Valentine's Day 2011

We ended up having a great Valentine's Day this year, despite the rough start in the morning. We are having some plumbing issues with our guest bathtub and master shower and had plumbers out here most of the morning and did not got too good of news. But, the rest of the day was really sweet (literally)! We went to the grocery store that afternoon and did our regular shopping, plus got daddy some stuff for Valentine's Day. After we got home and I put Sydney down for a nap Jayda and I made Jacob some delicious chocolate dipped s'mores. They turned out so yummy! Jacob and I had first tried these at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory when we went to Denver last summer and we were in heaven! So, I was wanting to do something special for Valentine's and figured I could try and make them myself. Sure enough they turned out great and Jacob was very impressed. The girls also got daddy a cookie cake (another one of his favorites) and a big froggy balloon. Plus, Jayda made him a Valentine's card. That evening I fed the girls dinner and then made Jacob one of his other favorites, shrimp scampi. I do not like any sort of seafood at all and it totally grosses me out, so it is a big deal when I make him shrimp. I bought some large (already cleaned and de-vained) fresh shrimp at the seafood counter and found a recipe online and then put it over angel hair pasta. He said they were pretty good, although I really have no idea since I would not taste them. We had a candle lit dinner in the dining room together with some of my new favorite wine, a Moscato, yum! It was so nice to have dinner together, just us, even if we did have one munchkin trying to blow the candle out the entire dinner (because she thought it was someone's birthday), and another munchkin climbing up in our laps the whole time so that she could eat some more. It really was great though. I love ya babe! When daddy got home he had some surprises for all of us girls. I got some beautiful orange roses and my favorite chocolates and the girls each got a stuffed puppy dog and a huuuuuuuge foil balloon (never seen them this big!). It was super sweet and the girls were both so excited, and so was I!

Jayda having a ball at her school Valentine's party last thursday. The had heart shaped sweetarts, which are her favorite. Hence the big smile!


Sydney on Valentine's Day!


My two little Valentines.


Jayda with the yummy chocolate dipped s'mores that we made, yummo!


Jacob's valentine presents and sweets from us!


Our little candlelit dinner for two.


Sydney opening up her presents from daddy.


Jayda loved her little puppy from daddy!


Our cookie cake for daddy.



Last sunday, the day after Sydney's birthday party, we went to cousin Molly's 3rd birthday party in Huntsville out at their camphouse.

The girls loved Molly's strawberry birthday cake!


Molly's daddy took all the kiddos on a hayride, so fun!


Oupa and Jayda getting back from the hayride.


Sydney loved going down the slide at Molly's party, so cool!


Weeeeee, she loved the swing too!


And she even found a slide that was just her size, perfect!


Jayda riding off into the sunset with her new friend Garrett at Molly's party. She loved Molly's new gator, and Garrett!


Someone caught a fish at the party and Jayda was in pure amazement. I thought her eyes were going to pop out of her head. She was curious about it and even got the daddy of the little boy that caught it to hold her up to watch them skin it and touched its eyeballs.


Here are some other random pictures I have taken recently.

Sydney chowing down on some of her cubed up food.


"This is good mommy!"


Jayda loved riding Caitlyn's horse, Prayer. She is such a cowgirl! She was out there for about 2 hours riding the horses and absolutely loved it. She even held on whenever Caitlyn's other horse, Quincy, tripped and fell to his knees. So proud!


Jacob walking Prayer around with the little cowgirl.


Caitlyn riding Quincy, such a beautiful horse!


Jayda and Sydney playing around at the house. Sydney carries Jayda's lunchbox around the house all. the. time!


Riley and Jayda were playing with the cash registers while dressed up the other day and made some silly faces for me.


Sydney loves to push her baby dolls around in the stroller.


She also has to stop and kiss them all the time.


The girls put on my running clothes the other day while I was folding laundry, lovely girls!


The little miss loves to ride around in the wagon and likes to take this baby with her everywhere she goes!


Sydney knows how to get into Jayda's dress up box and pull all her jewelry out. She loves to do this!


Miss Jayda being super silly!


Daddy opening up the bounce house we got for Sydney's birthday party! Woo-hoo!!


Jayda was beside herself and could not wait to get in and jump!

Sydney's 1st Birthday!

Sydney turned 1 year old last friday, February 11, 2011. It is so hard to believe that I had her one year ago already. Time has absolutely flown by, and it sure has been great! Sydney is a wonderful, beautiful, sweet, loving, funny and silly little girl. She was a great baby and always slept very well, ate very well, and was all around just really good. A bit different from our first I might say! Sydney LOVES her big sister Jayda more than anything and wants to be around her all of the time. She doesn't necessarily have to play with her constantly, but she does want to be around her. It is so cute and precious and means so much to me being an only child and never really having that bond with a sibling. I love watching them love each other! Jayda loves to play with Sydney too and her favorite thing to do is to pick her up and carry her around. Sydney however is not such a big fan and lets out a very loud and shrill scream everytime Jayda attempts to pick her up, even if she has good intentions like taking Sydney to the playroom or whatever. It is like an automatic reflex. Sydney started walking a couple of weeks ago and now she is getting around like a pro. For the first week or so she would take a few steps, fall down, get back up and take a few more steps, then fall down again, and on and on. Now, she gets up and goes clear across the house without falling down one time. She has gotten so good! She likes to carry something in her hands while she walks, so that usually ends up being her baby doll or Jayda's lunch box for school that she gets out of the pantry at least 5 times per day! Sydney also LOVES to be outside, all the time! She always points at the door and grunts like "take me outside now please!" Then, when we bring her inside she is starting to throw mini temper tantrums because she doesn't want to come in (isn't it a little early for that Syd?) She is too cute! Sydney words at this point are "mama, dada, and jayda". She pretty much gets what she wants by pointing and making sounds so I guess she doesn't think she needs to talk yet. But, she does understand what you are saying to her for sure. It is quite amazing!

