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!

Talking on the Phone

Here's a cute little video that I caught of Sadie talking on the phone the other day!

New Hat

Tanner picked out this little hat for Sadie the other day. Normally I would think it was kind of cheesy but it looks so cute on her and she loves it! Here she is watching out the window for Daddy to come home from work!

Jumping

We've been trying to teach Sadie how to jump for a long time now, but she just recently figured out how to do it and actually get both feet off the ground. She's so proud of herself and loves to jump now! Here's a cute little video of it!

Best Friends

I have a friend, Julie, that has a little boy who is two weeks older than Sadie. His name is Kale and he is the most adorable little boy ever, and he and Sadie are best friends! Their family moved here to Yuma shortly after we did and Julie and I, and Sadie and Kale quickly became good friends! We get together a lot for play dates because the kids play so well together, and it gives us time to relax and chat, and not have our kids constantly whining at us. It is so cute to see them play together, though. They make each other laugh, and they chase each other around, its fun. And Sadie loves him SO much! She talks about him ALL the time and anytime we say "Do you want to go play with Kale?" she throws both arms up into the air and says "Kee-oo!". Anyway, I watched Kale the other day and was able to get a little video of them playing. Its so sweet - we are so thankful like friends like Julie and Kale!

Sadie Talking

Sadie's been learning to say lots of different words lately, and I've been trying to get a good video of her repeating them back to me. Normally, she'll be interested in it for a good while - saying lots of words, going through all the animal sounds, pointing to different body parts, stuff like that, but she hasn't really wanted to cooperate with me, so this video is the best I could get! It's still pretty cute though!

We couldn't handle it anymore....

The heat, that is! So we got a new car! Since our old car didn't have any air conditioning (which has been absolutely miserable, here in Yuma) we finally decided to trade it in for something with air conditioning. We got a 2009 Mazda 3 Hatchback. Its really really nice and has lots of nice things our old car didn't, like AIR CONDITIONING :), automatic windows, mirrors, and locks, cruise control, tinted windows, a 6 disc cd player, and an auxiliary jack to plug our ipods into! We LOVE it and its just so nice to have a car with a few extras, instead of the bare minimum. But the main thing is the air conditioning, its so nice to not be red-faced and sweating all over the place by the time you get somewhere! So here it is!

Play Dough

I made some playdough for Sadie a couple of weeks ago and it turned out really well! She loves playing with it. We got a bunch of cookie cutters to use with it and she loves to roll out the playdough with the rolling pin! She knows exactly which cupboard I keep it in and is begging me every day to play with playdough now!

Having fun!

Attempting to cut out shapes. She usually makes an imprint
of the cutter on the dough and that's as far as she gets.

After she makes a shape, she always points to
it and says "What's that!"

Trying to use the rolling pin! She does pretty good with it!

A New Toy!

We got Sadie a new play kitchen! She loves it and plays with it all the time now! Its just a cheap one from Walmart - it took me three hours to put together! I guess its a good thing I enjoy doing stuff like that! All of the pieces were still connected in the plastic sheets and you had to snap them apart and put them together. It took forever, but it was worth it to see Sadie's face when she woke up the next morning and saw it. It was priceless!

Here it is, brand new, never been played with!

Sadie playing with it! Notice she knows exactly how to work the
microwave - I don't know who she learned that from, I always
cook our meals from scratch! ;)

We found the perfect spot for it between the
kitchen counter and the back door.

Finger Painting

I tried out a finger paint recipe for Sadie a couple of weeks ago and it turned out really well. This is the first time she's ever done it. She liked it though. She was concentrating so hard on what she was doing though, she didn't hardly make a sound the whole time! Here's the video of her fun!

Rain Storm

We had a big rainstorm last month and I'm just now getting to posting the cute video of it. I had just taken Sadie outside to play when it started to rain, so we just stayed out there and she played in it and had a good time!

This is what she did when it stopped raining!

And here's the end result!

Happy Birthday Tanner!

Tanner's birthday was a couple of days ago! He's 27 now! Woohoo! Getting to be an old man :) He had the day off so we had fun, just relaxing and spending time together. We went out to eat and rented some movies to watch and got an ice cream cake. Then the next day we had somebody watch Sadie so we could go see "The Time Traveler's Wife" at the theater. It was really nice! Here are some pics!

The birthday boy!


The birthday banner Sadie and I made him.
I printed it out and she colored it - it was cute!


Sadie and her daddy at the restaurant being silly!

Sadie got her own little drink of fruit punch!
She loved it and got it everywhere!

We got an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen for dessert! Yummy!

Big Girl Bed

Sadie's in a big girl bed! She climbed out of her crib a week or so ago, so we took it down and had her sleeping on her mattress on the floor until today, when we got her a toddler bed! Its so cute but I can't believe she's so big already! I thought the side rails on it would be longer though, so hopefully she learns to stay in it and not fall out! She moves around a LOT when she sleeps, so we'll see. When she slept on her mattress on the floor I had to put her toybox and some of her larger toys around it so she wouldnt' be rolling all over her room throughout the night - which she did a couple of times! Hopefully she'll sleep well in her new bed!