Christmas 2008, Part 1

Happy New Year!

I'm hopelessly behind on this blog, so I'm going to throw up a few photos and a video of Katie enjoying some of her Christmas gifts, and will tell you our family's Christmas tale a little later with more photos.

Katie was sick on Christmas, so we spent Christmas Eve at home. Poor baby -- you can tell she doesn't look well in these photos. On Christmas Eve, she opened up some Sesame Street DVDs and a Melissa & Doug puzzle:


Since the rest of my family had been sick that week as well, we were thankfully able to get together with them on Christmas Day without worrying about spreading germs. Grandma and Grandpa (my parents) gave Katie several gifts, including an Elmo Live! doll and an interactive Elmo book:

My parents gave me a pretty pearl necklace/earring set, but Katie quickly claimed them for herself:

And Uncle Mike (my brother) gave Katie a giant car, which she loves riding around our house these days:On Christmas Day, Katie also got to open up another gift from Mommy and Daddy -- a barking, walking dog that we picked up for her at the beach. Despite the wierd expression, she loves her "puppy"!

Several days later, when we were pretty sure the flu was a thing of the past, we were finally able to celebrate Christmas with John's family. Here Katie's Aunt Laura helps her ride the beautiful neighing rocking horse that Uncle Jamie and Aunt Amanda gave her.

John's parents, Grammy and JayPa, spoiled a happy Katie with a boatload of gifts. That's what grandparents are for, right? Here Katie sits atop a packaged alphabetical/numerical puzzle mat while holding her new baby doll. The box with her new playhouse is at her feet.


Katie also received a LeapFrog magnetic farm from Aunt Laura (John's sister). The highlight of the farm should be that Katie gets to match animal heads and tails, but she's been having way too much fun dancing to the songs the farm makes:

Thanks to everyone who helped turn my sick daughter's Christmas week into a week of fun and toys!

Cousin Ali's birthday

On Saturday Katie and I joined my family for Katie's cousin's first birthday. Katie and Jessica Alize' (called Ali) are 3 1/2 weeks apart.

Here are a few highlights:

Ali's 4-year-old brother Andrew had a tee-ball game before the birthday party. My brother Jason got his son psyched up for the game by encouraging him to hit him with the bat as they ran around the bases:

Katie and Ali cheered from the sidelines:

Back at the house, Ali introduced Katie to chicken nuggets by feeding them to her. I think she missed Katie's mouth this time.
Katie enjoyed chasing their cat, Tigger, around the house:

Lesson apparently not learned at the beach: Sand is not for eating, Katie!
Mommy, if it's not ok to eat sand, why is it ok to eat this? Brrrrrr!

Highlight of the party for Katie: Getting on a moon bounce for the first time! She LOVED it! (She's SOOOO much like her mommy!) Her cousin Ali wasn't as impressed, though she and Katie did have a wrestling match.
Here's a hysterical video of Katie and Ali wrestling:

Ali may have won that match, but Katie won the match with her 4-year-old cousin Andrew: Here's the video of that match:

Hi, Grandma!

Katie loves her grandma!

Guess I needn't have worried about where Katie would nap during the party:

Ali, on the other hand, didn't nap once. I think it's because she downed most of an entire birthday cake:

Thankfully, Ali's mommy Sharon saved the beautiful fondant cake for the guests:

Katie had a great day!!!

Katie's First Thanksgiving

I joked this week that for Katie's first Thanksgiving, I needed to dress her up like a turkey -- including tying her arms and legs together and sticking an apple in her mouth. I decided there would be no way to post photos like that without being arrested for child abuse, so sorry -- she's fairly normal-looking in these photos.

We had a fun Thanksgiving. We hosted my parents, my brother Mike and his wife, my brother Jason and his wife and their two kids, and best of all, my grandma! Yep, she was able to join us for a little while, which was very special. Here's a photo of 4 generations -- my grandma, my mom, me, and Katie.

Oh, and I had to cook almost nothing, which also rocked. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for getting up before dawn this morning to cook! Tomorrow we'll be visiting with John's siblings, and the day after that we'll head out of town for the day to visit with my extended family. Hope everyone is having a great day with family as we reflect on the many blessings we all have.