Big Sister Sydney and...hot tea?!

Sydney is already on her way to being a great big sister. When she sees our sono pics of the baby she just "awwws" at the baby and scrunches her shoulders as if to give him/her a hug. She has finally figured out that the baby is in Mommy's tummy and not hers, so yesterday we were playing with stickers and they were all over her. I asked her if she could pick one to give "the baby" and she gave the baby a green one...then her pink one...then her whole stack of stickers that were right in the middle of her belly! It was so sweet....something little and probably not exciting to anyone but us, but I thought it was sweet. :)

Oh and my new thing for the morning is drinking hot tea! I've always had a preference for coffee with some sweet flavoring in it (though I could never have more than one "mug" at school and I rarely ever drank it on a daily basis). However at an inservice Friday I tried it--it was my second in my life hot tea experience and it was delicious!! So then Monday I found my hot tea drinking friend to see if she had any tea bags and had to use one of hers, I went without it yesterday, but had to go get a box (of decaf of course :) I'm such a lightweight as it is!) of my own tea bags so I can enjoy it every day of the week. I am excited to have some this morning!

Yesterday we shared our news with my work. I made cupcakes with pink frosting and some with blue frosting and my wonderful friend Tiffany helped me by giving me this cute saying to put with the cupcakes. They were a HIT and everyone is just thrilled for us! I love the people I work with and I was so excited to share this with them! (Joe is getting cupcakes made tonight to take to work--so everyone knows he isn't left out! :) )

News!

Most of you already know our "big" news (and I'm not quite ready for the FB world to know!), it will be fun to post and make even more "official"! Sydney is going to be a big sister! We found out in early August and had our first appointment last Friday. The appointment went wonderfully; we saw a perfectly healthy looking, beautiful, bouncing, little baby! I thought I was just over 10 weeks along but the baby actually measured 11 weeks, which was fine by me! :) (I realize there is always a margin of error +/- a few days, but due dates really are just a ball park for us anyway right?) The sonogram measurements set my due date at April 9, 2010. We are VERY excited to be adding to our family and feel extremely blessed to be given another opportunity to experience another miracle. I was so nervous beforehand at the thought of having another child, but now that this little one is on the way it's like what I never knew I always wanted! I have had maybe one nervous moment but it was quickly overshadowed with the joy and excitement of meeting this new little person! This past weekend we told our families and today we shared with our day care provider. Sydney has already gotten lots of use out of her "Big Sister" shirt! It's been so much fun seeing the reaction of those we have shared with. They read the shirt and then you can see them processing it in their minds...then it comes to them!

With "Papa" and Aunt "Bay-pee"

I promise you, she really is excited for a new baby! :)

I have already noticed difference in this pregnancy than from Sydney's. I was far more queasy with her with less aversions to food and this time it's the complete opposite with little bit of queasy, more aversions! With Sydney I ALWAYS wanted to eat dairy products, salty things (that's when I developed a love for BBQ chips!), I also ate the most garden tomatoes I ever ate when I was pregnant with her! With this little one I am more like myself: craving sweets and carbs, etc. Not good. :) One thing that is definitely the same: my hips are sore! I wore my heeled boots yesterday because I had already worn my one pair of dress pants this week ( :) ) and my hips have been sore all day long! I had to wear flat shoes my entire pregnancy with Sydney because my hips would get sore--I just didn't realize it would happen so soon this time!

Sydney's first pedicure and "MOON!"

The other night I was trimming and filing my fingernails when Sydney wanted to "help." Once I had finished my fingernails she was right up next to me ready for her turn. As you can see she made herself very comfortable as I "filed" her toenails and then her fingernails. I'm pretty certain it tickled her because her foot kept twitching but she never pulled away!!
The other night before bed Sydney was wound for sound (actually she's been that way almost all week!). After getting her pajamas on we were sitting on the couch for a bit, probably flipping through one of her books, when I noticed the moon outside. When we're driving home and it's dark (which doesn't happen too often) she'll see the moon and will point and call our attention to it by saying "mama" and "dada" over and over...and over and over again. :) So I brought her attention to it this time and she was SO excited about it! She closed her book, hopped right down and went right to the window. Luckily Joe was able to catch her on video. It was so funny. When we asked her to tell the moon "night night" she waved and kissed the window! She sure loves that moon! :)

Sydney's stickers

We received a letter from Great Grandma Dodo on Saturday and enclosed were stickers that were sent by Sydney's Great Aunt Leone. Apparently she doesn't have our new address because her original letter was returned..so she sent them to Grandma who sent them along to us. :) Sydney had had a sticker book this summer that she loved, but I never thought about buying her stickers just to play with. Anyhow, she was absolutely thrilled when I showed her the stickers from Grandma/Aunt Leone and they kept her entertained for nearly an hour in some sort of fashion! She put several on her arms, then would move them to her shirt, then she'd put them on my shirt and take them back to put on her shirt. It was so funny! I'll definitely be buying her more stickers!!


