Christmas Time...Busy Time!

This month has FLOWN by! I've been lucky enough to be swamped with photography work..Thank you to all of you who have called me up for some pics! I LOVE IT! Needless to say, with all of that, Christmas parties, shopping, baking, wrapping, gift creating...it's been one super busy month! But, FUN busy!

This collage showcases the fun family parties we've had this season. And they were LOTS of fun. There's nothing like cramming a bunch of family into a room and opening presents! So fun! Thanks to everyone for the greatest gifts!!! Grandma and Grandpa Gadd spoiled us with 5 new games!!! Woo Hoo! We really needed a serious upgrade to our game closet! Family Night will be much more exciting!!! Thank you!!!

And Grandma P. was sweet enough to sew some curtains for my bedroom...yeah, 4 years living here and still no curtains, so thanks mom! Now I just gotta put them up! And Grandpa P. spoiled the boys with new sleds...woo hoo! They tried them out right away and LOVE them! My sister Brittany gave our family a fun movie night bag and my sister-in-law gave me a darling Christmas vinyl wall decoration with a movie night bucket. Thanks you guys! We love movie night at our house! (which is pretty much almost every night... so perfect gift!)

I finally got around to sending out Christmas cards on December 20th, (if you didn't get one, it's because I don't have your address! So email me your address!!!) and then made neighbor cookies on the 22nd...Sadie "helped". She was sooo cute. She would sprinkle little bits of flour whenever I did, use the rolling pin, exactly how I rolled it and even cut out lots of cookies. What a great helper! I couldn't resist taking these fun photos of her helping! Unfortunately, I forgot to take some picture of the decorated finished product. But if any of you get Lara Garner's cookies...mine look similar...certainly not quite as detailed, but I try. Thanks Lara for sharing your yummy recipe!

The Sunday before Christmas. It's a tradition at our house that Mommy takes some pictures of the kids in their church clothes in front of the tree just before Christmas. I guess that's what you get when you have a photographer for a mom. As soon as we finished with the pictures, Sadie announced.."I need to dance." She began dancing all around the room. A few seconds later, she tripped and knocked her head on the table. A HUGE goose egg emerged. (no photo sorry...Mommy was freaking out!) So glad we got the pictures before the bulging bruise! To top it all off, only a couple hours later she was playing with her brothers and a door got slammed a little to close to her head and the doorknob made a nice goose egg on the other side of her head! My poor little girl! (so notice the rest of the pictures with Sadie's bluish, greenish head...)

Christmas Eve was, well, different. Poor Matt had to work until 8pm, getting him home around 8:30pm. It did give me a chance to give the house a nice cleaning...which it desperately needed! So, no Christmas Eve dinner...we decided to do it Christmas Day instead. When Daddy came home we did our usual traditions....make homemade donuts, drink hot chocolate; Read Luke 2 while shining flashlights on all the nativity characters. The kids open their one present...which is always jammies, of course! And this year they were from Grandma P. Thank you! The boys were decked out in Batman jammies with capes and all! And sweet Sadie in her night gown, or "dress" as she calls it! They were so excited...hence the jumping down the stairs photos below!

Christmas morning was filled with fun and excitement. The boys tore open gifts with shouts of joy! Spencer especially has a dramatic shout of glee with the opening of each gift. (dramatic? wonder where he gets that?) They loved the IronMan figures, Nerf guns, Bakugan characters, Transformers, and Batman garb they got. And Spencer finally got his most anticipated gift... Bendaroos.

Sweet Sadie was a little sleepy, since she wouldn't go to bed until midnight...(yeah, Santa came REALLY late) but after waking up a little she got more smiley and excited! Matt loved his new warm winter coat I gave him and I loved my new favorite movie Matt gave me... WALL-E. (Oh how I love that show..thanks babe!) Sadie really loved her biggest gift...a BIG GIRL BED! YAY no more crib! Yes, she has been sleeping in a crib until now. We finally decided she was too big. Her head touched one end and her feet the other...I guess it's time for an upgrade! She was also excited to see the Doll House her Grandma P. refinished for her, moved into her room. It was the same dollhouse I played with. I still nee do update the wallpaper, but for now, Sadie LOVES it! Thanks Grandma!

And the biggest story of all on Christmas day was the enormous snow storm that had us snowed in! All day it was a blowing, can't see across the street, blizzard! When we went out to start clearing snow...this is what we found...

We quickly turned the snow into a fun playground! The crazy part is, that night it snowed another 8 inches and the next day another 4! That's a lot of snow folks! But it's so much fun!

And finally, last night we had a fun family party...ALL of my siblings and their kids and both of my parents were able to come for some Christmas fun. Sadie LOVES her little cousin McKenzee. They are exactly the same age and LOVE hanging out together. For several days leading up to yesterday, Sadie kept asking, "When is my Kenzee coming?" Grandma made cute matching nightgowns for them, so they put them on and played and played and played. They announced to everyone, "we are best friends." Grandma even made a little nightgown for little Amelia (Kenzee's little sister) The three of them look adorable don't you think?

So thank you to everyone for the nice gifts, tasty goodies and great friendship! I LOVE Christmas time, not only for all the stuff, but mostly because of the great spirit it brings into our home. I'm so grateful for such awesome friends and amazing family. I feel like the luckiest girl ever to have such a great husband, fun boys, and a sweet little girl. I couldn't ask for anything more. The things that matter most in life, aren't things....

The real reason for the season...

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I will Survive!!!

Festival of Trees..... Young Survivor Sisters Style!!!

So last year, my friend Aimee found these cute pink Christmas trees and thought it would be fun to put them in the Festival of trees representing my breast cancer support group.

My friend Laura (pictured below) and Debbie helped me organize and get ideas for these trees.

Didn't they turn out so cute??? We were going for the fun DIVA look and decorated with high heels, sunglasses, and lots of BLING.

We dedicated the tree to one of the girls in our group, who last year, lost her life to breast cancer at the young age of 30. And to one of our group members who lost her son this past summer in a tragic accident.

We wanted the theme of the trees to be, that even when trials and difficult times come, we can all try and laugh and say, "I WILL SURVIVE"!!!

So you'll have to go to the Festival of Trees and check em out!! It's tree number F-13. Just look for the pink!

I've been super busy lately with photo shoots, (YAY!) and getting these trees ready, so I haven't had any time to blog... so here's a quick wrap up...

Thanksgiving: Was great...minus the puking Ethan and the chest cold Matt. My poor guys had to stay home and have leftovers!!

My computer crashed. Oh yeah, crashed and burned. Luckily for me I have a technical savvy Father-in-law that came to the rescue. Never the less, it still required a new computer purchase. Which is great because I got a MAJOR upgrade, but bad because it was pricey! Luckily we were able to jump on some of the Black Friday sales and got a great deal with Costco. My new 24 inch monitor is so amazing! And the processing speed is so quick in photo editing! It's a dream come true! I should be able to get my photos done tons faster now!

I haven't put up ANY of my own Christmas decorations yet. In fact, I just took the pumpkins off my porch. I've had 3 pink trees in my front room for the past week, so I'm hoping now those are out the door, I'll be able to decorate!!

So that's about it...oh and did I mention? I'm so grateful for my family! I wanted to do a cool gratitude post in honor of Thanksgiving, which I feel is one of those holidays that is overtaken by Christmas, but my broken computer issues and sick family, stopped that from happening. I really feel so blessed to have such an awesome husband and the three greatest kids. They are so great and the past 3 weeks since my boys have been off track, have really been fun. I can't believe I'm saying it, but it's true. They've been great.

Well, I'm off to the editing screen now and that's where I'll be for the next several weeks!

'Tis the Season!

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Happy, Happy Birthday Sadie Dear....

It seems like just yesterday when this happened...
We welcomed little Sadie into our family. What a sweet little miracle. See, after doing chemo and radiation, the doctors told me there would be a 40 to 60 percent chance that I might not be able to get pregnant. I waited the recommended 2 years after finishing all treatments before considering anything. I couldn't believe it when only a month later found out I was pregnant. And then at 20 weeks saw it was a little girl!! YAY!

