Christmas 2008

Well, Christmas 2008 is now in the books. It was by far the best Christmas experience I have had in a long time. I have always heard that Christmas is more magical in the presence of children, and now I know why. Seeing Christmas through Sarah's eyes brought back all the wonder of the holiday. We really did a lot of great pre-Christmas activities that I hope become traditions. We attended a "walk through the "streets of Bethlehem", drove around spying Christmas lights, attended the Festival of Lights at the Cincinnati Zoo, met Santa, drank lots of hot chocolate (too much) while sitting around watching Sarah's (and my) favorite shows like Rudolph, Frosty, and the Polar Express. Whew! Below you will see how Sarah spent many December days leading up to the arrival of Chrismas.





This season, she became obsessed with Rudolph and Santa. We spent many days pretending to ride a sleigh and drop off gifts to good little girls and boys. One unforseen added plus of the season was my ability to promote good behavior in my little one with the simple phrase "Santa's watching". Her response was always the same. Ok, Ok, I was just kidding Santa! Thanks, Santa for all of your help this season.

On Christmas eve we opted to eat at Applebees rather than creating havoc in the kitchen (havoc would be created the next day instead). Sarah entertained the family by trying her first lemon. I love the fact that she will now try almost any food I offer. Here is the result.

She quickly decided that she likes lemons!




This year, as in many past years, we had an OVER abundance of presents around the tree. My mom LOVES to buy presents for the family and here is the result. As you can see, half the floor is covered with boxes. Sarah had a great time opening all of the presents (she finally has the hang of it). I must admit, I chuckled when she would rip open a box containing clothes and fling it aside, looking for more toys (it reminded me of one of my all-time favorite movies, A Christmas Story. Here she is getting one of the few outfits that she paid any attention... a UK football jersey. Go Cats!


Here is my Dad. His expression says it all. He does not enjoy the opening presents portion of the holiday. I guess he is too frugal for this activity.

Here is Jason and Mom. If I had only known the suprise he had in store for us later in the night... Stay tuned for more information below.



Some of the best presents are not presents at all.



On Christmas Day, our family enjoyed a fest at the Coleman home. We were joined by Ashley's family, Brandy, David, Caden, Cohen, and her dad, Michael. It was a great time to relax and listen to the men swap stories.


The kids spent most of the day playing with toys. (We had to force them to stop long enough to eat a few bites).

Ashley gets some Christmas cuddles from Cohen.

Here is the present of the holiday in Sarah's book. The "Jump-o-leener"

Mom and Dad. We are so glad they came to join us this year. We had a great time with them.

Ashley and Jason. Boy they sure are good at keeping secrets...

Stay tuned.



Before everyone left, we asked for a few family photos.

The Coleman three,

The McReynolds two,

And Surprise! The McReynolds three. Ashley and Jason are having a baby! It is due in July. Congratulations guys! We are so excited to meet the newest member of the family soon.

This is definitely one of my favorite Christmas seasons ever!

Sarah's Birthday Party (part 2)

It seems that Sarah has grown up so much in the past month. She turned three, dropped her nap (ugh!) and is eating more grown up foods like salad, uncooked carrots, pickles, and even lemons (yikes!). It is interesting how fast they really do change. Chris and I just opened up the video vault of the video montages Amy created for us on Sarah's 1st, 2nd, and now 3rd birthday and it is amazing how much they change without you noticing on a day to day basis (yes, I teared up a little). We had already had the huge kiddy style gymnastics party on the 13th, but we wanted to celebrate her true birthday by treating her to one of her favorite restaurants, Darlin' Jeans Apple Cobbler Cafe in Midway. She calls it "the pizza place" (for obvious reasons when trying to remember the name). We love to go there because we do not have to worry about her fussing and not eating once the food is on the table and she loves going there because she stuffs herself on her favorite food in the world, pizza! Here are a few photos and videos of the event. Chris's sister, Amy and mom, JoAnn were able to join us on this night. We love the atmosphere at this location. It is very much a Mom and Pop restaurant and they have live music on the weekends (which Sarah loves). She claps for him after each song when her hands are not covered in pizza sauce. Amy surprised us all with one of the most beautiful birthday cakes I have ever seen! She went to Kroger and asked for a Madagascar cake and boy did she get one! This puts the Sam's club cake from the gymnastics party to shame.

