Never Fear - Michelangelo is Alive and Well

This is the underside of my table. Awesome work Sydney. The floor was even better. At least it came off easily with a Magic Eraser. I have to admit though that while cleaning off the table, that sentimental side of me thought, "Maybe I should leave this here so that when she's 15 we can all have a good laugh about it." Then I figured it would happen again soon!

Sydney has been a coloring fool lately, and it's all been completely voluntary! It's fun to see her exhibiting some creativity!
She is starting to figure out that when you draw you can do more than just scribble too, so that has been very exciting! If you're lucky, you'll get a Sydney creation!

Hallelujah

We finally found our copy of this last night. Hallelujah.

You bet we're listening to it. And Sydney loves The Little Drummer Boy. She keeps saying "Pum Pum again!" and singing with it. So darn cute. I love Christmas.

I'm so sad though because I am all done wrapping Christmas presents. Anyone want some help?

How to Eat Un-Fried Worms

We had such a great day at the zoo on Wednesday. Sydney asks to go almost daily, so it was heaven for her. (She chased the geese around telling them not to poop anymore.) Both she and Mady each got to have a friend come with us, so we all (moms included) enjoyed a much needed day of fun with other people. Sydney and Kenzie held hands the whole time. Mady and Brooklyn are 3 days apart. They'll be best friends too.

And don't forget the animals. It was a tad chilly so we popped in to the bird house to warm up and got there just in time to help feed them. The girls got to grab some meal worms (yum!) and toss them to the birds. Here it is in fullblown technicolor:

Here's the transcript version:

Me (while holding Mady in one arm and my shiny new camera in the other): Good job! What's on your hand? Let me see. Have you got a bug right there? Flick it off. Flick it off. NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! GROSSS!!!!!!! YUCK!!!!!! It's in her mouth!

Casey (other mom): She thought you said lick it off!

We don't use the word flick anymore. Also, I almost vomitted on the spot. Oh. My. Gosh.

On a happier note, both kids LOVED the carousel. It was new for Mady to like it, but it was so fun that she did! She kicked and giggled and held on just like a big girl!
When we rode the carousel, our friends were the only other people on it. And no one was in line. So they let us ride again. Which means Sydney chose a new animal. Tiger first, gorilla second. During our second ride a peacock got in our friend's stroller and stole Kenzie's PB&J (Casey chased the peacock and got it back). So the zoo worker got us all little bags of animal crackers.

Go to the zoo in December. It rocks.

A Christmas Miracle

So that's where Mady's stashing her bottles lately...

Oh, and Sydney cleaned up the living room almost entirely by herself tonight. Oh Happy Day.

Promised Pictures

Sydney was watching me do my hair one morning and asked me to do hers. I jumped on the opportunity. Here's the resulting photo shoot:

And here is Mady's photo shoot a few weeks before:

I have such cute kids.

Sniffers

My daughter has a ridiculously good sense of smell.
I was secretly munching on a few M&Ms the other night when she came running over and said,"Mommy, ope you mouf." After quickly swallowing my secret treat, I complied. She visually inspected, then decided to use a more reliable method. She leaned in and took a whiff of my breath. Intrigued by this new behavior, I asked her what she smelled. "Chocolate!" she replied. I obviously had to share. A few days later we repeated this process as she correctly guessed that I had been sneaking licorice. Apparently, the nose knows all.

This weekend I discovered where she had gotten such a charming trait. We finally got our new bedroom set all delivered and in correctly. (Yay!) While rocking Mady in the room, Aaron came in and informed me I was going to kill our youngest by exposing her to the massive amounts of fumes coming off our new furniture. My reply? "I can't smell anything."
It's all explained. Sydney and Aaron both have overactive sniffers.
Here's the offensive furniture:

Wake Up Call

I'm a crappy blogger, I know. Sorry. I have a funny story to share though. This morning Sydney woke up at 6:42 am. Since Mady was not awake yet, it was a little early and I was super groggy, so I told her she could come sleep in Daddy's bed (he was already gone). She rested for a bit and let me sleep for a half hour. Then I felt her little hands wiping something wet all over me. I thought she had licked her hands and wiped them on my face at first, then I realized it was lotion. She proceeded to cover my face (and hair) with lotion and put chapstick on me to wake me up. I am now all pretty for the day thanks to my personal beautician.

