Merry Christmas!

Sarah's first Christmas was so much fun (and so exhausting, too!) :-) On Christmas Eve, we got up early and went to a big lunch in Sandy Springs with my mom's side of the family. The food was so tasty, and it was great to see all of the Grant family cousins and babies that we there. Our group is getting large! After lunch, we went back to my parents' house for the afternoon. Mimi and Pawpaw (Jeremy's parents) got there just in time to visit with Sarah before we all headed out to church. After church, we all went back to my parents' house for dinner. Sarah was such a good sport for such a busy day. She napped in the car during most of the rides which gave her just enough energy to make it through to the next car ride :-)

Mimi, Pawpaw, Sarah, and I finally got back to our house around 10:00, and we all crashed fast. Jeremy had to sing at the 11:00 p.m. church service and he didn't get home until 1:00 a.m.! We still had to wake up early on Christmas morning to get everything done in time to be back at Nana and Papa's (my parents) for Christmas there. Sarah loved being surrounded by presents. She was not too interested in her stocking (only the rice toast inside!), but she loved all of the ribbons, bows, and tissue paper on the presents. She also loved all of her new toys. Her favorite new "big" toys are her Sing Along Stage and her Discovery Sounds Kitchen :-)

After opening presents at our house and at Nana and Papa's, we all headed over to Aunt Mary's for Christmas dinner. There, Sarah was the star---the only baby so she got to show off all of the new things she can do all afternoon (that is, until Grant and Morgann's adorable new toy poodle, Ella, showed up---it was really funny watching Sarah and Ella interact...).


Sarah did a great job with all of the fun family events and with little napping. The best part is that she spent today catching up on her sleep, so Jeremy and I had plenty of time to put our house back together after all of the commotion. We also gave Sarah her own playroom this morning because the den ran out of room for all of her new things (bye bye dining room!) :-)

Practicing for Christmas

Sarah's babysitter, Ms. Heather, went way overboard with the presents this year, so on Friday we decided to let Sarah have a "practice Christmas morning." She opened all of her fun new toys and clothes from Ms. Heather, Rachael, and Mr. Lance. She was so excited to see so many new toys and she started grabbing for them all as soon as we helped her open them. After the practice session, she had enough new things that we thought about hiding the rest of the presents that were under the tree-couldn't we just save them for her birthday? :-)

Santa Claus!

Sarah saw Santa for the first time on Saturday at Partee's Winter Wonderland. She didn't seem to mind sitting in his lap, but she was too distracted by the balloons across the room to look at the camera and smile :-)

Sarah's babysitter's daughter, Rachael, was SO excited to see Santa at breakfast.

Sick Day

We all had a sick day on Saturday :-( Sarah had some sort of bug that appeared off and on all week, and it finally got to Jeremy and me this weekend. Thankfully, it only lasted one day--yuck! We were all so pathetic at our house on Saturday, but all is well now! Jeremy was really worried because he had a solo at church this morning--he was so sure he was not going to make it, but he managed to pull through and sounded fantastic. Sarah also feels really bad that she got her babysitter's whole family and her nana sick as well--oops. In spite of the bug, we managed to get some cute pictures on Saturday of Sarah learning how to open a present and Sarah playing in her "sleeping bag."

Thanksgiving Fun

Sarah enjoyed her first Thanksgiving, especially getting to eat rice cereal, green beans, and applesauce all in one meal! We all had a great time in Greenville with Mimi, Pawpaw, Uncle Joseph, and Aunt Alecia. I was sick until the day before we left with strep throat, but Sarah seems to have missed it, thank goodness. Now Jeremy is sick, but hopefully it is just a cold that will pass quickly.

Happy Fall!

Since it's been a couple of weeks since the last post, I am posting Sarah's new fall pictures, taken with my mom's cute scarecrow :-) Also, a Christmas preview to get you into the spirit....

Happy Halloween!

