update on Sarah and Christmas shopping

Last night, Sarah began wrapping the presents she had selected. She had a great time with the paper and ribbon and telling us what was for whom (I guarantee you most of you will be surprised by her choices!). ;) The last item was a Disney coloring book. By this point, neither Nelson nor I were surprised by anything. So Nelson asked, "So who is this for?" Sarah looked at him like he was slightly crazy. "It's for me!" she proclaimed. We both got tickled at that. Nelson handed her the book, figuring she would start coloring in it. But no. Sarah insisted on wrapping a present to herself to put under the tree! :)


I told you she had all the important people in her life covered! ;)

Sarah and Christmas

Tomorrow marks the official beginning of Advent. I have once again downloaded an Advent Bible study for Sarah and me to do together, and I am really looking forward to doing it again. Like many families, we have already started our Christmas shopping (I am actually almost finished! Woo-hoo!). We even ended up at the mall yesterday, with all the Black Friday craziness.

I thought Sarah would be all excited about what she wanted for Christmas this year and that she would start making a lengthy list. But no. She actually doesn't really want anything terribly much long term; she only wants what she sees in front of her at the toy store that moment. Once we're out of the store, she forgets pretty quickly.

But she is excited about choosing gifts for other people! She has picked out presents for all the important people in her life. However, some of her selections are a bit strange. So fair warning: if you receive a present labelled "from Sarah" and you wonder what in the world you are supposed to do with it, just know that she did the best she could and she picked out exactly what she wanted to give you. At least her heart is in the right place, and she understands the spirit of giving at Christmas! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's a bit late in the day, but I do wish everyone a blessed and very happy Thanksgiving. :) Count your blessings, enjoy time with family and friends, feast on good food. Happy Thanksgiving!

pondering personality

Before having children, I probably would have said that personality developed over time, based on how you were raised, your experiences, etc. Having Sarah cured me of that notion. Although parents certainly have a responsibility to mold and shape a child's personality and to develop their character and instill values and what not, the personality is pretty much there at birth! Sarah came into this world already being Sarah. And for those who say a fetus is not human, well, all I will say is this: she was already Sarah even in the womb.

I have shared before how Sarah is NOT a morning person, and she does NOT like having to get up early or engage in any sort of activity right at the start of her day. As I was looking at pictures of our new baby's ultrasound from last week (yes, I know we need to get those posted), I remembered a story that proves Sarah has always been this way.

Because of the health problems I was having with my pregnancy, I had a myriad of ultrasounds with Sarah. Toward the end, I was having at least one per doctor visit; the doctor wanted to ensure that my issues weren't negatively affecting Sarah. One of the last ultrasounds I had was a biophysical profile. There were certain things the technician needed Sarah to do, and then a score was given. This particular ultrasound was conducted at 8:00 a.m. No matter how the tech poked or prodded, Sarah would not do any of the things needed. She "failed" the profile, for lack of a better way to put it.

The doctor grew deeply concerned, as this could indicate that Sarah was having some sort of problem as a result of my own. He ordered another biophysical profile to be done the next day. If Sarah "failed" this one as well, he would induce labor.

However, the next ultrasound was scheduled later in the day. And this time, Sarah cooperated beautifully, doing absolutely everything the tech needed her to do. The tech concluded that the previous day, Sarah had simply not been awake or alert enough at that early hour to do the tasks successfully.

So even in utero, Sarah wasn't a morning person! ;) It will be interesting to see what kind of personality baby girl #2 possesses at birth--and even before!

my daughter, my hero

I managed to get myself stuck yesterday. Looking back on it, it wasn't the most major crisis ever, but it sure FELT like a huge deal at the time. But never fear, my dear daughter came to my rescue and saved the day! :) I am very blessed that Sarah is 1) obedient (most of the time--she is by no means perfect. But at least she did obey yesterday when it really counted!) 2) persistent and 3) capable of doing exactly what I needed her to do in my hour of need!

