Christmas with the Bottema's

Sydney and I celebrated Christmas with the Bottema family on Sat. 12/29 (Jim was in SD hunting). We both had a great time and really enjoyed spending time with our extra family!! Thanks Bottema's!! :)

Sydney and Auntie "Lorla" Lora always enjoy reading a book together!

Kathy and Sydney - too cute!!
Sydney and her aunties - Christy and Lorla
" Oh, what to do now?"

LOTS of new pictures

I finally updated the blog with lots of new pictures...some of them you will need to click on the "blog archive" to see them if you choose. Some were even from November! For now, I am up to date and hopefully will do much better at updating this with new pictures....now that the holidays are almost over!

Happy New Year!!

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas weekend was packed with lots of activity! We went to Austin on Sat. (12/22) to have Christmas with my mom, brother and his girlfriend, Jessie, on Saturday night and Sunday at my dad's! We enjoyed doing fondue at my mom's..it was Jim and Jessie's first time fondueing...yum! And my dad made us a great ham dinner..also yum! Sydney had a great time opening all of her gifts. It was fun to look back at last years video from Christmas to see how much she has changed. She is such an independant little girl (wonder who she gets that from...not her mommy...haha!) and is the light of our lives! All the excitement and an incoming molar got to her by Sunday evening at my dad's...she hit this wall and was not a very happy girl all the way through Christmas. She had her moments where she was super happy, but those moments would quickly turn to just plain miserable...poor thing! Her mouth hurt and she couldn't understand why. She doesn't like the stuff that will numb the gums...we try tricking her with it and even force it on her, but she hates it. She hates it so much now, that she doesn't even let me put my finger anywhere near her mouth because she thinks I have that stuff on my finger. Oh well...she does at least let me look...and that molar has finally made a break through...thank goodness!

It took us 5 tries to get one where everyone was smiling and had their eyes open...thank goodness for digital. Notice Sydney is standing...she didn't want to be held, she wanted to stand like everyone else...and that she did. Love her smile / laugh...she was getting into the pictures!
Opening presents...her big thing from grandma was a wagon! Yeah! Uncle Brad and Jessie got her a huge Elmo and Share Bear Care Bear! As Sydney said when she was all done opening gifts..."thanks guys!" (where does she come up with her sayings...they crack us up!)
More presents!
Fondue...we had oil, beer cheese and chocolate....YUM!
Mom, Jessie, Brad and Jim

Brad and Jessie moved in together this year...finally...and mom got them a set of pots and pans. They loved it!

AT MY DAD'S......

Mommy and Sydney...check out how red her cheeks are...a true sign she was teething!

Handing out presents...she had fun doing that! Love the Santa hat again!

Oh...what is it?!! A Elmo / Cookie Monster Cell Phone!

CHRISTMAS MORNING AT HOME!

Checking out the stocking!

Keys...she kept asking for her own keys....

What else?

Love the ladybug bean bag chair....

Oh, coloring books!!Lots of presents!!

We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas with their loved ones!!

We have Christmas with the Bottema's on Saturday and Christmas with the Jagow's on New Year's Day....more pictures to come! Plus, her birthday is less than a week away...wow!

Santa

"Sydney, who are we going to see tonight"? "Santa"! "What are you going to tell him that you want for Christmas?" "Toys". What happened when we finally got up there to see Santa...she clung to Jim or I! Funny!

Wanting only daddy! She wouldn't even look at Santa!Mommy sat with Santa to try and get a picture with Sydney and Santa...that was even a no go....as you can tell by the picture!
Santa asked her if she wanted to give him five...okay, but she wouldn't get too close. When he asked her if she wanted to give him a hug....NO! It was funny! Maybe next year she will be interested in sitting on his lap!

Our Christmas Tree

We got our Christmas tree on Sunday, 12/16...Jim came in and said "honey, I have good news and bad news...good news, I already know what side we are going to put in the corner, bad news, when I was pulling the tree out of the jeep I broke a few big branches right in the middle". Great! We let the tree warm up a couple of nights and we decorated it on Tuesday. A few times before we got the tree I wished we had a fake tree, so I could just get it put up and decorated and be done with it...but after we had the real one in the house for a while, I was so thankful we waited and got the real one...I love the smell of Christmas trees!!

Bringing in the tree...it ended up being a lot smaller than it looked on the lot...oh well! It was real, so I didn't complain!
Jim & Syndey enjoying the tree....she wasn't sure what to think about having a tree in the house!
Helping decorate...she loved helping emptying the boxes!! She found the Santa hat!
Mommy and Sydney found the reindeer antlers...we wore these for two Christmas cards. The first year (2005) was when I was pregnant with Sydney and we wore one of them on my belly...last year (2006) she wore it on her head. This year they made the blog...but not the Christmas card. She loved them!

Holiday Party!!

For our CHR Holiday Party the group of 11 of us went to the Brave New Workshop theatre and saw the funniest (seriously...it was hilarious) play - "Stuck In The Manger with you or Carol on, My Wayward Son" (I recommend this to everyone!!) and to dinner at Chino Latino! We all had a great time!! The show, food and company were a ton of fun!

Greg, Keith and Mindy enjoyed some good quality tequila...$23 a glass! I tried it and can't say I was missing anything...at least, that was my opinion! haha!
Greg & Nancy
Barb & Frank
Katie & Kathy Jo....Kathy Jo works with us and this was the first time a few of us had the pleasure of meeting her daughter!

Keith's date...the tequila (Jon wasn't able to make it...he was skiing in CO)

Jim & I....(I enjoyed the "Happy Endings" Martini instead of the tequila)

Michael & Mindy - Michael came in from DFW for the holiday party...what a guy!

A present in the mail!!

