Five For Friday - Miscellaneous Picture Edition

Miscellaneous pics from this past week:

1. Sade has been sick. Cold, cough. Eric snapped these pictures of her on the couch. Cuddled up in her robe, surrounded by tissues, while eating fun dip (her new candy of choice). I find it funny.




2. For some reason Jackson had the brilliant idea to stamp his forehead. Miraculously it came off.



3. Jacksey also lost his two front teeth this past 2 weeks! I love when they lose these teeth. To me it is beyond cute.




4. Lucky little Sade took cupcakes to pre-school this week for her birthday. Poor Meg and Jackson have not been able to do this because they were both summer babies. But nice for me because it has meant less baking!



An extra couple of pics of my little chef:




5. And lastly, Sade called me into the living room yesterday to show me that her barbies were all doing push-ups. She thought it was pretty cool:




And so do I.

At 4

My teeny-tiny baby Sade is 4 today......

She has mastered recognizing and writing all her upper case, and almost all of her lower-case letters.

She is like Megan and can make a new friend wherever she goes.

She adores make-up.

She likes to get her way, and can scream mighty loud when she doesn't. Mostly at Jackson, when he will not follow her orders.

She loves to draw.

Her favorite colors are pink and purple.

She's not too picky, and is willing to try new things.

Also like Megan she is a T.V. watcher.

She is a great independent player. Which is nice when Megan and Jackson are at school.

She doesn't like to talk about her feelings. At all. When she is uspset, sad, or gets her feelings hurt she totally shuts down.

She LOVES to cook. She always helps me in the kitchen, and is probably more skilled than both Megan and Jackson.

This Christmas season she kept calling Rudolph, red nosed. As in, "Do you think red-nosed is with Santa right now?" I couldn't get enough of it.

She has a model walk that is beyond her years.

She is quite well-behaved, and always says sorry when she does something wrong.

She talks non-stop, especially when we are in the car.

She is partial to dance music, and makes up her own choreography to any song she loves.

She remembers song lyrics easily.

She is always hungry, just like Jackson.

She is still beyond scared of bugs.

When we tickle her, she has taken to saying, "Oh yeah....That feels good. Oh yeah.... that feels good." You have to see it in person to truly appreciate it, but it is hilarious.

She makes each of us laugh every single day.

She no longer wants me to do her hair, and begs me to leave it down everyday. When I acquiesce, she thanks me profusely.

I love her with my whole heart. We are so lucky to have her.

Christmas Day 2011

Santa came!!!

The kids saw the tree and discovered their new bikes, but since we had church at 9am, present opening had to wait until we got home. Poor Santa was so busy on Christmas Eve, Sadie's bike was still boxed up. Luckily she has a handy Daddy that could put it together for her.

We opened up our stockings first:

Then moved onto the main event: Present Opening!  Megan received things like clothing, shoes, lots of accessories (arm warmers, hair things, hats), jewelry, art supplies, i-tunes gift cards, make-up, and accessories for her room.

Jackson received more Wall Tracks, every imaginable ball you can think of (soccer ball, kick ball, football, etc.), books (he has become a big reader), Lego's, other HotWheels toys, and a BB gun:

Sade received, dolls of every kind (baby dolls, Barbie, paper, magnetic), Princess things of every kind (make-up, p.j.'s, bubble bath), furniture for her doll house, ironing board, etc....

Eric and I also received lots and lots of cool stuff, but I won't bore you with a list:

We spent the rest of the afternoon opening toys (the worst job-I hate that hard plastic), and then playing with them:

Late in the afternoon, Eric and I told the kids we had one last Christmas surprise for them. Jackson immediately asked if it was a 4-Wheeler. Um...no. They were going to have to go on a treasure hunt around the neighborhood to find out what it was. Eric made up the clues, and believe me when I tell you, they were super-impressive. He has extreme rhyming talent. We headed outside, read the first clue, jumped on our new bikes, and went on the search:

Eventually the clues led us back home, to these miniature stockings that had replaced our big ones:

Inside the kids discovered the surprise:

Disneyland Tickets!!!

Which I won the week before Christmas on the radio! I am on a streak. In case you haven't kept track, last year (2011), I won:

1. Tickets to Legoland, and then the Grand Prize which included hotel and gas card.

2. Tickets to Terry Fator

3. Tickets to Rihanna

4. Disneyland Tickets!

It was a very Merry Christmas!

See Christmas Eve post below...............

Christmas Eve - 2011

Christmas Eve was low-key, nice, and perfect this year. We had Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner, which is not somewhere I ever go, and it was surprisingly highly enjoyable! Who knew? We started the festivities off by each opening a present:

Sade's went first. She decided to open a present Jackson gave her. I happened to know what this present was (a Princess phone that she had lost months ago, and Jackson found under the couch), and tried to dissuade her. But, she insisted. I was a bit worried she would be disappointed, but she was thrilled! She kept telling Jackson, "Thank you, I love it", over and over again:

Jackson's present ended up being HotWheels Wall Tracks, which was the number one item on his Christmas wish list:

Megan ended up opening these boots, which she LOVED:

I opened up a necklace from Megan, which was beautiful:

And Eric opened up this cool Christmas tie, so he could wear it to church in the morning:

Then we decorated Gingerbread houses. I bought this awesome 5 house kit, so each of us decorated one. Well, except for Eric. He was too busy hot gluing the houses together, and ran out of time:

We did some Santa tracking:

And of course, left some treats and milk for Santa and the reindeer:

Then we eagerly awaited the big mans arrival.