christmas with the shermans

We spent Christmas evening at my parents' house...but not until after we all took a little nap!!!
My brother, Jordie, and his wife, Ashley, were running late, so we had plenty of time to lounge around before getting started with Christmas activities! Sammi loves watching Jungle Book with grandpa! 
Grandma and grandpa's house is special because Sammi is allowed to (and encouraged to) jump on their bed! :) That's what grandmas and grandpas are for...to break all the rules! :) They play "1, 2, 3", where they swing her in a blanket and toss her into the bed. She loves it!!! (Note the first photo above too.) :)

Sammi was also allowed to open a few presents while we waited. Her first one was a toaster, which she loved and cheered for each time the toast was done! 
She opened a few My Little Ponies too!
As soon as Jordie and Ashley arrived we ate a fabulous dinner! Of course, the only thing Sam would eat was fruit.....she is such a finicky eater!!!!!
Then it was present time again. :) Sammi got this cute Christmas blanket from J & A and immediately dropped to the floor and asked to be covered up by it!
She also got this My Little Pony that talks and crawls. She LOVES it!

She got lots of stuff from grandma and grandpa, including a kitchen set packed with dishes, food, and a shopping cart!
She certainly was worn out by the end of the evening! We put her to bed so that we could play some games before heading home. 
Thanks so much, mom and dad, for having us over! We really enjoyed seeing you and spending Christmas with you! MERRY CHRISTMAS, Mom, Dad, Jordie, and Ashley!

christmas morning at home

We came back from Fort Wayne late last night--but that didn't stop Sammi from coming in to see us at 7:00 this morning!!! :) We started the morning with some Christmas cartoons in bed, then headed downstairs to make hash brown casserole, fruit smoothies, and leftover chocolate croissants from Fort Wayne (like I really needed to eat another one)! :)

Although she doesn't really get the whole concept of Santa yet, it turns out that she is at a perfect age to unwrap presents! She understood what presents were, was so excited to open each one, but isn't into that greedy age yet where she just jumps from present to present. :) She wanted to play with every single gift after she opened it and we had to entice her to move on to another one each time! :) 

We (finally) decided to do a few small gifts for Christmas this year and are thinking about one larger gift for her birthday. She loved them all! Another thing about this age... we could have wrapped up cardboard boxes and she would have loved them all! :)

Mommy helped her open her Mickey Mouse books, but she did a great job with the wrapping paper herself!

Daddy helped her open a few too...

Her Dora bouncy ball was a favorite!

She and daddy played a lot of toss and keep-away this morning!

She's getting really good at throwing!

Daddy thought it would be funny to make Sammi look like mommy with her Dora ball in her shirt!!!  :)

Mommy had fun playing too.

Daddy is good at drawing elephants so Sammi wanted him to draw one for her in her new MagnaDoodle. 

We had a wonderful, calm, fun, sweet morning with Sammi and now we're ALL going to go take a nap before heading to Grandma and Grandpa Sherman's house this afternoon!!! :) And, for those who know me well, you'll be happy to know that I am officially over the fact that I didn't get up the energy to do all of the holiday decorating this year as usual! Having my family with me truly is all that matters!!!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS, SAMMI AND DANNY! I LOVE YOU!

(And a fun fact...our Christmas tree is full of ornaments from Dan's childhood, which his mom sent down to us to keep recently. He put them on the tree late last night since we still hadn't gotten all of my boxes of ornaments down from the attic!!! It was so cute and just perfect!)

christmas with the brands

We spent Christmas Eve in Fort Wayne with Dan's family and had so much fun! We were supposed to drive up Tuesday evening but the ice on the roads caused us to wait until Wednesday morning to leave. Dan's brother, Steve, tried to get through it and spent 3 hours on I-69 to go 7 miles---then decided to stop at our house instead and go up in the morning like us. It was CRAZY weather!

Dan's mom Kathe is one of the most creative and thoughtful people I know and she always does the most unique things for Christmas! This year she made all of our stockings out of cute animal slippers!