We started off celebrating Sydney's 1st Birthday last friday just here at the house. On friday morning I took the girls to Portrait Innovations to get Sydney's 1 year pictures done. They turned out SO cute! She had her little cupcake shirt on with a pink tutu and looked adorable! After pictures we went to eat lunch at Chick Fil A. The girls had lots of fun eating, playing, and having ice cream! After lunch we came home and the girls napped. That afternoon Jayda and I made Sydney a rainbow chip birthday cake. Jayda loves getting to help me make anything in the kitchen, so this was no exception! That night after daddy and oma got here we sang Sydney Happy Birthday and she dug into her birthday cake, shoving handfulls of icing into her little mouth. I knew she would like sugar seeing that she already loved ice cream! We all had some cake and "krazy kookie dough" ice cream.

Sydney opening her present from mommy and daddy, new earrings, yay! It's too bad we had a horrible time getting her new earrings in her little ears that morning, no fun!


Going down the slide at Chick Fil A with sister, not too sure! She was really good at climbing up the stairs to get to the slide though. She just went right up like a pro. No surprise though since we already knew she was a monkey!


We had a little interruption while making her cake! This is just the beginning...


"Mmmmmmmm!"


And we're finally done, yay us!


Singing happy birthday to the little miss!


Just go right ahead little munchkin! She loooooves all that sugar!


Yummo!


Family pic on Sydney's bday.


The next day, saturday February 12, 2011 was Sydney's big party! It started at 3:00 and man did we have fun. We had bought a small bounce house for the party so we set that up on the driveway at our house. A few nights before when the bounce house arrived we set it up inside and Sydney was not too sure about it. She was pretty afraid to go in, but somewhat warmed up when Jacob or I would go in with her. On saturday at her party though she was all about it. She got in the bounce house all by herself and was walking and bouncing all over the place. It was so cute to see her in there jumping with her little tutu on!

"Please make this wagon GO! I am the birthday girl!"


Checking out her "pin the candle on the cupcake" game.


Trying to get her balance so she can jump in the bounce house.


Jumping with her 2nd big sister, Riley!


So tired, time for a break!


Having a ball in the bounce house with her cousins and friends!


Mommy and Daddy with our little sweet pea!


After the kiddos got some jumping in we opened up the ice cream bar in our garage. I decided to do this because ice cream was Sydney's first food to ever eat (this past summer at Marble Slab on Lake Conroe) and, it is her favorite food still! After this summer when she loved the ice cream so much I decided it was time for her to start eating solids, so she did. I got 5 different flavors of blue bell, several different syrups and toppings, whip cream and waffle bowls so that everyone could make their own sundae. It turned out great and everyone seemed to enjoy the ice cream bar! I mixed all the different flavors, topping and syrups and it was delish! And, Sydney loved it so that is what really mattered!
Sydney and Nana getting their ice cream sundae all fixed up, yummy!


The big girls enjoying their ice cream!


Sydney getting a bite of her favorite, ice cream! She even likes mint chocolate chip. Don't think there is a flavor of ice cream that she doesn't like!


Kyle with his huge ice cream sundae.


My mom's sisters and some of my cousins!


After the ice cream we had the kiddos bust open a pinata with lots of candy and then play the "pin the candle on the cupcake" game. Once we finished the games we all sang happy birthday to Sydney and she stuffed her face yet again with hot pink icing, and loved it! That girl has definitely got her mama's sweet tooth!! She had so much chowing down on her cupcake and thought it was so funny that everyone was watching her ham it up. I had to pick her cupcake up while she was still eating it so that she didn't make herself completely sick. Guess it wouldn't of mattered anyway since she was up all night with a tummy ache...to be expected though.

Sweet girl all ready for her birthday cupcake!


Singing happy birthday to Sydney!


"Mmmm, let me get some of this cupcake here!"


Jacob and I with our new little 1 year old.


Check out that hot pink icing everywhere, even in her nose!


Once I got most of the icing off of her she opened up her presents. She sat still for about the first 2 presents and then she took off to play. She was not a fan of sitting still to open presents. So big sister ended up opening most of them for her. Sydney got lots of cool birthday presents including 2 riding toys (a horsey and a choo-choo train), a corn popper, tinkerbell dress up outfit, lots of adorable clothes, a puppy dog, some blue topaz earrings to match her sweet baby blue eyes, an "S" charm, and several other great toys and books! Big thank you to everyone that came to Sydney's party and for all of her sweet gifts!! After presents we all hung out for a while and then ended up ordering fajita's for dinner to eat at the house. Sydney had an amazing birthday and she is quite the amazing daughter! We love you SO much Sydney Anne!

Opening up her presents.


Yay, a new baby!!


Sydney got a new choo-choo train, yay!


Opening up her pretty new blue topaz earrings, so perfect for her!


All of the girls!


Miss Sydney's little cupcake for her party.


One of the picture lines (get it, instead of clothes line?) I did for miss Sydney's party. This one was pictures of her from about 1 month - 12 months.


The other picture line that I made for Sydney's party. These pictures are of her birth and her first month. I just loved making these, and they are great decoration!


The entry way table with some of the birthday pics I'd had done the day before, so cute!


Justin and Lourdes, so sweet...notice the decorations on the lights in the background. That's what I did to all the lights and they actually looked really cool like outdoor lanterns you'd see on a patio.


The birthday balloons on Sydney's high chair.


The birthday banner in the entry way. Yay for Sydney turning 1!!!