I almost had a heart attack...

Warning: gross story ahead.
Sydney is a mouth girl. As in, she puts EVERYTHING in her mouth. Seriously. Thank heavens, she never tries to swallow things, but it still bugs us. She's over 2, this should stop now, right? Well, today we were driving to visit a friend and Sydney had one of those metal buttons that have slogans printed on them that you can pin on yourself. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Anyway, she had a small one of those, but I had removed the pin so that wouldn't stab herself or her sister. On our drive, she apparently put the button (minus the pin) in her mouth and it went back too far and got stuck. I heard her start choking and when I looked back, she was throwing up. I pulled the car over really fast and ran around to help her. As I swiped out her mouth a couple times, she continued to vomit on me, but we got it out. It got immediately thrown away. It was so scary, and so gross.
We immediately turned around to get her a new shirt and coat (Thank heavens we have 2 for her, which I previously thought was a waste of closet space). I got the car seat cleaned up (very little got on it) and we got to finish our day, after I washed my hands.
I'm obviously not happy this happened, my only hope is that it will scare her from putting things in her mouth again. Because in her own words, "I spewed, I coke." You sure did kid.

Productivity at it's best...

What a productive day. Seriously. We started by putting up this beautiful piece so the construction workers (and future homeowners) behind us couldn't watch me shower any more. We were good until the very tall house being built on a hill behind us went up. Now their kitchen looks into my bathroom. Hallelujah, the peep show's over. Then, thanks to my friend Karen who took my little angels for a bit, I got a whole day's worth of errands done in 2 hours. Including getting a stocking holder for Mady! Hooray! It was the last thing I had to put up in the house.
And last, but certainly not least, Mady pulled this trick out of her hat tonight. Seriously, what happened? This happened last October with Sydney. When she was 13 months old. My Mady is only 10 months! She's so big!

New Camera Brilliance

We got a new fancy dancy camera last weekend. Boy am I excited. We're finally going to be able to take some better (faster) pictures. Also, I dropped our camera about a month ago and to get it to work now you have to hold the batteries in while you are taking a picture. Not cool.
While you're waiting in breathless anticipation for my new pictures, I thought I'd share some of the brilliant advice listed in the manual of said new camera. These were reason enough to read it!

• Caution: Do not aim the camera at bright light sources such as the sun. Doing so may cause malfunctions or damage the image sensor. um, and your eyes.


• Do not sit in a chair with the camera in your pocket (Aaron would like it noted that it says nothing about riding a train with it in your pocket, but it's not exactly a paper thin camera, so this still seems uncomfortable.)


• Do not trigger the flash in close proximity to human eyes. It could damage eyesight. Keep 39 inches away from infants.


• When using the flash, do not cover with fingers or clothing. This could result in burns. Apparently my flash is actually a laser


• Putting the [6 inch long] strap around a child's neck could result in asphyxiation. Gosh, ya think?


• Stop operatin camera immediately if it emits smoke or a strange smell.


• Do not use solvents such as alcohol, benzine, or thinner to clean camera.


• Do not place the batteries in a direct flame


• Do not play the CD-Rom in a CD music player. It is possible to suffer hearing loss from listening with headphones to the loud sounds of a CD-Rom played on a music CD player.

I love our sue-happy culture. Can't blame Canon for not covering their bases!

