this year for presents for her immediate family plus a couple extra people if she had enough money. She (by herself) picked out these cups for Uncle Dave and Aunt Julie and was so excited to give them out!
THIS was the smile I was hoping for when I bought Christopher a remote control helicopter!! I got a big hug that made my day :-)
We're blessed to live near both my family and Chris' so it's become the tradition to spend Christmas Eve with my family at my Aunt and Uncle's river house and spend the night and drive to Chris' parents house Christmas morning. This year we went to church on Friday night and Ella got to wear a dress from last Christmas that was too big-she was so excited to get all dressed up!
At the River House Sadie, who will spend hours playing with water discovered the (random) water feature in my Aunt and Uncle's family room. It was the best Christmas present she could have received. She played with the water and rocks all day and went straight there the next morning!
I think my Dad misses having a dog. He bonded with Stella my sister's dog this year though :-)
I wish you could see her face in this pic-this girl, LOVES to "talk" on the phone!
Sadie gets lots of help from Ella. This time Ella was velcroing a frog stuffed animal she picked out for Sadie around her neck. Sometimes her help is a little aggressive and not so well received but other times Sadie loves it :-)
Opening presents!
I had the past year of this blog made into a book for my grandmother and she CRIED. The ugly cry. And she's called me since then and cried more about how wonderful it is! Score.
The other emotional gift this year was a recordable book I had my grandmother (93 years old) record for Ella and Sadie. SO glad to have something like that!
Sadie will smile now if you ask her to...
But this shows a little more of her personality. She's a kook!
Sisters
Oh the canapes. Oh the canapes. My Aunt makes these salmon canapes every year that marissa and I assembled. They are SO. Stinkin'. Goooooood.
Christmas fell in the middle of Hannukah this year so Ella got to show her Hebrew, reading, and candle lighting skills to the whole fam :-)
I heard noises Christmas morning and peaked into the bedroom Ella shared with my Grandmother and found this! Ella had gotten out of her bed and gotten in bed with GG and they talked for a long time. SO sweet! So glad they could have these great timed together. On to Christmas part two...
