Thanksgiving with the Lehtinens

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with friends and family! We had a nice relaxing long weekend in our home. Mimi and Papa Bagwell were able to be with us to celebrate Thanksgiving, so that was nice. I took my first stab at preparing a complete Thanksgiving dinner, and I must say it turned out pretty darn good! Sarah really enjoyed eating all the good food...she was quite a piggy! She also discovered that she LOVES Papa's plain pound cake. Most of you know that Sarah has never been a fan of sweet foods (she clearly does not take after her Mommy in that respect), so to see her pointing at the cake on the counter and then shoveling it into her mouth as fast as she could was quite a sight to behold!

My mom and I did out typical Black Friday shopping the day after Thanksgiving. It was neat to do our shopping in Winston-Salem this year as opposed to Greenville. I felt that things were a bit more tame here in Winston-Salem than they are back home, but that may be because the Greenville shopping experience is all I have ever known. Anyway, we got some good deals, and we got quite a bit of our shopping done so that was a relief!

We also took advantage of the long weekend to drag down all the Christmas decorations from the attic and put up our tree. I absolutely HATE putting the lights on the tree, which is due to the perfectionist in me that wants the tree to have 1000 lights on it and look perfect. So this year Duane took a stab at the lights, and he did a fantastic job! And in half the time it would have taken me to do it! So the tree is all done, and we are excited to have such a long time to enjoy it before it is time to take it down and pack it away for another year. We didn't get to do much decorating otherwise...the curiosity of an extremely mobile toddler does not mix well with breakable decorations!

Sarah has really enjoyed the Christmas season so far! We took her to see the Tanglewood Festival of Lights this year, which she really enjoyed once we located her paci that had dropped out of her mouth mid-way thorough the park. She also LOVES the Christmas tree. Every day when she sees it, she points to it and says "That" over and over, and giggles and prances around in front of it. She was daddy's little helper when Duane was putting the lights on the tree...she would follow him in circles around the tree holding onto the string of lights and wrapping herself up in them. Like most families with little ones, we have resorted to wrapping the giant baby gate around the tree to avoid any unfortunate mishaps with Sarah and the tree. So while the tree is really pretty, the gate definitely takes away from the ambiance! Still, there is nothing like experiencing the joy of the holidays through the eyes of a child!

We are looking forward to Christmas. Duane and I have our work Christmas party on December 14th, and we are trying to find a weekend somewhere along the way that we can have some of our friends over for a nice visit. We will be celebrating Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in our own home this year. Grammy and Paka Lehtinen will be coming up to visit on Christmas Day, so we are looking forward to being able to celebrate with them. And we are planning to head down to Greenville for the New Year to celebrate with Mimi and Papa, Great Grandma Kathleen, and Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Marisa. It is also Mimi's birthday, so it will be nice to help her celebrate her birthday as well.

November Updates

Since I have been so delinquent in updating this month, I thought I would go ahead and post today and catch you all up on Sarah's life before the hoildays are upon us...I am sure there will be LOTS to write about then!

Let's see...where to start? I had to go out of town for work again at the beginning of the month. This month's travels took me to Orlando for the American Heart Association annual meeting. The meeting was alright, I made it through my presentation, and I did manage to do a little shopping at some of the great outlets there so all-in-all it was an okay trip. And at least it was a short one this time-I was only gone 3 days! Again, Sarah was a good girl for her daddy, which makes it a bit easier for me emotionally when I have to leave her for several days.

Other big news this month-Sarah is FINALLY drinking her milk from a cup!!!!!! We took her bottles away completely at the instruction of the pediatrician, who assured us that she would eventually give in and drink the milk from a cup. Well, we learned just how stubborn our little munchkin is! She basically didn't drink for about 6 days, which turned her into a cranky baby who was inconsolable for several nights. I finally did some reading online and we tried adding food coloring to the milk, adding chocolate syrup to the milk...everything we could come up with to make the milk look and smell more exciting! When those efforts failed, we decided to try soy milk as our last alternative, and wouldn't you know that was the winner! So now she is drinking vanilla soy milk from her sippy cups like a good girl! We are planning to slowly try mixing the soy milk with regular whole milk, in the hopes that we can gradually transition her to drinking plain whole milk...the soy milk is getting expensive-guess we already have a high-maintenance girl on our hands!

Sarah is now walking EVERYWHERE, and running a lot of the time as well. She has begun to exert her independence when we are out and about in public. She puts up a fight when we put her in the shopping cart now because she would rather be walking. So sometimes we let her walk through the stores, and other times we have to corral her in the shopping cart and entertain her with lots of toys! And we can forget about eating out at a nice restaurant now! She does NOT want to be held while we are waiting for a table, she would rather be walking around and getting into trouble. So after waiting for a table for 20 minutes this weekend and seeing what a disaster it was with her walking around the restaurant while we waited, we abandoned that idea and went to Fudrucker's instead where the atmosphere is a little more family-friendly!

She is also continuing to expand her vocabulary. She is using "Hi" and "Bye-Bye" reliably now and uses them in the appropriate context. She is also using "Ma-ma" and "Da-da" appropriately now. She still says "Uh-oh" and "Thank-you" and she has recently started saying "Pah" which is her word for her paci. She can definitely let us know what she wants by pointing to things, too.

Last weekend we traveled to Clinton, SC to meet up with Mollie (my college roommate) and her daughter Kelty. It was so nice to spend time with both of them and to get to see all the recent changes and updates on the Presbyterian College campus. We even ran into some current Tri-Sigma sorority sisters and had our pictures made with them!

We are looking forward to the upcoming holidays! This year, we will be celebrating at our home in Winston-Salem rather than traveling. We decided that it is now important for us to begin our own family traditions with Sarah, so we will be at home for both Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. Mimi and Papa Bagwell are going to be with us for Thanksgiving, so we are looking forward to having some time with them. Hopefully they can help us keep Sarah entertained while I cook!

Here are some recent photos of Sarah and her latest activities! Hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving...I'll post more next week!

Sarah enjoys "reading the newspaper" with Daddy every weekend! We just give her the store flyers, and she can entertain herself for hours!

Goofing off in her bunny slippers with her crazy hair!

Allison and Mollie were roommates from 1996-1999...maybe Sarah and Kelty will be roommates 18 years from now!



The GIRLS and the BABY GIRLS in front of the fountain at PC!



Sarah discovered how to rock in her little rocking chair at Mimi and Papa's house!


Daddy's little helper carrying her wrenches!

Happy Halloween

Sarah definitely enjoyed her first trick-or-treating experience! We visited several houses in the neighborhood, and Sarah just smiled and "talked" to everyone that opened their door. She got lots of treats, most of which she is too young to eat, but at least she is too young to know the difference! She really enjoyed walking around the neighborhood and seeing all the other kids in their costumes.

Here are some pictures of our busy bumble bee last night!

Look at my trick-or-treat bag!



Checking out her loot after all the excitement

Can I eat this?!

Our bumble bee from behind