O Christmas Tree O Christmas Tree How Lovely are Your Branches

At Christmas, we were blessed to get to go up to Oregon to see all of Cody's family. Marina, had a lovely tree set up for us that was even allergy free for my Dad! How cool is that?!

Isn't that a beautiful picture.

We weren't the only ones who enjoyed the tree though:

Psalm really enjoyed playing underneath the tree on the tree skirt.

It feels so soft!

Sparkles!!!

Yes mother...

But I love the tree and playing under it!!!!

Oh do I have to get out from under it now........

Ok, well I will see you tomorrow! 

~Psalm

Great Great Grandmother and Granddaughter

How many kids get to say they met and hung out with their great-great grandmother? Ok in all reality there are probably quite a few out there, but this is still one of the coolest pictures we have of Psalm!

Meeting for the first time

Meet Great Great Grandma Alice. Being family, many of yall already know her, but for those who don't: She is Psalm's Great Great Grandmother, Cody's Great Grandmother and John's (Cody's dad's) Grandmother. I will put up the 5 (yep! 5!) generation photos in a future post.

They really had a good time together!

Psalm is actually Alice's first Great Great Granddaughter! What a special baby (if I do say so myself)! They had a wonderful time together!

We are so blessed to be a part of this family!

 We got to go up to Oregon for Christmas this year and it was a blast! (More on that in a little while) It was great to get to see Great Grandma who is just as vibrant as ever! She still lives on her own at 90 and even takes her own trash out! (oh and did you see that? They are almost exactly 90 years apart (They were born on different days, but I believe they share a birth month...you can let me know if thats wrong though)!

Skyping

Sorry for the delay in posts! Finals time has been very busy!

Recently we got to talk to Papa John and Grandma Rina on skype and they got some wonderful screen shots of Psalm playing. (What's better than watching a playing baby?!) I wanted to share some of these great pictures with yall:

Playing with the lady bug toy but heading towards the book she loves.

Yay I got the book!

Now I'm going to put it in my mouth!

Daddy getting my belly with raspberries and me giggling!

Are you talking about me?

Who's that talking to me on the computer??

Oh! Its Papa John and Grandma Rina! I know them! 

"...and then we did this and then we did that and I love you and we are going to have wonderful parties together and have so much fun and..."

We love getting to skype with family and friends, if you would be interested in skyping with us sometime (even to just watch her play) we would love that! 

Howdy Yall

Yep that's right, we are raising a Texan (I know, all the family in Oregon is shaking their heads at us right now) ; ) But when there are such cute outfits like this one around:

How can you not?! I feel like there is at least one redeeming aspect about this outfit though and that is that it has a covered wagon on it! So I mean that is a little bit of a shout out to Oregon and it's history, right?! hehe

Anyways, this post is mostly to show you my adorable daughter while I work on downloading and sorting through the pictures from Thanksgiving -that way you don't get "baby deprived" in the mean time - (P.S. if you were here for Thanksgiving please send me your pics as soon as you can so I can post some of them on the blog!)

As some of yall know, Uncle Johnny, Aunt Jennifer, and Uncle Jacob came down for Thanksgiving along with Great-Grana and Great Uncle Chad. We had a great time and I can't wait to share pictures with you! I hope each of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well!

PS. Only 30 days till Christmas!!! Maybe I should do a 30 day countdown with Christmas pictures of Psalm! We will see if I can do that...along with posting the Thanksgiving pictures! Ekkk! Lots to do!

Christmas Gifts

So we have now been approached by several people about Christmas gifts so I decided the easiest thing would just be to write a blog post on it.

*My disclaimer:* No one is expected to get Psalm a gift. If you wish to get her something, here are some ideas. However, if you were not planning on getting her a gift that is quite alright with us. I mean she is only 5 months old after all and Christmas is about giving not receiving. : )

Some ideas:
-First off we are trying to stay away from materialistic gifts for 2 reasons:

1. She grows out of things way too quickly right now and it is not worth the money or the space they take up for her to have a thousand toys. She already has too many.
2. We are going to try to shield her from the materialistic world she lives in as much as possible. We are hoping this will limit tantrums and always wanting things and never being satisfied with what she has later on in life.

So what are some gifts you can get her that are not materialistic?! Glad you asked. We are hoping from a young age to teach her that experiences are more worth while then things. Things wear out, but you will never forget the experiences you have and they will make you a richer more well rounded person.

So what experiences are we thinking of for a 6 month old?

• Kinder Music classes. 
• Aqua baby swim lessons
• Membership to the kids Science Spectrum in town
• Gift cards for gas money (for traveling to local sites such as Carlsbad Caverns, Bottomless Pit Lake, etc.)
• Tickets to San Antonio's Sea World
• Tickets to "near by" zoos (Dallas, OKC, Abilene, etc.) 
• Gift cards for hotels and attractions in those locations

We are also setting  her up a educational pursuits fund if you are interested if giving cash, savings bonds or precious metals to help with this fund those would be much appreciated as well. 

While we will of course love any gift you get for her(if you choose to get her a gift) we would prefer if you could think along the guidelines above. Please also contact us for info. on purchasing any of the "lessons" above. I have information on pricing, when they will happen, etc. We will also work hard to make sure you get to see her enjoying your gift. Whether that means we use the gas money to come visit, or we take lots of pictures while at the event and post them to the blog will completely depend on the activity! : ) But don't worry you will get the joy of seeing her receive it one way or another!

We would also love if you would consider giving a gift to a charity on behalf of Psalm. Some charities that she likes are:

• World Vision
• Compassion
• Ronald McDonald House
• Food Banks
• Buckner Childrens Home

We hope that everyone has a very Merry Christmas!
Thanks so much for thinking so much of Psalm! If you have any questions about the gifts above or have any ideas for an "experience" gift that you would like to get her please feel free to call, email, facebook, or comment below and I will work to get back with you as quickly as possible.

Love,
Cody and Sarah

Tea Party

We recently went to a banquet for a non-profit I use to work for (PIDW-Asia). The banquet was a lot of fun and pretty fancy. They had real china on the tables. Psalm found one of the china coffee cups very tasty to chew/teeth on. (Don't worry there were no liquids or teas in the glass). But she is definitely learning what cups are for!

Who wants to throw me a tea party???

She also discovered a new game called throw spoons on the floor and watch mommy pick them up. Unfortunately I don't believe we got a picture of that. 

Biker Baby

Today we got our little girl all dressed up in her biker outfit. She looks so long in these jeans!

And we thought the bow was a nice touch. She enjoyed getting to go garage saleing with Mommy and Nana at a house down the road. We found 6 outfits for $5! Jackpot! And one is a really cute little dress. It may not fit her for a while, but it is nice to know we have clothes as she grows! -Because they grow so fast!- speaking of which, she is beginning to try to crawl. She can scoot herself all over the place and is working on getting her booty up in the air and lift her chest up with her arms. She can do each independently, now she just needs to get them to all work together! : )