~The Butterfly Musuem~

Last week I took the girls to the butterfly exhibit inside the Houston Musuem of Natural Science with playgroup. It was so neat! We first started out looking at different insects, caterpillars, and butterflies hatching from their cocoons. The girls had fun looking around at all of the cool stuff. Then we walked out into the actual butterfly habitat and butterflies were every-where! There so many different types of butterflies and they were beautiful! They were flying all around us and landing on trees, flowers and feeding stations all throughout the habitat. The girls took butterfly guides with them through the exhibit and could identify which butterfly they saw with the guide. The butterflies were all so beautiful! Sydney kept pointin at them all around her. One butterfly even landed on Riley's bow in her hair and Jayda thought that was so cool! There was also a big iguana in the exhibit named "Churro" that Jayda wanted to take home and keep. Uh, no thanks Jayda! There was also a pretty waterfall in the exhibit for the butterflies to enjoy. After we walked through the "rainforest" we finished off looking at preserved butterflies. They were so pretty. At the end of the tour they had a play area for the kids so we had to play in there for a little bit, of course. Such a fun thing to do and so cool!

The girls sitting with the pirate in the Musuem of Natural Science.


On top of the caterpillar at the entrance to the butterfly musuem.


Sydney playing with her toy and checking things out in the musuem.


Jayda looking at the roach farm, yucko!


The girls pretending to play some sort of insect game.


Jayda checking out the butterflies with her little guide.


Jayda's new best friend "Churro"!


A bunch of butterflies eating their food.


The pretty butterfly on Riley's bow.


Me with all of the girlies at the waterfall in the butterfly musuem.


Looking at the pretty preserved butterflies.


Runaway baby! This is a common occurence!


Jayda and Sydney doing insect puzzles in the play area.


Jayda and Jaylie posing with the pretty purple rock (not the correct name I know) at the musuem.


The girls playing around in the kitchen the other night while I was cooking dinner.

Sydney Starts Walking! Jayda Turns 3 1/2!

Sydney learned how to walk today! Hip hip hooray! We are SO excited for her! We, being me and Jayda since we are the only ones that have seen her do this! Sydney has been wanting to walk for at least the past month but hadn't quite figured it out. About a week ago she started standing up all the time and clapping for herself. It seemed as if she would start walking anyday! But, everytime we would put our hands out for her to walk to us she would plop down and crawl to us. She has also liked holding someone's hand to help her walk, but had never tried to do it on her own. She just wasn't ready yet. But, today while I was in the kitchen she had a very determined look on her face, put her arms out, and took the tiniest baby step I have ever seen! It was so cute and amazing and I started hooping and hollering! She did her right foot at first a couple of times before she realized she needed to move one foot and then the other one to go forward. After stepping her right foot out several times she then moved her left foot and figured out that she was moving. Jayda and I were so excited for her. Because we were yelling and clapping for her she knew this was a very big deal. She was even clapping for herself! She hasn't moved very far yet, but I know this is only the beginning and by the end of the day she is probably going to be all over the house!







Ok, so I have had some MAJOR issues with uploading videos and pictures today! GRRR! I finally just got a few pictures off of my camera today of Sydney walking and Jayda at 3 1/2. I have tried uploading a video of Sydney walking for several hours today and nothing worked! I will keep trying to get it uploaded because it is too cute! Here are just a few pics!


Coincedentally, today is Jayda's 3 1/2 birthday!

Jayda likes to get clothes out of her dresser and uses her rocking horse to stand on to get out what she wants. Gotta love her "do it myself" little spirit!


