Sarah's Christmas Loot

Sarah is really enjoying all the new toys she got for Christmas. We were really pleased; Sarah got a few books, several puppets, a toy piano, a stuffed cow, a pull-along wooden dinosaur, and a baby doll--just the right amount of new things for her without going overboard!! Here she is enjoying her loot:


This is a great photo of Sarah's new skill: standing on her own!!!
And, finally, the cutest thing Sarah is doing with her new Christmas toys--she can give the bottle to her baby doll. So adorable!!!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from the Deans! Its been a week of ups and downs--the downs mostly due to the stomach flu which is making its rounds through our family (and all the other families in our city), but here's basically some highlights:

Sunday, Dec. 20-- church in the morning (where we took the great family photo seen above!); shopping for David's gift in the afternoon; in the evening the handle on the door to Sarah's room stops working (it had been sticking for several weeks) so her door is stuck shut. Unfortunately, she'd just soiled her diaper and clothes, and all her clean diapers and clothes (not to mention her bed--it was bedtime) are inside her room. So I go track down the maintenance guy for our apartment complex, who graciously came back to work from his home and dismantled the handle so we could open her door. Whew. Sarah gets to bed about 2 hours late, we are all exhausted.

Monday, Dec. 21--language class in the morning; in the afternoon there is a Christmas party and cookie exchange for all the women in our city. The hosts live about an hour away from us, so we head out around 1 p.m. to make it to the 2-4 p.m. party. The party was wonderful, Sarah came with. About halfway through the ride home, Sarah threw up all over herself and me. Not spit up, threw up. She threw up two more times till we were both saturated over the next half hour till we made it home. Evening spent comforting poor Sarah (she's actually quite the sweet cuddler when she is sick!), and doing several loads of laundry. My cell phone is accidentally washed in the pocket of my vomit-soaked jacket. Sigh.

Tuesday, Dec. 22--Sarah still sick, day is spent taking care of her.

Wednesday, Dec. 23--Sarah doing a little better, we leave her with our helper and head out to finish Christmas shopping; language class in the afternoon, shopped for groceries for Christmas Eve dinner in the evening.

Thursday, Dec. 24--I cooked, David did last-minute shopping; wonderful Christmas Eve dinner with friends in the evening!!

Friday, Dec. 25--I wake up with the stomach thing; David and Sarah go to Christmas brunch with friends while I rest at home, we finally open gifts around 5 p.m. when I start feeling better. We try to order delivery for dinner, but are told that it is too busy because of Christmas and no one is available to deliver our food. I have cereal for dinner, David has left-overs.

Sat/Sun, Dec. 26-27--I am slowly recovering, while now it seems David has succumbed to the bug. Sigh. However, despite all this, I feel like the Lord sustained us with some wonderful fun Christmas things throughout the week!! Sarah loves all her new toys (another post on that coming tomorrow), and in between all the illness our family had some great time relaxing together at home, which is what we love to do!! Yes, we have a wonderful Savior who sustains us always and can truly bring joy even in circumstances we would never in a million years design for ourselves (like the Christmas Stomach Bug of 2009)!! Merry Christmas to you all.

Sarah Loves

Ten-month-old Sarah is certainly developing some opinions about things! She dislikes Mommy or Daddy walking out of the room, going down for naps, peas or sweet potatoes without anything else mixed in, and waiting while Mom or Dad makes up her bottle. What are some of the things Sarah likes, you ask? Here is a short list of just a few of her loves:

Pajama time with Daddy:
When you put things on her head:
Pulling things off her head:
Playing video games with Daddy:
Stealing Dad's video game controller:
Riding on Dad's shoulders:
Pulling Dad's hair while riding on Dad's shoulders:
Don't worry, she likes me to! She likes when I get down on all fours and pretend to chase her crawling across the room, she likes when I tickle her, she likes when we do our "secret language" conversations, she loves to sit on my lap and read books, and she especially loves to cuddle up with me when she is sleepy. I just don't have photos of these things because I take all the pictures around the house. No matter, we are still making some sweet, sweet memories.

Christmas Decorating

Last year David and I used these beautiful white lights to decorate our Christmas tree. Unfortunately, in addition to being beautiful, they were also a tad dangerous. They set our tree on fire (small, small fires. Mostly smoke.) 3-4 times. So, we decided before we could decorate this year we needed to get some safer lights. So, after two trips to different stores in order to buy enough strands of lights to light our tree, we got down to business! First, we assembled the tree.
Yes, I said, assembled. This tree is faux, through and through. Some of our friends go to great lengths to get real trees here, but as there are no tree lots, this usually requires going out into the wilderness to find a fir/pine tree of some sort and cut it down. Lets face it, David and I are just not that outdoorsy. So faux we go.
Next, we light the tree. Sarah's interest begins to be peaked.