Sammi loved opening her stocking, full of toys, bracelets, and chapstick!

She also got SO MANY awesome toys (so much more than what's pictured even) from her aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandma and grandpa, including Dora dolls...

Books (which Uncle Steve read to her)...

And Aunt Krystal did too....

Her own (kid) laptop...

A toy chest full of dress up clothes (which she is wearing in the first photo)...

She was having a lot of fun with those slippers all day...

Lots of Mickey Mouse stuff....including a Mickey movie to play in her new DVD system for the car!

Her very own first scooter...

Brad couldn't wait to open he and his brother's gift from their aunts and uncles and cousin Sam...

Everyone was excited to explore the Power Wheels Hybrid Cadillac with real working radio stations! :) 

Kathe always does a "Cool Yule Tool" for all the guys, and this year they got these hilarious hats with working lights on the front!!!

Sammi actually did really well for her first scooter attempt! It was funny how long her strides were!!!

We had such a relaxing and enjoyable time with everyone and wish we could have stayed much longer. We ate so much of Kathe's wonderful food---a huge brunch, then late lunch, then dinner too, all homemade--- that I just might pop! I didn't want to come home!!! We appreciate all of the amazing, amazing gifts we got from everyone. We are so spoiled and so blessed to have such giving families. THANK YOU SO MUCH, Orlie, Kathe, Scott, Jenny, Brad, Ryan, Steve, and Krystal!!!!!!!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

christmas cookies

We wanted to do something special for Sammi's teachers for Christmas, and decided it would be a fun project to make them cookies so that Sam could help decorate them. It was so fun!!! But, her teachers will be very glad to know that the cookies they are actually getting tomorrow were not handled by Sammi's hands!!!! :) 

We put all of the decorating supplies out while I was still mixing the icing, which meant that Sammi immediately jumped into the mini M&Ms! She was allowed to have a few of her own in her cup. 

But that didn't stop her from getting more, more, more!!!

Mmmmm... sugar is goooood...

Mommy and daddy took turns helping her with the icing and sprinkles...

But each cookie became un-givable because she kept licking her fingers and eating the toppings!

Boy, she had a good time though!

After Sammi went to bed, we finished the cookies that got packaged as gifts! :)

They actually turned out cute and they're really tasty too! (I mean....not that we would know!) We saved a few for Santa too. :) I don't think he'll mind if they're a couple of days old.

holiday parties n stuff

We've been very busy this holiday season! We've been going to holiday parties, shopping for Christmas, preparing for baby, all along with running the business & shooting weddings through it all!!!

Sammi is still sleeping in her big girl bed perfectly! (I don't know how she sleeps with all those toys!) She did fall out of bed one night and the crash alone woke me right up! I ran in to a very startled, crying little girl... but once I held her for a few minutes she went right back to bed. I lined the floor with pillows and know that we need to get some rails!

She finally learned that she can open her door and get out in the morning, so the last few mornings we've gotten up to a little voice outside our door as the knob is turning, saying "Wake up, mommy! Wake up, daddy!" It's so cute!!!

Sammi's class had a little holiday  snack party last Friday. Dan was shooting a rehearsal dinner but I went to school to have cupcakes and visit her class. :) Here she is wearing a vest from the bin of dress-up clothes!

All of the kids like to dance together. :)

I wanted to get a photo of Sam with her teachers, but as soon as they came over she hopped out of the chair. So.....

I sat her back up in it, and look at that frowny face! She has been very sensitive about things lately! I think she's going through a phase... she doesn't like to be told what to do and especially doesn't like it when anyone is in trouble, even our dogs! She gets so upset!

The other night our friends, Mike and Becky, brought their two little girls to visit us at the studio! Bree and Sammi are just a couple of weeks apart and they had a ton of fun playing with each other! There is lots of room for them to run around the studio together! Unfortunately I didn't get many photos of them....but isn't Bree cute!!!