Let it snow

Yesterday it snowed all day. We had about 3-4 inches. After Sawyer took his afternoon nap, we all got bundled up and headed out into the winter wonderland. Sawyer wore snowpants, coat, boots, gloves, hat and warm clothes underneath. He did not care for the boots
or the gloves. The gloves did not allow him to use his hands all that much, so he had trouble hleping Daddy shovel snow and getting up out of the snow when he fell down

He did enjoy being pulled in the sled (for about 2 minutes) then he wanted down to roam around. We tried building a snowman, but the snow was not the packing kind!




After we were done playing, we headed inside and built a nice fire.....all Sawyer could say was WOW! HOT! He kept his distance from the fire as mommy and daddy agreed that it was too hot

for Sawyer. He really enjoyed watching the flames with his parents! What a great winter day--if you have to be subjected to the cold that is!

Growing up, up, up!

Sawyer is 17 months old! He enjoys playing hiden-seek, reading books, and helping mommy and daddy so whatever it is they are doing (cooking, cleaning, home projects). He also enjoys coloring, playing with stickers and loves his bath time! I am sure that I am bias, but he appears to be smiling and laughing 95% of the day. He is now saying about 15 words including" yes, no, mommy, daddy, G.G., church, bus, truck, wow, dog, hot, shoes, juice, hat, shoes, and ELMO". He still is picking up on the sign language and can sign about 10-15 signs including: dog, more, eat, bed, music, train, thank you, please, CANDY, airplane, swing. He loves to jump, dance, and kick and throw balls. Also, one of his favorite things is to look at our books of photographs and have us identify everybody in them. This entry is just lots of pictures that we thought we precious or funny!

SOUTHERN CHRISTMAS

After spending Christmas in MI, we headed back to Ohio the day after Christmas so we could pack and repack to head to NC. We were all ready packed and all we had to do was unload. Our plan was to drive 5 hrs and then stop, but we were able to leave Ohio much earlier than we thought so we deceided to drive all the way to Rural Hall. Most of the Petty's were gathered at Kathyrn and Jim's so we called Bethany to see how long everyone would be there. The Willard's were going to leave and head to Raliegh, but since we were almost to Rural Hall, Bethany had to let them in on the secert so they would stick around a little bit longer. We arrived in Ruall Hall around 8:00pm to many screams of delight. Sawyer started to cry because he was scared! It was good to see the Williards that night, especially since we didn't think we'd ahve a chance to see them over Christmas.

We had Christmas with the NC Gribble's and much to Sawyers pleasure, he was the center of attention. He did not have to share the light with any other cousins (like in MI). He helped everyone open gifts. While we were there we visted Chapel Hill and attended a basketball game, saw Grandmother Gribble, went to Lake Norman for New Years Eve ( to stay with Dana and Shane Wilson), visited with aunts and uncles and helped MeMe celebrate her birthday! Too much to go into details on, but we sure did have a wonderful Christmas and New Year! Papa even pretended he was Ruldouf.

Christmas Night: Let's Get Ready to Rumble

After some napping, Aunt Janeen, Uncle Jason, and Cousin Zack came back over to Grandma's house for Christmas dinner. After dinner, the "Main Event" began. After some initial playing with their toys, Sawyer, Zack and Jammie began a No-Holds-Barred wrestling match on the living room floor. Sawyer and Zack were hilarious wrestling with one another and constantly taking Jammie down.

At one point, Zack got the best of Sawyer and Sawyer didn't seem to be too happy.

However, Mommy cheered him up pretty quickly.

I would say that Sawyer had a pretty good time for his Christmas in Michigan

Christmas in Michigan

We arrived in Michigan on the afternoon of Dec 22 after having had our own family Christmas at home in Toledo. Sawyer enjoyed spending some time with Grandma and Pa. Grandma let him color with markers at the kitchen table. He didn't quite keep the markers on the paper.

The days leading up to Christmas were spent just spending

time with all of his cousins, aunts and uncles and he had a ball! On Christmas Eve, we all went to church at St. Mary's.

Sawyer was very daper.

After church, we had a big meal back at Grandma's and then there was playing with cousins and opening up some presents!

Before heading to bed, Sawyer read "The Night Before Christmas" with Mommy and Daddy, which we started doing last Christmas Eve.

Sawyer had a big time on Christmas Day. We started off with just the 3 of us and Mommy and Daddy exchanged a few more gifts.

The rest of the morning and day was spent opening LOTS and LOTS of presents and munching on cookies and snacks. Sawyer learned where the cookies were and how to give the sign for cookie/candy. He was too cute doing it. Finally, Mommy and Daddy tried to use good judgement when he went over to the cookies and asked for one by telling him that he had already enough cookies for the day. Being the resourceful guy he is, he promptly went over to Grandma and asked her for a cookie. Mommy and Daddy were forced to give in to this display and allowed Grandma to reward the little weasel with another cookie.

A good day was had by all. Even Pa was in a good mood on Christmas!

"Christmas Morning" Dec 22

Before embarking on an almost 2 week stint of visiting family and friends in Michigan and North Carolina, we decided to give Sawyer a Christmas Morning at home on Friday Dec 22. We both were off work, so we woke up that morning and pretended like Santa had come. We showed Sawyer his presents from Santa that had been left on the fireplace.

Sawyer got lots of different kinds of blocks as well as some new books and clothes from Santa.

It didn't take him long to make quite a mess with his

presents in the living room.

Sawyer also helped Mommy and Daddy open up the presents they had wrapped for each other.