I try to reserve the overwhelmingly eye-rolling posts to this blog, so I don't bog down the family blog. You're here by choice, I figure, so let me indulge. I've got a lot of videos to post (why do I always leave it to one post?), mostly Sadie's new tricks and stuff. It's fun that she's now starting to communicate.
Ryan is finally done with his first semester at Creighton, and it's incredible to have him around! We leave for Arizona tomorrow for Christmas, and it's starting to feel like the holidays suddenly. Huge congrats to Laura and Ben, who got engaged just the other day--pictures are on the family blog. Merry Christmas everyone!

Cute huge flower! One that I made with Erica when we had a bow night during Thanksgiving. Sadie has so many of these over-exposed pictures, because she's always trying to get the camera.

Sadie's been on a tough schedule lately, and bedtime has been a bit of a battle. The other night I let her cry it out, and she did. When I poked my head into her room to see how she was doing, I found her asleep sitting up in her crib. Pff, and I thought those bumpers were too big!

Huge snow storm the other week in Omaha. Ryan buried the shovel in the snow to give people a sense of how much we got. It was hard to gauge exactly how much it was, because as soon as it would hit the ground, the wind would scuttle it everywhere! The snow looked really cool, like undisturbed sand underwater in the ocean. You know how it gets those neat little ripples?

Cheesy smile

Snuggles with Dad during finals week. See, he was here.

More fun with Dad. Thanks mom for the great jammies!

Sorry, maybe one too many playtime shots?

It's been a while, and I have no excuse

Sorry, I know it's been a while. No wait, I do have an excuse. Ryan's computer has all the pictures on it (I don't trust my '05 Dell. It was out of date before I bought it!). So here are some of those pictures. I'll post some videos when I get them uploaded.

Justice Antonin Scalia came to Creighton to give a few lectures. Ryan didn't want to pass up the chance to go to a dinner with him, so we went. He gave a really good speech, and he's a pretty funny guy too. It was interesting to start and end dinner with prayers from professional pastors. It was a really fun, grown-up dinner with cocktails at the beginning and stuff. The whole time there, I just kept thinking, "this is what Mom and Dad usually do!" It was the first time we've left Sadie with non-family babysitters, and they said she was amazing and went to bed right after we left her. It's good to know we are so essential to her!

We had a quiet halloween. We weren't going to make a big deal out of it, but thinking back maybe we should have. Here's Ryan with Sadie, both in their last minute costumes.

Here we are in Arizona for Thanksgiving. It was so nice to be in warm weather, and so nice to see Ryan for such large chunks of time! I wish now that we had a few more pictures to show, but we really just relaxed the whole time. He's going headlong into finals tomorrow, so good luck to him!

I did a mini photo shoot with Sadie in her cute hat and sweater from mom. I couldn't resist... and I've got to fill my time with something. I always get compliments on these clothes; thanks again mom!

Happy girl!

Sad girl! Sadie was playing with the baby tylenol, and no responsible parent is going to trust that baby seal. She seemed to be enjoying herself until I came along. She was about this mad for 2 minutes.

Sadie is still getting used to all the restrictive winter clothes.

All bundled up. The cold here is unlike anything I've ever felt before. It's just so chilling, you really have to make sure that nothing is exposed. It makes me appreciate the pioneers a little more.

Sadie is becoming quite the little climber. For a while she didn't know the stairs existed. Oh, those good old days where she would just sit there.