A Few Fun Pics!

Jayda started gymnastics back up about a month ago and these are the first pictures of gotten of her in action. She LOVES gymnastics and can not wait to go every friday afternoon. She took gymnastics when she was 2 1/2 for a while and loved it then too. She always wants to wear her leotard, and only that to practice. Most other kids wear shorts too, but she refuses. So it's really pretty cute, and funny. She is taking a pre-k tumbling class right now and if she sticks with it we'll move her on up to a more advanced gymnastics class. It is right up her ally since she is such a fearless little girl, loves trying new things, and can't get enough of flipping, jumping, swinging etc. She has a lot of energy so it really does seem like a great sport for her, and she's a pretty strong little munchkin too. Not to brag or anything. :)

Jump, jump, jump!


Jumping up and then flipping over onto the mat.


Running back around to do it again. For some reason she can't seem to just walk anywhere, gotta run! Gotta love the little pink panties. :)


Working on her cartwheel.


Last weekend we headed over to our friends (and old neighbors) Scott and Michelle's new house in Magnolia for Scott's birthday dinner celebration. We enjoyed some delicious burgers and birthday cake and the kiddos had a blast playing together all evening. So fun!


This morning Sydney and I ran over to the park and had lots of fun playing. I just couldn't help taking some pictures of her!

Running around the playground, so excited!


Pushing her new barbie in the swing. She always does this!


"Higher Mommy!!"


Looking around at the people at the park. She is such a curious little girl. Wants to know who, what, where...everything is going on around her.


She loves to swing! Lovet the little curls blowing in the wind, so sweet.


Yay for the slide! She wanted me to go with her and then she'd "push" me down the slide then come down after me.


Taking a walk over to the gazeebo to see the ducks.


But discovered the bridge on the way over and loved running back and forth.


"Whoa girly, better slow down!" Right after this she fell down.

Sydney at 2 Years Old!

Sydney is such a sweet little munchkin! She is fun loving and likes to be loved on. When she is tired or just wants some affectioin she gets her "bankie" and comes up to me and says "tan you hold me?" It is so sweet and so hard to resist. When you say "I love you" she responds back with "wuv you too". Melt my heart! Sydney absolutely adores her big sister Jayda and always wants to be with her. It is the sweetest thing, and Jayda wants to be with Sydney too. Jayda always wants to wake Sydney up in the morning because she just can't wait to see her. I'm not saying they are sweet too each other all the time, they have actually been getting into it a lot lately (I think because Sydney is getting older and can fight back), but they do love one another more than anything else. Sydney is quite the chatter box, and likes to ask lots of questions (about everything). She speaks in mostly complete sentences, it is so cute. She can count to 10 easily and roughly sing her ABC's. She knows most of her colors too. Sydney loves to color, with Jayda of course, in coloring books and always wants to use the markers. Regular crayons are not fun for her. She also likes to use the markers on things other than coloring books like cabinets, walls, step stools, rugs, the floor, and chairs so that has been fun finding all the spots she's marked on days later and then trying to scrub them off.

Oh, and I almost forgot she is doing really well potty training. It hasn't been as big of a deal to potty train Sydney as it was with Jayda, I guess because she sees Jayda doing it all the time and wants to too. I started putting her on the potty one day about a month ago and she went right away. I was so excited. But, then I tried putting her on there the next day and she wasn't interested. I figured she wasn't quite ready and I didn't want to push her. Again, I was still wanting her to stay a "baby" so I was in no hurry to get her out of diapers. I waited about a month or so and tried again. This time she seemed to like going on the potty much more, and I added a candy incentive. I guess I should of thought of it sooner because she LOVES "tandy". She was so excited to get candy after she went to the bathroom on the potty and has been doing a great job ever since! She is wearing pull ups right now and I will probably switch her into panties pretty soon. It was such an easy transition for her, and me, but I also think she was ready for it and that made a big difference. Doesn't hurt that she is a candy lover too!

She talks all day long nonstop. She even has started talking at naptime and has not been taking a nap at all the past few days because she is too busy carrying on a conversation with herself. It is pretty cute, but it would be nice for her to nap again since the evenings are very rough when she doesn't. :) Some of her common phrases are "tan (can) I wear Jayda's shoes?", "I don't like dat noise", "tan I watch Mi-mouse?", "where Jay-ja go, where daddy go?", "tan I have my bek-fast?", "tan you come play wif me?", "I wanna wear my ni-gown", "tan you get dat for me?", "I nee go potty", "what dat sound?", "who dat?", "where we goin' mommy?", "I wanna read books", "can I seep with my te-ey bear?", "watcha doin'", "it's o-tay froggy/baby/barbie/mermaid-I dot you (it's ok, I got you)", "I don't like croc-diles", "I don't like dat pecka (wood pecker)", "I wanna pick Jay-ja up from tool (school)", "tan you come wif me to det (get)..." and I could go on and on.