Thaksgiving

Remember on The Office when Jim and Pam got married and Pam kept taking mental pictures? I do that, but with blogging moments. I blog in my head. And they are so darn funny. And then I look at my blog so I can read all your comments. But I'm so disappointed, because you haven't written any. Because all those funny posts I wrote never actually got written. drat. Now they're gone. Starting over. So here was our Thanksgiving. On Monday for Family Home Evening, we talked about being Thankful. And made hand turkeys. And Sydney got to use scissors for the first time ever. Oh, happy day for her. Yikes for me.

See how thankful we are? Even Mady's up there.

The night before Thanksgiving I made Cranberry Cheesecake and let Sydney lick the spatula. Because she is an awesome sister she went to share with Mady. Too bad Mady didn't really open her mouth, so she just got cream cheese goo all over her face. She was less than thankful for that.
On Thanksgiving Sydney and I made rolls. I can't get enough of her in the leopard apron. It's my favorite right now.

She got her own little bowl of dough and her own pan. Dang she was proud. They were tasty too. Baby rolls. I think she ate 4 for dinner. Smothered in homemade jam of course.

Our great friends the Bergesons came over and Max and Mady chilled together while Sydney and Eli played with the baby dolls.At pie time Sydney got to experience Redi Whip for the first time. Oh yeah, she's a fan.

It also reminded me how quickly time has gone. Last year we had a 14 month old baby that couldn't walk. This year we have a 10 month old baby that can't walk. And a Toddler. What? How is Mady that old? How has Sydney been walking for less than a year? Ahh! I feel more behind now. Please excuse me while I go polish off Karen's flippin' amazing homemade key lime pie. Oh yum.

Childhood Revisited

Remember when the coolest thing at the zoo was the mister in the rain forest room and a friend to run around with?

Wait, scratch that. The best part by far was riding a hippo on the carousel shortly before going home. Oh, how happy this toddler was. Poor Mady fell asleep in line for the carousel and missed riding a monkey. She would have loved it. Next time. Sydney's already begging to go back. Thank goodness for zoo passes and 70 degree days in November.

THAT Mom

Today at Walmart I had a sad revelation...I am THAT mom. sigh. I mean, I've always known I was that weird mom that sings to her kids in the middle of the store and talks more loudly that other people (weird, but my 2 year old doesn't know I mean business when I whisper). I've given up caring what people think and try to make sure I am getting done what I need to do while taking care of my kids and making the whole trip as painless as possible. But today it was different. Today, I was that mom with 2 screaming children and a GIANT cartload of groceries. I was that mom with 6 price matches and $20 worth of coupons, bickering over every price that comes up wrong and taking forever in line. And yes, there was THAT ticked off lady behind me who did not think my precious hellions were cute or that my coupons made me thrifty. She was just ticked that she was behind me with 1 item.
In my defense, I had already let someone else with only 1 item go ahead of me. There was a speedy checkout line available, she just chose not to use it, and, oddly enough, I was less than thrilled about the excessive amount of time I was spending with my screaming children in line too. So to the lady behind me, sorry, get a life and quit acting so huffy.

Dr. Sydney

When we were at Target on Saturday we happened to check the price of a Halloween pumpkin before we got to the register and discovered that they were 90% off, not the 75% that was advertized. We snatched up this darling doctor costume for $1.99. Not too shabby. Add that to the $2 doctor kit I bought at a garage sale last summer and Sydney had a fun morning playing pretend. Cutest doctor I've ever seen.

Apparently dolly needed some immunizations. In her ear... ouch.
Checking dolly's reflexes. She was a little slow.

I love playing dress up and pretend, so I'm super excited about this phase! Yay!

Family Visit

I think with this post our catch up is finally complete and we can focus more on those mostly shorter and more frequent posts. Heck, there might even be one in there that doesn't have to do with my kids. Shocking, I know, but I do actually have those thoughts occasionally. While my parents were here visiting us we got to do lots of fun things. Like when it snowed. My parents love leaving Idaho to come here and watch it snow for 2 days. Sydney had fun though. Wouldn't put that snowman down.

