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!