We also did some laundry to get ready for Gram and Grand-dad’s arrival on New Year’s Day!

We drove down to PA on 12/23 to spend Christmas in Wynnewood.  Here’s the traditional Christmas Eve Bowling, which was Blaine and Sarah’s first bowling experience ever!

Trimming the tree.

Many many stockings were hung…

Christmas morning!  Blaine tried on his new helmet and bike from Santa Claus.

Then it was on to other presents.

Aunt Molly’s present of an apron and oven mitt made a nice transition to making the stuffing for Christmas dinner.

Then it was back to presents while Sarah napped.

When Sarah woke up we made it outside for awhile to try out the new big wheel from Mom-mom.

And when Uncle Tim and Aunt Liz arrived we had round 3 of presents!

Enjoying Blaine’s new tent from Mom-mom the next day.

On 12/27 we took a trip to the zoo with Uncle Fran, Alexis, Uncle Tim, and Aunt Liz.

Reading with Aunt Jane back at Ingeborg Road.

Trip to the Narberth playground after a failed encore visit to the Please Touch Museum on 12/28 (we bailed when we saw the long line).

Some quiet time with Mom-mom before the drive back to NY.

Sarah got her first real pair of shoes on 12/15 at the Nordstrom in White Plains (size 4 Stride Rite).  She was pretty excited!  Blaine got a pair of boots, too, and they both got balloons.  Everyone was happy.

Here’s a video of Sarah walking and kicking on 12/19 – amazing how much she’s improved in her first month of walking.

Here are a few extra pics from December which don’t warrant their own posts.  First, a multi-layer fire truck Blaine constructed – his lego building has definitely moved beyond the single stack.

Daddy took this one of us at the playground on our street.

Out to lunch at Apiary in Larchmont (yum!) while our house was being cleaned for the first time since moving in.

On 12/13, Blaine took his first ride on a train with Daddy.  They got on at Larchmont, went one stop toward the city, and then got on a train right back (it was a spur of the moment thing). In the meantime, Sarah and I went for a cappuccino.  Blaine had a blast!

We went to a local nursery to get some Christmas greenery on 12/9 (wreath, garland) but decided at the last minute to get a “tabletop” tree.

This pic shows how close we are to Blaine’s preschool – the entrance is that door you can see across the street.

This last one was taken to document Sarah’s love of tomatoes.

Here are some of the Christmas card photo attempts.

And the one we picked!

We took a morning outing on 12/8 to check out our town beach, roughly a mile away from our house.  It was all locked up but we enjoyed the view.

We checked out the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia during our visit, and Aunt Jane came with us.  The kids loved this vehicle room — Blaine did not want to leave the driver’s seat of this bus.

The highlight of the visit was the ride on this carousel – Blaine’s first time!

He loved it so much he wanted a second ride, so Aunt Jane talked the attendant into letting us stay on for another go around!

Both kids also loved this boat in the nursery rhymes section.

In the grocery section Blaine decided to put his green peppers into the bread oven.

Here are a few extra photos from our time in PA: