A little bit of this & that

While Matt has been out of town, I have been doing a little bit of this & that. The pictures above show you specifically what I've been doing. I been cleaning (using my new favorite cleaning product).

I have, obviously, been taking care of Syd. I took her to the doctor the other day for her 9 month weight and height measurements. She weighs around 19 lbs and is about 29 inches tall. She's my tall, skinny baby with food all over her face in the picture.

I've sewn a purse for a good friend (brown lacework fabric) and a new diaper bag for me (green peony fabric). All Amy Butler - of course!! I have I told you that I love Amy Butler! No worries, I just got her new book so I'm sure more goodies will be posted. I just don't know what to make next. There's so much to choose from.

Okay, getting back on track...I have made a tutu for Syd. I know you are saying "A tutu?" Yes - a tutu. I went into this baby boutique in St. Augustine and I saw a little girl tutu. I said (as I always do) "I'm not paying $25 for that! I can make it." So, I did. I haven't put her in it yet. I'll post a picture when I do. Maybe I'll save it for Halloween - you know it'll be here in a blink of an eye!

Finally, I've been eating my new love - Nutella. If you haven't tried it, you better RUN not walk to your nearest grocery store and buy some. All I can say is YUMMY! I love the Ferroro Rocher chocolates and the Nutella tastes just like them. It's all about the chocolate & hazelnuts. My recommendation is to eat it with pretzels or strawberries. Talking about all this Nutella has made me hungry - I'm off to crash on the couch and eat some with strawberries.

5 really great years!

Matt and I have officially been married for 5, yes, 5 years!! I can't believe it's gone so fast. I wake up in the morning and think "when did this all happen?" I remember being a little girl playing with my dollhouses, going to 7-eleven with my dad to get Slurpees, and watching the old Batman & Robin with my brother after school. "Holy shark repellent, Batman!" Now I've been married for 5 years and have a kid of all things! Ah well - it's all really great and I definitely wouldn't change a thing!

For our anniversary we took a family trip - to read & see all about it - just keep scrolling down!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

St. Augustine

Matt and I love to travel. We've done a lot of traveling before Sydney came along. This was our first little excursion with her. We traveled about 2.5 hours to St. Augustine. It's the "nation's oldest city" - 1565, I believe. We had a great time and Syd did so well!! She never sleeps in the car so we were worried but she was a champ. She was her happy self the whole time. The next few posts is just a taste of our adventure! Enjoy.

The lighthouse at St. Augustine

Our first stop was to St. Augustine's Lighthouse.

The spiral staircase going up to the top. There is about 218 steps.

The top of the lighthouse.

A great view from the top.

Sydney hanging out at the bottom.

Alligator Farm

Our second stop of the day was to the Alligator Farm. I can't even tell you how many alligators they had there! Here's just a small grouping of them. It reminds me of the piles of sea lions we saw out in Monterey Bay, CA - only these alligators don't seem as cute and cuddly!

Weird - albino alligator!

Here's Sydney just playing around.


The nature walk around the farm.


Sydney got to play on the playground turtle. She loved it!

"I'm so happy to be playing in an alligator's mouth!"

" Ahhhh...don't eat me!"

Castillo de San Marcos

So our next stop was the fort - Castillo de San Marcos.

Here's my attempt of artistic photo - too bad she's not looking at the camera. No worries - she did not fall off!!

Just a few more pictures of St. Augustine

I just love this picture of the palm trees and the bright blue sky of Florida. The weather was absolutely fanastic!

Here's Matt and Sydney at the old city gates.

I guess I should throw in a picture of me! Here's Syd and I in front of the water mill. She loves to look at fountains and moving water, hence, she's more occupied with the mill then looking at the camera.

Not much happening over here.

Hi everyone! Again - hope everyone had a good weekend. We had some great weather here so Matt went waterskiing. We had another birthday party to attend - I swear Sydney's a little social butterfly because we have another party this coming weekend! We also had some friends over to eat last night - which is always fun!

In crafting news, I made Sydney a headband with some extra fabric I had. The super easy & quick pattern is from Heather Bailey's article in Sew News (just in case anyone is inspired to make one!). Actually, Heather has a very similar pattern on her website - free headband pattern. Anyway, I think it looks cute on Syd. It helps keep the hair out of her face! : ) She will even wear it all day without pulling it off! A miracle I know!

Crazy Child!

Along with Sydney's super cute smile comes some pretty wild faces! Here's just a couple pictures so you can get the idea!

President's Day Weekend

This past weekend Matt's mom came into town. We had a lot of fun. We did some major shopping, went to the park and also the zoo.

Some updates: Her top, right tooth is breaking through. I guess she's been fussier because of it - she's never really that fussy though. I just pick her up and she's fine. She's a total "mom's girl." When we ask "where's Dixie?" She looks around to find the dog. She loves Dixie. She loves to pull her ears, her tail, climb all over her. Dixie doesn't care - Sydney shares her food with her!

