Meeting Santa Claus

We had our "Sharp Family Christmas Party" at Grandma Sharp's recently (with all my dad's sisters and their families). Each year, my dad gets the ultimate privilege of playing Santa. I guess that's what happens when you're the only boy!

Lily got to meet Santa... and let's just say that she wasn't thrilled about it:


However, she wasn't as terrified/horrified/frightened/scared/alarmed/terrorized/(any other adjectives you'd like to add?) as her cousin Kelsie was.


Pure torture... so awesome.

California Trip... Continued

Another highlight of our trip to California was spending time on the beach. Even though the weather was overcast and a little gloomy, we still had a great time wandering and exploring the beach.



With this trip, Lily has now been to both the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific. What a lucky girl!

Our 1st Family Trip to Disneyland!

Our adventure to the "Happiest Place on Earth" was fantastic. The only thing which could have made it better was warmer, drier weather. Regardless, we made the most of our time there spending 3 days at Disneyland (including one night of trick-or-treating), two days at Universal Studios and a night at "The Haunt" at Knott's Scary Farm. Since my earliest days working during Frightmare's at lagoon, I've wanted to go to the Haunt.

Check that one off the bucket list!

Yes, it was worth all the hype and it was everything I thought it would be... plus some. For an old lady like me, staying up until 2am was a stretch... but completely worth it.

Lily's favorite ride at Disneyland was "It's a Small World". She clapped and squealed along with the singing. Since the ride lasts 10+ minutes, we only brought ourselves to go on it twice. We just couldn't convince Justin a 3rd time was worth it. It took bribery just to get him on the ride for the second time.

(Lily on her favorite ride)

My favorite ride was... that's hard to say. I can say for sure it wasn't the long ride to and from California.


Sometimes you have to be creative (or crazy) to make the time pass more quickly! Gratefully, there were no problems or speeding tickets either to or from our destination.

While on the vacation, it was fun for the girls to spend some quality time with each other... matching and all. For a family that only believes in having girls, at least they're cute!



While waiting in a line for 75 minutes plus to get our picture taken with the princesses... including Cinderella was not cool... being able to take turns waiting in line while the other people went through "trick or treat" lines to get free candy definitely was cool.

For "Mickey's Halloween Party", Lily came as a lamb... IMHO, she made an adorable little lamb (yes, I do realize that I am extremely biased).

While some people like to wear their 3D glasses on the tour at Universal Studios, other prefer to try and eat them.

I really hope that they sanitize those. Oh well... what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger, right?

One of the best parts of the trip for Lily was all the attention she got from Grandma & Grandpa Sharp, her cousins and aunts and uncles...

Or maybe that was really one of our favorite parts!

9 Month Stats

Lily turned 9 months old almost two weeks ago... on October 12. Trent took her to her doctor appointment the following day. She seemed to have recovered from the trauma of the appointment (getting shots) by the time I got home from work.

Here are the stats:

Weight: 19 lbs 2 oz - 57%
Height: 27 inches - 31%
Head Circumference: 43 cm - 22%

More than anything, we're grateful to have a healthy, happy baby girl!

There will be posts about our California trip and Disneyland coming soon!

Blog Merge

I realize I've been terrible at blogging. I discovered one of the reasons I haven't kept up is because I unintentionally ended up with two blogs. (trentandamanda.blogspot.com and hansenbabyblog.blogspot.com). This happened when I started the baby blog after finding out I was expecting. However, because I didn't want my pregnancy to be public early on, I started a whole new blog.

Well... what I've learned in the past year is that two is TOO many. I've merged all the information from trentandamanda.blogspot.com so I will only have one blog to upkeep. I'm hopeful this will keep me motivated. Check back for more regular posts!

Babbling Baby

Lily started babbling a ton today, for the first time. She's always made a lot of noise... but now we can't get her to stop! In fact, she'll babble for a bit, stick her binky in her mouth, then pull it out because she has more to say!



I'm not sure the people at the Indian restaurant liked it too much... but we sure did love it!

Riding Bikes...

Before Lily was born... we bought her a really cool bike seat. Trent & I love to ride bikes together... so we figured that she'd enjoy coming along for the ride.

A couple weeks ago Trent pulled our bikes down from the hooks where they are carefully hung on the roof of our garage. I'm embarrassed to say that this was the first time I've used my bike at all since Lily joined us. Luckily, I still remembered how to ride. I guess that's why people have coined the phrase... "it's like riding a bike". Apparently that's not something you are supposed to quickly forget how to do.


Lily loved the ride!! It wasn't until after we were finished that I realized we should really have a bike helmet for her. After spending over an hour searching for infant helmets, I discovered they don't make them for babies her size. Apparently it's not safe to take a baby on a bike until they're at least a year old. How disappointing! I guess we'll wait a while for her next ride. I imagine, by then, she'll like it even more.