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31 May 2012

Put a Bird On It

As I mentioned before, we were up in the Portland area a couple weeks ago for Poppa Peter's birthday.  I took my nice camera up there, but did not once pull it out of the suitcase.  To say we were busy the whole time is an understatement.  It was such a great visit -- we loved hanging out with the in-laws and cousins and Poppa Peter's party {say that three times fast} was really nice.

I did manage to take some cell phone pictures, so here's a little iPhone dump, Portland style.




Playground fun

Grandma and Poppa have the funnest toys!

Late night TV watching in Grandma's bed




The Portland Zoo is so beautiful and green.  And, of course, Packy the elephant was our favorite!

A little post-zoo treat!


Celebrating Daddy's birthday too.



When Daddy finds a watering hole to play in, Mommy has to buy a new outfit that's dry! ;)

So blessed.

Carbed it up for breakfast...


...and took a family nap.

Believe it or not, I didn't take one picture from the party or of us before the party all dressed up in our outfits.  I'm pretty sure Marissa took a family photo of us, so if I get a copy of it, I will post it.  It was just so hectic getting all of us ready to go.  

A very special thanks to Peter and Irma for being such wonderful hosts and allowing us to mess up stay in your lovely home!

28 May 2012

Weekend Happenings

Hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend.  We had lots of fun, but were able to relax some as well.  Here are a few insights as to what we were up to.

A trip to the zoo {and numerous rides on the carousel}

Minnie Mouse pancakes

I took this little nugget to the store with me and she rode the whole time in the shopping cart!  How is it that it is so much easier to shop with a 9 month old than a 3 year old?!

Oh my word.  Would you look at my little Izzy Pirate!?!
I love that she calls that little pouch her "hixie dust."

And, I have no picture, but we picked my mama up from the airport!  Yay for having her back.

25 May 2012

Nine Months In, Nine Months Out

It's impossible to believe that our incredibly sweet and precious baby girl has blessed our lives for nine months.  I know that I say this often about her, but she is such a blessing.  I don't think a sweeter baby has ever existed.  Her coy smile charms each person on the receiving end of it.  She is a snuggler and I'm so fortunate to be her favorite snuglee. Oh, I love this baby so much more than I ever thought possible.

Oh how this girl loves sleeping in a bed with her mama.  

So much has changed for Little Miss Sydney over the last month.  She is full-on crawling now, thanks to her daddy.  He worked diligently teaching her every chance he got.  Well, it paid off.  She is crawling everywhere and at a quick speed.  Her little knees are red and every speck of fuzz, scrap of food and/or small toy on our floors gets picked up and put in her mouth.  And, even though I have been working on getting her to say Mama, she came out with DaDa and hasn't stopped saying it since.  

Look at those knees!

And, look at all that hair!

Her two front teeth are both coming in, bless her heart.  Just today her top right one poked through enough so that I could feel it with my finger.  Consequently, she has been drooling like crazy and now her latest thing is sticking her tongue out {to feel the tooth?}.  It's hilarious to watch.  

Could she be any more precious?

I took Sydney in to the doctor a couple of days ago for a small rash on her leg.  We go in on Tuesday for her 9 month well-check.  But, at this recent appointment, she weighed 18 pounds 11 ounces.  Eighteen pounds, eleven ounces of pure sweetness.


And, I hope Marissa doesn't mind, but I grabbed a couple pictures she posted from our photo shoot to put up here.  I'm so excited to see the rest of them!  {If you are in the Portland area and need a photographer, I highly recommend her!} 

Oh dear Lord, how I love this sweet little baby.


Happy 9 Months, Boogie.
Somehow, Boogie and Boogs have become my pet name for her.  Olivia suggested Cee-Cee the other day.  Or would it be See-See?









24 May 2012

Just Another Birthday Post

We flew out to Portland on Olivia's 3 year + 1 month birthday {I know, how were we not throwing a huge party?!} and so this post is a little behind.  As is just about everything in our life right now, with the exception of my actual, ahem, behind.

My amazing sister-in-law, Marissa, took some family photos of us and I'm putting up the sneak peek she sent us and a couple of pictures she took of Olivia one evening while I was laying in bed nursing a severe headache.  Thanks so much for capturing our sweet girl.


I'll blog our trip in more detail, but let me just say that my headache was most likely caused by a stretch of four hours where I got zero sleep due to the birthday girl waking up out of sorts and freaking out.*  Probably ticked we didn't throw her a party.






