Sydney's first sleepover!

Sydney's friend Madison spent the night with us a few weeks ago.  It was so fun to have her stay  with us and watch the girls interact with each other.  We had pizza for dinner, then they played, and then we put them down for bed.  They insisted on both sleeping on their napmats on Sydney's floor right next to each other.  It took about an hour to get them to finally fall asleep because their was a lot of talking and giggling going on it that room.  In the morning I made cinnamon rolls (well pillsbury made them, I just cooked them) and then Madi's dad came to pick her up.  I can't wait for more sleepovers in the future!

Mommy's little helper

I got this cordless vacuum for Christmas from Craig's parents and I absolutely LOVE it!!!  I use it multiple times a day because it's so easy to get it out and clean up messes.  Turns out, it's also a perfect size and weight for Sydney and she loves to help me vacuum with it.  I'll just let her turn it on and go!  She'll even ask me throughout the day if I can get it out for her and let her vacuum...how can a mommy refuse that?!!  I love having a little helper, I just hope she stays that way!

Guess who's 7 months old today!!!

Can you believe it!?? I can't! Harper is just growing up so much faster than I remember it for Sydney. I swear I was just pregnant with her yesterday. Harper had her first illness a couple of weeks ago...a double ear infection! That's actually a lot better than Sydney was at this point so I'm thankful for that. She's also eating solid foods like a champ and even starting to eat puffs. She loves them but can't always get them in her mouth on her own. She gets them in her tight little fist but hasn't figured out how to get them from there to her mouth. We might try some more table foods tonight at dinner to see how she does. She's not crawing or scooting yet, but she will sit in one spot forever! I have this little box that has a bunch of her toys in it and I can just sit her next to that and she'll get each and every toy out of the box and just have a ball. One time I think she sat in the same spot playing with the toys in that box for over 45 minutes! I'm enjoying these non-mobile times while I can. I know she'll be into everything before I know it. I also noticed her looking for something that was out of sight for the first time the other day. I had a yellow barrette in my hair on the left side of my head and when she saw it she just had to have it! So I kept turning my head to where she couldn't see it and she would crane her neck around my shoulder to try to find it. It was so cute to see her wheels turning! She 'talks' all the time and she's actually pretty loud.  If Sydney is watching something on TV, she'll keep telling Harper to be quiet because she can't hear.  So much for her being my quiet reserved one!  :)  For fun, I put her in the same overalls that I had taken Sydney's 7 month pictures in so I could get a good even side by side look at them. So what do you think? I still think they look so different!

Harper at 7 months:                                                                  Sydney at 7 months:
                                                  

                                                        

Here are some other pics I took of Harper today!  (The whole time she was wearing these overalls, all she wanted to do was chew on them!)

ICE at the Gaylord Texan

Craig's parents let us use their suburban to get back all of the Christmas loot we acquired over the week. Thank goodness too...there's no way we would have been able to get it all back in one of our cars. Then they decided to come up on Christmas night in our car and stay at the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine. The hotel was running this special for Grandparents where they could stay for 2 nights and get 4 tickets to the ICE! exhibit and a complimentary photo. So they decided to bring up Coltin and Dustin and have Sydney stay in the hotel with them as well. (you can see who got the better end of this deal!) Craig and I went up to the hotel on Christmas night so we could go do the ICE exhibit with them. It was soooo amazing! The theme this year was "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas." I was just amazed that everything in there was carved from ice. They give you giant parkas to wear through the exhibit so you don't freeze. We even wrapped Harper up and took her through it too!

Christmas Extravaganza 2009

It's official...we have survived another Christmas! :) This year was great because Craig had the whole week off before Christmas. We went to Katy on Monday and did Christmas with my family the first half of the week. On Tuesday, my sisters, brother, and grandma came over to my parents house and we had lunch and opened gifts. It was so great to see everyone!! Then we drove to Magnolia to see some of Craig's friends from high school. After that we drove to Craig's parents house. We had Christmas with his immediate family that night. Then on Thursday we did a Christmas lunch with his mom's family, and then Christmas dinner with his dad's family. This was the first year that we decided to drive back to Dallas on Christmas Eve so we could wake up in our own home on Christmas morning. Of course, as luck would have it, Dallas got a rare snow/ice storm that night. Craig started suggesting that maybe we stay in Houston and I was so upset. We decided that even if it took all night to get home, we were making the drive!! Luckily, it wasn't too bad and we got into Dallas around 1:15am. Boy were we tired! Santa came through and Sydney got the pink bicycle she wanted!! She also got clothes, games, a dress up box full of dress up clothes and jewelry, a baby highchair, a princess vanity and tons of other stuff. Harper was spoiled too!! I spent all day Saturday cleaning out Sydney and Harper's old toys to make room for the new stuff. What a fabulous Christmas we had! We hope your family's was as well!

First Annual Daddy/Daughter Christmas dinner!

Craig decided this year that he wanted to do something special with just him and the girls for Christmas. How sweet! He took Sydney on a date to Macaroni Grill and then to look at Christmas lights. Harper was too young to go this year but hopefully next year! Sydney talked about her "Christmas dinner" for about a week before they even went. She was so excited!

Santa comes to visit!

This was the second time Santa came to our house to see Sydney. Last year she was completely terrified and glued to us. This year, she was still a little weary but she at least smiled and talked to him.

Keeping her eye on Santa!



















Love this picture of Harper!

Sydney's Christmas party at CLC

Sydney had her class Christmas party on the last day of school before the Christmas break. Craig was out of town that morning, so I left my class to run down to hers so I could be there for the party. We decorated sugar cookies and then her class sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and Jingle Bells. It's so funny how kids get really quiet when the parents are watching...prior to this performance, Sydney sang Jingle Bells at the top of her lungs all the time.



















Placemat they made with pictures of her













Decorating her cookie













She's supposed to be singing here but just kept her fingers in her mouth instead. :)