Christmas

We've had loads of great family time over the past week. Along with Jamey, my sister and her family were here for a week. Christmas Eve dinner had a mere 54 people! It was so fun to be with so many family members! After a quiet Christmas morning at home, we spent the rest of the day at my parents'. Sarah slept through present opening and then again through our mid-afternoon feast. She's still a bit too young to get into presents - she'd rather crawl in and out of the boxes and (unknowingly) terrorize her 3 and 5 year old cousins by threatening their new toys.

Christmas Eve family picture

Christmas morning!

We kept it simple - Sarah got a pair of Carthartt overalls, and 3 DVDs and 2 books from our local used book store (she also got a great outdoor swing from Grams & Pops and the coolest wagon ever from Grandma & Grandpa)

Sarah and Caroline - they don't know it yet, but at 6 months apart, these little cousins will be best buds!

and finally a good picture with Uncle Jamey!

Now that the dust of Christmas has settled, it's moving time!! We've moved a bunch of our stuff already, but our official move date is this Saturday. I'll post pictures once we settle in.

Uncle Jamey

Uncle Jamey got to meet Sarah when she was an hour old and saw her 2 weeks later last Christmas, but they hadn't seen each other since. She sure has changed in a year!

(we laugh at how much her look has changed - people often see her baby pictures and ask us who it is!)

The greeting at the airport was a bit anti-climactic ... it didn't help that it was past dinner time and almost bed time.

Moments

There are lots of "moments" in a day spent at home with a 1 year old. We don't have a video camera and I definitely wish we did. At times, I also wish there were a camera following us around to capture some of our moments together. Over the weekend, I found a great version of 1 of my favorite hymns, All Creatures of Our and King, on iTunes. I synced the iPod, plugged it into our Bose speaker, turned up the volume, sat down with the hymn book open so I could refresh the words, and started to sing along. Sarah crawled into my lap, started banging on the open page, and in a sense was singing along. That lasted a verse and a half, and then her 1-year old attention span moved her on. Today, I wanted to listen to it again so hit play and got out the hymn book ... and the moment repeated itself ... Sarah crawled in my lap, beat the open page, and sang along! It was a sweet moment. She seems to like certain types of music. In church on Sunday, a couple sang 2 traditional Christmas hymns set to Appalachian music. Sarah started clapping, and clapped through both songs with a very joyful expression on her face. We were just trying not to laugh too hard because it was pretty funny!

Completely unrelated, here are 2 recent pictures:

She loves to climb IN her toy basket, and any box for that matter.

1 of her other favorite things to do is crawl on Mattie's bed. Lovely I know.

Sarah's birthday!

Sarah turned 1 on Tuesday, December 11th. It was a funny evening. We planned a simple dinner with my parents (the party is to come later with a group of friends who have little ones all turning 1 within the next 2 months). Sarah was exhausted so we put her down for a nap at 5:30pm. She woke up as my parents arrived at 7pm and was in the WORST mood! She screamed and cried through dinner, eating only bread (which is incredibly rare for my big eater). She did enjoy the cake, but was most interested in the ice cream. Her mood finally mellowed once we opened her presents - the soccer ball was the biggest hit. Maybe she'll take after her Pappa!

We never imagined we'd eat Sarah's birthday dinner on the deck!