These Are a Few of Sadie's Favorite Things...

1.
Walking around in mom's shoes. It has taken her a few weeks to really master it, but she can even walk around in my heels now! By the way, this smile is what I get now when I tell her to smile for a picture.


2.
Phones. She still pretends to talk on the phone all the time. Lately she has held one phone up to each ear. It is pretty much always daddy on the phone.

3.
Watching DVD's or tv shows with her head on the chair arm rest. She also always has her pot belly showing if possible.

4.
Uncle Tyler aka "Taddy". Him and mooching food off people. In this picture she had already finished eating the same dinner Tyler was eating but it tasted better to eat his food. She likes to say "mmmm" when you give her bites off your plate.

5.
Leaving the neck of her shirt around her head is a real hit with Sadie. She thinks its funny every time. But that could be because we laugh at it every time too.

6.
Cookies! She loves all things sugar. She knows where I keep goodies on the counter if I make them and she'll stand next to that area and point up and whine until she gets some.

7.
Turning the camera on and looking through the pictures. Oh yeah, she can do that. NBD. What?? I have tons of pictures like this of her trying to get the camera from me. Last night I had it on the kitchen counter where I was fairly certain she could not reach it. Nope she grabbed it and started looking through pictures of herself.

8.
Sadie still loves sitting in boxes/bags. Here she is giving me her best smile again.

Christmas

It was a real Christmas weekend for us.

Friday night we took Sadie to the Riverwoods mall to see Santa. They had this cute little house set up outside. I was worried the line was going to be forever long on a Friday night but there was no one there!

Sadie loved the lights- especially any twinkling lights.

She wasn't too sure of Santa. As I started to walk toward him she grabbed me tightly. She was smiling at him, but only as long as I was holding her. She gave him a high-five and we called it good. So much for a screaming-on-Santa's-lap picture. Maybe next year.

Saturday morning we gave Sadie her bigger presents since we are off to Boston this week.

I was talking to a friend about how to approach the idea of Santa with my kids because I really don't care about them believing in him. Santa is the least important part of Christmas to me. She suggested calling Santa the mascot of Christmas, but not insisting that he actually comes into your house and leaves presents for the kids. I like that.

Anyway, when Sadie came around the corner and saw the basketball hoop she tried to get down immediately. This picture actually shows her mid-push-off from Daniel.

Daniel could not be more proud. I guess except if she stood about 5 feet back and shot it. Then he'd be more proud. **I need to add that we did not show Sadie what to do once. She knew exactly what to do. But this really shouldn't be surprising since she has been to more basketball games in her short lifetime than many of you probably have.**For now she will only dunk. If she wants someone to shoot it she'll bring one of us a ball and motion toward the hoop. She dunks anything and everything- including the nativity, puzzle pieces, and golf balls.


By the way, I finally got around to decorating our apartment a little last week. I wanted to get a real tree this year, but when it got to be December 10th and we hadn't bought it yet I decided it was too late. Next year. That will be better anyway because we won't be traveling at all for the holidays. Hopefully Sadie will be old enough to not pull everything off the tree. I have a few other decorations up but this is the gist of it. Kind of sad, I know.

Happy Birthday, it's T.Will's Birthday!

Sadie's BCF (Best Cousin Forever) Will is 1 today!
He is the cutest little boy I know- sorry, but he is cuter than your little boy.

First meeting- April 2010- look at those cheeks on Saders
While Sadie and Will have only been around each other twice, we just know they love each other.

Second meeting- May 2010 with the grandparents-
Sadie was a grump the whole time
Sadie sent Will a card she colored all by herself. She also picked out a present to give him when we see him next week! She may or may not think it is for her, but whatever.

Happy Birthday little man! We love you!

PS- I almost to forgot this picture of Sadie and Will

One of my favorites- Sadie ripping Will's pacifier away. I hope Sadie is a little nicer to him next week, but it's not likely. Especially if he ever has a pacifier- Sadie feels that since she stopped using one at 7 months, no one should and whenever a kid older than a newborn has a pacifier she rips it out.

Help!

Does anyone have a portable DVD player we can borrow for our trip to Boston?All of our laptops are old and the battery life is really short. We are desperate for something to entertain Sadie for our looong flights.

Geez 2 posts in a row with no picture. I'll do better soon.

Christmas Cards

Anyone who wants a Christmas card send me an e-mail with your address- carlynielson(at)gmail(dot)com

(Especially if you have a new address since last year)

Crafty Crafter

During the Christmas season growing up in the John household we painted wood items- ornaments, random Christmas decor, etc. My mom actually made beautiful things and the kids would generally make fairly ugly/messy things but we loved to do it. One of the things my mom made (my dad cut the pieces out of wood) was a nativity set the kids could play with. I played with that nativity a lot, even if I may have been a tad too old to play pretend when it was completed. It's such a great idea for a Christmas decoration kids can play with and not ruin/break.

A few weeks ago I was at the new Hobby Lobby in Orem and I saw this wood nativity set for sale- complete with stable and everything. I bought it and got started on the painting right away. I did everything just like my mom did. Spread newspaper over the counter. Got my plastic cup of water for brush rinsing. Got my piece of tin foil for mixing colors. Tied an apron over my clothes. Stayed up way too late a couple nights finishing it.

I think it actually came out pretty great.

Sadie loves it too. (Click on the above picture and note how she has positioned the shepherd)

PS- Sadie can now officially get up on the couch all by herself

Thanksgiving

About 6 months ago I decided I wanted to try my hand at cooking Thanksgiving dinner. As the big day actually approached and the reality that I am pregnant and have a pesky 1-year-old who won't leave me alone when I cook and my husband would be working all morning set in I changed my mind. Luckily Daniel's aunt invited us up to their house. I most definitely opted for that.