Below are pictures of Sydney and Maggie "looking at the birds" outside. This lasted for quite awhile! :) Bless Maggie's heart--she is so tolerant. Sydney is very gentle though with her--so they make a good pair. :)

Sydney on Patriot Day!

Go Big Red!

Last weekend Joe and I were able to go to the Nebraska vs. Arkansas State football game. Bailey came down to stay with Sydney and we headed out Saturday morning to Lincoln. We had been one other time when we were both in college and had an amazing time-so I was very anxious to go back! We were two of over 85,300 people that showed up for the game--Nebraska's 299th consecutive sell out game! It was just incredible to see all the red surrounding us--there wasn't a single empty seat that we could see once it was time for kick-off. It was a great game to watch and even better that they won! 38-9. I'm trying to talk Joe in to bringing Sydney to the KU-Nebraska game so she can have her first game! :) She has the NU cheerleader outfit all ready to go. ;)





You can't see very well but the top row shows the years of their national championships; the second row shows the 30-yep 30, conference titles.

Great Labor Day weekend!

We had such a great, long weekend! Joe was gone all last week to Colorado on business so it was wonderful just to hang out this weekend as a family and catch up on time together we had missed. We were really lazy (except he mowed and I did some laundry) but isn't that what Labor Day weekend is all about? Taking it easy? :) Anyway, this afternoon Joe and I went golfing at a nearby 9-hole golf course and we had a babysitter come and watch Sydney. This is the second time she has watched Sydney (the last time was about a month or so ago?) and the first went just "okay." Sydney had some moments where she just wanted one of us, threw a couple of fits, etc. I was worried that she may have scared our hope of a local babysitter off, but she was still more than willing to watch Syd when we called again! Our babysitter's mom was going to drop her off at 2:30 which was the plan since Sydney usually wakes up from her nap at that time. However this morning she had laid down and taken about an hour nap--so at 2:30 Sydney STILL had not fallen asleep for her afternoon nap. (We lay her down at 1:00.) I was terrified that she'd be a little terror for her. However...the report was fantastic and SO much better than last time--no reported meltdowns or fits, but instead just lots of fun! So our babysitter must have done something right with our exhausted little princess to keep her happy all afternoon long! :) I love it because I feel some freedom by way of this babysitter--we love having Aunt Bailey watch Sydney (and I know she loves it too) but it's nice having someone local too for little outings such as these.

Tomorrow is Sydney's 20 month appointment. I'm anxious to hear her "stats" and compare them to her 18 month measurements. It seems like we were just at her 18 month appointment! After this we don't go back until her 2 year appointment. Can it be? Our baby is almost 2? It's unreal!

Our crazy life!

It has been SO long since I last posted. I didn't realize that life would be so chaotic (well I did I had just forgotten how I had managed it before!) Life is finally starting to settle in to some sort of routine. Sydney is finally doing better in the mornings when I drop her off. Last I posted we were still in the clingy, screaming, hysterically upset, heart-wrenching stage and then literally one day, out of the blue, I let her walk in instead of carrying her and she carried her grapes. She walked right in, carried her grapes to the table and puckered up for a goodbye kiss and hug and even told me "bye"! I just started dumbly at our daycare provider out of pure confusion---but glee! I was so happy to have our drop offs back to "normal."

Sydney is talking SO much now. It seems like just in the last couple of weeks she has started putting 2 to 3 words together as she orders us around. :) She'll even attach our names to most of her requests or statements. When her toast popped up this morning she, kindly of course, said: "Mama, go!" (or maybe it was "mama toast!" :) ) At night before bed she enjoys looking at pictures of herself (mostly) and other pictures on our computer. I dropped her off with Joe after a bath the other night and she said "Mama, go." Very definitively. I was a little hurt but I smiled a bit because I thought it was pretty cute too! Even tonight when she wanted to read a book it was "mama...up...please." She even started saying the word "airplane" (a-pain) and looks to the sky. She got so excited the other day when we saw two flying around--she kept running around the yard trying to see them through the trees! It is so exciting and really pretty awesome to be able to communicate even more with her! Oh we still have a long way to go before we fully understand each other (but will we ever fully "understand" each other anyway?)