Monday, October 29, 2012

Nine Months

Sydney Lucile turned nine months last Saturday (the 20th).  She is quite the little lady.  Every bit as mischievous as her sister was, and still is.  Sydney likes to know what everything is, what it does, what sound it makes.  And she quickly loses interest in things, and moves on to bigger and better.  Syd loves her big sister, and follows her around.  She is at that age where I can actually leave the room with the two of them playing, and I love it.  I hear giggles and squeals and tiny growls while those two do their thing.  Sydney loves to mimic sounds- in fact, today at church, the 18 month old behind us squawked at one point, Sydney quickly spotted her, and squawked right back.  She still loves the camera, and hams it up whenever I take it out.
Point in case.

Sydney wants to eat whatever we are eating.  She loves all big people food.  She is pretty much done with baby food.  Her favorite thing to eat right now is tomatoes.  Cherry, grape, Roma; she ate an entire mortgage lifter for lunch yesterday.  Syd goes to bed just fine, she'll sing and talk, and eventually drift off.  Keeping her asleep is another story.  She goes back and forth from waking up once at night for a bottle, and twice.  Twice is just about to kill me.  Once, I can handle.  Please, Sydney, start sleeping through the night.  Mama is so tired.  At this point in her life, she has only slept through the night twice.  She is a champion napper- though she has started weaning herself off morning naps.  If she does lay down for a morning nap, it usually lasts 3 hours, and then she will only nap about an hour, maybe two, in the afternoon.  If she doesn't nap in the morning, she naps for 3-4 hours in the afternoon.
Sydney claps her little hands when she's excited, climbs up the stairs, gives high-fives (after a lot of coaxing), and gives those amazing open mouth kisses babies give.  I think those kisses are one of my most favorite things.  Over the last few weeks I have caught Sydney standing, on her own, without support.  Scarlett took her first steps before she turned 10 months... the race is apparently on!  When Sydney wants to get somewhere fast, she ducks her head down when she crawls, and she does move really fast.  She loves to get in the refrigerator.  She loves being outside, playing with kids, and diving on our bed (I think it's the fluffy comforter).  She loves to wrestle with her sister.  She loves opening drawers and cupboards, and playing with whatever she can get her hands on.  Her most favorite thing right now is pulling all the clothes out of a drawer, or moving them to another drawer.  Syd loves books, and she loves to sing.  If you sing to her, she will join you.  If you tell her to "shake your booty" she does a bouncy little dance.  She loves sitting in high chairs at restaurants, and riding in carts at the store.  She smiles at everyone.  She will go to a stranger, but within seconds wants to be back with a familiar face.  She is a little bit of a Mama's girl.  Bath time is still her favorite time of day.  The day after she turned 9 months, her first tooth appeared.  A few days later, the tip top of a second cut through (both bottom middle).  She saw the doctor on the 23rd, and weighs 19.1 lbs (50th percentile), is 28 inches (75th), and has a head circumference of 45 cm (50th).
Sydney Lu, oh, how we love you.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Scarlett's Sweet Shoppe

It's party time!  Scarlett talked for weeks about her upcoming birthday and party.  Weeks.  She was so thrilled when Saturday finally came and we told her it was time to party.
I don't consider myself a very crafty person, so I will admit, I was incredibly proud of my lollipop invitations.

 We chose one of our favorite parks as our venue, I did not know it was the park where they held soccer, but it still worked great.  We got our little table, and that's all I needed to set up "shoppe".

I am really in love with how these cupcakes turned out.  Loved all the bright colors.


Party people.
 At the shoppe we had Skittles, Rolos, gumballs, Jolly Ranchers, York peppermint patties, Starburst, and Kit-Kats.  We also had little strawberry and grape kabobs.  The kids loved filling their individual cups full of their favorite goodies.

Sydney loved playing with all the kids, crawling in the grass, and hanging out with Grandma and Granddad, she was a little distressed that all she got to eat were some cheerios.

 Chocolate, and strawberry cupcakes, with homemade frosting.  Mmm.  Pretty, aren't they?

 Aunt Deb came to party.

 One happy little three year old.
  
 Sweet Addesyn.  We just love her.  I have known her mommy since elementary school.

 Cute brothers.  Love these boys.
 Pinata time!













 It did eventually break, and the kids scrambled to collect more sugary treats.
Happy birthday to you....
 Ira is my kind of kid- get that cupcake!
The Stephens family.
 Sweet baby James.  Such a big smile!
The kids were so cute when it came time for presents, they were so eager for Scarlett to open what they brought for her.  So sweet.  We are blessed with so many wonderful friends here.