I can't believe she's already hit the 3 1/2 mark. It seems like just yesterday she turned 3! Jayda is so sweet and loving at this age. She has a very strong will and wants what she wants when she wants it. She loves her baby sister more than anything in the world, besides daddy of course! She tries to pick Sydney up all the time and hold her like she does with her baby dolls. Whenever I tell her to put Sydney down she just says "But I just looooove her mommy!" It is so sweet! I was getting onto her the other night and she was about to go to timeout and she pointed her little finger at me and said "God is watching YOU!!" Oh my goodness, you can only imagine! She has a huge imagination these days! She is constantly talking to her imaginary friends (usually Riley or her classmates Mary or James) and telling them what to do, when to go to the bathroom, to follow her in the line, to march like penguins, to eat their lunch, to sit in timeout, and it goes on and on. It is amazing how she can carry on such conversations with her imaginary friends. The only bad thing about this wide imagination is that she gets scared easily, of monsters, bad people, witches etc. at night when she goes to bed. Or, she has dreams about these bad things she imagines. We just have to comfort her and love her and help her through her fears and reassure her that she is ok. Sometimes it is quite sad to see how upset she gets about certain things, i.e. - witches! At one point a few months ago she was deathly afraid of witches after watching the movie Snow White. She wouldn't go to the bathroom on her own or go anywhere by herself because she was worried about the witch. We had to put signs on the door saying "No witches allowed!", put swords at her door to scare the witches away, daddy told her that he shot all the bad witches, and so did Mr. Scott! This went on for a good week or so before she realized that no bad witches were going to get her. Poor baby! We got over that and haven't run into anything else quite as frieghtening. Thank goodness! She has been having some bad dreams lately about monsters and bad guys, but they haven't been too bad. She loves to play hide and go seek and would play that game for hours. She especially loves to play it with Bubba and Caitlyn, but will settle for a game with mommy and daddy from time to time. Jayda likes to play games. Some of her favorites are Chutes and Latters, Memory, Yahtzee, and she loves to put puzzles together. The big floor sized ones are extra fun! She likes figuring things out and being challenged. Jayda loves pre-school and is thriving there. She has learned so much and I am so proud of her. She likes to tell you whose letter belongs to who like "A" is my letter and "J" is her letter and "O" is Oma's letter and "M" is Mary's letter and you get the point. Whenever we are out somewhere she will point to a sign or label and say "Look mommy that is so and so's letter!" She also LOVES painting. She gets to paint at school quite a bit and I let her paint at home too. Usually once a day or once every other day. She loves to paint pictures and then give them to people. She is a very giving little girl and I love that about her. She always wants to help others and cares about others. She still thinks that every night when daddy gets home "it's the weekend!!" She gets disappointed most nights. She tells me, Jacob and Sydney "I love you" all the time. Jayda also loves to give us hugs a lot and still wants to be held sometimes. She loves to be outside and loves to play at the park and with other kids. Jayda is very social and can make friends with anyone. She usually goes up to other kids wherever we are and asks what their name is. Jayda loves to play with any and everyone's phone, and camera for that matter. She really likes playing games on my iphone and it is quite the treat when she gets to. She actually can take some pretty good pictures! Guess she learns from the best, hahaha! She also likes to use the remote and fastforward her t.v. shows, when mommy will let her. She enjoys watching the show Wipeout with daddy. Jayda is an animal lover. She does a good job of pulling little ones around in her and Sydney's new red wagon. She always wants it to be summertime so that can go swimming. I know there are many more amazing things about our amazing daughter, but it is getting too late for mommy that had no sleep last night. We love you sweet Jayda!

My First 1/2 Marathon!

Lourdes and I after finishing our 1st 1/2 marathon, yay us!


Us with our awesome and dedicated little fan club (minus mom that was taking the picture) that walked for 45 minutes in the cold wind and rain to get to the finish line. Love you guys!!!


