NEW Zoo

On Sunday, we took Sadie to the NEW Zoo in Suamico for her first time.  It has actually been a really long time since I've been there, too, so we both got to discover the zoo.  It was kind of cold, in the lower 40s, so we wore our winter jackets and mittens.  It drizzled a little bit while we were there, but not intolerable.  A lot of the animals were already inside for the winter, but we still were able to spend a couple hours there.  Sadie was very well behaved, and liked to look at the animals, but got bored with each one pretty quickly.  Here we are by the otter.

The newest exhibit is the giraffes, they have one male and one female.  They were actually pretty cool.  They have a building for them so you can see them inside, which was nice to warm up a bit. 

Sadie got to feed one of them a cracker, and she giggled when he took it out of her hand.  They have really long, black tongues, so he was licking her hand too.  Here's her face when she first saw them...

I can't wait to go back with her when it's a little nicer and spend more time with the animals!

Artist

Sadie is working on learning how to color.  In her room, she has a stack of coloring books and the box of crayons that we had when we were little at my Grandma and Grandpa's house.  She likes to take them out and play with them.

She usually just likes to play with the crayons, but occasionally will scribble on the paper too.

I've noticed that she has a preference for green and yellow crayons.  She will sit and dig through the box, and toss aside the other colors.  She generally holds the yellow ones in her hand and colors with the green ones.  She is definitely right-handed, and she even holds the crayon correctly sometimes!

Here is her first masterpiece:

October

We started the month with the open house at my new store.  The 6th was family night, so Kevin and Sadie joined me.  Sadie tested out the registers for us.

It's hard to see in the picture, but she is "Vanna-ing" the sign that says "Warning- Keep fingers, arms, and children away from this belt area."  Everybody thought she was so cute in her yellow festival t-shirt!  I work with our uniform company, so they made it special just for her.

Sadie also started to learn how to eat with a spoon...

Eh, screw that, I'm using my hands!

Forget that!  Why bother using anything when you can just eat straight from the container?!

After more than a year, her hair is finally getting long enough to be crazy-

Then of course we had Halloween.  Sadie dressed up on Saturday, then Dad took her to Boo Fest at his store, and then stopped by mine with her.  Then Grandma brought her back to my store to trick-or-treat.

Bye!

We really haven't been taking too many pictures lately, but I wanted to share that I think Sadie has now said her first word!  I thought she was saying Baby a while back, but it was very sporadic and only lasted a couple days.  So I don't think that counts.  The past couple days she has been saying Bye quite clearly, and always at the appropriate time, when she or someone else is leaving someplace.  She is waving when she says it too, so I'm pretty confident that she knows what she's talking about!  As long as she keeps it up, Bye is her first word!

Happy Birthday Sadie!

Sadie turned one year old yesterday!  In the last month before her birthday she has become a pro at walking.  She likes to carry things around with her, especially things that resemble purses...

She is starting to keep hats on for more than a second at a time, she used to immediately pull them off and get cranky about it, but I was able to get a few shots...

We had Sadie's birthday party on Sunday the 5th so that her whole family could come.  She was so adorable in her birthday outfit!

This month she got a "real" tiara to wear for her picture, but like hats, she wasn't really digging it...

Dad ordered her cake for her, and it turned out really cute. 

With a quarter sheet purchase you get a free baby cake, which is intended that the baby can have that cake for themselves, but it was actually quite large, so Sadie just had a slice of the sheetcake.

She got lots of nice presents from everybody!  Lots of toys and clothes, and a few other things.  Here's some of the gifts she got...

She got her very first baby doll, Stella, from her Mama.

Her present from Dad and Grandpa Kox is a big hit too.

On her actual birthday yesterday, we took her to get her pictures taken at a studio.  She did really well, and we got some adorable shots.  She looks like a baby model in some of them!  Then we weren't able to do much else because it rained most of the day, but it was nice to be off work and be able to spend the whole day with her.  I can't believe how much she's grown up in the past year!

Catching Up

I haven't been taking too many pictures lately, but since my last post Sadie turned 10 months old and then 11 months old.  We had our family reunion in early August, but I didn't take any pictures myself.  I just have to bum them off my family!  Sadie also attended her very first Heritage picnic, but we didn't take any pictures there either.  Usually not much exciting happens there!

Sometimes Dad takes her on bike rides, but I don't think she's quite into it yet...

She really enjoys "reading"...

And her puppy.

Now that she's a little older we let her sleep with her bunny.  She loves her babies!

Sadie is now a pro at walking too.  She started about 3 weeks ago and she just motors around the house now.  She is also figuring out how to get down the stairs on her own. 

Timberrrrrrr!!!!

So I open the patio door last night to let Miller out to go potty, and I hear a crackling noise like firecrackers going off.  I'm wondering to myself "what the hell is that?" when all of a sudden there's a big crack, and a tree limb goes down in our backyard in front of my eyes!  Not really sure what caused it- I'm thinking it just cracked under it's own weight- but what's really ironic is that there were 2 dead trees in our backyard that we wanted to take down and it was the living one that falls.  Thankfully it just missed the fence between our yard and our neighbor behind us!

Conveniently Kevin already had a chain saw here that he borrowed from his dad, because still ironically, he was planning on trimming this tree tomorrow because of how low the branches were hanging.  I guess the tree just decided to help him out!  So he went at it this evening instead of waiting.  Our neighbor guy behind us is pretty cool, and he was helping Kevin out.  He hauled all the branches away to the dump for us... possibly because Kevin gave him 2 bottles of liquor earlier. :)  And he got a few good fire logs out of it too.

While he was at it, Kevin just whacked the smaller of the 2 dead trees too.  Now we just need the big one taken down professionally.  At least the one that fell didn't cause any damage!