The Biggest Eve of the Year

Happy Christmas Eve! We have been keeping busy this week.

A visit to the lights at Temple Square with the whole Nielson clan 

(first time all together since Christmas 2009)

A play date at the mall with Ella. Sadie insisted on climbing into her chair and helping Ella finish off her food.

Practicing standing. You can see how thrilled she is with herself.

Sadie got her first black eye, which is fairly surprising because she falls a lot. This was the first time she has hit her eye.

A visit to Mater at the Christmas tree lot by our house. 

You can see they were breaking down the lot as we got there.

Louie continued to chew on everything in sight. Check out our completely droopy Christmas tree in the background. Sad. 

Other things not pictured including, but not limited to, Nielson family pictures, another trip to the Riverwoods to ride on the merry-go-round, many last-minute trips to all kinds of stores, and the purchase of the start of our food storage. 

Feline Elise

We are pretty sure this is the cat version of Leesie. 

If you ever want an excited/shocked reaction to anything, go to Elise. Anyone who has spent much time around her knows Louie seems to be in a constant state of amazement. Her eyes get huge and bug out of her face. Random strangers in stores will comment on how they just surprised her. A few weeks ago at church someone watched her for a couple minutes for us. When Daniel went to take her back he told Daniel , "You gotta see this. I am jumping out at her and she makes the funniest face." Daniel didn't tell him that's how she reacts to a bump on a log too.

Examples below in age order- just scroll quickly through them all. 

And no, I didn't use every picture I could have.

From 2 weeks old...

...to 7 months old (taken yesterday)

Some people tell me they think it's cute. I don't know about that, but I do think it's hilarious.
Elise is awesome.

Our First Christmas

The other night Daniel told me he thought we were doing a pretty good job on our first Christmas. I made fun of him and reminded him we got married 6 1/2 years ago, but I knew what he meant. This is the first year we are at our home for the whole Christmas season. Combine that with the fact that Sadie partially understands and is excited about Christmas and any associated activities and we have full-on holiday mania going on. 

First up, making and decorating sugar cookies. 

This is Sadie's "say cheese" smile. It's amazing. 

Cropped version. I, for one, cannot wait for Nielson family photos next week. 

Too bad we didn't get a shot of me with an apron on, covered in flour. Daniel told me I looked like a real mom but I told him it was just the result of rolling out cookie dough with a 2 year old.

Elise drinks her bottles by the glow of the tree lights.

Yes, I think we have a ridiculous amount of gifts under our tree. Especially considering you can't see them all and there are only like 5 that are NOT for Sadie

Finally got our outside lights up. Just some advice- if you need cheap white mini lights buy them at the beginning of holiday shopping season. After trying 7 different stores, we bit the bullet and purchased some higher quality white lights that were 70% off (but at 70% off were still double the cost of our other crappy white lights).

Sadie reads our "12 Days of Christmas" book and insists I sing the song at least once per day. Again, the awesome smile. (Different day, same pajamas)

Visited the Riverwoods lights again

Made neighbor gifts- fudge. Meredith tried to recipe sabotage me by changing one little thing in the fudge directions. 

Fudge fail. 

When Meredith realized I wasn't going to give up after 2 failed batches she gave me the right recipe

Fudge triumph.

Got some adorable matching Christmas tree shirts made by Carrie. Sadie insisted on Elise sitting in her lap so you can't see the matching shirts.

Another great smile, with red, dry cheeks.  

Oh, and in case you didn't get our Christmas card in the mail, here it is. Of course, this doesn't include the hilarious insert about our family in 2011. 

(If you still want one mailed to you it's not too late to send me your address- carlynielson@gmail.com)

Frustration

That is frequently a good word to describe my relationship with Sadie. I feel like I stay patient and I make a lot of progress with her behavior. Then she throws some insane tantrum or refuses to share with anyone and I lose my patience. I wonder if her inconsistency is because of something I do. Anyone have any techniques they feel like are effective in dealing with/lessening tantrums, or do I need to just ride it out? Do I expect too much out of her? I don't feel like I do because most of my friends' 2-year-olds are much better behaved than Sadie.
Feel free to tell me I am just being dramatic. That's always a possibility.

Anyway,  I'll share some funny pictures of Sadie lately because even though she frustrates me, she makes me laugh all the time too.

One of her new favorite activities- "tyting" on the "puter"

 Cheesing it with full on Harry-hair in effect

I had to hide the Cinderella costume because Sadie wants to wear it everywhere, including in the bath. She still mentions how she let Brizzy wear it one time. That was a huge deal to her, and she actually only let her wear half of the costume.

Today we watched Kung Fu Panda and during one scene where a mean character was fighting a good character Sadie kept yelling "no!" and telling the mean guy to "go away!". I could not stop giggling.

Seven

The Louie Gooer is 7 months old. I don't have a whole lot more to add to what I have said about her before. She is super smiley, doesn't sleep very well, and is constantly getting into everything around her. I should mention that for the past week we have been letting her cry it out at night and she is getting better! She is a very different baby than Sadie. She seems to be much more curious about her surroundings. She desperately wants all the food the rest of us eat. She has dive bombed food in my hands multiple times. She tries to take whatever Sadie plays with. It makes me laugh really hard.

 Talking to the camera

 Reaching for the camera

Sun-face baby       &         Stripe-face baby

 She does have a few new tricks- sitting up alone and holding her own bottle.

Elise generally makes everyone happier around her.. We are so glad she's ours.

Decking Our Halls

Decorating our house for Christmas has been more of a process than an event. On Friday night we got our first ever Christmas tree. I am still excited about it. This is the first year we will not be traveling for the holidays so we got a beautiful, real, some-kind-of-fir tree. We thought it was absolutely gorgeous when we picked it out, and it is, but we didn't notice the dead spots (on the back side) and how the trunk is crooked (really crooked) until we got home. 

(Mom, here is a picture from the front door so you can see exactly how we set it up)

We rearranged our entire living room to fit the tree in front of the window. I really like the new set-up and I think we'll leave it this way after we take the tree down. All the rearranging, cleaning where furniture used to be, and picking up/setting up the tree took a while so we just went to bed once the tree was up.

On Saturday I put up some more decorations but we didn't have enough lights to cover the tree so I had to go buy more.

 On Sunday night we finally got the lights up and Sadie hung the ornaments she picked out on the tree.

 Then she got distracted by the twirl-ability of her Christmas "princess dress" she wore to church that day. Here she is mid twirl.

 While Sadie was hanging her ornaments, Elise was sitting on Daniel's shoulders. Every time Daniel leaned back Elise laughed hysterically.

 Elise looked like she was having so much fun that Sadie insisted on having a turn. She tried to pretend it was fun, but she just couldn't see why Elise liked it so much. She quickly got down and told Elise she could have another turn..

This is the video I shot of Elise's second turn: