It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas & Sydney @ 10 Months!

Wow! Can-not believe it is already Christmas time! Everyone is SO excited about Christmas around our house, especially Jayda! We decorated the Christmas tree last week and put up Christmas decorations and she literally could hardly contain her excitement! She was jumping, singing, running, and dancing all over the house ALL DAY! It was lots of fun! She is SO ready for Christmas! Everyday she wakes up and asks if she can have her chocolate, so that she can for one eat some chocolate in the morning, but also check one more day off on the countdown to Christmas. It has been really fun seeing her sheer joy and excitement. It has also been really neat this year to explain to Jayda more about the birth of Jesus Christ and why we celebrate Christams. Now that she is a little older and more mature she can understand things better. We got the girls a little people nativity scene so that they can play with it and set the scene with baby Jesus. Jayda also has a little kids bible story book that she is really into and likes to set up her nativity scene and then read the story of Jesus' birth (in her own words). I think it is very important to remember the real reason why we celebrate Christams because sometimes it is easy to get all caught up in Santa and presents and all that good stuff. Sydney has really enjoyed all of the nice Christmas decorations/trees/lights/
nativity scenes etc. She likes to try and touch the Christmas tree or an ornament on the tree and then pull her hand away and laugh really loud. She knows she's not supposed to do it, but tries to sneak it in before I see her. It is hilarious! The other night we got hot chocolate and went out looking at Christmas lights in a nearby neighborhood. We had so much fun checking out all the lights and both of the girls were mesmerized by all of th. We also put the lights out in the yard this past weekend and the girls were SO incredibly excited! Jayda helped Jacob and I put the lights up and she had so much fun! They look so pretty and the girls love them! Christmas is so fun with little ones!

While I have time and while I'm thinking about it I'm going to go ahead and throw this in...Sydney at 10 Months (in 2 days, December 11th, 2010):

-She pulls up on everything to stand up. She really likes chairs, couches, and people's legs. She has started cruising, a little bit, when she is standing up.
-She follows us all over the house, wherever we go. Even if we go to the bathroom Sydney will crawl as fast as she can over to the bathroom and try to open the door. If she can't open it, she will sit up and wait for you to come out, and then bolt in when the door opens. Don't know why but she always tries to pull up on the toilet and play, yucky Sydney!!
-She is a very speedy crawler and can go almost as fast as if she were walking.
-She has a total of 4 teeth now! Her top 2 teeth came in over Thanksgiving. She has been teething for the past couple of weeks and she had a bit of a cold all at the same time. So, she was not too happy. She seems to be past all of it for now, thank goodness!
-Sydney is officially weened to a bottle now. It took me about a month to wean her from nursing. She is doing really well taking a bottle now and gets very excited when she sees her "ba-ba". She is not eating as many solids now that she is getting more milk.
-She is not liking baby food as much these days, but prefers table food. She has always eaten whatever we give her off of our plate, but now I've started giving her some big girl food of her own. So far she has tried cheerios, rice krispies, cheese cubes and banana puffs. I think I'll be chopping up lots of food now that she seems to handle it pretty well and really likes it! Probably helps that she has 4 teeth now too!
-Sydney can say "Da-da", "Ma-ma", "A-da" (for Jayda), and "Doh" (for dog).
-She loves to watch, touch, talk to, and play with our dogs, Harley and Nina! She gets SO excited to see them and could sit and watch them forever! She likes to stand up at the back door and watch them through the door. She stands there and says "Doh, doh, doh???" It is really cute! Anytime she hears them bark she also says "Doh?"
-Sydney is a very happy, laid back baby. She goes wherever we go without much of any complaint. It is so nice to have a sweet, laid back baby! Don't get me wrong, she does have her moments and can get pretty mad at times (especially if she is tired or hungry), but for the most part she just goes with the flow.
-She LOVES her big sister more than anything! Today Jayda was at school and when Sydney woke up I went in her room to play with her. We had fun playing with her toys for about 30 minutes and then she started crawling out of the room down the hallway saying "A-da, A-da, Aaaaa-daaaaa??". She was looking for Jayda, but Jayda was still at school. It was so funny because it was like she had fun playing with mommy, but she had enough of that and wanted her sister. Too cute!
-Sydney is wearing 9 months clothes, but is about to be in 12 months and still in size 3 diapers. She weighs 18 1/2 pounds now.
-She likes to randomly throw herself backwards while you are holding her. She thinks it is soooo funny and just laughs and laughs. You can imagine how fun that is for whoever is holding her!
-Sydney can drink out of a sippy cup! One day while daddy was babysitting apparently Sydney crawled over and picked up Jayda's sippy cup and started drinking away. Who knows what she was drinking. I didn't get to witness this myself, but did hear all about it. Guess that transition won't be too hard for her.

I took some cute pictures of us decorating the tree last week and then some more the other day of Sydney while Jayda was gone to school. Also took a few of them in their Christmas outfits together once Jayda got home. I think they turned out pretty cute...enjoy!

Jayda is SO ready to help me decorate the tree! Yay!


We had to put Sydney in the booster seat while we decorated because she kept trying to get into everything.


She could not be more excited about this!


Sydney was happy to get out of the booster seat and check out all of the new Christmas decorations. So fun!


What a yummy book Sydney!


She found the window seal and figured out how to stand up and look outside. "There is all kinds of cool stuff to look at out here!"


Sydney decided to join in on the Christmas excitement too!


Again, Jayda was overjoyed to help us put Christmas lights up outside.


Sydney loves to play in the fridge. Anytime it is opened she is the first one over to check things out. She used to crawl over and look in but now she crawls over and then stands up, and tries to pull things out of it! Fun fun!


Jayda cheesing at dinner the other night with a red gatorade mustache.


Sydney trying some cheerios and cheese for the first time. She likes it!


Sydney dressed up in her "Baby's First Christmas" outfit.


Pretty little girl smiling for mommy.


I got her to hold the "Baby's First Christmas" photo album. Thought it was pretty cute!


Then, we had to pull out one of Jayda's "First Christmas" outfits and put Sydney in it for some pictures. So cute!


She loves to play with her "Night Before Christmas" teddy bear. She really likes to put her finger in his mouth while he's talking. She thinks that is so funny!


And there she goes again.


She is calling for Jayda because Jayda just got home from school. Sydney was still napping the other day when it was time to pick Jayda up from school so Michelle picked her up for me. So, Jayda had just gotten home and Sydney is wanting to see her.


She crawled over to the window to look outside for Jayda and is yelling through the widnow at her.


"Yay, sissy is home!!!"


Thought this was a cute picture of Sydney sitting in the kitchen.


Such a pretty picture of Jayda in her Christmas dress by our tree.


She loves the "Night Before Christmas" teddy bear too. Good thing we happened to have 2 of them!


Favorite picture of the 2 of them together! Don't ask me how many pictures I had to take to get this one, or how many different singing snoopys and fiddle playing reindeers I had to hold over my head to get them to both smile, and look at the camera at the same time. Yeah, quite the trick!