Holiday adventures

It has been a hectic couple of weeks. We traveled to see Heather's family in Alabama, and from that we learned that Sara Beth does not like sleeping in hotel rooms. It is a 12 hour drive from Dallas to Decatur, so when we left around 4pm, we drove until 1am. Sara Beth decided to not go to sleep until Heather climbed into the play pen with her at around 4am. While in Alabama, once she got used to her Great-Grandpa's apartment, she slept fairly well, but since she was in the same room as Heather and I, we had to be very quiet the whole night to prevent her from waking up prematurely. She got to try her first Coca-Cola when her Great Grandpa offered her one. I helped her drink it, as I think she would still be awake if she had all that sugar and caffene at one time.

Sara Beth also got to enjoy some extra TV time. At first she seemed confused that there was not a football game playing on the TV screen, but she got used to it after a while.


We had a good time, though she didn't want to get near the mall Santas, however, it was good to come home. The day after we got back, Sara Beth ran back and forth through the house, reassuring herself that it was all still in the right place. She then sat in the back yeard in her doll stroller and relaxed, mostly staring at our peach tree and enjoying the Texas winter.



That weekend, we put up the Christmas decorations. Heather and I couldn't tell whether it was the cats or Sara Beth who was pulling down most of the ornaments from the bottom half of the tree. We suspect Sara Beth did most of it, but we could never be sure.

For Christmas Eve, Sara Beth got dressed up and smiled for the camera with her mom.


When Heather and I swapped positions, Sara Beth didn't seem to be as pleased with the setup.


Sara Beth did enjoy opening gifts on Christmas.


But she did seem to enjoy the wrapping paper and boxes more. Heather and I bought her a "big girl kitchen" since she seemed to use her old kitchen as a jungle gym. But I think Sara Beth enjoys playing in the box as much as the kitchen that the box is sitting in. She will hide in the box and then burt out in a big "peek a boo" moment and then retract back into the box doing her best impression of an oversized cute trap door spider.

One of the toys that Sara Beth got for Christmas was a cookie set. The wooden cookies have velcro on each side of them allowing them to be attached end to end into one long cookie dough cylinder. Just today I demonstrated to her how to use the wooden knife to split the dough cylinder into individual cookie pieces. Sara Beth giggled uncontrollably while detaching each cookie and as soon as they were all separated, she wanted me to velcro them back together so that she could repeat the process again. I tried to help her hold the knife the way that would bring the most cutting force to bear on the velcro bonds, but Sara Beth seemed to laugh the hardest as she heald the knife and stabbed the blocks perpendicular to the direction and tried to stab the cookies. Either way, it was a great time.