First Swim!

Today Sydney went swimming for the first time ever! We went to our friend's pool which was so great. The shallow end goes down to about 1 inch of water since the edge of the pool is level with the sidewalk right at first. This meant I got to set Sydney down and let her sit in the water and figure it out. She started out confused.

Then she realized it was pretty cool.
There were these great little fountains that only shot up about 1 foot. Eli and Sydney both enjoyed them.
They were her favorite part

We did go out a bit deeper too (see, it goes to my ankles!)Doing some real "swimming." She actually paddled her arms a tiny bit even!
She was really excited to get wrapped in a towel afterward. She loves to be snuggly and was a tad cold at that point.

We got semi-dressed to eat some snacks.

She left these on just long enough to get a picture.

All in all we had tons of fun! We'll go back to the pool soon!

Going Places

This kid is going places, seriously. She uses lots of ways to get to where she wants to go, but still doesn't seem to get too far from home! Sometimes she goes by sea,

Sometimes she rides a zebra (our great neighbors gave us this. She can't use it on her own yet but really likes it anyway)
Sometimes she's biker baby (again, not on her own - her feet aren't on the floor!)
Slinking was a favorite mode of transportation for awhile. She started out sitting up completely in this picture. This is where she ended up. She grew out of that phase pretty quickly though.
Jumping is her current favorite. Our great neighbors also gave us their Jumperoo and Sydney thinks it's the greatest ever. Her poor little leg muscles would just about give out after a couple minutes when she first figured it out though, and she would just lay down because she was all tuckered out! FYI, she still doesn't get the Johnny Jump-up. She sits and stares at us like, "um, this is boring. Can I go back to the one with toys?"
Crawling - yeah not so much. She just looks cute in the pose. Which we put her in.
She's pretty convinced balloons can get her off the farm

But in the end,she's not too unhappy to stay where she is. Especially when daddy shares his toast and jam with her!

Company Central

Two weeks ago Aaron's sister Adrianne and her husband Michael flew out to visit us. We had a really great time with them and enjoyed having them come visit. Come back anytime! I know they're late, but here are some pics.

Aunt Adi finally got a picture of Sydney's pearly whites. Click on this pic to make it bigger and see them.

Sydney really likes guys, which means she had a great time playing with Uncle Michael, even if he did have a Red Sox hat on. ;)

We went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Sydney had a great time riding on Aaron's shoulders.
And playing dress up.
Ok mostly she didn't care about the dress up, but we had fun! Plus, look who her mom is, we HAD to dress up in the Egypt stuff!
There was this guy walking around in a dinosaur and making it bite people, etc. Sydney was semi-interested in it when it was a few feet away, but when it got close I think it was too hard to see all of it.
All in all we had a great weekend! We have had a lot of company over the last few weeks and we have enjoyed seeing everyone that has come out! Aaron's parents came out last weekend and our friends Abby and Jake stopped by this past weekend on their way across the country. Thanks everyone for coming to see us! Anyone else planning a vacation?

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

Sorry for the hiatus on the visitor posts. Here is some more of what we did with Haylee, JC, and Kaitlyn. On Wednesday we trekked down to Colorado Springs to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. I had never been before but had heard amazing things about their giraffes, so I was excited. FYI, if you go, print out this coupon to make it a little cheaper. Anyway, we went and the giraffes were right at the front of the zoo - first animals you see. There were tons of them and there were about 5 babies. You could buy 3 big giraffe crackers for $1 and feed the giraffes, which we did and really enjoyed.
At one point I turned away for a second and broke a piece off my cracker to give to the giraffes. I was also holding it away from Sydney so that she wouldn't grab it, but when I turned back (seriously it was about 1.2 seconds) Sydney had her hand out and the giraffe was licking it! I'm such a good mom.
Here is Haylee feeding one of the babies.
Here are Haylee, JC, and Kaitlyn watching the meerkats (look at the funny one sitting on his bum!)
Me feeding a bird about 5 seconds before another one pooped on my arm. For any of you not in my family, this happens to me frequently. When we were walking around the mall in DC a pigeon pooped on my head. When we went to the botanical gardens in DC, a pigeon pooped on my leg. When we just went to the zoo, a non-pigeon pooped on my arm. Needless to say, Haylee was cracking up.
A really beautiful toucan we saw

Sydney got all tuckered out looking at the animals.

The monkeys that put on a show for us (click on this pic to make it big - the monkey on the left has a little 1 month old baby on her).

Sydney with the gorillas. The baby on the left has a really interesting story. He was abandoned by his mom and raised by keepers the same way a gorilla would have raised him. Read the story here.

In the end, we had a good time at the zoo and saw some fun animals. I was frustrated with the overall layout of the zoo (talk about confusing to find your way through), and it was annoying that they were doing so much construction and that not all of the animals were in their enclosures, but other than that, we really enjoyed our time with Haylee and her crew. We're so glad you guys came!

