Happy New Year!

I hope all of your holidays were fulfilling, relaxing, exciting, or basically, whatever you hoped they would be. We were both fortunate to have a long break- my last day of work was 12/23 and I am returning today. Redmond is returning next Monday.

I am sorting through about 160-some odd pictures we've taken over the holidays, and while many didn't come out very well, it's still going to take several blog entries to post the good ones. I'll post them in chronological order.

Long story short- we spent Christmas day at home with Mom, then headed for Virginia Beach on the 26th. We stayed at a rustic cabin at First Landing State Park and visited with Robert, Marsha and the twins and my father, returning on the 31st. We tried to cram as many good experiences with Sadie as we could, while still trying to balance some "down time" for all of us. So, I have a lot of different pictures from many different outings.

So, here's today's offering...

First of all, here is a cute picture that was hanging out on my camera's hard drive, unbeknownst to me. It's probably a month or two old now, judging by the fact that Sadie's hair was still in bangs... Also, the kitchen floor actually looks clean, which means this picture was taken before we canceled our housecleaning service... She is wearing Mommy's slouch boots and a bowl on her hair. And a diaper.


On Christmas eve, we took Sadie to Planet Child in Cary, which is essentially very similar to the standard children's museum, sans the promise to make your child become Albert Einstein. She loves this place, especially the train table. I think she spent about an hour carefully playing with the trains. She bravely defended her territory against several older train-oriented boys who sought to abscond with her Percy, James and Thomas. I love that she stood her ground...



This is serious business for Sadie...

Sadie hangs out in the safari wagon with various and sundry animals.

Hugging a giraffe.

Sadie dons a pirate hat and Mommy helps her up the stairs of the pirate ship.

On the pirate ship, staring through some mesh of some sort.

Preparing to perform CPR on a penguin.

Buckethead strikes again!
Sitting on MeeMaw's lap after the adventure...

Here are our Christmas day pictures. On Christmas Eve, Redmond and I had a rare date to the movies. When we returned, we put out the Christmas tree and all the presents. We had stored our tree in a spare bedroom, as Sadie attempted to pull off all the ornaments when we first put it up. Mom came by for breakfast and present unwrapping. Most of these pictures didn't come out very well, as the lighting is weird in my house... Here are the ones that we could use..

Aunt Sylvia gave Sadie the cutest little furry backpack with a stuffed duck inside and a wonderful book. Sadie was happy with her gift!


Don't ask how the bows ended up on Sadie's rear end... I don't think she did it herself...


Sadie got her first real baby doll from MeeMaw, who bought her the Itty Bitty Baby American Girl doll. She's very sweet with her.


Sadie plays with the Little People Pirate Ship we gave her...

Again with the baby...

I'll probably put up the second segment tomorrow, which will be the first set of pictures from our trip to Virginia Beach. Sadie finally decided that her grandfather (she calls him Pee-Paw) was an okay dude, we visit the Children's Museum in Portsmouth, hike at the park, see Lily and Lucas, have a cookout, walk on the beach, and visit the Virginia Beach Aquarium. And I have more pictures from yesterday, when we went to Aviation Park at the airport and took a neighborhood hike...