Sydney received an early Christmas present in the mail from Connie! She was so much fun watching her open the gifts. She got a super cute snowman and some fun books...one being "you're happy and you know it, clap your hands"...and it plays music to that tune! She announced later that afternoon - "I LOVE IT!!" Thanks Connie!
Love the excitment on her face and she hasn't even opened a gift yet!!!
Check out the concentration!

We've been elfed!!

Hey, I just made a total elf of myself. Check it out by clicking the link below.
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1327076533
This elfin' greeting brought to you by OfficeMax®.

Things to know about Sydney

Fun little things to know about Sydney and a great way for me to remember these things...months and even years down the road.

• Flutterbye's - Butterflies
• Kretzel's - Pretzels
• I loe boo - I love you
• Donoman - Donovan (little boy at daycare)
• When she says "Happy Birthday"...she usually adds Donoman to the end of it, unless you tell her someone else's name...otherwise she thinks it is Happy Birthday Donoman. Now that she is learning about Christmas and baby Jesus...she nows says "Happy Birthday Jesus".
• When being dropped off at Auntie Christy's for daycare, she wasn't even there 2 minutes and she asked "where's Jeff?". When asked later that night who was coming to see her on Saturday (after she had been told Grandma was coming up), she said "Jeff?". I think she has a crush on Jeff... :)
• Pallow's - Pillow's
• Unda da bridge - Under the bridge
• We went to the bank the other day and while we were waiting in the drive thru she said "I want fries"...too funny! 11/20/07
• In teaching Sydney animal sounds I threw in "what does mommy say?" I would always tell her "I love you!". On 9/1/07, she finally answered correctly when I asked her...it was so sweet and brought tears to my eyes!
• Loves Clifford the Big Red Dog, Elmo (Sesame Street) & Care Bears
• She counts odd numbers...1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10...she skips 2, 4 & 6 - we're working on that.

Sydney enjoys playing with her little people barn....her she has a kleenex and the animals are taking a nap. It is always so much fun to watch her imagination at play!!

Snuggling with Grandma!

My mom came up on 12/8...this picture was taken after Sydney got up from her nap. She was still a little snuggly, so Grandma got to enjoy the rare moment (Sydney isn't much of a snuggler).

GO WILD!!!

Jim & I were able to enjoy a Wild game on 12/2...and we won...YEAH!! We have partial season tickets and we get six games / tickets through out the season....like I said, it is partial tickets...better than nothing! :) Since I don't know a whole lot about hockey (but I do really enjoy going to the games), I usually only go to one game and Jim goes to the remainder of the games with this brother(s). This was a great game...the final score was 2 to 1 and put us in first place all alone...we were tied with the team (Vancouver) we were playing going into the game.

I love my scarf, hat and mittens!!

Since the first snow storm was here, I thought it was a good time to finally get Sydney a new hat, scarf and mitten set. She loves them...they have "flutterbye's" on them. :) Then of course we enjoyed some playtime outside in the new snow and new winter wear.

Happy Thanksgiving

Sydney is doing so much better! We had a few sleepness nights and Sydney slept her first night in bed with us...we all slept when this happened. :) She is back to herself, being funny, sweet and just like any almost 2 year old should be.

We are very thankful this year for our continued health (aside from a few bumps along the year) and so very thankful for our family and friends!! We are heading to Austin tonight to spend the day with my family. We hope everyone has a very Happy Thanksgiving! Drive safe if you are traveling!

Having fun with Granpa Joe and the touch lamp..on Thanksgiving..she thought that was pretty neat!

Uncle Brad stopped by Grandma's the day after Thanksgiving...too cute! :)

Bronchitis strikes our house!

Sydney got a cold on 11/5 and she had it for over a week...which just seemed like a long time to me. Normally her colds last about 5 days...when this one was sticking around longer, I was getting a little nervous.

For those of you that don't know, she had a cold back in Feb., which in turn turned into croup and we ended up being air lifted to Children's....NEVER want that to happen again. (The thing of this that still gets me is that we had taken her to the dr. earlier that day and the bad dr (not our normal one) said it was really nothing and she couldn't give us anything...but that it might turn into pneumonia or bronchitis....what dr. does that when it was clear she had something...she sounded like a seal and I kept asking, "really, she doesn't have anything"? Can you tell I'm still a little annoyed about that...needless to say, that dr. is NEVER allowed to see my child again! A mother's instinct is usually correct!!)

On Monday she seemed to be doing better, but when I picked her up from daycare on Tuesday, she had (I swear) the same look on her face as she did back in Feb, right before she got super sick. I guess she woke up from her nap with a runny nose and red cheeks again. Needless to say as the night went on it just got worse. We took her to the dr. on Wednesday and she has bronchitis and her throat was a little red....we got medicine this time around. I stayed home with her on Wed. and she did pretty good throughout the day, but that night was another story. She slept for a little bit, but then was up coughing and wanting daddy (have I said how much of a daddy's girl she is...). A few times she was able to go back to sleep, but of course when we wanted to go to sleep, she was up. Poor Jim got up with her... I feel horrible for Sydney because she feels so bad. I just cringe everytime she coughs...ugh! Enough of my ranting....the dr. says this medicine should really kick in in 72 hours...we are now at 24. Here's to hoping tonight is a better night and that this bronchitis goes away and does not turn into anything worse. Cross your fingers and say a prayer!!

Pumpkin Carving & Halloween

Waiting for daddy to start carving!!

This is heavy!!

"I'm scraping"

Sydney as a little "chick"...the cutest one ever!!

"Sydney, say Trick or Treat".....Sydney says "treat" (and Thank you)

We took Sydney to two of our neighbors (Jean and Marvel & Dennis), Georgie's (daycare) and Grandma & Grandpa Jagow's. She loved dressing up in her costume and had a good time trick or treating. Mom & dad had fun too!!