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!

At the Park - Part 2

We take Sydney to the park and she loves to swing for a little bit. I hope these pictures bring a smile to your face. She's pretty cute!

I like this picture with her head just peeking out of the swing.

The darn camera make the background focused and blurred Sydney - oh well, I still think this a great picture of her smile.

Syd's Teeth

Awhile back I posted that she was getting her bottom teeth - here's a picture of them!

Ooey Gooey Goodness

Alright so every once in awhile I like to put up some pictures of my hobbies. I hope none of you have a New Year's resolution to lose weight! Here is some EXCELLENT butterscotch bark that I made last night and that's probably not going to make it through today. The recipe is found in the Everyday Food Cookie Collection Edition - Martha Stewart of course. If any of you come to visit - I'd be happy to make some up for you!

Speechless

I named this post "Speechless" because I have absolutely no words for this picture - just giggles! I went in to check on Sydney last night and this is how I found her. She was sound asleep and perfectly content. Matt took this picture with the flash on and then moved her to a better sleeping position - all without her waking up! I think it looks so uncomfortable and I also wonder how in the world she got herself into the predicament.

Christmas Pictures

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas. We sure did. We went up to visit my family and had a really great time. Here are just a few pictures. I will probably post more in a few days when I have more time. We also had some professional pictures done of the whole family since everyone was able to make it. Hopefully I'll be able to share those with you too. But for now - these will have to do!

Here is Sydney on Christmas day in her pretty dress.

Bub, Jean's dad, surprised all of us and dressed up as Santa! Sydney's wondering who the heck is this guy!

"Alright, I think I like Santa!"

Merry Christmas!

An early Merry Christmas to everyone! So, at Thanksgiving I said I didn't have any plans to dress Sydney up the Christmas but Jen, Matt's sister, came up with an idea to make a big stocking to put Sydney in. Jen, who is the best seamstress I know, made the stocking. A big thanks to her. I just hope Sydney doesn't think this stocking is suppose to be full of gifts on Christmas day!

Our Weekend

So the coolest thing we saw was the shuttle take off on Saturday night. It was the first night launch since Columbia. The picture below doesn't even begin to show how spectular it was. The whole sky was bright and it looked like another sun rising. The greatest thing - we just watched it from our front yard! On our local news station, we got to watch the video camera that was on the booster rockets. We got to see the shuttle lifting away from the rockets. It was so amazing!! I hope they showed those videos on CNN or FOX news so everyone could see it.

The weather was so nice this weekend so we went to the zoo. At our zoo, you can feed the giraffes. It's very fun and my favorite thing to do when we're there. You can hold the cracker out from its mouth and see how long you can get his tongue to be! Here is Matt & Sydney trying to pet the giraffe.

Sydney is starting to get her bottom teeth. We can feel the little bumps coming up. I've heard they can get the bumps but then the gums close back over them only to reemerge later. So we'll see if she actually gets some teeth out of this little adventure! I hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend like ours. I can't believe Christmas is 2 weeks away!

6 months and 1 day!

Yesterday she turned 6 months! She is definitely more active now and enjoys watching Dixie & Martha walk around the house. Luckily for me she still sleeps from 6 pm to 7 am and takes 3 naps during the day! We have been going to this infant program through the local community college near our house. It's basically 2 hours of play time with 9 other babies and their moms. Sydney loves it because there are a lot of fun toys to play with and I like it because there is always some craft I - oh I mean WE - can make! She likes to sit in the pool with the balls and put everything into her mouth. Her favorite, though, is the mirror where she just sits and watches herself. I guess I can't blame her, she is very cute to look at!