We were lucky to get a front seat in the restaurant. We were front and center for the live music. When the musician noticed it was Sarah's birthday, he asked if he could play her the birthday song. Of course we didn't mind! Here is the video of the song.

One of Sarah's favorite gifts of her birthday came from Aunt Amy. She got her a real accoustic child size guitar (with Tinkerbell on the front to boot). She liked "playing" along with the musician. It was so cute! I told Chris I will have to break this out when she wins her first grammy. What a great third birthday. As I say so often, she is growing up so fast!

Sarah meets Santa

As I said before, this is a very big week for Sarah. She turns 3 on Friday, and she had a great party with friends and family on Saturday. But if you ask her, neither of these rank at the top of her list for the week. She met the closest thing to a superstar in the world of a toddler, Santa Claus! We went up to the Cincinnati Zoo to enjoy their Festival of Lights, a fantastic display of lights, shows, characters, and the great Santa Claus himself. We had a very hectic beginning to the visit (we think everyone in Ohio was there on that day). We were much later getting in than we had hoped, due to the unending traffic. Chris dropped us off to get tickets, and then had to park a half mile away! Amy stood at the gate to hand him his ticket, and Sarah and I headed to our first timed appointment, "The Polar Express 4D experience" We had approximately 20 minutes to find it in the park. It was dark, crowded, and I had to read a map while keeping up with a toddler. Whew! Finally, we found the theater with 10 minutes to spare. The movie was terrific! It was a 15 minute edited version of the Polar Express, complete with smells (hot chocolate), snow literally coming down on your seat, and wind in your face as the train lurched and slid toward the North Pole! Sarah sat in wonder as she watched Santa hand the boy the first gift of Christmas. We had already watched the movie twice this week, but it didn't seem to matter to her. She can't get enough of St. Nick right now!
Next, we moved on to the main event.

We got a quick peek of Santa's reindeer. Check out the expression on Sarah's face. This look was plastered the entire night!

This is the sight she was so overjoyed to see. We told her the reindeer were resting up for their trip back to the North Pole.

We are waiting in line to see Santa Claus. I cannot even get her to take her eyes off of him long enough to snap a photo! This look says it all.

Finally, she focused on me long enough to capture this cheesy smile. She is wired!

Pardon the sound, the little camera didn't know what to do with all of the noise in the background. Just watch her expression and you will see it all.

Here is the finished product. Yes, we paid the unbelievable amount of money for this photo. They would not allow flash photography (I wonder why?), so this is the only documentation of the first meeting. He was a wonderful man who was so sweet and gentle with her (and as an added bonus, his bear was real) She danced to see him and she danced away. He whispered as she was leaving, "she is adorable!" This was the perfect night for our little one!

As an added bonus, Amy took Sarah on the carousel and she was fortunate to find a seat on Marty, I mean the zebra (she is a Madagascar nut!)

Sarah waves in delight.

The park looked so magical at night with the lake and the Christmas tree in the background.

Alas, it is time to go. We had a fantastic night of fun. We will definitely return next year!

Sarah's 3rd Birthday Party!

This is a very big week for our big girl, Sarah. She turns 3 years old this week! We commemorated the occasion with a fantastic gymnastics birthday party! Sarah has never taken gymnastics, but as we were visiting locations for potential parties, she immediately took a liking to this place. It was reasonably priced (relative to other locations), and it had trampolines, foam pits, balance beams, slides, rings, and many other items that were fun for kids (and adults as well). We are ecstatic with the way the party turned out. We went in blissfully ignorant with the whole event (we have never been to a party at this location). At the beginning, party assistant asked us if we would be opening presents. I thought this was an odd question, but I answered "yes". Within 10 minutes of playtime, I knew exactly why she asked this question. The kids were having so much fun, I didn't think we could pull them away for cake or presents. We took a 15 minute break in the middle for cake and ice cream, and I told the assistant I had changed my mind. We came to play, not sit and open presents. I am glad we did. Sarah has great memories of play time with her friends and family. We were overwhelmed with the amount of people who took time out to help us celebrate! These were the most special people in her life all gathered in one place sharing fun and food. What more could a three year old want? check out the many party photos below.

