Welcome to our World

Before I attack the Christmas posts, I wanted to add some pictures from random days in December. Above: A tribute to how patient Meigou is with her little sister. We watched Marley & Me while in Utah and I missed my lab so much! No, I don't think you understand what I mean. I missed her so much I called my parents to ask to "talk" to her over the phone. My dad graciously gave me a play-by-play of everything Meigou had done since we left town. If you read the book (like I did last year) or watch the movie, just remember to insert Dan & Sarah for John & Jenny and you'll have the general jist of our married lives thus far. Meigou the great entertainer. She likes to drop the ball from the balcony to the family room & have you throw it back for her to catch. This variation on the game was given a point system: if Meigou caught the ball, the children got a point. If she didn't catch the ball, I (who was doing the throwing) DID NOT get a poi...

With Kaelah outgrowing her 12-18 moths pjs, she was left with only pink & one set of red pjs. Danny is usually the one to put Kaelah to sleep at night, and really hated putting her in something pink all the time. So, my parents & I set out on a hunt for NOT pink pajamas. Here are some pictures of her in her new Curious George jammies Gma & Gpa bought enjoying her bedtime stories and milk.  I also got a pair of light blue pjs that were wintery but very girly at the same time.  So now night time is a bit happier for everyone.  (: "stars" in the baby signs book "toothbrush" "shhh" bunny is sleeping (from Pat the Bunny) "feel Daddy's scratchy face" just turning the page, but I thought it was cute

After realizing some of our friends had the same tradition of adding a special ornament to the tree each year, we decided we should take pictures of ours and share them with you. 2003: Our first Christmas as a married couple 2004: Our first Christmas in Colorado (This was actually the 2nd one I bought b/c 9-month-old Meigou ate the first one.) 2005: A ferry saying "Bainbridge Island" from our trip to WA & BC 2006: The Empire State Building commemorating our trip to NYC 2007: Kaelah's 1st Christmas 2008: A trolley from our day in San Francisco (the ones in Hawaii were 4x the price & not as cute) So I guess we get ornaments from our big trips, except for years we don't vacation. What are your special ornaments from?

A little bit of exciting news this evening.   My (Dan's) parents just received their mission call to ... They were called to the Buenos Aires West Mission they report in March.  My father served his mission in Argentina so I'm sure he can't wait to remove all the rust from his Spanish.  My mother, on the other hand, is in for an adventure.  They will be wonderful missionaries, congratulations Mom & Dad.    

While we had the house turned up-side-down, we figured we would had the photo collage we had been talking about for ages. And the fact that Hobby Lobby had frames 50% didn't hurt either. We walked out only spending $15! Talk about cheap makeovers for a wall! Here is a glimpse of where the frame pictured below used to hang. We also decided the orange slip cover we have been eying would go sooo well with the hard wood floors.... And now there are pictures above the sofa where a wooden screen of my grandmother's had been. That wood did not go sooo well with the new flooring. Here's Kaelah showing off the new carpet & how it looks next to the wood. It was our 3rd choice in carpet. We were limited to whatever had been discontinued since allergy friendly carpet is more expensive. Sure, stick it to the people who already don't feel good! We'll see in the spring if any of this helped Kaelah out after all. I'm thinking it will due to the picture found here:...

Kaelah finds her swimming pool much more enjoyable now that there is no water involved. Well, at least I know I didn't waste money on her big birthday present after all. See how she sticks her tongue out when she is concentrating? Dan does too. Climb climb climb. Kaelah love to climb. Kaelah loves to climb anything. Climb climb climb. I really wish I had gotten a picture of her reading one of her scrapbooks in the middle of our counter-top height dinning room table... with yogurt left over from breakfast all over her hands. I have a feeling our little girl will soon be climbing out of her crib! Dan got out the ladder to put up our Christmas lights and that proved to be fun to climb on too. And yes, I let her climb a ladder at 16-months-old. The farthest she ever made it up was the first rung, so I wasn't too worried. At least I pretended not to be. Here's proof 美狗 already knows which human will be most likely to throw the ball when we are doing something like yard...

The mystery of what will happen now that Kaelah can walk in the snow is now solved. She will fake cry because she can't move her hands very well in the attached mittens of her snowsuit (mine when I was a little girl). Meanwhile, 美狗 did what she has always done in the snow -- running around in giant circles as fast as she can! My girls are very different in nature, yes? Kaelah continued to simply watch 美狗 have fun until we went inside. (: