Visiting the horses again

Craig, Sydney and I went to see my parents in April and while we were there we went to visit the horses again. Sydney was a little nervous at first but seemed to warm up to them pretty fast.

Dad/Grandpa...back in the saddle again

Mom/Nana and her horse Aubrey

Aubrey checking out Sydney

Sydney at the stable

Mom and Dad

Me and my sister Amber (expecting her first baby in November!)
Yours truly riding Aubrey (it's been a long time since I rode a horse!)

Cute as a Cupcake!

Our sweet friends, Jeff and Becky Leach, gave Sydney this adorable apron for her birthday. She loves to be in the kitchen with me so I know we'll get many, many uses out of it!

Texas Storm

I knew we were supposed to get some storms overnight. Well at 4am, Sydney's monitor started beeping which it does when the signal is bad. So I picked it up and turned it off. That's when I heard the wind and rain and thunder. I told Craig to get up and get the dog...took me two times but he finally got it. I ran to grab Sydney and we all went to the bathroom and sat in the tub. Craig was so out of it because he had taken nyquil before he went to bed. As soon as we got in the bathroom we lost the electricity so Craig had to stumble around in the dark to find our flashlight. About 15 minutes go by and Craig suggests that we take Sydney and get back in our bed. Right about that time, the tornado sirens start going off. So everyone got back in the tub...we were there for another 25 minutes before it finally sounded like it was settling down. We took Sydney to bed with us (which she doesn't do good with) and about 10 minutes later the electricity came back on so I put her back in her bed and we went to sleep. I woke up this morning and from what I could see from our front door, there were about 5 trees on the ground (not limbs, trees) and shingles everywhere!! We live in a townhome on the bottom floor so the shingles shouldn't effect us since we have people living above us. When I tried to take Sydney to daycare I drove by 2 churches that both had their steeples ripped off their roofs. One was on the lawn and one was no where to be seen! The news said the winds were 80mph but no confirmation of a tornado. It was pretty scary anyways. Sydney was amazing the whole time! I thought for sure she would scream when I scooped her out of bed but she was so happy. She just played with her bathtub toys and went right back down after all the activity without a peep. Here are some pictures I took this afternoon:

Trees outside our front door

Playing outside

We've had some very pretty afternoons lately so Sydney and I will go play outside when I get home. Sometimes we go for a wagon ride and sometimes I just let her walk around. She's so impressed with her walking skills lately that she wants to walk EVERYWHERE!

Easter Dress

This year Sydney was running a fever on Easter (what else is new?) so we had to skip church and cancel our brunch plans with friends. Last weekend I decided to put her in the Easter dress for church since she hadn't gotten to wear it yet. She looked like a little princess!

Sydney is ONE!!!!

I can't believe the day is finally here! Sydney is officially one now and is looking more and more like a little girl and less like a baby. For those that don't know, Sydney caught pink eye the day before her big birthday bash, and we had to cancel it. Yes, I cried. I was so upset...as soon as the pediatrician said pink eye, I knew what that meant. Both of our families were either already in Dallas or already on their way to Dallas. So we decided to just have a small family party at our place instead. Sydney got some really fun toys and cute clothes. Uncle Josh and Beth gave her a wagon and she LOVES it. I take her out in it every day that we have nice weather. After her little party, we went to dinner at Snuffers with everyone and then went home and Sydney clonked out for the night. Even though it wasn't the big party I had planned on having, it was still really fun and it was great to get to celebrate with our families.

On to what she is doing now. She is walking everywhere!! It's still so surreal to see her walk around the corner, or walk after us. Her vocabulary is expanding everyday too. She can now say Duck (she calls everything a duck), Dog, Bath, Ball and Hi. Hi is the cutest thing that she says...she draws it out like this "Hhhhhiiiiiiii"...and she says it in the sweetest voice. I love it!! We're still working on the sippy cup and she is getting better at drinking from it everyday. She got her first "non" ear infection today. We noticed that her ears were draining and although it's kinda gross, we are so thankful to avoid the ear infection!! We go to the pediatrician tomorrow for her 1 year checkup and I fully expect to get the go-ahead for whole milk, eggs and honey. I'm excited to get her on milk and be done with formula.

Here are some pictures from the festivities as well as some other random cute Sydney pics.

Walking!!!!

Sydney is getting so good at walking now. She can easily take 15-20 steps before falling down. It's so fun to see her get excited when she walks really far. I took her out in front of our place the other day and while we were out there I discovered something new about Sydney...she HATES grass!! It was so funny to watch her. Everytime she would lose her balance and put her hands down on the grass, she would pick her hands back up really fast. Here are some pics of her walking!

Super BIG update!!!

Okay...I know, I know. Most of you are wondering...are we ever going to see new pics of Sydney? The answer is YES!! Sorry I've fallen so far behind. To make it up to you, I'm making the gran-daddy of all posts today. Where to start?

11 months old!

Well, she's officially 11 months old as of March 2nd. I can't believe in less than a month, she'll be ONE!! It can't be. She is doing soooo many new things. For one thing, she is very adventurous now. (and rebellious...but we'll get to that later) She's always discovering new things. For instance, when I took her new convertible carseat out of the box, she thought it would be so fun to play in it.

Back to the rebellious part. Maybe that's too harsh...she's just hard-headed and wants to do everything her way. She loves to play with electrical sockets (yes of course they are all covered), wires, computers, phones, lamps....and the dishwasher. First I thought she wanted to help me do the dishes (yay!)...but alas, she just wants to use it as her playground. She climbed up on it just the other day so I had to take a picture before I told her no...just to document it! Yes...that's my foot in the picture...I was afraid she would fall backwards!!

She is also saying new words now like dog, bath, and bear. Well sort of...bath is more like BA without the "th"...but she's trying. She's also getting good at recognizing objects. She has this fish spout cover in the bathtub and if we ask her "Where's the fish Sydney?" she always points to it. Oh, that's another new thing. She points at everything...sometimes with words associated, sometimes just pointing into space. Who knows what's going on in that fast-moving brain of hers.
I've started to introduce the spoon to her. The hardest part is coming up with thick foods so it doesn't slip off the spoon before it gets to her mouth. In these pictures, she's eating the inside of some enchiladas we had for dinner that night...though it doesn't look that great in pictures, she LOVED it.

In other big news, she is officially taking multiple steps!! She took one last week and I thought it was just a fluke...like she stumbled or something and accidentally took a step. But it wasn't!! Saturday she took 3 steps at one time and today she took up to five at a time...and she'll do that multiple times. I'm so excited about this next stage. So many things to do when you have a walking baby!! Hopefully she'll be walking strong by her birthday!

Texas snow

Another big thing that happened last week was that we got snow!! Oh, and not just once but TWICE. Here are some pics from it.

The first snow on March 3rd. It was really early in the morning when we took these so that's why it's still dark outside. We didn't get much snow this time.

Then it snowed again on March 6th. This time it snowed a pretty good amount!!

A look outside our home.

Me and Sydney...introducing her to snow...she wasn't that thrilled...

And by the time daddy got her, she was so over the snow!! So he hung her upside down. (no babies were harmed in the filming of this event) :)

Sydney gets tubes
As most of you know, Sydney has been getting so many ear infections lately. Around the end of February, we went to the pediatrician because Sydney wasn't feeling well again, and lo and behold, another double ear infection. Our pediatrician suggested that we go see an ENT which we did and he suggested that Sydney would be a good candidate for tubes. For those that don't know, they make a tiny incision in Sydney's ear drum and insert a teeny tiny little tube in that hole. This allows the fluid behind her ear drum (which collects and causes the infection) to drain out of her ear...thus preventing future ear infections. Well we finally had that little surgery today and it went fantastic!! For one thing, I would absolutely recommend Dr. Tom Frank to any local people who are considering tubes. He is awesome and made us feel completely at ease about the whole process. We woke up early and were at the surgery center by 6am. We filled out some paper work and were back in our waiting room by 6:30. Sydney actually fell asleep in my lap which never happens, but I think it was partially because she was tired and partially because she didn't feel well. Dr. Frank showed up around 6:45 to explain everything to us and ask if we had any questions. They took her back and 7am and Dr. Frank was back out to talk to us at 7:15am! Can you believe it?? 15 minute surgery! She woke up a little cranky which they said is completely normal. The anesthesia made her feel a little loopy and she was starving since she couldn't eat since midnight the night before. Everything went perfectly and Sydney is already feeling so much better. He said he could tell why she wasn't feeling well because when he made the incision, she had yet ANOTHER ear infection. Now all that nastiness has drained out and she is feeling like a new girl! You would never even know she had a little surgery this morning. Here are some pre-operation pictures.