Happy First Birthday Sarah!!

I ventured out to the mall this afternoon to have some first birthday portraits taken. Considering she should have been napping, these came out pretty well. I also got a couple of Christmas portraits done too, but you will just have to wait a little bit to see those. Sarah had had enough of picture taking by the end when we were trying to get the shots with all of the kids and wouldn't hardly sit still. She actually looks pretty good in the group shots, but at least one of the older kids has a goofy expression because they were paying too much attention to Sarah and not the photographer. Oh well, such is life LOL! I'll share those a little later when the holidays get a bit closer ;)

While we were waiting for the pictures to be printed, we trooped down to the Build-A-Bear shop and picked out a bear for Sarah for her birthday. She loves her stuffed animals and picks one out after she wakes up to carry around with her for a while. So, adding to the collection seemed like an appropriate gift. The older kids loved helping pick which style to get and stuffing it. Brenna carried the box to the van for us. I passed on getting an outfit for the bear as I don't think Sarah would care either way and would probably only chew on it LOL They had some adorable halloween outfits for them that were really hard to resist. You can check them out if you like at the Build-a-Bear website. some of the halloween outfits can be seen here. They don't have all of them there- there was a really cute pumpkin fairy outfit that I dont' see on the website. I think the spider fairy witch outfit was my favorite. It reminds me a little of Carissa's halloween costume.
Here are some pics of Sarah getting her bear when we got home.
She was so cute- after getting Fluffy (what we named him at the store, you fill out a 'birth' certificate) out of the box, she took him over to the little rocking chair and sat him in it and started rocking him. Then, she climbed into the chair with him. He's quite a bit bigger than the others that she has been carrying around lately, but as she grows he will eventually be a more manageable size for her.

the kids were all drooling over the bears and clothes (Bryce liked the frog), so I had to remind them that they usually get some money for christmas and maybe they should think about using it to buy a bear and outfit if they really wanted one.