Christmas!!

I can't believe that we have a baby and that this was her first Christmas.  This year wasn't much different (except for the baby part) but I can tell that Christmas's to come are about to get SUPER fun!!  I can't wait until I can sense her excitement and the wonder of the Christmas season. 

This year Aunt Erin got her an Elf on the Shelf and although we didn't play it this year (and maybe not quite next year either) I know that she will love it!!

We retook our family photo for 2012 and I love this one so much more than the last one:

We didn't get a ton of photos of Abby opening her Christmas presents (even though we had about a million opportunities...her family sure does love her!), but we got a few.  This was the best one:

Oh Ryan!!

Abby got tons of stuff this year.  Thanks family for everything.  I can't even tell you how many toys and clothes she has now.  She's one spoiled little lady!

And...Thank you Erin for the funniest Christmas present ever!!

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Christmas Letter 2012

I do my best each year to make sure that we get Christmas cards out to our friends and family.  Even after sending out over 100 cards this year, I know that it's nearly impossible to reach everyone so I'm posting my Christmas letter and picture here for anyone that I might have missed (and for posterity sake!)

Merry Christmas to your and your family!

~Sadie

I’ve been trying to formulate our Christmas letter in my mind for a few weeks now and there were a few paths I ventured down that just didn’t seem to quite capture the year we’ve had.  If you asked me to pick just one word to describe 2012 for the McGrath’s it would be CHANGE!!  It has been quite a year and has flown by faster than I could have ever imagined.

As I look back on the year, I think back to how different our lives were this time last year.  We’d put an offer in on a short sale property the weekend of Thanksgiving and were anxiously going through the process of buying our first home together.  We knew that short sales are NEVER a done deal until you’ve got the keys in your hands but we never imagined the rollercoaster ride we were about to embark on.  Nearly eleven (11!!) months after putting our offer on the table, we finally moved in.  There were plenty of moments when I thought it would never come together, but someone Up There was looking out for us.  It’s perfect for us and our growing family.  It needs work, but mostly it just needs someone to love that house again, and Ryan and I are certainly chipping away at the list of projects. 

Little did we know when we decided on the house just how soon our family would be “growing”.  I found out that we were pregnant on the day after Christmas (nothing like making life changing events around the holidays…helps you remember when they happened).   I surprised my parents with the phone call while they were in Cabo, asking if they were ready to be Grandparents times two.  See, my sister Joey, was due just 3 months before me (like I said…a year of CHANGE).  I didn’t intend to blurt it out right then, and expected to just leave a message, but once my Dad answered, there was no turning back.  I think half of the bar wondered what was going on when the whole crew with them was screaming and crying.  Makes me tear up just writing about it.  We told Ryan’s parents a day or two later and it wasn’t long until I had to start confessing to the cousins that came to New Years with us.  Babies are hard to keep a secret on New Year’s Eve!

Eight and a half months later we still had no idea if we would ever actually get the house we’d been longing after for so long.  August 10^th will be a date I never forget.  It was on that date that we found out that the offer was actually going to go through AND that Abby was breach and I’d be having a C-section.  Talk about a big, overwhelming day.  Abby wasn’t due for a few more weeks but she was on her own little schedule and I went into labor on August 14^th.  Less than three hours after my water broke I was holding a teeny tiny baby in my arms.  Everyone says that you can’t imagine what that feels like until it happens to you; they are right, you can’t!  To quote a book I just read “There must be in life a turning point, when the world as we know it ceases to exist.  A moment that transforms us into a different person from one heartbeat to the next”.  Having Abby was just that type of moment.  It all happened so fast that Ryan didn’t even get ahold of my parents before we went into surgery.  My Dad talks about walking up to Mom shoving a phone in his face yelling “It’s a girl!  She had the baby!”  It took him a few minutes to understand what happened. 

So much and more has happened this year that there’s no way I can fit it all onto one sheet of paper.  Many of you have been by our sides as we’ve gone through this crazy busy year and we couldn’t have made it to the other side without the love and support of our families.  For those of you that live a little farther away, I’ve continued to blog all things “McGrath” on our family blog, www.sadieandryan.blogspot.com. 

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas!

Love,

Sadie, Ryan and Abby

Baby shower #3....work

I know, I'm all out of order and WAY late! To be honest, what happened was, well, I had a baby! I didn't end up going back to work after this wonderful shower the ladies from work threw me, so I didn't get the pictures until I returned to work. So, excuse the lateness, but this shower was too cute not to blog.