My First Mother's Day

It's 5 AM. Why am I blogging? I woke up about 20 minutes ago and went in to check on Sydney. She was really restless and woke up, so I decided to re-swaddle her so she would sleep better. Sydney still wears size 2 diapers and is just getting ready to move up to size 3, so we put her in size 3 at night to avoid accidents. Well, this child just peed through her size 3 diaper, through her onesie, through her pjs, and into her blanket. The diaper pad was downstairs and I didn't want to go fetch it, so I stripped her down in her crib, changed her diaper, and proceeded to rinse out all her clothes and linens that she got wet. I'm hoping she'll go back to sleep after that still. It was too ironic not to post. Happy Mother's Day to me.

Going Private

I kind of hate that the time has come to go private. With the many crazy things in the world and on the Internet, we feel like it would be best to not allow strangers to have so much access to our lives. I would love for all of you to continue reading, whether I know you're here or not, so please leave me your email address in the comments so I can invite you to view my blog! Please please please let us know who you are if you want to be invited! We will be going private next week, so leave your email and keep checking!

The Aquarium

Next Haylee, JC, Kaitlyn, Sydney, and I all piled in the truck to go to the Denver Aquarium. We'd heard really good things about it and really bad things about it, so we decided to check it out for ourselves. It's pricey to get into - $14 but we were so impressed with everything! It honestly should be called a Water Museum instead of an aquarium, because it had sections for almost every type of habitat water exists in. There were rivers, deserts, ocean, shipwrecks, coastal regions, rainforests, and a couple others I don't remember. It was really cool to see all the different fish, sharks, sea turtles, jellyfish, stingrays, etc. as well as a few other creatures you don't usually see in an aquarium such as toucans, parrots, and even tigers (all in the rainforest area)! We loved it all and totally felt like we got our money's worth (and for those of you who know me, I'm pretty frugal, so that's saying a lot!).

Here are JC and Kaitlyn looking at some river fish.

And then at the flash flood (I can see how this would scare some kids, but both of ours enjoyed it)

Dude Crush

I was surprised at how much Sydney loved everything there was to look at. She wanted to look at and touch everything. It was really fun!
This diver came over and put his hand on the tank and Sydney put her hand on his!

Being Piranhas with the Piranhas

The tigers

We found Nemo... and Dory
And the Squishies

Met the sharks

And petted the stingrays

Here is a video of JC feeding the stingrays! It was the craziest thing I have ever seen!

Haylee's Visit

My sister Haylee and her family came to visit this last week and we had such fun! They came Monday and left Friday and it was great to have so much time with them. The weather at the beginning of the week was beautiful. On Thursday it snowed, so that wasn't the greatest, and the baseball game Aaron and JC were going to would have been miserable on Friday since I think it was about 25 degrees that night, but other than that we had a great time! On Tuesday we headed out for every kid's favorite place: the park
Sydney meeting cousin Kaitlyn (she's almost 4 - Sydney's such a chunk!)
Kaitlyn being a cowgirl
Sydney, Kaitlyn, and I on the slide

JC and Kaitlyn making faces

JC and Aaron tossing Kaitlyn in the air. She must have gone 10 ft in the air!

Bag Tag

Long ago I was tagged to post everything in my diaper bag. As the bag itself was getting dirty and in need of cleaning, I finally got around to getting it done tonight.

Here's the deal: You must identify it. It ended up being a great excuse to clean it all out. Here's what was in my bag:
1 changing pad
6 diapers
1 pkg wipes
1 bottle
3 pacifiers
treats for me: 3 pkgs yogos, 1 granola bar, 1/2 bag nuts
1 bag of formula
1 bag of baby puffs
1 spoon
1 pen
baby tylenol
1 epi-pen (I'm allergic to bee stings)
1 extra onesie
Sunhat and Sunglasses
gum and mints
27 cents
KY Jelly (now you know how we get those bows to stick to her head)
1 shout wipe
5 alcohol prep pads
kleenexes
Lotion
Aquaphore
1 bow
3 burp cloths
tylenol/ibuprofen, etc.
lip gloss
baby sunscreen
deodorant (for those "oh, crap" moments)
purell
eye drops
a lot of Sydney's random toys including a baby ipod, a stress heart, an old cell phone, mardi gras beads, airplane bags of peanuts and pretzels, 2 dragonfly toys, 1 teether, 1 set of measuring cups, a lid, a koosh seal, 2 rattles, baby keys, a fake credit card (probably a bad idea to give her one so young), an easter egg spinning toy, a tiny rubber mat, and a photo.

I now tag Karen, Jordan, Abby (both), and Linda.

Milestones

First time eating dirt. She got ahold of one of the plugs of grass from when we aerated last fall. Yum.

Not sure what she was eating here.
In her great rocker shirt from Dave.
First real faux hawk
First time all bundled. It was cold on Thursday.

Abby, I'm as bad as you. When I saw Sydney eating dirt I knew I had to take a picture before I cleaned her off. Obsessive. She still thinks graham crackers are the best things EVER, and also eats tomatoes (dad's so happy), saltine crackers, french fries, cranberries, baby cereal puffs, and many other things. She hates mashed potatoes (she actually threw up when I fed them to her). She has 2 teeth (she got them April 11 and I thought I posted this, but never did. Sorry. Still trying to get a picture of them.) She talks a lot, grabs everything, and really likes guys (she loves both her uncles that have been visiting her!). That's it for now!