Sydney still loves the outdoors and always wants to play at the park, or even in the front yard with her toys. Her favorite thing at the park to do is swing...forever. I usually have to force her off the swing after at least 20 minutes because I'm tired of pushing her.

Sweet girl swinging with her mermaid. She always wants to swing with something.


"Push my higher mommy!"


She also enjoys pushing her babies in the swing at the park. She could do this for hours.


She's a little climber too like her big sister. She can climb pretty much any piece of playground equipment and is pretty fearless like Jayda too. And, she won't let me help her at all. She says "No mommy, I do it by myself!" Don't know how I ended up with 2 little fearless monkeys! They definitely got that from their daddy! She loves going down the slides too, and sending her baby dolls or barbies down as well.

Although she likes being outside, she is a very girly-girl. She likes to play dress up, fix her hair, put on "make-make", wear fancy shoes, and put on dress up jewelry. She is still a complete shoe fanatic! She always wears 2 totally different shoes. They CAN NOT be the same shoe or she will have a fit. She likes to wear Jayda's shoes mostly and usually picks some sort of cowgirl boot/flip flop or ballet flat/tennis shoe combo. Not real sure where her since of style came from (not mommy), but she definitely knows what she wants and does not want you to mess with her. She doesn't like getting dirty or bugs. If she falls down outsdie and gets dirt on her hands she yells for me with her hands up in the air saying "yu-ey (yucky) mommy!" It's so funny since she likes being outside, just doesn't want to get dirty. She sure can't get her shoes or clothes dirty heaven forbid! She is very aware of "dirty" stuff around her. If she sees anything in the house like leaves, dirt, or bugs she leans over and points to it and says "Ewwww, poop mommy, tan you det it?" So of course I pick it up and she says "yank you (thank you) mommy." So sweet!

She too likes to sing and dance around the house like her big sister. She likes to put her hands up in the air and shake her little booty all over the place. And while she's dancing she yells "shake a booty, shake a booty!" Think she gets most of her moves from Jayda since they look just alike when they dance. It is too cute! She imitates everything Jayda says and does, pretty much like a mini-me. However, if Jayda does tells her to do or say something that she doesn't want to she doesn't mind saying "NO, NO Jay-ja!!" So, although she does copy Jayda a lot, I am glad that she has a mind of her own, even at 2 years old.

Not a very good pic, but they were dancing to some music in my room with my hats on and thought it was hilarious!


Sydney likes playing with Jayda's friends too and acts just like one of them. She plays right along by their side and I really do believe she thinks she's 4 years old too.

I love these pics of Sydney with big sister Jayda and friend Jane playing in the recliner!


They were having so much fun reclining! Who would've thought a chair could be so entertaining to 3 little girls!


We love our sweet little Sydney and have been so blessed to have her in our lives these past 2 years. She is such a loving, caring, and tender hearted little soul and I can not imagine any of our lives without her in it!

Valentine's Day 2012!

The girls painted some pretty little Valentine's hearts a few weeks before. They had lots of fun painting as usual.

Jayda always loves to paint, especially pretty pink and purple hearts!


Sydney loved painting her hearts for Valentine's Day.


Silly girls playing in our new electric recliner. They love it, and so does daddy!


This Valentines was a little different since Sydney was still sick and Jayda wasn't feeling very good either. Plus, Jacob had a basketball game that night, so we decided to celebrate the night before at home. Jacob brought us home a yummy dinner from Olive Garden, and got me flowers, chocolate covered strawberries, a bottle of my favorite wine, oh and a new iphone (yay)! He was very sweet and we had a nice quiet dinner at home that night. On Valentine's Day we got the girls some fun goodies that they got to open after Jayda got home from school.

She found the candy! That girl loves "tan-day"!


Jayda got bubble bath and was so very excited about it. Think they've had bubble baths every night since Valentines. :)


Sydney checking out her new Minnie Mouse phone she got for V-Day.


A big ole' yummy hershey kiss! This is Sydney's dream!


And Jayda got a giant reese's heart, yummmmo!


Making, or rather attempting to make, Daddy's favorite-chocolate covered s'mores for Valentines Day.


Trying to decorate the s'mores. Yes we had quite the mess, but they sure had fun and daddy loved them!


This past weekend we headed to Nana and Pawpaw's for Brandy's bridal shower. The shower went well and we had a fun girls night afterwards since the boys were in Vegas for Klint's bachelor party. On sunday the girls spent most of the day playing outside on the farm at Nana and Pawpaw's house. They had a blast!

Sweet girls helped Pawpaw gather sticks to make a fire.


Jayda playing in the stream while Sydney sent leaves down towards her.


Sweet girl loved watching the water flow and checking things out.

Sydney's 2nd Birthday!