I'll start with my favorite part of the whole shower.  Sue and Jennifer came up with the cutest shower game.  They had everyone write one line of the following song.  It turned out so cute and funny!

Ode to Sadie and Her Baby (sung to the "Beverly Hillbilly's" tune):
Come and hear a lil' story 'about Sadie and her Baby
How many diapers Sadie has to change
Then one day she was scooping up some poo,
and into the bathroom, she flushed it down the loo.
Poop that is, stinky, smelly!

Next thing ya know, they ran out of fancy diapers,
Sadie yells at Ryan - "you need to go get yourself to Meijers!"
Next think you know Ryan is buying diapers
and because he loves her so he also buys her diamonds.
Flawless, that is! 3 Carats! Extra large

*It's funny because I'm adding the pictures now, four months after Abby was born.  It's so strange to see these pictures, and amazing how quickly you forget the "being fat" part :O)

Wasn't dessert pretty!  If you know me, you know it's totally normal that I'd start with posting pictures of dessert first.  Especially when I was pregnant, I just couldn't get enough sweets!

Such a special group of ladies.  They are all so sweet and I'm lucky to call them all friends.

Sue made these cute little diaper pins.  It was a shower game too.  One of them had a "poop" in it (I think it was a chocolate chip).  So cute and Pinterest worthy!

Pretty flowers from Jennifer.

Ug...thank god I've lost most of that baby weight!  But the booties from Sue deserved special mention.  They are just about big enough for Abby so I'm going to have to break them out soon.  Oh, and they were hand knit, so you know they hold a special place in my heart.

The ladies from work also helped with Abby's photo project by donating yards of fabric.  Isn't this one from Jennifer amazing?  I'm going to have to figure out something special to do with it when I'm done with it.

This one was from Sue.  It is so bright and colorful, it's perfect for my little Peanut!!  Check out Abby's Photo Blog to see how my photo-a-week project has been going.

Our Little Christmas Presents

You'll have to wait til you get your Christmas cards from us for our official Christmas picture this year, but here are a few others for you to enjoy.  A few weekends back we had a crazy family photo shoot day.  We literally spent all day doing outfit changes, staging photo areas and making all kinds of crazy noises to keep the babies happy, but we sure did get some great photos for all of our hard work.

Hope they bring some smiles to your day today!

Merry Christmas (a little early) from our two favorite ladies!

Family Photo 2012

We've added a little peanut since our family photo last year. 

2011:

2012:

I feel like we might have to try to get one where we aren't all squinting, but it's pretty good.  Stay tuned for an updated picture.

Christmas Tree Cutting

Thanksgiving weekend we went for our annual Christmas Tree cutting.  My family always used a fake tree when we were younger.  We always took it down from the attic the day after Thanksgiving and got it all set up.  We'd listen to Christmas music and get the whole house decorated in a day.

After meeting Ryan we adopted his tradition of cutting a real tree the weekend of Thanksgiving.  Every year the weather has been different.  We've had everything from snow to pouring rain,  40 degrees to near 0 and everything in between.  Luckily this year we had great weather, 40 and sunny so Abby could come along too.  Figuring out how we were going to carry her was a little bit of a debate because a stroller was a definite no, but we landed on the Baby Bijorn and all was good.

After chatting for a few minutes and taking a few pictures we headed out to see if we could find the perfect tree for our new house.  We knew we had the right one when I said I liked it, Ryan said he could live with it, and Abby started to get fussy.  HA!

It's the right size around, we just could have gone a little taller next year.  That's the thing with real trees, you can never quite duplicate what you did last year.  But I sure do love the smell of a real tree (as long as we remember to water it that is).

Love her!!!

We are thankful for....

This year has been a year full of so many things we are thankful for.  A lot has changed in the last 12 months and we know that life will never be the same.

From a new baby, to a new house, to a business that is always growing, we know that we are so lucky and are so thankful for our families that have supported us through it all.

It's hard to see, but Abby's got her "My First Thanksgiving" outfit on, complete with a cute little ribbon skirt.  Ellyn got her a cute little headband to match (sadly in Bears colors!).

She also had her own mini Thanksgiving when we gave her her first green bean to suck on.  She certainly can't eat it yet, but she sure did like to suck the butter off of it.

Look at those big eyes!!  It's so yummy.

Giggles!

I've got some new house photos to share with you from last weekend but I haven't even started editing them or crafting a post, so for today, you are going to have to be ok with a video of Abby's first giggles.  She isn't full on laughing yet like her cousin Kayden, but this is the closest I've seen so far.  Jamie found her tickle spot!!