I completed my first 1/2 marathon a few days ago on sunday and am so happy that I did! I started training for it back in september when convinced to by one of my friends. I signed up with Fort Bend Fit, a marathon training group, here in Sugar Land and did my long runs with them very early on saturday morning. My sweet sister in law Lourdes also decided to start training for the 1/2 with me. We had lots of fun running at 5 am together and talking and talking for 2 hours at a time. By the time January 16th came around we both felt ready for the race and were very excited about it! On surnday morning I got up at 4:30 a.m. so that I could have breakfast and get all ready for the race. We were supposed to be parked at the race by 5:30 a.m. and then the race was to start at 7:00 a.m. Unfortunately that morning it was raining, a lot. The radar showed a huge green area where the rain was which just happened to be right over us for the next several hours! Boo! So, after being parked in our car since about 5:45 and patiently waiting to use the porta-potty before the race at 6:45, we found out the race had been delayed until 7:15. Oh man! We were both so ready to start running and had even gone to use the bathroom in the disgusting porta pottys with only soaking wet toilet paper and everything! Oh well, better just not drink any-thing else before the race starts! So then, at about 7:10 we saw a big group of people walking away from the race. Oh no, did they just cancel the race?! Sure enough they had postponed the race again until 7:45! Apparently people were really backed up on the road trying to get to the race becausae of all the rain, so they needed to wait and let everyone get there. Plus, they needed all of the cars off of the road so that we could run! Finally, we hopped out of the car to head to the starting line with only about 30 seconds to spare. We got in line and they said ready, set, go, and we were off! Woo hoo! We started out strong and I was so pumped to actually start the race. Lourdes and I both ran with our headphones so we had music to listen to which was really good. The first mile felt good, but I started getting really hot and ended up tossing my jacket down at the 3 mile marker. Then, because it was raining so much my pants were getting completely wet and slowing me down a lot! I was getting SO frustrated with myself because I had decided to wear pants. So around mile 4 I pulled them way up so that it was like I was running in shorts. Never again will I run a race in long pants, never! Then, I dropped my hat and water bottle off with our little fan club (Jacob, Jayda, Sydney, my mom, my dad, and Justin)at the 5 mile marker where they had come out to cheer us on. Thank you guys SOOOO much for coming out to see us! It meant the world to me that y'all were all out there in the rain and wind just to cheer for us! I could not have been happier to see you all when I ran by, even if I did just chunk some stuff down at ya and keep running. Hey, I was in the zone! So, once I finally got my jacket off, pants hiked up, hat off and got rid of my water bottle I felt so light and great! I took off at mile 5 and felt amazing until mile 9. I had one of my power shot gels at mile 5.5 and another one at mile 9. After mile 9 I started feeling a little heavy, but kept the pace up. I ran about an 8:04-8:07 mile pace for the first 10 miles, and then around an 8:10 mile pace for the last couple of miles. Anywho, the last few miles got pretty rough and it was just mind over matter at that point. I knew I could do it, but it sure wasn't the easiest thing I'd ever done. I made it to mile 12, but that last 1.1 miles seemed like it took for-ever-and-ever! I had apparently tied my left shoe too tight and it hadn't bothered me until the last 2 miles, and then it started hurting really bad! Thinking back I totally could of stopped and unlaced my shoe so that it didn't hurt so bad, but at the time it was not an option, I wanted to finish in the best possible time that I could! So, I finally finished, hallelujah in a time of 1:47! My goal was to finish under 2 hours, so I definitely reached my goal and was super, super excited about that! After I finished the first thing I did was take my shoes off, ahhhh, thank goodness! Then I went to get my finishers shirt and realized I should start looking for the fan club (since I hadn't seen them when I finished) and for Lourdes. I found both my family and saw Lourdes finish at the same time so that was pretty cool. After reuniting with Lourdes and chatting about how the race went we went and got the boys some food that they had at the post race party since neither one of us could even think about eating, anything! At that point it was still raining, cold and windy and quite miserable! Lourdes and I were both freezing cold and soaking wet, but were just trying to enjoy the moment. My parents took Sydney under a covering by a building while me, Lourdes, and Jayda walked around for a while getting more food and a little post race massage. The boys had headed off to get the cars that were parked several miles away, thank you boys! Jayda was such a trooper out there in the yucky weather and wanted to stay with me the entire time. She was so sweet to come with me for all of the post race festivities considering the cold rain. I sure do LOVE that little girl with all my heart and soul, sweet thing! At some point we went over to the race result tent to see if they had the results out for the 1/2 marathon yet. I could not believe it when they told me I had gotten 2nd place in my age group! WOW!! I was super excited and couldn't believe I had done so well. During the race I really had no idea where I was in relation to other people and was really just trying to get the best time I personally could get. I never imagined I would have placed in my age group! It was an overall amazing experience, even though it was raining and disgusting outside! I totally felt like that is what I was supposed to do and definitely want to do more! Yay for us!

"All Bundled Up" + Sydney @ 11 Months

It has been pretty chilly out this week, so the girls have been getting "all bundled up" to go out and about. When we were getting ready to take Jayda to school on tuesday morning I bundled them both up in matching winter attire from Oma and they just looked so adorable together. Sydney also turned 11 months old this past tuesday. It is so hard to believe that she is 11 months already! In less than a month she will be 1! It is SO crazy how fast time flies!

Sydney all bundled up to go out in the cold weather @ 11 months.


Sweet sisters together and ready to brave the chilly weather!


Look who got into the caprisun box! She loves getting into the fridge and getting Jayda's caprisun out and pretending to drink them. She wants to do everything Jayda does!


"Hahahahaha Mommy!"


Jayda and Sydney in their "Daddy's Girl" outfits all ready to go watch daddy's basketball game.


Sydney loves to play with Jayda's Baby Alive doll. I think that Sydney thinks it is a real baby because she always wants to hold it, and kiss it!


Look what she got again!


Jayda with one of the nerf guns she got for Christmas. She loves it!


Sydney playing with her little friend Lawson at Daddy's basketball game. She kept trying to poke his eyes out, how sweet Sydney, lol!


Yesterday we had playgroup at McDonalds and Sydney decided to crawl on in the playground too. She is getting much more brave these days and tries to go anywhere and everywhere the big kids go!


Jayda and Riley jumping around in the playground and Sydney trying to figure out what to do.


She decided she wanted out of there!


Riley and Sydney giving kisses, so sweet!


Auntie Lolo and Uncle Greg sent the girls some Christmas gifts and they were so excited to open up their package. Sydney loved the ribbon on her present, and she loves playing with Elmo in the bathtub too.


Jayda loves her new barbie computer! Thank you Auntie Lolo and Uncle Greg!


Sydney likes to climb up on top of ev-e-ry-thing! This little girl is such a monkey! She loves to go up and down on any kind of step that she can find.


Sydney got her first birthday present ever in the mail today! She got the book "Where Is Baby's Belly Button?" from the cord blood registry bank that we stored her cord blood in when she was born. I thought this was the cutest thing ever and the card even said "Happy 1st Birthday to you and your belly button!" How darn cute is that? I was just excited that she got her first birthday present!


Sydney has discovered that she can climb up into the little blue chair, stand up, get something out of the toy box, play and dance around a little bit while standing up, then sit down and scoot her bottom down out of the chair. And then proceed to do the exact same thing 50 more times! Again, she loves to go up and down over and over!


And there she goes climbing up into the chair.


"Yay" I made it!!


"Let me stand up and check things out up here. Hmmm, what can I pull out this time to play with?"


Have to do a little singing and dancing while I'm up here.


Ok, all done here, better sit down.


And scoot my little booty out of this chair!


Today I found Sydney twice in the back bathroom, with no light on, with Jayda's toothbrush, trying to brush her own teeth. Hmmm, wonder why she would ever want to do this? It was pretty hilarious when I found her because she just smiled from ear to ear like she was so excited about what she had discovered!


Few more things about Sydney at 11 Months old:

-She now has 4 teeth, 1 more that has just come through, and 1 more that is about to break through.
-Sydney is such a sweet baby and is always in a good mood. She is very laid back and goes with the flow with whatever we do. The only time she gets mad/loud/or cries is when she is hungry, tired, or wants to be held.
-She is a very good eater. She is taking 4 (7 oz) bottles of formula per day, 2-3 solid meals of baby food, plus about 2 snacks per day. She is really liking cubed cheese these days, chopped bananas, cheerios, and freezed dried fruit pieces. She also will eat anything off of our plates that we will give her. If she is not in her high chair when we are eating dinner she comes over to us, pulls up on our chair to stand up and then holds her hands up so that we will pick her up and feed her from our plate. It is so cute because she will literally eat anything that is on one of our plates. She also loves yogurt and ice cream.
-Sydeny has figured out how to use a sippy cup! Yay! She can tip up a regular sippy cup and drink out of it somewhat, but she does really well with the sippy cups with straws. She puts it up to her mouth and sips whatever I put into it right out! It is so crazy to see her eating table food and drinking out of a sippy cup! What happened to my baby girl??
-Sydney is wearing 12 months size clothes, size 3 diapers, and I think she weighs somewhere around 20-21 pounds, but not for sure on that one.
-She loves for you to sing to her and she loves to sing back. Sydney has started trying to sing when you sing to her. She just says "aaaahhhhhh, aaaaaaahhhhhhh" and sometimes even shakes her head back and forth really fast while she sings. It is the sweetest thing ever! She also likes to dance a lot and bob her head back and forth when she hears music. Think she is going to follow in her sisters footsteps with the singing and dancing!

The Paschal Christmas Season 2010!

Wow, what an amazing Christmas we had this year! For one, it was Sydney's first Christmas, so that was really neat and special. And, now that Jayda is getting a little older she is really starting to understand Christmas and what it's all about, so she was SUPER excited about Christmas this year! She could hardly contain her excitement! She had a little chocolate calander that she used to countdown the days till Christmas.

Plus, we all got some really awesome gifts this year! We are so grateful to everyone that gave us Christmas presents and feel so very blessed! Jayda and Sydney's big presents this year were a big play kitchen and a fun red wagon. I don't think the girls could of gotten better Christmas presents! They absolutely LOVE their kitchen and play with it daily. Sydney even plays with it all the time too! And, the wagon has been a huge hit. Jayda pulls Sydney in the wagon all over the house at least once a day, if not more,. Plus, they have been riding to the park in it most days and love it. Sydney laughs out loud everytime she gets in the wagon and everytime someone pulls her around in it. Our big gifts this year were a new laptop (thank you mom!!) that I am using right now, Sonicare toothbrushes (thank you Nana and Pawpaw, we seriously needed those!), a Keurig coffee maker (that I bought with my Christmas money and got the best deal EVER on!), and Jacob and I bought a new bedroom set and t.v. as our Christmas gift to each other. Seriously, could not be more excited about our Christmas this year and just feel so blessed beyond my imagination!!

We were able to spend a lot of time with our families this Christmas which was really nice. We spent one week in Huntsville at Oma and Oupa's house and then went to Oklahoma on Christmas day for 3 nights to see Jacob's grandparents and spend time with his family. We had such a great time, and were super thankful to Jacob's work for letting him have a week off. It was SO nice for the girls to have their daddy around for the holiday because they sure do love him, A LOT! Everytime daddy is around both of the girls always want him. Sydney especially wants daddy to hold her whenever she sees him. It got so bad over the break that one day Jayda said "Mommy, I don't think Sydney likes you anymore." Aww, how sad right? I know, I know. I was a little tiny bit sad, but totally understand that she was wanting daddy all the time because he is usually always gone to work and mommy is always around. At least Jayda did say that she still loved me, how sweet!

We had lots of different Christmas events and parties leading up to Christmas, all of which I have documented in pictures, of course. So, needless to say, this post has a ton of pics in it! I'm wondering if I may need to break this post into 2 posts. If so, I'll put a little note at the bottom of this page. When I uploaded my pictures from my camera yesterday I realized that I had taken 800 pictures over the holidays! Holy cow, 800 pictures?! Now, you may be able to understand a little better why we have SO many pictures in this Christmas post. It took me an entire day just to upload the pictures and then sort through them. Now, it's going to take me an entire day just to do this post. But hey, I'm all about taking pictures and blogging because the kiddos are only little once and there is no going back. Better make the most of it! Hope you enjoy the slideshow, hahaha!

Jayda hanging out one day at the house sometime before Christmas.


Sydney in her "First Christmas" outfit playing at her activity table.


A few weeks before Christmas we went to my Aunt Cheryl's house to celebrate Christmas with my mom's side of the family. Jayda and Sydney have 3 cousins on that side that they love to play with, Molly, Cecilia, and Andrew. They are all around the same age and love hanging out together. The girls got a ton of presents and I literally thought to myself that we could be done with Christmas after this party because they got so much! They were SO excited to open their first round of presents! We had a great time seeing our family and letting the girls play, plus we had a wedding shower for my cousin Karee that is getting married this friday!

Sydney trying to crawl up the stairs at Aunt Cheryl's house. This is her new favorite pastime! Up and down, up and down, up and down, and she never gets sick of it!


Jayda opening up some of her super cool Christmas presents from her aunts, uncles and cousins.


Sydney opening up her puppy dog that sings and barks, she loves it and kisses it all the time!


The three little peas in a pod watching cartoons in the bedroom together at the Christmas party.


Yay, it's bath time!!


Jayda and I made the gingerbread house that Aunt Karen gave her one sunday afternoon before Christmas. Unfortunately one of the pieces of roof was broken when we opened it. So, daddy tried to use duct tape to fix it, what a mess! We ended up taking the broken roof off and just using some graham crackers on the roof. Jayda had lots of fun decorating the gingerbread house, although it was quite the mess!


Sydney wanted to help us, but had to settle for just watching us and having snacks.


