Open Wide!

February 2012 marked a new first for Sydney...a visit to the dentist.  She only screamed five time, and only had to be restrained twice.  Ha ha, I'm only kidding.  They recommend getting her used to the dentist office at an early age, so her first visit was really about just seeing the office, becoming familiar with the chair and the tools of the trade, and basically expelling any bad mojo.  Ironically, when we opened the door to go inside, she said, "we can't go in there, there's monsters in there."  So, I'm not sure what the rumor mill is cook'n up at the old daycare, but all I know is she survived her first encounter with this type of doctor.

She got to ride up and down in the chair a few times, wear some cool sunglasses, and play with a bunch of toys.  At the conclusion of her tour and overall experience, she even got to go get a prize out of the machine.  How cool is that?  And amazingly, while we were there they decided to take some x-rays to make sure everything was good.  She took it like a champ.  Fortunately she did not experience the shot, the drill, and witnessing smoke pouring from her mouth.  She regularly brushes and takes her fluoride, so we expected she'd have a good check up. 

In other news, Sydney has found a new movie to burn a hole through...Lady and the Tramp.  She just loves the classics, and she often wants to see the 'puppy movie.'  It's good for us, as being able to recite her previous obsession gets a bit old.  I'm sure we'll know this one by heart before moving on to the next best thing.

Well, that's it for now.  Hope you are all doing well.  Until next post...

  

Have a great weekend!!!   

Snow, Flowers, and More...

The beginning of February has been just as busy as the end of January.  This is my, hopefully justified, excuse for not having an entry in the past couple of weeks.  But since our last post, we experienced a nice snow storm.  This amounted to about 2 feet at our house.  It was great fun to watch it come down, but less fun driving into town in it.  Sydney was able to use this new landscape at school to build snowman during outside play time.  And since Daddy always sees the importance of teaching valuable life-lessons, he was able to drive home one important rule this winter...."don't eat the yellow snow."  It is likely something that will stick with her over the years. 

Sydney continued her ballet.  Actually, she finished her last class today.  While she was the epitome of grace and elegance, she is ready to transition back to swim class next session.  OK...so perhaps grace and elegance is a stretch, and more likely attention-deficit and random off-rhythm movements were more accurate...but she still has a great time nonetheless, and it was fun to watch her.  

Sydney also got her chance to practice very important ‘flower girl’ skills this past weekend when her Grandpa Don got married to Linda.  Sydney took to the task very seriously, and when the request was made for her to create petals on the ground she violently shook the poor flowers until only the stems remained.  I'm sure she'll have time to refine her approach, but she made her debut role a sincere effort.  In June, she can tackle the role with the approach of a veteran. 

Over the next couple of weeks, Sydney will be going to different birthdays to help celebrate the passing of years among her young friends.  We'll certainly have more to share on that front, as well as other fun happenings. 

Until then, have a great weekend!!!

Twinkle Toes...

If you ever had any doubts that Sydney would be a ‘girly’ girl, this post will surely end any debate about it.  While her preference for all things colored pink and purple were a nice hint, this past Saturday elevated her girly status even more, as Sydney participated in her very first ballet class. 

I’m perfectly happy having a daughter.  In fact, I never had a terribly strong preference for having a boy or a girl.  Actually, I set the bar fairly low by merely hoping it was human.  But as a father of a girl, I do have to say that I know and do things that father’s with sons do not.  For example, I know the names of all of the Disney Princesses.  I’m familiar with Dora and the fairies from the Flying Fairy School.  On occasion I have to try to braid (rather unsuccessfully) hair…ok, I’m not even much better at hair ties or clips.  To my credit though, I have mastered the tea party.

So, while I’m hoping she can begin playing soccer this year (and I will teach her diving headers and slide-tackles), I will support her as best as I can in her quest to be good at ballet...and I suppose at being a girly-girl.  After all, what could be more manly than that!



Sydney loves Rapunzel.



Hanging out with Blueberry.

And a Happy New Year!

Poor Chris Kringle...either his GPS malfunctioned (perhaps he heard the voice 'recalculating....recalculating' too often), visual impairments impeded his descent, or he simply chose to avoid our modest little home. Well, truth be told, Sydney made out like a bandit in the gift department. She's such a lucky little girl.

Beyond the commercial aspect of the holiday, Sydney had a fantastic time over the holidays.  Being three years old, she understood a great deal, and this translated into excitement and a deal of youthful energy. 

We were able to spend Christmas with our large family for a nice meal at my Grandma and Grandpa's house.  And Nana also flew out from Montana to spend the holidays with us.  All in all...a lot of family, a lot of food, and a lot of fun.

Beyond the holidays, Sydney also continues to amaze and entertain us.  Recently, she has begun to make a number of faces, and most she'll do upon request.  One face that she excels at is her 'krinkle' face.  For the holidays, I just referred to this expression as her 'Scratcher face'...he was the mean impostor reindeer from the Rudolf movie.  I just thought I had to share that picture.

