Month: December 2006

Cutest. Birthday. Gift. Ever.

Sarah Dogs

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Before anyone gets too nervous, we did not, in fact, add a third dog to our pack. Nope, this little cutie is my parents’ new pup. He was a birthday present to my mom, and he shares a birthday with Carrie. He doesn’t have a name yet, despite Carrie’s insistence that he should be called “Shaggy”, “Mickey” or “Carolyn”. His eyes aren’t really blue, but he moves too quickly to take non-flash pictures of him, and red-eye in young puppies is really blue-eye for some reason. (If you want to drool over adorable little puppies, go check out the other litters this breeder has available. Sigh. Those chocolate labs melt my heart, but we have a full doggy quota at the moment!)

Carrie is already learning the important eight-week-old puppy commands: “chew this!”, “no bite!” and “sit!”

Shear Panic

Sarah General

Among lots of other wonderful things, I got a new game for Christmas: Shear Panic. Now, purely from a gaming perspective it may not be the absolute best game out there, but it has two really strong things going for it:

1. it’s fun to play.
2. it has sheep! 11 sheep figurines, which are lovely and detailed and…did I mention they’re sheep?!?

Santa must know me really well to know that not only do I love all fiber-y things, but I also like to play a good game now and again.

Actually, Santa (and various family members) all decided that Carrie needed a stash of her own games – she has five (5!) new games now. Not all of them are things she’s quite ready for, but I’m sure she’ll grow into them soon enough. Add to that the fact that we bought several games as gifts to others, and there were a whole lot of games exchanged a couple of days ago…

As an aside, I really do plan to post about all the fun stuff I’ve been making for the past several months that I haven’t been able to show off at some point. It’s just a little overwhelming, since I made a lot of gifts. I started in…June? I think next year I may have to start even earlier…

Merry Christmas!

Sarah General

I don’t know if you believe in Christmas
or if you have presents underneath a Christmas tree
but if you believe in love
that will be more than enough
for you to come and celebrate with me
for I have held the precious gift that love brings
even though I never saw a Christmas star
I know there is a light I have felt it burn inside
and I have seen it shining from afar

Christmas is the time to come together
a time to put all differences aside
and I reach out my hand to the family of man
to share the joy I feel at Christmas time

for the truth that binds us all together
I would like to say a simple prayer
that at this special time you will have true peace of mind
and joy to last throughout the coming year

and if you believe in love
that will be more than enough
for peace to last throughout the coming year
and peace will last throughout the year.

– The Christmas Wish, John Denver

Twenty-Six Months Old!

Sarah Monthly Updates

Dear Carolyn,

Today you are 26 months old. It’s also Grandma’s birthday and Christmas Eve, so it’s been a very exciting day.

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This has been the month of songs. You still can’t carry a tune in a bucket, but you know the words to so many new songs. A lot of them are the songs we tossed in a playlist to listen to on our way to visit Nana and Poppy, but others are holiday songs like “Jingle Bells” and “Christmas Bells Are Ringing”. One of your favorite songs to sing is “Where Is Thumbkin?”, but you sing “where is pumpkin” instead.

We’ve started the switch to having you sleep in a toddler bed. It began in a desperate attempt to have a place for you to sleep on our trip – we recently discovered that you are too tall for the pack & play and didn’t want to find out whether you could actually climb out. You loved your inflatable Winnie the Pooh bed so much that when we got home you insisted on sleeping in it still. Luckily, we got our hands on a gently used toddler bed pretty quickly, so you’re switching back and forth between the bed and the crib.

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This has been such a fun month of holiday preparations as well – we’ve baked so many cookies, and decorated the house. You’ve really enjoyed all of that, and keep asking to decorate more things. In fact, tomorrow we’ll put the last ornament on your advent tree, and I think you’re going to miss it.
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And, the biggest news of all? While we were at our Christmas Eve party this evening, you did your first somersault! You were very, very excited about that. I’m sure skipping, tricycles, and monkey bars aren’t too far behind. In fact, I’m willing to bet that the day you start driving I’m going to wonder how time went so very fast!

Love, Mommy

Crunchy Noodles!

Sarah Carolyn

The other night we had a surprise birthday dinner for my mom at a Chinese restaurant. (Coincidentally, the only food I actually wanted to eat those first couple of months I was pregnant was the chicken & asparagus takeout from this place. Mmmmm.) Carrie insisted on having “chops!” so I rigged up a pair of training chopsticks with an extra ponytail holder I had in my purse. (I need to start carrying rubber bands or buy a pair of these.)