The front view of our final product, so lovely!


The back view.


Sydney crawling around with one of her Dora babies. She loves those little "super babies" and throughout the entire Christmas break she had at least one, if not two of them in her hands at all times! It was so cute!


She loved reading this pop up Christmas book. She would flip the page and open the pop ups all by herself, with her baby of course!


A couple of weeks before Christmas Jayda had a Christmas program at her pre-school. Her class sang two songs: "Feliz Navidad" and "Up on the Housetop". During "Feliz Navidad" the teacher handed out maracas to use while they sang. I assume they were supposed to be shaking them while singing, but instead, Jayda and several other classmates used them as microphones. So most of the class was singing the song and holding the maraca up to their mouth, it was pretty hilarious! It was SO fun to go and watch her in the program. This was Jayda's first time to be in any sort of program so it was pretty special. They wouldn't let us take flash photos during the program, so I didn't get any good ones while she was singing, but I got a few after it was over. We had a lot of fun and Jayda loved being up there on stage. At one point during the performance Jayda noticed a box of kleenix up at the very front of the stage. So, she proceeded to get out of the nice line she was in with her classmates, go over and pick up the box of kleenix, check it out, and then came back to her line. It was pretty funny, but what can you do? You can only imagine how many of these types of things were happening throughout the entire program with kiddos ages 2-5.

Jayda and Sydney all ready to go out to Jayda's Christmas program at school.


Sydney sitting with Daddy during Jayda's performance.


This is a picture of everyone after the program was over. Jayda and Riley are up at the very front, go figure!


We also had a Christmas party with our playgroup the week before Christmas. The girls had lots of fun playing with their buddies at playgroup!


That same night we exchanged presents with our good friends and neighbors, The Sanders. Jayda and Riley had lots of fun giving each other their Christmas presents.


All of us opening up our Christmas presents.


Jayda had a Christmas party at her pre-school and I went up to check it out for a little while. She had made a jingle bell ornament for the Christmas tree, among many other things.


Jayda and her class playing a game of Christmas bingo.


Sydney hanging out at Jayda's party, with baby in tow of course.


Jayda was so excited about all of her goodies she got at the party!


The sunday before Christmas we celebrated with Jacob's brothers and their families at Jacob's parents house. Jayda always has a blast spending time with her cousins and this was no exception. She LOVES playing with the "big kids"! They had so much fun hanging out with everyone and opening up all of their presents!

Jayda and Sydney in front of Nana and Pawpaw's Christmas tree!


Sydney in front of the tree, with both babies this time!


Nana and Sydney at the Christmas party.


Jayda and daddy all ready to open some Christmas presents!


Sydney giving Pawpaw kisses, such a sweet picture!


Our little family at Jacob's family Christmas party.


Opening up some presents, yay!


Jayda got a candyland puzzle, woo hoo!


Sydney got a new telephone and she loves it (and so does Jayda)!


Justin got "the sweater" this year, so funny!


Sydney getting Nana to help her walk. This is her other favorite pastime! She wants to walk all the time, but can't quite do it on her own yet. So, she always grabbing someones hands so that she can hold on and walk around wherever she wants to go. She gets very mad when you let go and she has to crawl again!


All the grandkiddos in front of the Christmas tree. Too bad neither of my girls wanted to be in the picture whatsoever!


Such a great pic of my sweet brother and sister in law!


We went to one of Cole's basketball games over the break and had lots of fun watching him. I'm sure he loved hearing "Go Bubba" as Jayda yelled at him during the game!


We also went out to visit Sara at Andrea's parents house while we were home for Christmas. It is always so nice to see Andrea and Sara and let the little ones play. Sydney and Sara are just 3 weeks apart, so it's fun to see how they are growing up together. Sydney was a little rough with Sara (prob because of big sis) and it kinda scared Sara when Sydney put her hands all in her face. Poor Sara!

The 3 girls playing outside together. Sydney was trying to kiss Sara!


Sydney LOVED this "Jingle Bell Rock" book at Nana and Pawpaw's house. She would crawl over to it everytime she saw it and start dancing, singing, and laughing. It was SO funny!


Daddy and Jayda were sword fighting with Nana's old Christmas paper rolls. Jayda thought this was super fun!


And then Sydney wanted a turn of course!