Sydney turned the big 2 a few weeks ago on February 11th. I seriously can not believe she is already 2 years old! It seems like time has flown since she was born. With 2 little munchkins everything has seemed to go by so much faster! It is a bit bittersweet for me because I feel like she is still my "baby" and I'm not ready for her to grow up. But, I know she will and life will go on, and I need to get off my soap box, lol. So, we threw Sydney a big cowgirl birthday party on her actual birthday. We had cowgirl and horse decorations and had a miniature pony and petting zoo brought to our house for the party. Sydney was so exctied about all the animals at her party and loved it! All the little cowgirls seemed to have lots of fun playing with the animals and riding on the pony. We got her a Little Tykes roller coaster for her birthday and put that out at the party for the kids to play on. They all seemed to like it.

We're all ready for the party to start, hoo-ray! Sydney is 2!


Yay, the animals arrive!! The girls were all so excited! There were baby chicks, a duck, a goat, and several bunnies.


Watching the pony get out of the trailer, yay!


Sydney taking her first ride on "Milkshake", so fun!


Sydney and Aiden playing with the bunny rabbits, so sweet!


Petting the friendly little goat.


Jayda LOVED holding the bunnies and looked just like this for most of Sydney's party. She could not get enough of them and has been asking to get one ever since!


Jayda and Keirsten having fun with the animals.


Sweet girl with one of the rabbits.


Nana getting a bunny for Sydney to hold. She was so excited!


Still holding the rabbits. She seriously was in love!


Sydney sitting with her favorite, "baby Aiden". She loves him so much!


"You ok baby Aiden?"


Sydney spent a lot of time opening and closing this little gate. She loves opening and closing any sort of gate or door.


Oma taking Sydney on a pony ride.


Andrea with Sara going for a ride.


"Weeeee!" The roller coaster was a big hit!


Checking on her "baby" again.


The little Cowgirl table.


We had to have beef jerky and animal cookies at the cowgirl party!


Sweet pictures of the girls taken the day before Sydney's bday.


Riley liked holding one of the baby chicks.


Look what Jayda got a hold of again...


Jayda wanted Caitlyn to take her for a ride on the pony.


Sara even liked holding the chicks too, how cute!


Most of the little cowgirls at Sydney's party. How sweeeet!


Mommy and Daddy with their little cowgirl!


Telling all the fun animals bye-bye. She did not want them to leave. :(


Sydney's big "2" cupcake!


Her cowgirl bday cake, yummy!


Birthday girl all ready for her birthday cake.


A bit worn out from all the excitement.


Getting sung Happy Birthday.


Daddy helping her blow the candle out, what a sweet girl!


"Can I get a bite?"


After she took a little nap she got up and opened up some of her bday presents. Yay!


She was SO excited to get this baby doll from her friend Jane! She LOVES babies!


Unfortunately, 2 nights before Sydney's birthday she started running fever and was up crying all night. She was also cutting 4 teeth, so I thought it just may be that she was running a fever from teething. But, I had a feeling that something wasn't right. She wasn't acting normal and her fever wasn't going away. So the day before her birthday I took her into the dr. and found out she had an ear infection, poor baby. The dr. put her on anitbiotics and she had her first dose of it that evening. Well, something didn't settle with her little tummy and that night (the night before her big party) she started throwing up, and throwing up and crying and crying all night long. It was so sad and I felt so bad for her and just wanted to take all her pain away and fix everything! After one of the roughest nights we've had we had to get up and get all ready for the party. All the while Sydney was still running fever, doped up on pain relievers, and glassy eyed from no sleep the night before. Somehow we managed to get all the decorations up, food ready, presents ready etc. just in time for the party to start at 10 a.m. Even though Sydney felt awful she sure seemed to have fun and made it through most of the party ok. After the animals left everyone sang her happy birthday and then she fell asleep in daddy's arms with a very high fever. Poor baby, nobody should feel this bad on their birthday! She didn't even have the energy to open up her birthday presents. :( Later that afternoon after her fever went down she was able to open some of her presents. It was all so surreal to me. I had been planning this big party for Sydney for several months and was so excited about it. But, when Sydney got sick all I could do was worry about her and how she was doing, and what I needed to do get her better. I really wanted to enjoy the party and have fun, but it was really hard having a sick little birthday girl. Poor thing ended up running a pretty high fever for the next several days and we had to go back to the dr. that monday because it just wasn't going down. Dr. said she probably picked up a virus on top of the ear infection which would explain the high fever not going away. Sydney was on pain meds every 3-4 hours for at least 4 days and would hardly eat anything at all, it was rough. Finally by that wednesday she was doing better and her fever subsided, thank goodness! All I wanted was for her to be well!

Poor baby trying to play with her new toys on her birthday.


A napkin from her bday party with the times that I was giving her all the pain meds. Even more proof of a sick little birthday girl. :(