Ready to eat!

I am so glad I did because we had a great time. Sadie may have loved it the most. She chowed down on beans, mashed potatoes, 2 servings of sweet potatoes, and 2 rolls. She did decide she does not like turkey and she promptly threw it on the ground. I have never seen her eat so much in one sitting. Later on she ate half of my pecan pie and ice cream and more sweet potatoes.


She loved Alice the dog. This picture doesn't necessarily reflect it but Sadie spent half the time chasing Alice. Alice got sick of her and would run away. At one point Sadie figured out that if she crawled up to Alice, she wouldn't run away as quickly.

Sadie's second cousin Jack was having a rough day and she was very concerned about him.

But Sadie was happy to play with the toys on Jack's booster while he was being consoled.

The other thing Sadie loved was this scarecrow. She still never can decide whether things like this are real or fake. She repeatedly pushed it's nose and tried to hold it's hand. She would get in it's face and say "hi" repeatedly. By the way, we are very aware of Sadie's mullet. I am going to cut it right before we go to Boston for Christmas.

We had a great day and while I couldn't fit as much into my belly this year, I was quite satisfied with my single serving (I may have had seconds on a few items) meal.

We have a lot to be thankful for (in no particular order):
-our car warranty that covered $1,000 worth of repairs this week
-another crazy little girl joining our family
-family who give Sadie more love & attention than she knows what to do with (so she often just runs in circles screaming when they come over)
-my flexible job
-the fact that Sadie says "hi baby ithah" every morning and hits my belly when I go to get her up (ithah=sister)
-the Backyardigans
-the temple
-Sadie finally goes down stairs by herself without me prompting her the whole way
-baths (Sadie's favorite)
-good friends
-healthy bodies that do what we need them to
-mandarin oranges
-Sadie is a great sleeper
-Costa Vida
-DVR
-the internet (we finally got our own internet at home so we A)are more honest and B)can get online consistently)
-sisters
-Northern New Mexico women's basketball (and how terrible they are)
-Sadie seems to be getting 2 more teeth (for a grand total of 6)
-affordable babysitters

This list is obviously not comprehensive, but it's what I've been thinking about lately.

An Afternoon Outside

A couple weeks ago we had our last decent-weathered afternoon. Sadie and I played outside for a solid 2 hours.

Sadie ran up and down the slight hill in our front yard.

Sadie also showed off her mullet (and tried to help the neighbors put their garbage can away)

We did Sadie's favorite thing- swinging. We avoid swinging most of the time because there are big tantrums when we are done (and they are not from me).

Finally, Sadie attempted to walk down the concrete steps (pictured in photo #1 above) all alone. She fell on her face. This fall was actually pretty hard and I felt bad for Sadie. If you click on this picture you can see tears (and scrapes) on her face. The pain was dulled with Reeses Pieces and all was right in the world again.

I am so glad we documented this day because Sunday we woke up to this outside our house.

Picture Dump

We got a new camera few weeks ago so I have been taking more pictures than usual. The problem is that my old laptop at home doesn't have the ability to read the pictures for some reason.

Here is a compilation of pictures from the last couple weeks.

Sadie has actually started smiling for pictures when I ask her to (sometimes)

Sadie got a booster seat. She absolutely loves it. If I had realized how much she'd prefer this to a highchair I would have bought it a while ago. Her other new favorite thing is that black headband in her hand.

One day Sadie got tired and laid on the bottom step for a while.

The baby bump at 15 weeks- my stomach really popped last week so I am much bigger than this now.

I guess I am just so domestic- always baking- that Sadie decided to copy me and wear an oven mitt around. By the way, those crappy $5 Wal-mart Dora pajamas are her favorite.

At Daniel's game last week Sadie actually just sat on her own chair and watched for the first 15 minutes.

Then she had enough and got the trusty headband out again. She actually wore the headband to the game because I couldn't get her to leave it at home. I am sure most people think I put it on her as a nice hair accessory but it looks ridiculous because it's adult sized.

Aunt Coco

Daniel's sister Courtney came to visit us last week. Sadie calls her Coco- much easier to say than Courtney. We didn't end up doing much because Sadie got the stomach flu right after Courtney arrived and then she spent a couple days getting back to her normal self. It was great that Courtney happened to be here so I didn't have to take any time off work.
(Check out the adorable black coat Courtney bought Sadie)

On Courtney's last day here I was determined to get out of the house for something fun.
First we went to BYU's Bean Museum.

Most of my pictures ended up something like this because Sadie could not contain her excitement.

She did pause for a moment to touch the elephant's tusks.
Unfortunately we have not been able to get it out of Sadie's head that all 4 legged animals are not dogs.

She pointed and yelled "doggie!" at everything she saw. It seems Sadie has the same interest in learning about animals I have (hardly any).

When we got up to the second floor Sadie literally just sprinted around occasionally yelling "doggie!". We let her run around the whole thing twice and then forced her back downstairs.

She sat like this looking at the bees for 5 minutes. I actually got her to say "bee" a few times.

On our way out we attempted to get a cute picture of the Nielson sibs with their favorite niece, but my brand new camera couldn't take a good picture in the strange lighting.


Then we got ice cream at the BYU Creamery.

Courtney let Sadie have lots of licks. After each lick Sadie would then reach for some of my ice cream. Sadie went back and forth mooching ice cream off both of us- she's a smart girl.

Thanks for coming Coco!
You made Sadie a very happy girl!
(Sorry none of these pictures of you are great)