See what I mean? He went everywhere with her.
With Nana & Grampy at the aquarium Look, a picture with mom & dad too!
Mady had fun at the zoo - she is starting to get into seeing all the animals. I think she can see them for the most part now. Some of them are so darn camoflaged to babies they are near invisible.

Sydney really liked this crocodile. She was also convinced there were toes in the water where the light was making shadows. Oddly enough, she didn't seem bothered by that.

She was overjoyed that she not only got to see the gorilla, but sit on him as well. Pretty much made her day and started a trend with all the kids around us.
Playing dress up. She's a fairy with a knight helmet on. She was prepared to fight for that cereal.

We had a great time with my parents and were thrilled they could come. You're welcome anytime! We love company. Who wants to come next? Seriously, how can you resist the knight fairy?

Happy Halloween!

I had a different title for this post, but it was slightly scandalous sounding. Being 2, Sydney doesn't always say all the letters in all words, but she communicates effectively nonetheless.

It's interesting though how when you truly sound out what she says, it can turn out very entertaining. Take for instance, what she said to every neighbor, regardless of gender, whose house we visited on Saturday night: Kicker Teats!

Aw, those are some cute little witches. She said it to everyone at our ward trunk or treat too. It totally doesn't sound like that when she says it because of the inflection she uses, but that's how it gets sounded out Kick-er-teats!
Mady with all our festive pumpkins, pre-carvings

Sydney doing much better than last year with the gooeys while Aaron showed off his mad carving skills and we gave Sydney a quiz on her shapes.

The girls were thrilled to death to sit in the trunk. Mady sat in it and helped me pass out candy while Sydney pillaged from our ward members. Then Sydney came and demanded to be put in the trunk too. It's the little things people.

Cutest darn little witch - minus the hat

Look who's so darn big! And still let's me take as many pictures as I want of that cute mug.

My new goal is to post more frequent, shorter posts. I share this so that I have some motivation to follow through. Good luck to me. Hope your Halloween was super spooky!

Cheap Thrills

Thank you to the 5 million phone books we get...

And the Target $1 section...
and our major kitchen appliances for providing me with 20 minutes of quite time. The magnets were a huge hit. Thank heavens. We're all sorts of sick of the terrible twos today. I mean really, Sydney had a tantrum because Mady had a bow in her hair.
Seriously people, them's fightin words apparently.

We Love Target

My kids were completely beat by the time we got home. The were both awake, but very tired. Then Sydney informed me she didn't want to get out of the car. Multiple times. She stayed like this for an hour and a half. Don't worry, I was a good mommy and took a monitor out so I would hear her when she woke up.

What funny places have you or your kids chosen to sleep?

Sydney Bean

Oh I really stink at this. This is the longest I have ever journaled my life, but I still stink at updating consistently. Sydney had a birthday in early September and I missed blogging about it! Oh, I am awesome at this. Sorry to Sydney now and in the future when you read this. Sydney is so big now and I can't believe she is 2 years old. She is doing all sorts of fun things. Once when Mady was sleeping we went out and I read a book under a tree while Sydney rode her bike in the driveway. It was darling and one of those "I've arrived" as a mom moments for me.

Sydney often doesn't like to stop and smile for pictures, so these ones that Aaron got of her were particularly great.
She has a current obsession with hooded towels and wearing them around the house. She loves helping with the laundry and usually we end up loading the washer and dryer together. She's thrilled about it, so I don't mind the extra time it takes!
She such a fun helper and loves to do things to help out. In case you are wondering, carrying paint around the house definitely falls in the "helping out" category. She's also starting to get into dressing up a little bit, hence the safari hat.Our sweet Sydney is still such a dancer. This was taken on her birthday. So You Think You Can Dance tryouts were on and there was a guy tap dancing that inspired this performance. It's one of my all time favorites!

I think dance classes will be coming next year with as much as she loves to dance! We love you Sydney and are so happy to have you in our family!