Before Ethan was born, I felt like there would be a girl coming to our family and that her name was Sadie. So when I became pregnant with Ethan, I thought for sure it was a girl. When we saw it was clearly a boy, I couldn't understand why I had those distinct thoughts and promptings.

Later I realized that Heavenly Father was blessing me with the knowledge of a little girl to get me through all my cancer stuff. I thought about Sadie when I was ready to give up and couldn't take anymore. I even did 2 extra chemotherapy treatments of a different drug to avoid the shorter treatment of a drug that is more damaging to the ovaries.

It was all worth it for this sweet little princess.
I remember when we first told the boys that we were going to have a baby Ethan said, "Oh a little sister, in a pink room!!" Now, this was BEFORE we knew for sure if it was a girl. Ethan had no question in his mind that he was going to have a little sister. I remember coming home from the ultrasound and telling the boys.."Well, we just found out we're having a girl!!" They both looked at me and said, "Mom, we already knew." Spencer and Ethan are such great brothers!!
And I don't care what anyone tells you...A Dad changes when he has a little girl. I have never seen such a sweet, sensitive side of Matt until he held Sadie in his arms for the first time. He was always really great with the boys and sweet and tender with them, but it was just different with Sadie. I think she had Daddy wrapped around her little finger from day one! Ok, I KNOW she did!

The past three years have brought lots and lots of fun, shopping and oh yeah, more shopping! YAY girls department!! YAY pink! YAY bows and flowers and ruffle bum tights!! YAY Christmas dresses and Easter dresses and sundresses and pink sunglasses!! I know I seem a little fanatical, but you have to understand after avoiding the girls side of the store for alomost 7 years, it was pure heaven to enter "the pink side".

So I started pulling together a few photos of Sadie for this entry...well, 6 hours later, I realized that she is the most photographed person in our house. For most, their first child has the most photos and then it tapers off from there. Well, with Sadie, that is not the case. I was SERIOUSLY camera happy with her! She just played along so well! Even now, she loves to pose for the camera. So in order to see more photos in less space, I made a bunch of collages....

Enjoy.

Sadie was blessed on New Year's Day in 2006. I cut the train off my wedding dress and my Mom made her the most beautiful blessing dress...
Sadie did her first cheerleading kick. Really, she just hated how the grass poked at her legs. :)

She's like her mamma....she loves food...

Yes, she LOVED her pink frosting on her first birthday cake!!

Finally enough hair for pigtails.....barely.

Ahhh....one of the three Easter dresses.....

So this is one of my favorites. Sadie LOVES to accessorize...

And just like that she is TWO!

Last year's Christmas dress.....so pretty!

Matching shirts with Mommy. March 2008.

2008 Easter dress....Sadie still begs me to wear her "big pink dress". Sadie had a Tinkerbell party...of course! I mentioned in a previous post that Sadie thinks she is the real Tinkerbell. It's true. She still see's Tink and says, "Oh, look! It's me! Tinkerbell!"

We gave her a card that has Tink on the front and when you open it, it plays music. Yeah, she carries it with her everywhere!

Sadie practiced singing happy birthday to herself all day long. I got some of it on video, so I'll have to include that in a later post. It's priceless.

I was so proud of Ethan and Spencer on Sadie's birthday. They both got her birthday presents on their own. Spencer spent his own money and got her a sweet doll toy. And Ethan knew Sadie wanted one of his cool toys, so he wrapped it up for her. Sadie is really lucky to have such great brothers to look out for her.

I don't know how I got to be so lucky to be Sadie's mom, but I won't complain. While sometimes she's a little dramatic and emotional....(hmmm wonder where she gets that?) She makes me smile everyday. I love to listen to her sing songs and tell me the most interesting things. I love how she calls people on her play cell phone and insists that I talk to them as well.

I'm trying to soak up every minute of her sweetness because I know the moments turn into days and then weeks and years. I just have to remember that when she has dumped an entire cup of water all over the floor, right after she crumples bread into the carpet, right after she squirts water all over the house...(she takes her spray bottle everywhere) and then after each incident demands a new outfit because she got wet. (sigh)

Happy 3rd Birthday Sadie bug!