But the funniest moment of the evening was when Carrie let us and the entire restaurant know that, while she does in fact like “noodles” (aka lo mein), she prefers “crunchy noodles!!” – dipped in duck sauce, of course.

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Sweet Doggie Dreams

Sarah Crafts

Does anyone remember the strange dog fabric Carrie picked out a few months ago? Well, I didn’t use it for its intended purpose. Instead, I reverse-engineered the fancy envelope style pillowcases I ordered with Carrie’s toddler-sized pillow and made one out of this fabric:

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She was so excited when I put it on her pillow earlier. And the great part is that it only took me about a half-hour to make – which included the reverse engineering. I’m going to have to hit the after-Christmas fabric sales and pick up some cute flannel fabric to a few more pillowcases. (And if I can find pillow forms this size in an actual store they would make great gifts!)

My Future Pastry Chef

Sarah Carolyn

This morning we decorated cookies during playgroup. Imagine four toddlers, icing, sprinkles and cookies. Now imagine four moms trying to prevent the four toddlers from sticking the icing spoons in their mouths and biting or licking every cookie they were decorating. It really was that much fun!

Carrie had a really interesting way of putting the icing on the cookies – she quickly tired of the “slop and slather” method, and proceeded to drizzle the icing in lines back and forth across the cookies:

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This is not something I have ever shown her or done in front of her…so…do you think she’s been watching the food channel when I’m not looking?!?

Long, Strange Trip…

Sarah General

OK, so who had the brilliant idea to put Carrie in a toddler bed less than a week before we went on a five day trip?!? (I’ll give you a hint. It wasn’t me. If it were me, I’d keep her in the crib until she mentioned that none of her school friends sleep in a crib anymore…)

I knew it was going to be a disaster when, on the ride down, Carrie refused to nap in the car. She was sobbing that she wanted to sleep in her crib. At home. At home with the doggies, Mommy! There’s really nothing sadder than a baby who wants to sleep but can’t.

The sleep “issues” continued for the rest of the trip. But Carrie had such a great time with her cousins, so it was worth it. In fact, one night Carrie was calling from the room she was sleeping in, “Lizzy, Michelle, come sing alphabet song with me! Everybody sing alphabet song!” (This might have been cuter if it wasn’t already 11:00…)

We are all so tired it’s almost ridiculous. In fact, the toddler who wouldn’t go to sleep before 11:00 any of the four nights we were gone was sound asleep by 8:30. In her toddler bed, of course. We’re still using the inflatable bed – I think we need to do something about that as soon as possible. But that’s something to worry about after a good nights’ sleep!

Lovely Birthday

Sarah General

I had a wonderful birthday today, very low-key and perfect. My mom made my favorite soup for dinner, and I got some very thoughtful gifts. It’s funny – I generally don’t like giving gift cards or certificates, but I adore receiving them, especially when they’re from my favorite specialty craft stores – it means I can buy something that I’ve really wanted but would feel guilty spending the money on.

Carrie was so sweet, too, wishing me a happy birthday and helping me open my presents. My dad had a few of those birthday horns around and gave one to Carrie. We showed her how to blow into it to make a sound, but since she’s my little future horn player she put it up to her lips and buzzed instead!

Of course, the combination of not napping, a late dinner, cake after dinner, and a late bedtime meant that Carrie was insanely crazy for the whole bedtime routine and she literally just fell asleep a few minutes ago. (But unless I’m mistaken, she’s sleeping in her inflatable toddler bed!)

Time for a Big-Girl Bed?

Sarah Milestones

We’ve been experimenting with the inflatable toddler bed I bought this summer in the hopes that Carrie would sleep in it on our Disney trip. Yesterday we tried starting her out in it for both her nap and bedtime, but both times she asked to sleep in her crib not long after.

Today at nap time Carrie insisted on sleeping in her Winnie-the-Pooh bed. I told her the rule: if she gets out of bed she has to sleep in her crib. She didn’t budge. Two hours later I heard her talking and went up to check on her, and she was still tucked in her bed, talking to her stuffed animals.

She initially wanted to sleep in it again for bedtime, but then asked for her crib. We’ll see how the rest of the week goes – it would certainly be easier to bring the inflatable bed with us on our trip than the pack & play (which she’s technically too tall for…)