Here are some pictures from the park. She loved this bubble at the end of the play area.

Hi.

Here's Sydney in the jumperoo that I posted about earlier. She goes crazy in it! Her feet are off the floor in this picture and you can see the excitement on her face.

Both Sydney and Matt eat the same way - they take a huge bite and shove what can't fit into their mouth in with their pointer finger! I don't know what I'm going to do. I'll have to list more of the strange similarites they share in a future post.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hi Everyone

I hope everyone had a good weekend. Hmmm...I'm trying to think of what we did. We went to the park (again!), ate Greek food (my favorite!), cleaned the house (no surprise there!), went shopping without the baby (whoo-hoo!), and went to Sydney's first birthday party (Happy Birthday Emily!).

Sydney has mastered crawling. Actually, at this very moment, she has crawled over to Dixie and is now on top of the dog! Poor Dixie. Good thing Dixie doesn't care one bit - okay maybe she's slightly annoyed but too lazy to do anything about it...

Here's a picture of Sydney crawling towards me. She moves so fast, hence the close-up!

Here's a picture of Sydney standing up. You can obviously see what she's after!

Just wanted to add a fun website, Etsy.com, I have been looking at for awhile. Being a crafter, I think it's great. I love to look at other people's crafts. I've found some really neat stuff I want to make - I use it for ideas not necessarily buying anything. Just thought I'd share.

8 months!

Sydney turned 8 months! She can:

• crawl (luckily for me she's still not in to everything)
• pull herself up (she LOVES to stand - that's all she wants to do)
• jump like a manic in the jump-a-roo
• feed herself Cheerios (One for Sydney, two for Dixie...)
• not leave me or Matt for even a minute (HUGE separation anxiety)

Her hair is growing. It sticks straight up. You can kinda see what I mean in the picture below.

Dixie, Martha and I are in trouble!!

Sydney is now crawling and pulling herself up on things. Her favorite is to pull her self up on Dixie! Dixie's not to keen on that idea. She is still getting comfortable crawling - so she's a bit slow and still needs motivation. I bet by next week she'll be much faster and all over the place! I post some more pictures soon.

Our fun in the sun!

Our weekend was very nice. We had some great weather so we took advantage of it and hung around outside. Here's some pictures:

That black blob in the water is not a shark - it's Matt surfing! Sydney and I met Matt and a friend at the beach on Saturday. Matt was far back in the water so my camera didn't get the greatest shot but you get the gist.

We also went to the park...again. We seem to be going there a lot lately. It's just a short walk to get there and then we push Sydney on the swing or let her play in the grass. It's quite enjoyable! I guess that's why we go every weekend.

The next picture I absolutely love. It shows Sydney's bright blue eyes.

and not to be forgotten....

Pudding Paint

Matt was able to go to school with Sydney & I since he had the day off of work. We did pudding paint that day - which was good that he was there because it's messy! Pudding paint is basically pudding on bubble wrap and the babies smear everything everywhere! Sydney LOVED it. She did most of the smearing with her face because she just wanted to eat the pudding. I don't blame here - pudding is pretty tasty. Here is the progression of Sydney at work!

Sandhill Cranes

So here's more of our wildlife in Florida. We had 3 of these sandhill cranes stroll into our front yard. These birds aren't little either and they make the most horrible noise when they fly over our neighborhood. Matt decided to try to feed them Cheerios. They didn't really care for them though. Then we heard they become aggressive when you feed them regularly. Aggressive in the sense that they start demanding food from you by pecking on the house windows and tearing up the screens!

Note to self (or really "note to Matt"): DON'T FEED THE BIRDS!

Oh no, not the Saturn!! This one actually did peck at Matt's beloved automobile. Not to worry, there wasn't any damage - well not any damage that you can see over the peeling paint on the spoiler! : )

More Crafts!

So here is my latest craft/sewing project - I have to say I'm really proud of it. It turned out better than I thought it would. The pattern and fabric is all from Amy Butler. I LOVE Amy Butler stuff! She's got the best designs - very modern yet vintage all at the same time! I could gush over her stuff all day...

Matt thinks it's weird that I put my baking and craft projects on the blog. I can't help that I am proud of some of my creations and want to show them off. So (in honor of Matt) here is an obligatory picture of Sydney! : )

I think Matt's just jealous that he doesn't have any fun project he can share with you.

At the Park - Part 1

Whew, I have done a lot of blogging today - just scroll down and see.

We took Sydney to her doctors appt on Friday. She weighs 17 lbs 6 oz and is 28 inches long. Her weight is in the 70% and her height is in the 95%. We have no idea where the height came from. The only people where she could have gotten her height from is my dad who is 6' or Pa, Matt's grandpa, who's also about 6'. It's tall but not 95 percentile tall! I'm sure it'll all even out soon.

Anyway, here are some park pictures. I broke out the Elton John sunglasses again. The second picture is my favorite. She's such a joy!