Oma gave the girls some presents before Christmas and this was one of Jayda's gifts. She loved them, but Sydney really loved the box they came in!


The girls both loved the inflatable Santa's Workshop in the front yard and Oma and Oupa's house. Jayda wanted to go out and lay on it one day! The whole time we were staying at their house Sydney would put her hand out at the front yard and grunt so that someone would take her out to see the inflatable. She loved watching it!


Jayda got a letter in the mail from Santa at Oma and Oupa's house and she was so excited about it!


Oupa and Jayda on Christmas Eve together.


The girls got a new dvd player for their playroom from us for Christmas, yay!


Sydney loved to crawl up on top of all the Christmas presents. Can't count how many pictures I have of her doing this over the holidays! It was really cute and hilarious! She was much more interested in crawling on top of the presents and tearing the Christmas paper into shreds than what was actually in the boxes.


The girls opening up presents on Christmas Eve at Oma and Oupa's house. Sydney had gotten a present and Jayda was wanting to check it out, but Sydney wanted it back!


Jayda was very excited to give Oma and Oupa thier "Jayda & Sydney 2011 Calendar"!


Jayda got Beauty and the Beast from Oupa, woo hoo!!


Oma got the girls a big, fun play kitchen! YAY!! The girls LOVE it!


Jayda woke up Christmas morning and saw that Santa had eaten almost all of his cookies! She was so fascinated!


She even had a letter from Santa on Christmas morning. How exciting!


She was very excited that Santa brought her her very own knife! Wow!


And she even got a new Dora thermos from Santa too!


Jayda finally got the flute she'd been asking Santa for over the past few months!


Sydney woke up a little later after Jayda and when she crawled into the living room where all the presents were from Santa she just sat there and looked at them from across the room. We were calling her over towards the presents but she just wasn't too sure.


Finally daddy went over and helped her walk over to see all of her presents from Santa.


Sydney got a bouncy turtle from Santa, woo hoo! Can you feel the excitement?!


After the girls checked out all of their Santa presents we ate a nice breakfast with Oma and Oupa on Christmas morning. We exchanged some more presents with Oma and Oupa and then packed up and headed over to Nana and Pawpaw's house to do presents with them before heading out the door for Oklahoma.

Sydney sitting with Uncle Justin while we exchanged Christmas presents.


Jayda got a really cute picture of her and Grace as flower girls in Justin and Lourdes' wedding!


Justin and Lourdes on Christmas morning.


Jayda was very excited to get a coloring set from Justin and Lourdes, yay!!


Sydney was having lots of fun that morning playing with my bible carrier. She thought it was her purse!


Jayda got the cuteset outfit ever from Nana and Pawpaw that said "I light up my Dad's life". So true!


And there's the awesome wagon the girls got from Nana and Pawpaw on Christmas morning! They love this thing!


Sydney laughs out loud everytime she gets in the wagon! It is SO fun!!


After we did presents at Nana and Pawpaw's we headed out the door to make our trip up to Jacob's grandparents house in Oklahoma. Jayda rode with Nana and Pawpaw, so that was very nice for Sydney because she was able to sleep most of the 5.5 hour drive up there. We arrived at Mammaw and Papaw's house Christmas night around 6 p.m. We had one last Christmas celebration that night!

Sydney got the cutest little "My First Christmas" bib from Mammaw and Papaw.


Sydney was very interested in Jayda's new gum ball machine that she got that night!


Jayda got a nerf gun! Woo hoo! She loves shooting those things!


And, we got Brady one for Christmas too! Little did we know we would start up a big nerf gun fight on Christmas night! Nerf bullets started flying all over the living room and papaw even pulled one out from his ottoman! It was SO hilarious, and of course the big boys had to get in on all the action! We literally had to make them stop shooting the guns so that we could continue opening presents!

Brady with the nerf gun we gave him!


Justin and Lourdes playing around with Jayda and Brady Christmas night.


And there Sydney is again crawling up on the Christmas presents. Silly girl!


She was so happy to get her little froggy from Mammaw and Papaw. She kept kissing him over and over and then waiting for someone to say "awwwww" and then she'd smile really big. Too cute!


On the monday after Christmas we went up to Mammaw's store to introduce her coworkers to Sydney. They have a penny horse at Mammaw's store and Jayda always has to ride it when we go in for a visit!