Sarah thoroughly enjoyed her first Halloween and her first trick-or-treating experience! Jeremy and I had a great time at Leslie's birthday/Halloween party as well :-) Since this was already such a busy week, we decided to start giving Sarah some rice cereal, too! She loves eating, but she is still spitting a lot of it back out (I don't blame her--it looks disgusting!)I will post the pictures when they start working...

4 Month Check-Up

Sarah had her 4-month check up yesterday, and everything went great. She had to get 4 more shots, but she did really well--she only cried for 10 minutes this time and then was her happy self :-) The doctor gave her a good report--she is very healthy. She is 14 pounds 3 oz (61st percentile) and 25 3/4 inches (91st percentile). She had a growth spurt since her last check-up!

Sarah's latest thing is rolling over from her back to her belly. She can roll both ways, but lately she only likes to go one way and then pretend she's stuck. She rolls herself over almost immediately every time we put her down on her back, including at bedtime. So we have gotten used to watching her sleep on her belly smushed way up in the corner of her crib and letting her do it even though it makes us nervous--what choice do we have? If we move her she just goes right back. I guess she is a big girl now who does what she wants and she will be ok :-)

Weekend with Mimi and Pawpaw

Mimi and Pawpaw (Jeremy's parents) came to visit for the weekend, and Sarah had a great time dressing up in her Halloween costumes, snuggling, and going to "big church" for her baptism. What a busy weekend! Mimi and Pawpaw probably barely recognized Sarah since she is so much bigger than she was the last time they saw her. They had such a great time that they said they can't wait that long to see her again--Sarah is just irresistable :-)

Sarah was in a pretty good mood all weekend, but we think she is seriously teething. She has gotten sooooo drooly and always wants to bite on her fingers, our fingers, toys, books, just about anything! She was a trooper at church--she usually goes to the nursery so sitting in the sanctuary for the beginning of the service was new to her. The organ got really loud and scared her half to death which made her let out a blood-curldling scream. It mortified me but everyone else probably just thought it was funny :-) She cried a little more off and on while waiting for her turn up front, but when the pastor finally held her she put on her charms and started chatting with the congegation, which they all enjoyed.

Fall Festival and Fun New Toys

Last weekend, we had fun at the Partee Fall Festival. Sarah played the duck color matching game, and she went fishing and won Jeremy a bouncy ball :-) Mostly she enjoyed getting passed around from relative to relative all day. This week she also started playing in her new bouncer--so much fun!

Sarah's First Photo Shoot

Sarah had her first professional photos taken last weekend at Portrait Innovations. They did a super job, and Sarah cooperated for the long ordeal. We only ordered 3 poses but we got to keep the CD with all of the pictures :-)

Sleepover with Nana and Papa

Sarah spent the weekend with my parents while Jeremy and I went on a retreat with our church. She did so great that my mom didn't want to give her back to us on Sunday! I told her that we will have no trouble planning another weekend away :-) It was really nice to have some time to myself on Saturday and Sunday while Jeremy was singing with the choir. It's amazing how many things you can do in one day without a baby to entertain! We were definitely ready to see Sarah again by the time we came home, though. Look what Sarah did to her little nose on Monday night! Those nails grow faster than I can cut them!

Sarah's First 5K

Sarah finished her first 5K road race with me on Saturday--she was having so much fun on the course that she fell asleep! I was glad she slept, though, because that meant I didn't have to keep stopping to put her pacifier back in her mouth. It was the farthest I have run since last fall and by the end I was pooped!

Back to Work

My first day back at work was Tuesday. It was really hard to get in the mode to go to work, especially since I had to leave Sarah all day (10 hours!)with her new sitter. However, Sarah had tons of fun with Mrs. Heather and her daughter, and she probably did not miss me at all :-) Heather is doing a fabulous job with Sarah so I have no worries about leaving her each day. Everything went pretty smoothly both with getting Sarah off to Heather's and returning to work--it's almost like I never left!

Go Dawgs!

Sarah watched her first UGA football game (on TV) last Saturday-Go Dawgs! She loved staring at the tv screen with all of the colors going back and forth. She also took her first trip to the park on Thursday--boy was it hot!