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As I said before, both kids and adults enjoyed this party.

Brandy was right at home in a gymnastics setting. I guess it brought her back to her cheerleading days.

All the kids joined in on a very cute rendition of Happy Birthday.

After the gymnastics party, our immediate family went to a local pizza place to have dinner and allow Sarah to open a few presents.

Sarah has finally gotten the hang of gift opening. Caden is her "helper" in this photo. These two are best friends and though they are not exactly related, they might as well be. Uncle Jason is my brother and aunt Ashley (his wife) is Brandy's sister. This makes Caden our "cousin". Our family tree is so complicated!

Aunt Amy and Papaw Coleman joined us for the event. I just love the look of wonder on kid's (and adults) faces when a cool gift is opened.

We also opened some presents at home. "Mamaw and Papaw from the mountains" bought Sarah some cool Disney princess wigs.Is this Bell or Aunt Ashley? Sarah or Cinderella?

We know that all good things must come to an end. Here is Sarah and Mamaw spending a little more time together before it was time for them to leave. Sarah will have many great memories of this weekend. I love this age because they are experiencing so many things for the first time and loving every minute of it. We feel so blessed to have so many great friends and family members to share these types of milestones.

PS. Stay tuned for Sarah's first Santa meeting. This truly was a big weekend for her!

Play dates a plenty!

Since August, play dates have dwindled dramatically for our little group. I started teaching, sarah began preschool and daycare, and this year, as an added hurdle, one of the founding families in our group, the Allens, moved to Georgia for one year. We have met a few short times this fall, but not as frequently as we would like. What can I say, life happens. But when Julie called to say they would be back in town for an extended stay, we decided to make time for a couple of our favorite gatherings. The first would be at the Coleman household. Check out the fun below.

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We definitely have noticed a difference in the activities the girls choose over the years. This is the first playdate in which dressing up became a major focus. Julie and the family arrived a little late, so I didn't get Maura in the dress up photos. I am sure there will be many more days of dress up in our future.

I especially loved this photo. Doesn't Lily look cute? !

Then we moved on to our first culinary activity ever...Baking and painting gngerbread cookies! Notice Lily using green to it's fullest potential.

Sarah chose to stick with a blue paint with white accent icing (our little Wildcat).

Maura's cookies are in the forground, she chose a rainbow color design. I thought I got her in the photo as well (uh-oh, sorry Maura).

Here is Sarah's finished product. Aren't they cute? (Well, except for the scary eyes) :>)

Later in the week, we met for a second play date at Julie's parents home. We love going here. They have a finished basement and wide open outdoor play spaces. Here is Tristan enjoying all of the action. He is getting so big!

Here is the lovely Maura complete with a new fashionable bob haircut. She says she looks just like her Mommy.

This is Liam, the latest addition to our play dates. He is a neighbor of Julie and Dawn. He is very sweet.

This was the focus of the day: Julie's dog's cage! I promise we did not put them up to this. We could hardly get them out for lunch! Who knew a dog cage could be so much fun!

Before we left, Sarah took the opportunity to run in the yard behind Julie's parents home. They have about five acres and I daydreamed that we will one day have something like this as she ran. It was a great week of fun and friendship. We feel so blessed to have these friends in our lives.

Winter Weekend

Hello everyone,
We braved the VERY cold weather this weekend to visit a Bethlehem Revisited program by a church in Woodford County. They transformed their hallway into the streets of Bethlehem and used a tent in the back for the marketplace and the stable. They had real fish, meat, shoe making, bread, etc. It was very realistic and I really learned a lot about the details of life during the time when Jesus was born. Sarah was a little scared by the "beggar children" crying, but we explained that it was just pretend and she did just fine. She was excited by the many animals in the stable, but she was most excited to see "Baby Jesus" in the arms of his mommy. I have included photos of the visit in the slide show below. It was a great learning tool for Sarah and an enjoyable event for us as well.

I also included some of our attempts to get a quality Christmas photo in front of the tree this weekend. Check your mailbox to see which photos we chose!
Until then, stay warm,