You may be very curious by now if you haven't already heard the story. :) So as Monk would say, "Here's what happened." Sarah and I were on our way to Greeneville for Kindermusik. However, I needed gas before we made the drive. I only ever use pay at the pump. I do not like the hassle of taking Sarah out of the car seat to go inside to pay, and I like leaving her by herself in the car even less. So, although my beloved Dave Ramsey recommends cash for everything, when it comes to buying gas I am debit card at the pump all the way.

I usually leave the keys in ignition while I pump gas, so that Sarah can listen to music. I don't lock the doors, because I'm standing right there. You can probably guess what's coming now. You're right: I locked the keys in the car. With Sarah still sitting strapped in her car seat. :( It has been literally years since I have done this. The two times most recent were right after Nelson and I got married, and right after I was hired to teach preschool at Head Start. I guess you could call those times of high stress that scrambled my brain cells a bit. But I got in the habit of always carrying a spare key in my purse, just in case I needed it after locking up my keys.

However, we acquired the Taurus that I drive now fairly recently, and I didn't have the spare purse key yet. So there I was, stuck outside the car with Sarah trapped inside. And like most mothers, I panicked completely. I frantically called Nelson, who really wasn't in a good position to help. He works in Bristol, not Kingsport, and so was 40 minutes away with his key. And although he was perfectly willing to come to the rescue, he was at work and he was right in the middle of something.

But he at least was thinking more clearly than I was, and he came up with the idea of seeing if Sarah could get out of her car seat and unlock the door for me. So I (yelling through the window) told Sarah to undo the chest clip on her seat.

She struggled with this. Sarah can snap the clip shut like a pro, but pulling it apart is much harder. I really didn't think at first she was going to be able to do it. But after several minutes of struggling, she did manage to get the clip unhooked. Step 1 accomplished.

But she still needed to reach down to press the button to release the harness over her head. And although she tried, she simply could not reach it. At all. Sarah is small for her age, and her arms just don't stretch that far. I thought we were truly stuck now.

But again, Nelson came up with a solution. "See if she can wiggle out of the shoulder straps, then pull her legs up and climb out over the harness." So once again, I called instructions and encouragement to Sarah. Once again, she wrestled with following through, looking for all the world like she simply was not going to be able to accomplish it.

But she finally did it. Part of me still can't believe I taught her how to how to climb out of her car seat, but desperate times call her desperate measures. After a solid fifteen minutes of struggle, she made it out of that seat. I told her to come unlock the door.

I really only expected her to pull up the lock on the door to the backseat. I could take it from there. But if Sarah does something, she does it completely. She climbed up to the front seat so she could hit the button to unlock all the doors. She got to the front seat and tried to figure out which button it was she was supposed to push. I told to her to look at the door and find the letter U. "Once you've found the U, push it!" That did it. She studied the buttons, found the U, and unlocked the doors! Whew! I think I almost collapsed in relief.

Sarah was soooo proud of herself for doing the job, even though it was hard, and saving her mommy. I was pretty proud of her too! Not to mention extremely grateful.

And thanks to my mom, I now have my spare purse key for the Taurus. :)

October in Pigeon Forge--last day

So we roll around to Saturday, October 18...time to head back home after a long, enjoyable, exhausting week. Sarah was in tears over leaving our lovely mountain cabin (to be honest, she still asks if we can go back).



I hope I have given an adequate glimpse of our week's activities and experiences. I wasn't able to include as many pictures as I would have liked, so I tried to make up for it with descriptive text. Not sure if I succeeded in that or not. But hopefully you were able to tell that we had a great week overall (one or two things didn't go quite as planned), and we're looking forward to wherever we go in 2010 (although Sarah is rooting for the cabin again!). :) Cue the music: "Thanks for the Memories!" ;)



One last family photo before we saddled up to leave:

We all arrived home safe and sound (although I did have a Coke spill in the car, and I had a very long, wet ride home). :-p I've already blogged about the rest of our Saturday back at home. You can find that here if you want to read it again.

