Gaylord Getaway #2

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.

 

This was the ice slide.  Ummm. Fabulous.  

Christmas TreeS :-)

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)

 

Tree #2!

Christmas 2011 Part Two

 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 :-)

Eva liked her Kailan toys a lot :-)

Great Celebration!

Christmas 2011 Part One

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...

Sadie is 17 months old!

Sadie is growing up SO fast.  I feel like two weeks ago it felt completely natural and appropriate to refer to her as a baby but that ship has quickly sailed.  This girl is a full fledged toddler! Here are some Sadie at 17 months highlights :-)

• I promise she seems taller than last week.  Her size blows my mind!  This week I cleared all the 12 month and a lot of the 18 month clothes out of her drawers.  She wore 2 shirts this week (size 2) that Ella wore when she was THREE! Ella was such a peanut, I'm constantly marveling at how big Sadie is!  
• The week before Christmas is when I'd say Sadie officially became a walker.  She hasn't crawled since.  She clearly says "WOK, WOK" most of the time I'm carrying her and can't wait to walk all over.  However, she's not a physical risk-taker (my DNA made it into her!) and will NOT step down steps and hesitates at cracks in the sidewalk.  It's pretty cute.  She LOVES climbing up stairs though (on her knees).
• Sadie has discovered Elmo and fallen in love.  I thought Ella was unique in her obsession with Elmo around this age so i gave away the 3 foot Elmo we used to have!  Sadie called him "Melmo" for a couple weeks after discovering that cell phones and ipads could entertain her with "Melmo" videos when Mom and Dad were in a pinch for entertainment.  Now, she's been introduced to Sesame Street on TV and loves it.  I have to admit, though I know TV isn't good for kids, I'm glad we made it this far before introducing it and that Sadie (like Ella) will sit and happily watch a show.  It affords me a chance to do necessary things for a little while. I feel less Mommy guilt with this second child :-)
• Sadie is a ham.  My memory fails me with what Ella was like at this age but Chris assures me Sadie is way more of a little comedian.  She definitely does things to be silly and get laughs and is so stinkin' cute doing them!  She makes funny faces, walks around with toys in her mouth, and thanks to a Laurie Berkner song that we've been singing around here, she puts everything on her head. I love her little personality! Sweet and silly describe her well.

 

•  Sadie is becoming quite the talker.  She understands pretty much everything I say to her and is starting to gain new words every day.  Chris said he'd guess she has 100 words these days.  I think that's on the high side but she definitely has exploded in speech in the last month.  Walking and talking both took off at 16 months.
• As far as temperament, Sadie is showing that she can get upset, have a strong opinion about things and be "mean" in a baby sort of way.  She will sometimes push Ella away when Ella tries to kiss her or refuse to give Ella a toy she wants.  So, we've been working on sharing and being "nice."  For the most part though, she seems to continue to be (oddly) compliant.  9 times out of 10, if I tell her to not touch something or give me what she's holding or go get her shoes, she'll obey right away.  I know this won't last but she does seem more compliant than Ella ever was so I'm guessing that will more a part of her temperament that endures. 
• ***update-we hit the "I can fight back and have an opinion" stage this week.  She had her first little fits (crying when I made her sit in the stroller/high chair when she wanted to "wok, wok") Oy vey-so not a fan of this transition where they start to fight back! 

I'm having technical difficulties with pictures so more of those to come in another post but no worries, she's still uber cute :-) Looking forward to spending lots more time with this little lady and excited about all the things she'll learn in the coming months-colors, numbers and more.  Thankful for Sadie Grace!