This was Sydney's first time to ride the horse and she loved it too!


After visiting Mammaw's store we had to make a stop for the best ice cream ever at Braums! I love that place and was SO excited that they had a holiday version of my fav ice cream, mint chocolate chip peppermint...heavenly!

Sydney loves ice cream and Jayda loves to feed Sydney, so it worked out pretty well!


Thought this was a cute picture of Sydney with Daddy when we went out to eat with Mammaw and Papaw at Rib Crib.


Jayda got a cupcake maker from Oma for Christmas, so we just HAD to test it out! She did a great job making her cupcake and we even saved some for daddy. Well, we actually just let daddy have all of it, if ya know what I mean. :)


After Christmas we went to Kroger to use our gift card from Nana and Papaw and Sydney got to ride in the car part of the buggy for the first time, so I had to get a picture of course. They both thought this was so cool and were laughing all over the store while I shopped.


On New Year's Eve Jacob and I put the girls new kitchen together. This was what Jacob looked like after about 2 hours of assembly.


The girls woke up New Years morning to their new kitchen all ready to go! Yay, so cool! Thank you so much Oma!!


Sydney had to get the phone down so she could call someone.


On New Years Day we went out to Kirk and Becky's house for a delicious lunch and to hang out for the day. The girls hadn't had the wagon since Christmas so Nana and Papaw brought it to us on New Years. Sydney rode around in it most of the day.

All of us on New Years!


All of the grandkiddos again, on New Years this time.


The day after New Years, January 2nd, was Nana's birthday. We went to meet Nana, Papaw, Justin and Lourdes to celebrate at Macaroni Grill that night. We had a great dinner and realized that it had been way too long since we had been to that restaraunt, it is delicious!

The girls with Nana and Papaw on Nana's birthday!


Nana got a yummy chocolate cake for her birthday!


Below are some random pictures I have taken since we've been home that I just thought were cute!

Jayda loves to pull people around in the wagon. So, on this day she pulled Riley and Sydney to the park.


Sydney watching the big girls play at the park and wishing she could get out and play too. Not too much longer Sydney!


Oma got the girls lots and lots of matching sleeper outfits for Christmas and this happens to be one of them, and my favorite. They look so cute and cozy up in Jayda's bed after bathtime!


Sweet sisters laying together in bed.


Sydney looks like she is concentrating very hard on something, probably trying to figure out what Jayda is doing.


Cute picture of Jayda in her jammies.


The girls swinging at the park the other day. Sydney absolutely loves to swing! She was pretty much laughing for her entire 20 minute ride in the swing. It was so cute!


There's the little bit swinging away! She could probably swing for an hour or more if someone pushed her!


Jayda loves to swing too, but she's starting to get a little too big for the baby swings.


The girls wanted to have a little snack at the park on friday.


Sydney just figured out how to use a straw the other day. She loves being a big girl and using a sippy cup like her big sister. So glad she's gotten the hang of it so easily!


All 3 of the girls riding home from the park last friday. They even had games to play on the ride, so fun!


Just had to get some bathtub pics of the girls. I hadn't taken any in a long time and I just think they look so cute together in the bath!


Sydney always has to play with a wash rag for the duration of bathtime. For some reason that makes her very happy! But, when you have to take it away from her when bathtime is over you better watch out because she gets very mad!


Sydney got a new toothbrush for Christmas so she was trying it out for the first time.


"Brushy, brushy, brushy Sydney!"


And she also recently figured out how to stand up in the bath tub. What fun for mommy!


Haha mommy I got my bow off before we even left for church!


Last, but certainly not least, are some pictures of the new bedroom set, mattress (but you can't see it), and t.v. that Jacob and I got each other for Christmas. We are absolutely in love with our new room and so excited that we finally got one! I have been waiting a long 6 years for this and am so happy to have a nice room for us to enjoy and hang out in. The first night we crawled into bed to watch t.v. in our new room we both looked at each other and said we felt like we were in a hotel room. Haha, yah, I know, we've had hand me down beds, no dresser, no nightstands, and a tiny box t.v. in our room up until now. It really did feel like a hotel too because I had just set up my new coffee maker that night and made up some decaf coffee to enjoy while we watched t.v.







We are truly blessed in so many ways and I thank God everyday for what He has given us! Hope you all have a very wonderful a blessed 2011!