After that, we got out the decorations. Sarah enjoyed inspecting each one before they got put on the tree.
The final result. I can never get a good picture of our tree because of the back-lighting during the day, and because the Christmas lights make our photos blurry in the evening.
Trust us though, it looks pretty good. Sarah was impressed with the final product.

We were worried that she would be constantly drawn to the tree, wanting to pull the decorations off and all that. Thankfully, there are still plenty of things to distract her from the tree in our living room. Like her favorite, our laptops. Boy does she love our laptops.
We had a great time decorating! Hope you all are enjoying the Christmas season as well!

Music

Ever since I was around 8 years old and got my first Sandy Patti, Paula Abdul and Janet Jackson tapes (don't judge! I was EIGHT!), I have loved music. In high school and college I spent a lot of time trying to discover good "new" music that no one else knew about and introduce it to my friends. Since graduating and moving overseas, I have sadly fallen way behind the times in this area. I say sadly not because I am worried that this makes me less "cool" (OK, not primarily because it makes me less cool . . . ), but because its just something about the way God created me; the way my heart can connect with a new song, the melody or the lyrics . . . and the fact that I simply don't get to have experiences like that very often anymore.

Maybe you are getting older and less "cool" and feel the same way. If so, I want to introduce you to someone who this fall has given me back some of those great music experiences.

As many of you know, Josh is my brother-in-law. Big perks to having a musician in the family--in this case, simply the exposure to some great music. Josh spent the last year developing a series of 4 CDs, ending with a Christmas album that just came out called For a Day. The suite of CDs called Villages captures the idea of our need for connection with one another. The Villages Suite culminates with For a Day, an album where Josh spent one day collaborating with different artists for each song. He has a variety of Christmas specials online with several CDs and t-shirt combinations. You can purchase them through his online store at http://joshrosenthal.bigcartel.com. He gave me a special promotional code for my friends and blog readers to get an extra 10% off. At checkout use MARIANNE to get the discount. (I get my own promotional code!!!) This would be a great Christmas gift or stocking stuffer idea.

You can also listen to some of his songs at http://www.myspace.com/joshrosenthal , and all of his albums are available at Itunes as well. Sadly my promotional code doesn't work at Itunes.

For those of you who just want to dip your toe in the musical lake that is Josh Rosenthal (hehehehe) here are my download suggestions:

"Inside Asleep" (from Even the Strongest Hero)

"Amy, Please" "No More Lies" "You Followed Me" and "Take it Away" (all from "Lonely Together"--sorry I couldn't pick just one off this album; the whole thing is SO good!)

"Down to the River to Pray" (from Overture)

"Do You Hear" (from For a Day)

So, go! Download! Order and get a discount! Most of all, enjoy some good music which I love!

Hipster Baby

We got a surprise package in the mail from my sister Becky the other day. It contained this adorable headband, a pair of cute-as-can-be bloomers, my brother-in-law Josh's most recent albums--what a treat! I am especially enjoying his Christmas album, which hasn't even been released yet, hehehe. That's a perk of being related to a musician!
My sister found the headband and bloomers on Etsy.com, a website which I have only recently heard-of thanks to living on the other side of the world. (Haha, that's my excuse anyway--I like to think I'd be "with-it" if I lived in the States!) Anyway, sometimes if I am bored I will browse their site and see all the creative, adorable, unique homemade stuff they have. Its probably good that they don't deliver to Asia or I'd be tempted to buy stuff!
Sarah was also very interested in the cute penguin notecard my sister sent, full of warm thoughts and love from her aunt. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all our dear friends and family! We celebrated the day with several other American families who live in our city by indulging in a delicious feast together. Each family brought several traditional side dishes/desserts and we got a turkey, already cooked, from a local American food restaurant. Our meal was delicious, the conversation and fellowship was wonderful, and now David and I are enjoying a mid-afternoon break while Sarah naps. So, I thought I'd post some photos!

The Outfit: We had a cute little corduroy dress in fall colors for Sarah to wear for her first Thanksgiving. She looks thankful, right?

The "uniform": David and our friend Jeremy discovered they were wearing identical sweaters!

The Spread: Green Bean Casserole, Homemade Macaroni and Cheese, Herb Stuffing, Sweet Potato Casserole, Turkey, Gravy, Deviled Eggs, Cranberry Salad, Mashed Potatoes and Crescent Rolls . . .
And Chocolate Pies for Dessert!
We borrowed a friend's food mill so we could puree some of the food so Sarah could enjoy a taste of our Thanksgiving feast as well!