Happy, happy, happy birthday, Scarlett Ann.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

THREE

Scarlett turned THREE years old last Friday.  Throughout the day she kept exclaiming, "This is the best day ever!"  So I think I can say it was a successful birthday.
We spent the morning of her actual birthday prepping for her party that would be held the following day.  I asked Scarlett what kind of party she wanted, and she just kept telling me she wanted candy, so I turned that in to Scarlett's Sweet Shoppe, and ran with it.  We filled lots of mason jars with yummy sweet treats.
She took her role of jar filler very seriously.
We asked where she wanted to go for lunch on her birthday, she thoughtfully replied "New York!"  So off to New York Pizza Kitchen we went.
Attempting a photo...
Not quite successful, but good enough.




 
 Sydney loved the fresh bread they brought out.  And enjoyed, even more, the pizza I let her eat.
  
 Such a terrible picture, but it's all we got.
After lunch we went home and baked 88 mini cupcakes and decorated them with our good friend Kelly.  Thank goodness she came to help- I would have been frosting for hours!
I also made a birthday cake for that evening.  I left while Scarlett was adding the sprinkles, and when I came back... something had happened to the cake.  I asked what happened, and Scarlett told me she didn't know.  I asked, "how did that happen to the cake?"  To which she replied, "I don't know.  It did it all by itself."
 She got very upset during questioning.  We talked about telling lies after that.
 Later that evening we had a delicious macaroni and cheese dinner, as per the birthday girl's request.  We celebrated with Grandma and Granddad, and the Hisermans.
When Scarlett opened her gift from the Hisermans, it was a fairy dress up dress, and she got so upset.  She kept saying, "I didn't want that!"  After a minute, I realized what was happening, and when I explained to her that this was just for dressing up, and not her Halloween costume, she got very excited about it.  (She chose her Halloween costume about a month ago.  No way was she switching now!)
 She wears her heels daily.
Best little friends.
 Happy as can be eating her yummy cake. 

Happy birthday to my sassy, sweet, smart, independent, loyal little love.  Mommy loves you, thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis much.
I've been jotting down the cute things Scarlett has been saying over the last few months, and I do not want to forget any one of them.
*We have been looking at houses on and off for the last year.  A little while ago, we decided to re-do one of our rental properties in Chicago, so that put our own plan to purchase a home on hold.  Scarlett heard Rob and I talking one day about wanting to wait until we refinance that property, so we can get the cash back that we put in to it, before buying a house.  We joked that we just don't have enough cash to buy a house.  I still watch the market in Napa to see what is listed, and one day I was pulling up the mls website on the iPad  and Scarlett said, "Why you lookin' at houses?  We can't buy one.  Daddy don't have any cash right now."  I laughed and asked her what we were going to do about it.  "I know! Let's get a new Daddy! One with lots of cash!"
*Referring to her baby dolls (after asking me to babysit them), "Them are my sugars.  I'll call you and see how my babies are doing."
*We were reading a book one night about animals.  I noticed that several were from Africa (in the book it tells you a fact or two, and then also where they come from).  I thought I should ask if Scarlett noticed where most of the animals came from, but then I thought that might be a difficult question for such a little kid.  As soon as I dismissed the idea, Scarlett asked "How come all these animals come from Africa?"  Smarty.
*When we put her to bed at night, I stay in Scarlett's room after we turn out the lights and sing a song to her.  She lately has been asking me to lay my head on her chest.  While I sing, she plays with my hair, and always whispers, "you're a good Mom."
*Scarlett and I were telling my Mom about our Sweet Shoppe theme for Scarlett's birthday, and all the little details, and my Mom kept saying things like we didn't need to have a big party.  She made a few comments along those lines, Mom's not a huge birthday party fan, and Scarlett finally looked at her and said, "Well, Grandma, you don't have to come to my birthday party."
 *After a morning of shushing Scarlett, she looked at me sadly, "I'm sorry.  My voice is just not quiet."
*When I make one of her favorite meals she will tell me "this is a really good dinner, Mom, thank you."  But her most recent comment, "Mom, I'm really enjoying this dinner tonight", is my favorite.
*After leaving a friend's birthday party a few weeks ago, Scarlett said "Today was a really good day, Mom."
*Scarlett has become quite the picky eater, but we have strict rules about trying the food, and eating our vegetables.  She threw an incredible fit over her veggies one night, and was extremely exhausted, so we told her she could choose to eat, or go to bed.  She chose bed.  When we tucked her in, she sobbed "my heart is broken."  And was asleep before we could walk out the door.
*I was in the kitchen cleaning up breakfast, and the girls were in the living room when I heard "Come read with me Sydney (picking up her children's Book of Mormon).  God loves us.  Jesus loves us.  God and Jesus love us.  They is our best friends."  If they know nothing else, I am glad they know this.
*Scarlett told me her tummy hurt, so I suggested she try to go potty.  When I went to check on her, she was sitting on the toilet, curled over, tummy obviously really hurting, and she said, "I can't handle this all by myself!"
*Sydney thinks her big sister is the best- she laughs at everything Scarlett does.  Scar loves this, and really hams it up.  One day, she was tickling Sydney's tummy, they were both giggling uncontrollably when I heard Scarlett yell "she's the funnest baby of the whole world!"