Love her to bits anyway.

*Remember me posting that picture of David falling asleep with Olivia?  Well, after a couple of weeks of that happening pretty regularly and five nights of our girls sleeping in beds with us at Grandma and Poppa's house, sleeptime has been the hardest thing for us to deal with this last month.  But, we are working on it.  Details to come.



14 May 2012

A Wild Birthday Celebration

Well, that was an unintentional little blogging break.  I'm going to go ahead and blame my sweet little girls for that one...more specifically my littlest of littles who has slept right next to me the last three nights {and will probably do it again tonight}.  I'm not sure if she is cutting a new tooth -- she is drooling like crazy -- or if she is coming down with a cold -- runny nose {which could also be a sign of a new tooth} -- or if she just hates sleeping alone.  I'm fine with it for the most part.  The hardest part is having NO time to myself at night to blog, watch television, or just relax.   So, while we have had some exciting things going on around here, they haven't been properly documented.

Thursday was David's 35th birthday!  He's now my age.  Even though I am only 15 days older than him, he likes to act like I am such a cougar.  Puh-lease, baby.  Anyway, I decided to take him and Olivia to a "Breakfast with the Elephants" at the Phoenix Zoo.  We left Sydney at home with my mom because I was told that she and I wouldn't be allowed to do one of the activities {although, I saw a mom and a young baby doing said activity, but whatever...}

We got to the zoo before it opened and met our group outside.  I had made Olivia a little elephant shirt {I'm super talented - I ironed on an elephant decal onto a Target tank top} and she had her two favorite elephants with her.  We walked with the group up to a place called Ruby's House {named after an elephant Ruby who used to paint} where there were lots of little snacky breakfast foods for us.  There were also about 8 or 9 different elephant activities for us to do.  There were little plastic elephants {Olivia's favorite which took up the majority of our time}, a station where you learned how to wash an elephant, elephant stamps, elephant ears, creating a zoo habitat for an elephant, elephant "feet...lots to do in about a 45 minute time span.




After our time at Ruby's House, we went to the elephant yard where we were given lots of "elephant cookies" to hide for the elephant to find.  {The elephants stayed behind in their holding cages.}





After everyone exited the yard, we waited for one of the elephants to come out to find the treats.  Olivia was so excited to see the elephant and she kept asking the handler all sorts of questions and kept showing him her little Dumbo and Mrs. Jumbo elephant.




She was so excited seeing the elephant eat the treats and kept asking the handler if she could give her some more treats.

We ended up walking around the zoo for a little bit since it was still early and not yet hot outside.  As we were hanging out in the orangutan exhibit, the leader from the class came in and told us she had been looking all over for us.  Apparently, the elephant handler loved Olivia's enthusiasm over the elephants and invited us to come back an hour later for a personal meeting with one of the elephants!  We were blown away by their willingness to do that and of course accepted their offer! 

We really had no idea what to expect, but when we went back to the viewing area at 10:30, the same elephant was hanging out.  Olivia started singing "Baby Mine" to her and she stood there swaying back and forth.  It was so precious.  A woman came out and got us and took us back to one of the holding cages.  Apparently there are 3 elephants there, but none of them get along with each other so only one can be out in the yard at a time.  She gave Olivia some cookies and told her she could hand feed the elephant {Sheena} some of the cookies under the bars.



Olivia sort of clammed up and didn't want to do it.  David fed her a few cookies and Olivia sang her "Baby Mine" again.  She kept telling the lady that she wanted to pet Sheena.  She called the other guy on her walkie talkie and we met him on the other side of the cage that was more open.  He brought some bananas and after Olivia petted Sheena on her side, she fed her bananas and cookies.  She absolutely LOVED it!!  It was such an incredible experience and we feel so lucky that they chose Olivia to go back and meet the animal she is currently so in love with!


See her little Dumbo in her hand?


I'm pretty sure they were impressed with her as well!

She's telling Sheena "I love you" in sign language!

At this point, Sheena was blowing air through her trunk at David and Olivia.

I love how it looks like she is pointing at Olivia!
Now, you come back and see me, ya hear?!

It was such a wonderful morning - a great birthday for David and a wonderful experience for all of us!

I hope to catch up on the rest of last week before we head out to Portland on Wednesday.  And, I really want to apologize that this is written like a 6th grader, but I'm trying to hurry through it so that it gets up.  Forgive me, will you?