October in Pigeon Forge--Day 7

We've almost reached the end of our week. Friday we woke up to the only chilly, dreary, rainy day of the entire week. :-p So we did what anyone would do on a chilly, dreary, rainy day--we went on a hike!


Oh, wait. Maybe that isn't what most people would do. Oops.


But we did figure that maybe the drizzling rain would keep other hikers away and that the "easy"" trail we had picked out would not be as crowded. It seemed like a good idea at the time.


So off Sarah, Tara, Nick, Jeannie, and I went to tackle the hike up to Laurel Falls. For some reason, Darrell and Nelson did not want to go hiking in the rain. I cannot imagine why not. :-p


Good points about the hike: 1) The scenery was beautiful. 2) The trail was paved. 3) We didn't die.


Bad points about the hike: 1) "Easy" isn't all it's cracked up to be. We struggled. A lot. 2) Somehow, we forgot to eat lunch. Or take lunch. Or anything remotely related to lunch. OOPS! 3) We felt like we were going to die! :-p


Truly, we did see some lovely fall colors. I took a ton of pictures of all the trees sporting their fall finery. I took way more pictures than I could ever post here. And frankly, I can't guarantee that I'm even going to be able to select the best ones to post, because there were just so many that are amazingly beautiful. (Plus, stopping to snap another photo gave me lots of opportunities to rest along the way!).

As you can see, we picked a short hike. Only 1.3 measly little miles. Total round trip 2.6 miles. Why wasn't it easy for us?! Surely it couldn't be the fact that it was 1.3 miles UP the mountain. Or that I'm pregnant. Or that Tara has other issues to deal with. Or that we hadn't eaten any lunch. Surely none of that could have anything to do with it. ;)

Just what every mother wants to see when she's hiking with her 4-year-old child. :(

Ah, the leaves in autumn...













And finally, the waterfall itself...

See? We all made it! (Barely.)

Sarah out-hiked us all, charging up the mountainside the way she charges through life in general. Thankfully, her grandma was able to keep up with her, because her mommy and Aunt Tara certainly weren't! :-p (Uncle Nick no doubt could have kept up with her as well, but he was being very chivalrous and hanging behind with his wife and sister-in-law!)

However, at the end of the hike, Sarah was apparently as worn out as the rest of us. Here she is in the car, once we were headed back to town to get some food!!!

So yes, we were very exhausted and very HUNGRY people as we headed back to town for sustenance. After bandying about several restaurant ideas, we decided to head back to the Old Mill. Only Jeannie, Tara, and I had eaten there--we needed to share the experience with everyone else!

Old Mill is so good that it always has a wait. Even at 3:00 in the afternoon, we were told it would be about 1.5 hours before we got a table. I think I wilted at this news. Those who know me know I don't do well if I don't eat. I was in full-blown crash mode as we sat and waited. Fortunately, my marvelous mother-in-law managed to bribe, beg, or steal a basket of corn fritters for me. I ate them and managed to survive until our table was ready (far sooner than expected! YAY!!). :)

Nelson and Darrell met us at the restaurant for whatever our meal was (what do you call it when you combine lunch and supper, anyway?). And this time, I remembered to ask about ingredients! Old Mill uses MSG in only three of their dishes.

I had eaten two of those three dishes on Tuesday. No wonder I was in such bad shape that night.

And yes, the beloved dumplings were one of the poison-laden items. Sigh. I will never again be able to eat the world's best dumplings (no wonder they were so good, huh?). :( Tara ordered them again, and I lived vicariously through her for a few moments.

But I did have a perfectly fine meatloaf, and some darn good yeast rolls that evening, so all was not lost. :)

Ironically, while we waited for our table, I overheard a gentleman talking about how good the Apple Barn was. Oh, sure, just rub in the fact that I picked the wrong apple restaurant! (Sorry again, Nick.) :-p

As always, you may go to Tara's site for additional pictures and commentary about our day.