The kids table:

The Grown-Ups Table:

The Decor:

The After-Party:

The Aftermath:

Movie Night

This week we invited some good friends, Erin and Brennan Mullis, over for dinner. Erin is the mom and Brennan is 2. Erin's husband Marty is out-of-town this week doing some very adventurous things out in the countryside in the coldest weather of the year so far, and deserves some major kudos for that. But since its no fun to cook dinner for just you and your toddler, we invited Erin and Brennan over for some beef stew. After dinner, David promised Brennan he could watch a movie on our wall (we have a projector we use to watch movies--what can I say, we love entertainment in the Dean household!). Erin and Brennan only had an hour, so we watched the last hour of Ratatouille. Brennan loved the movie, Sarah loved hassling Brennan throughout the movie. Photo evidence:

In this last shot, Brennan has finally had enough and crawled out of the frame, while Sarah (thrilled to have a big-kid friend to play with/annoy) is clapping and giggling hysterically. It was a fun evening!

Winter is Here!

Winter arrived this week. Suddenly. And Dramatically. Very winter-like, I guess! Monday the high temperatures were suddenly in the 40's, and today it is wet and in the 30's. Yuck, you might be saying. Well, that is probably how I will feel in a couple of weeks, but for now I am really enjoying the change of seasons! This is now my sixth winter in Asia, sixth winter living in a home that does not have central heat, and so over the years I have developed fun little traditions of ways to keep warm that I actually look forward to each year!

This year, a new fun thing was getting Sarah all bundled up in her coat and hat and gloves for the first time! All of these winter items are currently slightly too big for her, but that just adds to the cuteness factor in my book!
Sarah wasn't really sure what to make of her new apparel--I think equal parts curiosity and annoyance at the way these things limit her mobility. When we came home from our first winter outing the other day, David set her down on the carpet in the living room as he usually does and began to take off his own shoes and coat and all that while Sarah was still wearing her winter get-up. She tried to crawl across the floor wearing all this, and the result was hilarious. As soon as she made it to the hardwood floors, she would try to move forward and instantly her mittened hands would slide out from underneath her and SPLAT she would go flat on the floor! Crawl attempt--SPLAT--crawl attempt--SPLAT--crawl attempt--SPLAT. Please forgive our horrible parenting for letting this go on for a minute or two! She was so well-padded there was no chance of injury, and it was hysterical. Sarah is so good natured, she wasn't even upset by it! She just approached it as a challenge and kept getting back up on all-fours just to slip and slide around once again!
She's our precious little winter angel!

Teefs

Ok, Sweet Sarah, Mommy's going to try to get a picture of your two new little teeth. Are you going to let Mommy get a picture of your teeth??

Ok, well, let's try this again. This time, will you open your mouth for Mommy?

Ok, that's better, now lets try to show those cute little teeth this time.

Ok, well my darling, that is your TONGUE not your TEETH. Let's try this one more time . . .

Perfect! That's my big girl with her two tiny new little teeth!

Nine Months!

Sarah is officially nine months old as of last Saturday, and we just can't believe how fast she is growing up! Every day we see more and more glimpses of the little girl she is becoming, and have to grieve (a little bit!) the tiny baby stage she is leaving behind. So, you ask, what is she like these days?

• Sarah loves laughter. One of our favorite things she does these days is that when she hears David or I laughing at something, she jumps right in and starts cracking up too, even though she has no idea what the joke is!
  
• Sarah loves to dance to music. If David's listening to something on the computer or if her musical puppy dog toy starts playing a song, she always responds the same: wiggling her abdomen up and down as her little baby-dance. This morning I was singing to her in her high chair and she did the usual dance--and I of course was THRILLED that, at least in her mind, my singing also sounds somewhat like music!
• Sarah loves wiggling. She wiggles and moves so much that we've started to have a problem with her wiggling out of her diapers and them coming loose inside her clothing! Speaking of diapers, the wiggling makes changing her these days quite a task! We've started changing her on the carpet in the living room instead of on her changing table because her wiggling makes any height super-dangerous these days. I would say the average diaper change these days includes at least six flip-overs and four crawl-away attempts. It is always better to try to do this with David available as back-up.
  
• Sarah loves foreign objects and electronics. She has a sixth sense for finding things she shouldn't get a hold of and being uninterested in things that pose her no harm/she poses no harm to. For example, she is constantly pulling the remote controls off of our living room side table. I try to trade her a coaster (safe object) for the remote (electronic), which is similar in size, also not a "toy", comes from the same side table--but she KNOWS and will immediately drop the coaster and head for something else she knows she shouldn't have.
• Sarah loves to read books on your lap. This has only begun in the last couple of weeks, but I am THRILLED! We are enjoying some sweet, sweet times together reading--too bad we only have like 5 books. She loves to point out the faces of the people and animals in the books. I am of course convinced she is a genius.
  
• Sarah loves to give kisses. Big, sloppy open-mouth kisses. She loves to kiss us, her parents, and especially her own reflection in the mirror or on the television or in a piece of glass . . .
  
• Sarah loves "talking." She's totally at that adorable stage where she is speaking her own make-believe language. Her cadence often sounds like sentences, and you can definitely "understand" what she's trying to say through the emotions she is expressing. Its really fun to have little conversations with her.