Miami Weekend

This year's annual gathering with my college friends took place in Miami. Lucky for me, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law are living there for a year so Sasha flew with me to FL and then hung out with her cousins while I had a relaxing couple of days at the beach with my friends. We went to the zoo where there was a carousel one day before my friends got there. Very fun!

It was so nice to have time to catch up with Mandy, Tara, Minda, and Lisa. We lingered over long meals, lounged on the beach, and enjoyed walking around South Beach in the evenings. It was a nice change from the day to day routine of playing kitchen and play-doh!

Around the house in January

We have gotten SO MUCH snow this year. It really is beautiful to look at but has been problematic because we haven't been able to get Phil's car out of the garage and up our sloped driveway with front-wheel drive for almost 2 weeks now. So our options have been to either be stranded at home while Phil takes the good car to work or get up early to drive him to work and then pick him up at the end of the day as a family (about 15 minutes each way). Snow tires have been purchased and should arrive soon which we are hoping will solve the problem for now.

Sasha is so fun right now. She is very talkative and loves to sing songs. She's starting to recognize humorous situations or conversations and has a loud explosive laugh that cracks us up.

A breathtaking sunset from our back porch.

My Christmas cactus is blooming now for the first time in 10 years. It must like the new house too!

She's 2!

Sasha turned 2 years old on January 6! She normally goes to daycare on Wednesdays, but instead she and I went to the aquarium in Albuquerque and then had lunch with Aunt Megan and Uncle Uli. We had a little celebration that night just the 3 of us. She REALLY liked the tea set (above), and now we do tea parties with her monkeys every day.

We had a little party on the weekend with some of her playmates and their parents. She was tickled by the monkey cupcakes and also tried to duck under the table when every sang her "Happy Birthday". She's a little bit bashful these days!

After an invasion of the party favor bags containing lollipops...

First Sledding

We've gotten out to go sledding a few times in the last couple of weeks. We actually have a great little hill right in our backyard--perfect for a 2-year-old. Sasha loves it saying "Again, again!" as she gets to the bottom of the hill.

Christmas Part 2

Frosting and decorating cut-out cookies on Christmas day. Sasha was surprisingly such a good helper--for 10 minutes that is until she started to just shove handfuls of sprinkles into her mouth.

Sasha loved having Grandma and Grandpa around to play with her. Her quote of the week was " I love my life." Priceless.

Christmas Part 1

Christmas Eve morning from our front porch. The snow was a nice touch to make it feel all the more festive.

We went down to Albuquerque for Christmas Eve to my aunt and uncle's house to see the extensive luminaria display in thier neighborhood. There were thousands of little candles in paper bags on the street, walls, and rooftops.

My parents were there in Albuquerque and then came up to our house on Christmas morning and stayed for about a week. It was so wonderful to have them here. As a side note Sasha is going through a phase where she only wants to wear certain shirts. It is no coincidence that the 3 shirts she allows me to put on her all have animals on them. Unfortunately 2 of the 3 are short sleeved so even though the temps dipped down into single digits Christmas week, she insisted on wearing this elephant T-shirt every other day.

Sasha got to work in her new toy kitchen right away on Christmas morning. Christmas was so fun this year with an almost 2-year old. She was thrilled with all the details like the angel chimes, singing carols, cookie baking, and the Chirstmas tree.

10 years ago...

10 years and counting

To celebrate our 10 year anniversary in December, I suggested we go back to Indianapolis for a long weekend to experience our old hometown as tourists and catch a Colts game in the new stadium. Phil could not believe I would actually suggest going to a football game to honor the big 10 year mark. Let's just say, I've become quite the football enthusiast over the last decade (It's hard not to when you are rooting for Peyton Manning's team) plus it was within driving range of Goshen where we could leave Sasha with both sets of grandparents who were happy to take her off our hands.

We had a great time at the game and also enjoyed revisiting our favorite restaurants and neighborhoods in Indy.