Crimmas!

So here are the first pics from Sadie's first Christmas. This is the Cox family Christmas, because Mandi was a lot quicker at uploading her pictures than I am.

Coincidentally, if you're looking for someone to do some professional photography for you, Mandi is the best. She's got a great portfolio. You can check her out at www.tfbpro.com. Seriously, check it out.

Anyways, Christmas was such a great time with Sadie and with our families. It started on Sunday, with us spending Christmas Adam (apparently that's a real thing. Didn't know it until that day) with my family at my Mom and Dad's. Steph stayed at Mom and Dad's house with my mom, and Kyle, Hillary and myself went with my dad to help with the Christmas services at the Alzheimer's unit and Nursing home where Dad is the Campus Administrator and Chief Ministry Officer. That was a lot of fun. We sang a few Christmas Carols and Dad talked for a few minutes at the Alzheimer's unit, then we repeated that and added a longer sermon at the nursing home. We headed home after that and ate breakfast for lunch. Sausage casserole, eggs, potatoes, bacon, sausage gravy, all that healthy good stuff that goes with Christmas.
After lunch, it was present time. Sadie got first dibs (and coincidentally, the most presents) and she loved unwrapping presents. Now, it wasn't because she wanted the present. It was because she wanted to eat the paper. Sadie got a table thing that helps her stand up and plays music and a bunch of other stuff, she got a ton of outfits (cutest thing: Carhart overalls so she can match daddy) and a blanket that Kyle and Hillary made that smelled just awesome. After unwrapping presents, we spent the rest of the day and evening just hanging out and enjoying each others company. It was a lot of fun, and quite relaxing. I'll have a video and some pictures of that soon.

Monday we took it easy in the morning and then headed to my grandmother's house for lunch. We ate barbecue and then opened presents. We didn't stay there very long, but it was great to see my grandparents and aunt and uncle. Again, Sadie loved opening the presents.

Christmas Day was spent at the Cox Family Farm. I'll post more details about that shortly, but here are some pics to tide you over.

Sadie absolutely loves when we read to her. It captivates her.

 She also loves dogs. She hasn't figured out the gentle thing yet, it's more like grabbing until the dogs run away.

 What would Christmas be without a little hunting? This was killed by uncle Bryan

 SANTA!!!!

And a Sadie photobomb. With uncle Marcus and uncle Bryan

Photo Dump!

Alright, this is the first in a series of photo dumps. I'll be posting a ton of pictures over the next few days to mark the past few months.

As an update, Sadie is now standing up with great ease and is getting ever so close to crawling. She can get on all fours and sort of rock, so it's only a matter of time. Maybe she'll learn this week and can be crawling in time to spend Christmas on Sunday with Grammy and Papa John. 

She's getting more and more active, pulling on us to stand up. She's also reaching out for us and other familiar faces.

We had our first sick days over this past weekend. I've been working backstage at the Nutcracker at Carolina Theatre, and so Steph's been on her own for the past couple of weeks. Sadie got sick on Saturday and was pretty fussy and throwing up a lot. Steph had a gig at the Vino shoppe, so I got home from the theatre and let her go straight to the Shoppe. I hate I missed it, but Sadie was not up to going out anywhere.

Anyways, here are some pics!

My birthday weekend: Chateau Morrisette

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Sadie on the weekend we got our Christmas Tree (12/3/12)

Alan's having a new porch build at the farm. The wood in the background is the old porch.

The two most beautiful women in the world.

Uncle Marcus and Me. Hamming it up.

Mandi's birthday party, the second weekend of September 2012

Trying out new camouflage at the tree farm.

Updates

Man, I'm behind. So much has happened over the past few weeks, and I don't have that many pics right now. They're all on our camera instead of our iphones, so it takes forethought and planning to get them on the blog. They will come, they will come.

Just a few quick updates to tease the pictures that will be here soon.

Thanksgiving was a huge success. The Vernon and Cox families all got together at our house for one huge Thanksgiving meal. We had 16 people there, and it was a ton of fun. We'll have to do it again next year.

Sadie was baptized on Sunday the 25th of November. It was a huge deal for us and a very meaningful and deeply significant thing.

We went to Sparta this past Sunday and got our first Christmas tree with Sadie. She loved being outdoors, and she loves looking at the tree.

Sadie turned 6 months old on 11/24. Her 6 month checkup showed that she weighs 17 pounds and is 25 inches tall. She's a growing girl!

She had her first chiropractic visit as well. She does this thing when she's focusing on something where she tilts her head and bends to one side. It's pretty funny looking, but we wanted to make sure her neck wasn't bothering her or anything. Looks like everything's ok for now.

Sadie has started standing up with our help. When she's laying down, we hold her hands and say, "Ready Ready!" and she pulls up. She's been doing this for quite a while, but just to get to the sitting up position. Now she's pushing off when she gets to the fully upright position, and she can push all the way to standing. She's still not crawling, but the doctor said that's because we never put her down. She kicks her legs and moves her arms, but she can't figure out how to get that belly off the ground. I put her on all fours last night, but she kept sticking her butt in the air so she could stand up.

She's growing so fast, it's crazy. We're getting into the initial stages of stranger anxiety, she's excited when she sees familiar faces, and she's saying her first words. So far, we've got Mama and Nana. She's making sounds that will lead to Papa (both her grandfathers are called Papa), but no "D" sounds yet. I guess I'll have to wait for Dada. All I know is that this Christmas is going to be awesome.

As I said, more to come. But that's what's going on in our lives. And, what would a post be without any pictures?

Here's our Christmas Tree. I think we got a little over zealous with the whole "this is Sadie's first Christmas tree" thing. It's by far the largest tree we've ever bought, at about 8 feet tall. We had to buy more ornaments because we didn't have enough!

And here's Sadie practicing her face that she'll use when I tell jokes. Clearly, she is not amused.

And finally, the many faces of Sadie Grey, as taken by Nanny Kate