Christmas Day Pictures

Here are some pictures of Savannah on Christmas Day.... It seemed at first, that she was more excited over the paper ripping part than the present!

She's opening a gift from her Grandma Wendy, a cute little pink outfit!

Somehow, after opening the first present, she sat down and got the bow stuck on her PJ's-on her bum no less!!

Here she is with Daddy, who's trying to get her interested in the present.

We got home from Granny & Papa's, and started opening stockings.

Christmas Dress

This is the dress she wore to church on the Sunday before Christmas. Since Mandy is in the Primary program in church, and there were a lot of people already gone for the holidays, we didn't go to church with Mandy's parents in Buckeye, like we've done in the past. Maybe next year.

She did have on white tights with her black shoes, but they were taken off, so that she could walk around without slipping and sliding on the tile floors.

Christmas Eve

In Mandy's family, a big family dinner is set for Christmas Eve. When she was growing up, they did name draws for gift exchanges for Christmas Eve, but since the family has grown too big and not everybody is able to come to the dinner (those from far away) it has been done away with. The last couple of years though our cousin has hosted a White Elephant party, separate from Christmas Eve dinner. This year, they weren't able to host a party, so Mandy's brother and sister-in-law, Ralph & Cheryl, hosted the Eve dinner and added White Elephant for the night. It was much fun! There were some pretty good gifts.....Mandy wanted a musical candy dish in the shape of a big Hershey Kiss, but it got stolen from her. Anyway, here are some pictures from that night......Savannah with her Daddy, after the dinner. One of her cousins, A.J., and her Uncle George, are in the background.

Here's Savannah with her 2nd cousin-I think? (it's her cousin, Brian's, baby girl), Caitlin Sedig. It looks like she's ready to run, doesn't it? Caitlin isn't too sure what is going on.

Here's Savannah with Mommy! I think she sees the camera and is trying to reach for it. It's how we got her to start walking, we'd wave the camera from aways and she'd want it....

Christmas Stockings

I am so excited for this Christmas. It's Savannah's first Christmas! Kids bring a special excitement into the festivities and since I haven't been a kid for a good long while, I've missed that excitement.
I also hope that I can focus my festivities on giving and serving, in observance of Christ's birth and life. Christ is a wonderful exemplar of service and love. How grateful we are for His example and Love.

Merry Christmas to YOU!!

This year, I decided that I was gonna be a little homemaker......I made our stockings and bought enough material to make more, for later. I think they turned out pretty good, if I may say so myself. My mom has an embroidery machine and so she was able to put our names on the cuffs.

Here is a picture of our Christmas tree. You can see that this even has a lining in it......

I didn't think to have Jason take any pictures while I was cutting out the material and stuff, so I only have this picture of my small sewing station set up in the living room. I had to do this while Savannah was sleeping, or else she'd get into it and I wouldn't get much done. She actually was awake part of the time that I had this out, and she was absolutely curious about it-as I'm sure all babies would be.

And here are the finished products!! Green for the "boys" and Red for the "girls"!

I have lots of memories of my mom making clothes for me and my dolls (including Barbies) and costumes for me, and I think it would be great if I am able to do even half of the things she did, for Savannah.

Another video of Gift Scramble game

Here's a video of Andrew, Steve, and Dave attempting to unwrap this prize.

Other Christmas party pictures

After the Gift Scramble game, and a "Guess the # of Kisses in a Jar" game, we had the traditional White Elephant Exchange as well. Unfortunately, I didn't specify that it was per person, so a few of the couples only brought one gift, instead of 2. Oh well. Next time I'll be sure to specify!
Dan was one of the first ones, and he had called earlier in the day, asking about what kind of gifts to bring, good or not-so-good.....he took the plunge.....that is, he got the toilet plunger! Ugh! He tried to leave it behind when he left, but I kindly reminded him to take it, only to find out the next morning that he put it on the hood of our car with a sticky note (I already forgot what it said!) Anyway, he got the last "word" on that one!
Jessica started out with the Chocolate Dream gift, but she ended up trading for the label maker.
Here's Tiffany giving it a try in the Gift Scramble game. I heard it was a lot of fun. I missed a lot of it, because I had some friends that were having a hard time finding our place, so I was on the phone with them helping them with directions. I felt bad that they missed this game, but they were able to go home with a pretty nice gift, from Costco.

Christmas Party

We had a Christmas Party with some of our friends and played the Gift Scramble. It was a fun game that Jason found on the internet. A "Prize" is wrapped in a small box, which is then wrapped in a bigger box, which is also wrapped in a bigger box. We had our prize wrapped in 10 boxes, each individually wrapped! A pair of dice is being rolled by each person, when 7 was rolled, it was time to switch out. Jason got some videos of it, and I got some pictures as well. The following video is of Brenda at her turn at trying to open the gift with oven mitts and then Felice getting her turn too.

M&M's

I don't know when kids should start having candy/chocolate, but I don't think 11 months is the age to start. However, Savannah seems to think differently!
Anybody who knows me, knows I LOVE chocolate (though I'm not that different from many females, I'm sure) but I'm especially fond of the m&m candies!! I had a little ziploc baggie of some m&m's for a snack while we were out for a walk. We couldn't go today, due to rainy day, so I brought everything back in and knew she would like to play with the diaper bag. (She has this thing about taking things out of purses, bags, boxes, canisters and putting them back in-I think this is normal?) I made sure I took out the little baggie of m&m's so she wouldn't get into it. Apparently, I didn't put them far enough out of her reach, because the next thing I know, I look over and she has found the baggie and the m&m's are in her lap, bursting out of the bag and she's chomping away, with some blue color around her mouth! Luckily I dug it out before it "melts" in her mouth. However, when I gathered the m&m's, she watching me, and as I walked away with the bag, she realized she wasn't getting anymore and proceeded to cry, I mean really cry. She's never done that before when we've had to take something away. She was not happy!

Sleepless Nights

Yes, she's 11 months old now, but there are still many nights that I have to get up with her. But a couple of nights ago, she was up every hour from 12:30 pm until 3:30 and then she stayed awake until 5:30!!! I finally got to lay down, tired, crying, and irritated, only to be awakened 30 min. later by a demanding Savannah! This time, Jason, sweet and patient that he is, let me get some sleep as he tried to get her down. She didn't go back down until close to 9 am and even then she only slept for 45 minutes. At this time, I decided she was ready to be fed, so I nursed her in bed and she slept for another 2.5 hours in bed with us! My oh my, was I a cranky mama for the rest if the day! When I laid her down for sleep that night, I hoped she would be good and tired to sleep-but an hour later, she was awake and it was enough to bring me to tears, dreading a repeated sleepless night. She did go down though and slept soundly this time for a good many hours. I was very relieved.
My little Savannah loves to be held and cradled to sleep, I think that's part of the culprit. I guess this is the price I pay for wanting to hold her so much, especially while she's sleeping-during the day!

Halloween--Bumble Bee

I know, I'm so behind in posting our happenings.... I still haven't even finished about our UTAH trip back in October!!!

The weeke before Halloween we went to our friends' Halloween Party out in Queen Creek. It was great to see them and their family!

Then on Halloween night, our ward had a Halloween party, Harry Potter theme! It was great, they did a wonderful job on recreating Diagon Alley.

Vannah was a little Bumble Bee Stinger, I was a Witch, and Jason was Robin Hood.

Watch out, here she comes!

On Thanksgiving night, we were able to help her gain confidence and start walking back and forth between us. The next day, she realized it was a fun game and once she got to "mom", she'd immediately turn around and head back to "dad"-all on her own, without any coaxing!
Without further ado, here she is........drumroll please..............