Our Gingerbread House

We were so fortunate to have Tanner home from work on Christmas Eve and Christmas. It was so much fun to have him to hang out with for an entire two days! He usually only gets one day a week off, so it seemed like a vacation or something! Anyway, on Christmas Eve, he and Sadie put together a gingerbread house (or attempted too, anyway). Sadie had a blast! Here's the pictures:

Beginning to put it together.

Sadie's such a big helper!

Putting the candy on.

They didn't follow the instructions to wait for the icing
to dry, so everything fell apart and they just decided to eat it! :)

Mmmm....yummy candy!

The aftermath!

Miscellaneous

Here are some miscellaneous pictures of Sadie that are all super cute, so I thought you grandmas and grandpas might like to see them! Enjoy our little Sadie Lady!

All snuggied up in her blanket after a good nights rest!

Wearing Daddy's boots, she loves to do this, and she's
starting to get pretty good in walking around in them!

Eating leftover birthday cake! Yumm!

Talking on the phone with Grandma Nevels!

Holding Spider, she loves that little kitty, even
though she beats up on him a lot!

She ran away from me after I got her out
of the bathtub, and this is where I found her!

These are all the stuffed animals, blankets, and pillows she
likes to sleep with. When she's feeling snuggly, she'll haul
them all out to the living room to watch tv.

New Dresses

I just have to show off Sadie's new dresses. She looks so cute in them! The first, she got for her birthday, from Grandma and Grandpa Branham. The second is her Christmas Dress. She is starting to like to play dress up and wear pretty new things, so she thought she was so beautiful when she put her dresses on! It was cute!

Sadie's New Shades

Sadie got some new sunglasses! They look so adorable! She's been getting really upset lately if the sun is in her eyes, so I would let her wear my sunglasses, but they kept falling down and making her even more mad, so we finally just bought her a new pair of her own! She loves them and every time we get in the car she asks for them. She's really good about wearing them, but sometimes she'll push them up to the top of her head like a headband - its so cute! I just thought I'd share all the cuteness!

Decorating for Christmas

Just thought I'd post some pictures of our Christmas decorations this year! We got a real tree and Sadie helped decorate it. She would bring us the ornaments and say "Here ya go, Mom". She's such a big helper! We also put up a bunch of icicle lights on the front of the house. This is the first year we've had a real house to really decorate, so its been fun. Tanner did a good job putting them all up and it looks really great! I wish we would have put them up a little earlier so we could enjoy them for longer!

Sadie helping us decorate the christmas tree.

Our beautiful tree! (We hadn't put the star on yet)

Tanner, hard at work, putting those lights up!

Tanner on the roof putting bows on the garage!

Our beautifully decorated house!

Thanksgiving

We had a great thanksgiving! We had my brother John, and his family come visit from Phoenix. They came the night before, and left the day after thanksgiving. It was fun to have everybody there, and have the kids play. Tanner had the day off and he cooked most of the dinner, he did a great turkey! He and John and the boys went outside several time to throw a football around, and the rest of us just hung out, played games, and enjoyed the holiday! Here are a few pictures of our fun! Again, some of these pictures are courtesy of Kim! Thanks again!

Tanner carving the turkey!

Matthew Nevels, ready to eat!

Rachel and Harrison, ready to dig in!

This is what I found when I went to check on
Sadie, isn't Rachel such a good cousin?

John, watching football

Happy Birthday Sadie!

We celebrated Sadie's birthday a little early, the night before Thanksgiving, so that my brother John, and his family could celebrate with us, since they were coming here for Thanksgiving anyway. I blew up a whole bunch of balloons and Sadie had a ball playing with them all day long! She really enjoyed having some other kids there to celebrate with and share her new toys with! I can't believe she's TWO already, time really flies! She's such a sweetheart though, and learns so much every day! She is such a smartie, its really amazing to watch her grow! I'm so thankful for her and the joy that she brings to our family! We love you Sadie!

Reading her birthday card from Grandma and Grandpa Branham!

Happy Birthday Sadie!

A new dress from Grandma and Grandpa, she thought it was so pretty!

Opening another present - ooh, whats in here?

Mommy and Daddy gave her bathtub markers for
her birthday - they've been a huge hit!

Her big present was a slide! (or a weeee, as she calls it!)

This was a different day, but I think its cute picture!

PS Some of these photos are courtesy of my wonderful sister-in-law Kim, Thanks for sharing!

The Newest Member of Our Family

So...yes...its true...Tanner talked me into getting another cat. He was just dying to have a pet - we tried a snake for a few days, but we couldn't get the climate in its cage right and we were afraid it was going to die, so we took it back. And he felt so bad about it that I finally gave in and let him get another cat. So we went to the humane society and looked at their kittens. We found a little black one that let Sadie carry him around everywhere without any protests, so we picked him. His name at the shelter was already Spider, so we just kept it. He's a cute little guy, and really good with Sadie. All I hear about now from Sadie is " Where Kiggy go?, Where Kiggy?" She loves him and he puts up with her. He has fit right in with us at home and we haven't had any real trouble with him. So, so far, having another cat hasn't been as bad as I remembered it to be. Maybe because its only one, whereas we used to have two. Maybe its because he's still a kitten, I don't know. But I do know that I'm kind of eating my own words now, because I kept saying we weren't going to get any more cats until our children were older, etc. :) So, yeah, Tanner and Sadie are definitely happy that we have a cat now, and that makes me happy! And as long as he behaves and doesn't mess up our house/furniture, I'll be okay with it too!

Two Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

Here's a little video of Sadie and Kale playing to together! Enjoy!

Happy Halloween!

We had lots of fun for Halloween! Sadie was a butterfly princess/fairy. We had our friends Julie, Zack, and Kale over for a bbq. Julie and I took the kids trick or treating; they didn't last very long though, only about 1/2 a block and then we had to carry them the rest of the block! They sure were cute though! Sadie really liked taking the candy out of the bowls, but I don't think she really realized what was actually inside the wrappers. When we got home, the kids went outside and played and we got a kick out of watching Tanner answer the door for trick or treaters. He put on his scary costume and would jump out and growl when he opened the door, it was really funny to watch the kids scream and run halfway back to the street! Most of them weren't too taumatized though. They still came back for the candy:) Anyway, here's some pictures of the kids in their costumes. These photos are courtesy of Julie (thanks!). I never did get out my camera!

Yay!!!

She sticks out her tongue a lot!

The Butterfly Princess and the Little Hobbit!

They're so cute together!

Julie also took the CUTEST video of Sadie and Kale together,
you can see it here.

Random Pictures

Here are some random pictures of Sadie that I've taken in the last several weeks.

Sitting Pretty!

Doesn't she look funny with her sunglasses, her pacifier, and her bedhead?

I got this stroller at a garage sale and Sadie thought it was so much
fun to put her bunny in it and wheel it around the house!

Can you tell she tried to drink what was left of her ice cream?

Sitting in a basket wearing Mr. Potato Head's glasses, you really can't beat that!

Family Pictures

We finally got our family pictures taken! These are our first ones since before Sadie was born, so they are way overdue, but they turned out so great! We have a great friend who offered to do them for us. She took us to a park here that runs along the Colorado River (which is just about the only water you'll see here in Yuma!) Sadie was so excited to be at the park and just wanted to run and play with the other kids, so she wouldn't sit still for any posed pictures. And we didn't really get any smiles out of her either, but what we got is great considering that any time we went to actually take a picture she was bawling or screaming. She was just going for the more 'serious' look. :) Anyway, here are some of the pictures we got. Let me know which one you like the best!