We have been doing lots of fun things these past few weeks! I cannot believe it is already the middle of November and getting close to Thanksgiving. It is crazy how fast time flies! I've been taking lots of pictures lately, as usaul, so there are quite a few in this post. Enjoy!
Jayda loves to dress Sydney up all the time! This is one of the hats she likes to put on her. Amazingly, Sydney doesn't seem to mind it that much.
And, Jayda loves to dress up herself, all the time! She went for the pumpkin this day. It was just a few days before Halloween.
The day before Halloween we took a mini-vacation down to San Antonio. Jacob had some work to do down there on saturday night, so we went along with him to have some fun. We stayed at the Marriot River Walk, which was really nice, and just hung out for the night. Me and the girls went to dinner at an italian restaraunt just below the hotel right on the river walk. That night they were having a halloween parade of boats coming down the river, so Jayda loved watching that while we ate dinner. After dinner we sat out by the river and had some ice cream, then went into the River Center Mall and let Jayda play on the playscape. After we had done all of that Daddy was done with his work stuff and met us back up at the hotel. On halloween, the next day we went down to play at the hotel pool. They had a really nice heated indoor/outdoor pool that Jayda absolutely LOVED and a hot tub, plus some ping pong tables. We played down there most of the morning and then went to meet Kitty, Christian, and baby Ewan for lunch. It was so fun to meet Ewan, and even more cool that Sydney and Ewan are right about the same age. We had lots of fun catching up with them!
Taking a ride on the river taxi at the River Walk.
We walked over to the market in San Antonio and found this. Jayda just had to ride the bull, of course!
On Halloween we drove back from San Antonio just in time for trick or treating! We met up with Riley to make the rounds around the neighborhood. The girls had a blast trick or treating and loved getting all the candy! They could have kept going all night if we would have let them!
Family picture on Halloween in our front yard, so fun!
Jayda, the go-go girl, and Riley, as Aerial all dressed up to go trick or treating on Halloween.
Sydney with her daddy on Halloween in her "Team Daddy" cheerleader outfit!
Last weekend we went to Hutsville to celebrate Oupa and Pawpaw's birthdays. On saturday we had a yummy birthday lunch with Oupa. We gave Oupa his presents and celebrated with some delish carrot cake. On sunday we had a birthday party for Pawpaw out at his house. We hung out most of the afternoon, ate lots of yummy food, played Klint's new Kinnect game, and rode the 4 wheeler while the boys played a game or two of football and basketball. Pawpaw opened up his presents and then we had some great deserts to celebrate. We had a great weekend of celebrating our dads birthdays! Oh, and Jacob and I even managed to get away to the Lady Antebellum concert in The Woodlands on saturday night. The concert was a-maz-ing and it makes me love them even more! Soooo good!!
Sydney loved riding on the zebra at Nanna and Pawpaw's for the first time!
Sydney swinging at Oma and Oupa's house.
Oupa opening up his birthday presents from us.
All the girls out on a 4 wheeler ride. Sydney now loves it too, no surprise!
Sweet sisters on the 4 wheeler together. Jayda was so excited to hold Sydney up there!
Pawpaw with his grandkids at his birthday party.
All the brothers with their Dad at the birthday party.
Sydney turned 9 months last thursday, November 11th. So, Mommy of course had to get some pictures of the little munchkin. I also got some professional ones done of the girls the day before and they turned out great! I know I've said it before, but I LOVE Portrait Innovations and always get great pictures when we go there (which is a lot!)
Sweet little smiley Sydney at 9 months.
Sydney thinks it is so funny to stand up at her activity table. She talks, yells, sings and laughs at it!
And this would be one of those times that she is yelling at it, so hilarious!
Playing at her table.
A little somebody loves to get into the refridgerator! If she sees it open she makes a mad dash over to get into it before it closes!
*If you don't want to read about weaning a nursing baby, you may not want to read below. Mainly writing it for my memories...sniff,sniff!
When Sydney turned 9 months last thursday she had a check up. It went pretty well, however after talking with the pediatrician I decided it was time to start weaning Sydney to a bottle. She had been exclusively nursing for the first 9 months. She hadn't grown quite as much at this check up as she had been growing up until her 6 month check up and when they took a routine 9 month blood sample, it showed that she was slightly anemic. She was by no means under weight, but had now dropped to slightly under the 50th percentile for weight and she had been staying in the 75th percentile for weight. She also started crawling between her 6 month and 9 month appointments so that could be part of the reason she had not gained as much weight. I had thought my milk supply had gone down some, plus breast milk does not have as much iron in it, at this point, as formula does. So, because I needed to start supplementing with formula, she had to learn how to take a bottle. This transition was very rough for both me and Sydney. We had tried giving Sydney a bottle before but she never would take one. She could not figure out that milk woud come out of it so it just made her super, super mad! So, for most of last thursday I spent the day shoving a bottle down her mouth while she screamed bloody murder, literally, and I balled my eyes out! It is just so hard to switch to a bottle (at least for me) when you have been nursing for 9 months, not to mention she was growing inside of me for 9 months. So, that is 18 months that she has been attached to me in some way. Whew, ok, moving on. Jacob got home that night and wanted to try giving her the bottle. At this point she had not had any milk since 10 a.m. and I had given her no solids, lunch or dinner, so that she would get hungry enough to take the bottle. He tried and was unsuccessful as well. I didn't know what we were going to do! I had nursed her for the "last" time and we were not going back! Aaahhh! Not only am I upset that she will not take the bottle, but my hormones and emotions are going crazy and I'm near tears every other minute! After trying unsuccessfully for quite some time Jacob said he wanted to try putting ice cream on the end of the bottle to see if that would make her take it. I said, oh no, that won't work, but go ahead. At this point I just wanted her to drink the milk from the darn bottle and didn't care how it happened. We didn't have any ice cream, but we did have a left over ice cream cake from Daniel's birthday. Jacob decided to put some icing from the cake on the tip of the bottle....and wah-lah!! She took the bottle!! Hallelujah! I could not believe it! Daddy finally got Sydney to drink milk from a bottle! So, the problem was that Sydney just did not know that milk could come out of the bottle and once she sucked down the cake icing, she then got some milk and drank the rest of the bottle. Thank goodness! For the next few days I have been putting different things, like yogurt, on her bottle to get her to take it. As of today, she no longer needs a sweet treat on the end of her bottle and takes it without fussing. I am SO happy that she is doing this so well! I am still nursing her for the first feeding early in the morning and then she has a bottle with half breast milk and half formula for the other 3 feedings.