She's changing so much these days and learning tons.  She's really starting to use her hands and is starting to grab at toys (and Momma's hair!).

Another first for this week is cloth diapers.  We've been doing them full time for just over a week now and I will do a whole post on that in a little bit.  I've already got lots to say about it so stay tuned for that too.

What could be cuter than videos of babies??

This morning Abby was especially smiley so I dug out my video camera to capture it.  She's usually happiest in the morning and there are no shortage of smiles.  She finds it hilarious when you stick out your tongue out at her.  She either starts sticking hers out back at you, or gives you a big old smile. 

Yesterday Abby found her fingers for the first time.  She just stared at them for about a minute opening and closing her fingers.  Today she's starting to consciously hitting her toys with her hand.  She loves the yellow lion on her chair the most.

While uploading the video I shot of Abby today I found one of Kayden that I totally forgot we took.  This was a month or two ago and it was hilarious.  We were sitting at dinner and Mom was holding Kayden at the table.  Mom picked up her wine glass to take a drink and this is what happened.  Enjoy!!

Bath Time - Round 2

You know what happens when you buy a camera that can take lots of pictures really quickly?  I'll tell ya....you end up with lots of pictures!

Nothing important to share, just bath time!

* This one is my favorite!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Last weekend we made a quick stop at the pumpkin patch.  It was a beautiful day but a little cold for Abby.  She was sleeping so nicely we decided not to wake her up just for a photo shoot.  We will have to go to the pumpkin patch next year when she will enjoy it more.

Don't mind my giant hair in the picture, but we got a quick shot with Abby and her pumpkins.  At least they were in the same frame :O)

Abby is a Moo Cow this year.  It's snuggly and warm and it might be a little big on her, but you can't really tell.  I had great plans of getting a picture of Abby inside that pumpkin, but it's not working out well for me. 

Remember that time when we tried this photo shoot?

Yeah, that didn't work out so well.  I tried it one more time at home with generally the same result so this year Abby is just going to sit next to her pumpkin.  Next year she will be able to sit up by herself and I'll get some good shots.

Hope everyone has a safe and candy filled Halloween.  We are staying home to hand out candy.  I'm hoping some of the neighbors will stop by so we can meet them.  We've got Snickers and Twix just in case (my favorite in case we don't get anyone, HA!).

Progress

The House Tour post I did a few days ago was sort of a tease...see, we've done a ton since we moved in and I didn't show a single picture of it.  Well, today is your lucky day.  I've got a few rooms to show you of the progress we've made and a few space I'm ready to officially call "DONE", at least for the time being.  I tired to take the pictures from the same angle so you'd have something to compare to.  But, I added a few bonus pics so you could see all the work we did.  So, here we go.

I'll start with the hall bath, one of the few rooms I'm calling done.  We didn't do a ton in this room, just changed the shower curtain, hung a few fixtures, and changed the paint color.  You'll notice a theme of greys through out the house (and owls I guess).

 

Moving on to the guest bedroom.

The guest room got new paint (a pretty robin's egg blue), a new light fixture, and some new artwork.  Oh, and closet doors!  We put all new closet doors in the whole house and it made a huge difference.  This room is 90% done.  I just need something for the sides of the window (maybe some floating shelves?) and a nightstand of some sort.  Maybe a dresser too...but guests don't usually need dressers and the ones in our bedroom actually go with this bed, so we will see.

So, in the master we've got a new coat of paint, a new light fixture (thank god!) and that's about it.  The ceilings in our bedrooms are 7.5 feet tall for some unknown reason, instead of the normal 8.  Meaning that light fixtures tend to hand pretty low.  The old fixture was so close to our bed it drove me crazy.  You'd nearly hit your head if you sat on the bed so we got a low profile fan and it's so much better.  We've also got that tile bought for the bathroom redo.  You can see it piled in the shower in the last picture.  The shower is the next job on the list and we can't wait to get it done.  We've been showering in the hall bath since we moved in and we are both excited to finally have a master bath back again.

The last room for today is Abby's.  And I'm proud to say it's officially done!

Let's see, Abby got new paint (the same color I'd picked for the nursery in the townhouse), new closet doors, the lights fixed on her fan, and all of her decorations hung.  I love this room, which is good I suppose since I spend so much time in there.

I apologize for poor lighting in some of the pictures, and for not sprucing the place up to look showroom ready, but I snapped the pics quick while Abby was sleeping and figured you guys would rather have shotty pictures than no pictures at all :O)

I've got lots more to show you and lots more to do before we can call the whole house "done", but I hope you enjoyed these few rooms.