The Least I could do....

This year a friend of mine has experienced some of the most difficult trials I wouldn't wish on anyone. In the past year she has delivered 3 sweet babies, all of whom arrived too early and were sent back to live with Heavenly Father. I can't imagine what that would feel like or how someone can overcome such tragedies.

I wanted to do something to help, but what?

I began researching, trying to find a way to give back. I came across this great non-profit organization that allows professional photographers (free of charge) to capture those sweet, last precious moments with babies who are called back to heaven early. I wanted to know how I could get involved so I applied to be a photographer and was approved!! The name of the organization is Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. You have to check it out.... click here..

I hope by capturing these tender, sacred moments, I can help parents make the grieving process a little easier. It's the very, very, least I can do....

Soccer Star....

This season Spencer is becoming quite the soccer player. He usually plays defender or midfield, but this particular week he got to play forward. And he did a great job!!!

Check out this awesome kick!!!

Spencer is not afraid to get in there and attack the ball. This is something he's really improved on over the last few years.

Look at this cool play!! Go Spencer!!

And just when I thought he'd seen his best game...it got even better. He got right in front of the goal and worked up a HUGE kick...and....

He kicked it over the goalies head and right into the top of the goal!!! I was the proudest mom!!! I'm shouting, "That's MY boy!!!" The picture is the actual goal kick picture! He was quite a waze out from the goal too!

After the big goal, he just jogs off like nothing happened. I love this kid!

Matt did a great job filling in for the coach on this game. I'm so proud of my boys!!!

Spencer is such a great kid. He is the hardest worker! He makes me so proud!

I'm looking forward to basketball season coming up! It's going to be really fun!

Halloween Fun!

THE PARADE...

It's tradition right? Every year all the kids put on the costume parade at the school. Oh what fun! This year was so organized and worked out really, really great. In years past it's standing room only, rushed, and to say the least, very chaotic. A new principal can fix a lot!

Both boys looked extra great as IronMan and Ninja this year!

Each year I can't believe how grown up they are getting!!

MUMMIFICATION:

After the parade I stayed and helped out with Ethan's class party. Oh what great fun! Caramel apples, witches brew, pin the hat on the witch...and Ethan's favorite...Mummify!

Yes, he did really LOVE this game!!!

After school it was a little down time for everyone, some pizza and it was off to trick or treat!

TINKERBELL:

This year Sadie demanded that she IS Tinkerbell. She sees the clip for the new Tinkerbell DVD on TV and says, "Mom!! There's me! Tinkerbell! On TV! Oh YAY!"

Sadie's proud Halloween moment this year was helping pass out candy. (after an hour of trick or treating with the boys) After the doorbell rang she would RUN to the door, open it and say VERY loudly and cheerfully, "Oh HI!!!!" We passed out the candy, and then "BYE!! Happy Howoween!!"
IRONMAN:

He's dreamt of this day for over a month. The day he becomes...IronMan. Ethan truly enjoyed being IronMan this year. For him, it wasn't about the candy (he stopped trick or treating with Sadie after about an hour), but more about how cool he was!
NINJA:

Yeah, so cool Ninja. Spencer loved the tough guy ninja look. It was all about getting the candy for this kid. He stayed out with Matt an extra hour AFTER Sadie and Ethan came home. And he has the candy to prove it!

To finish off the day, we headed to Grandma's for her famous Chili and pumpkin shaped cookies. YUMMY!

THE PUMPKIN:

So it's Halloween Eve (thanks Lara) and have we carved a single pumpkin? NO! It's such a mess! I was hoping we could just sort of skip over this messy tradition. The kids reminded me we hadn't done it. So I told Matt...you're up! He did great. Spencer schetched this great design and Matt helped him carve it. Sadie and Ethan "helped". Ok, they watched. Anyway, it's done, and it turned out really great. Good job guys!

So that's Halloween at our house. This weekend we have all spent half asleep in sugar comas. But it's worth it for all that sugary goodness!