While she was here, Nana provided a lot of fun and entertainment for the Sydney Ru.  They both enjoyed each other's company and look forward to seeing each other in May.

And Happy 2012!!!

It's the most wonderful time???

They say it's the most wonderful time of the year.  Personally, I like to refer to it as the busiest time of the year.  It's certainly about fun holiday activities and gatherings, but lately it's also been about birthdays for little girls turning three (for Sydney, as well as all of her friends).

With that in mind, this post is going to be short as preparing never completely gets accomplished.  But there will be a lot to share next time from the holidays, especially since we look forward to Nana staying with us next week.  We'll also be with the rest of the family on Christmas day.

The bottom pictures were taken from Thanksgiving.  It was fun just spending time with the whole family...so much fun that apparently someone couldn't handle all of the excitement and had to go to sleep.  Hopefully Sydney's endurance on Christmas will be much improved.  Until the next post, eat, drink, and be merry!

Have a great Christmas!!!

Three is Better Than Two!!!

Sydney has been enjoying the idea of her birthday coming for a longggg time.  She's understood for quite a while now that she is two, and that she'll be turning three when her birthday arrives.  This year, we knew it would be a fun opportunity for her to invite friends from school (aka daycare), friends from birthing class, and other friends that she has met along the way.  The Whatcom Children's museum served as the venue for this year's occasion, and it was the perfect place to have it.  Lots of activities for each of the kids to do, and for some adults when no one was looking...ha ha.

Cupcakes, presents, and most importantly good friends helped to make the big 'THREE' a special time.  Although the party concluded, Sydney is still awaiting more.  Since we mentioned that her party was actually several days before her real birthday, she didn't hesitate to respond....'yeah...two parties!'  Since we were just trying to let her know that her actual birthday was a little later, somehow she immediately looked for the angle of creating another event...she's pretty clever.  We'd also like to thank all of her friends (and their parents) for attending the party and celebrating!

There's an old song (or perhaps it's a cheer) that starts out "two bits, four bits, six bits a...."  Well, the more I think about it, they weren't actually talking about anything but their technology.  Given the ability of the graphics in that day and age, two bits may have been what they were looking at.  No 1080i televisions with 128 bit video games...no one could have even imagined that.  I only thought of this distinction in time since the other day Sydney walked into the living room searching around for something.  After asking what she was looking for she said, "I'm looking for the IPad."  That's right, she actually rules the apps on that small little contraption.  While I don't think I have a single application downloaded on there, I believe she must have a dozen or so.

But I'm a forward thinker.  Since it's been such a big hit with her, I'm actually thinking of creating a 'babysitter app.'  I'm sure I could write some code that will ensure the IPad mimics all of the natural parenting behavior...'don't touch that'...'do you need a time out'...'please don't sit on the cat'...and things of that nature.  It's just a matter of time before the new technology will begin to work in my favor.  Until then, I guess I'll just have to keep the IPad in a spot that she can reach.

With the holidays coming, there'll be a lot to share soon.  Until then, have a great weekend!!!

It's That Time of Year Again!!!

It’s that time of the year again, and this year should be better than ever. Sydney’s first Christmas was very entertaining, but she was barely two weeks old at the time. She still had that new car smell. Her second Christmas, she was becoming mobile and we had to barricade the Christmas tree…it looked like Guantanamo Bay. But, this year she’s finally old enough to get the idea of the holidays, and she’s already begun to have fun with festive activities like decorating the tree. While she has a lot of fun, she still needs some assistance…otherwise we’d have 20 ornaments in one spot and bare patches in many others. But, she’ll get the hang of it…haha, no pun intended.

Even despite moments of naughtiness that naturally every two-year old experiences, I’m certain that she’ll make the nice list this year. I’m just hoping that when the time comes, she actually leaves some good treats by the chimney for Santa. And I keep telling her that Santa doesn’t want cookies and milk, but would much rather have some biscotti and a double-cappuccino, light on the foam.

Before the Christmas season kicks off, we still have some work to accomplish in November, like Turkey Day!!! We are looking forward to Thanksgiving, especially since we’ll get to see all of the family. Nathan, Amber, and the kids are also making the journey up from Oregon. I hope we’ll have some fun pictures to share in the next post.

On a completely unrelated topic, I think it’s fun to occasionally show how quickly Sydney is growing. So, after we were done decorating the tree I thought it would be fun to take some pictures of her and two of her dwarfs (Grumpy and Dopey to be exact). While this is just another visual reference of her physical growth, nothing can really capture how much her knowledge and day to day capabilities have grown.  We just hope she doesn't grow up too fast, and not just because college educations are expensive...ha ha!!!

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!!!