Spring has Sprung

Spring has, thankfully, decided to come a bit early this year.  After a long and freezing winter, we have finally had some nice weather.  And we have tried to take as much advantage of it as possible (without missing too much of the NCAA tournament!).  We are lucky to have lots of wonderful trails and parks near us to take Sydney walking on.  Here are just a few pictures from today's outing.

Wearing a Yankee's outfit for my daddy!

Daddy's little Yankee

Swingin'!

Watching all the park goings on

Stroller ride

Gimme that paci!

Say Cheese!

This past weekend we had Sydney's six month pictures done.  We could not have asked for better weather, a prettier background, or (most importantly) a happier baby!  Our photographer, Beth, found the perfect spot at a park near our house where the lighting was breathtaking and the ground was covered in tiny purple flowers which made for a wonderful location.  But the best part?  Probably that when we plopped Sydney down on Beth's fuzzy white blanket, she started cooing and smiling away like she knew exactly what her job was.  To top it off, she decided to sit up the longest she ever had unassisted, allowing Beth to get some amazing shots.  We have seen the proofs from the session, and they are (in my very biased opinion) phenomenal.  It will be interesting to see how her one year session goes when she is mobile...but that's worrying for another day!

Getting ready for the photo shoot-
we put this diaper cover on her for her newborn
session and it swallowed her whole so we wanted to
use it again for this session to see how much she grew

Getting dressed

Naked baby!

All ready- with a bib to catch my drool

Little angel

Miss Personality

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

An Old Irish Blessing

May love and laughter light your days,
and warm your heart and home.
May good and faithful friends be yours,
wherever you may roam.
May peace and plenty bless your world
with joy that long endures.
May all life's passing seasons
bring the best to you and yours!

And a few pictures of Sydney on her first St. Patrick's Day (you know we love to dress her for a holiday!).

A gift from my great Aunt Mary

Solids, here we come!

On Friday, we took Sydney for her six month well baby appointment and got the go ahead to start solid foods.  We are starting her with rice cereal once a day until she gets the hang of it.  This morning we got everything ready: bowls, spoons, cereal, bib, camera, video camera (can you tell we are first time parents??)...  Sydney grabbed at the spoon some and tried to bite it as well.  When she had had enough, she closed her mouth and pretty much refused to open any more.  Considering it was her first time, I think Sydney did great!  She is definitely interested, and while there was some gagging involved, we are hopeful that she will get the hang of eating pretty quickly. 

It's like Christmas morning!

Mmmmm....mixing rice cereal

Putting on a pretty, clean (for the moment) bib

I'm all ready!

Not so sure about this

Ummm, guys, are you sure you know what you're doing?

Still not so sure...

Yeah, lemme have a sip of that!

GAG!

March Madness

This is probably Blake's favorite time of year...NCAA tournament time!  He watches pretty much all the games, even games with smaller conference schools like Oral Roberts and McNeese State?!?  The other night, NC State played in the ACC tournament, and Brent and Andrew decided to come watch in hopes that State might pullout an upset.  Needless to say, State has had a flop of a year which carried into the tournament game.  Once we were down by about 10 points, we found other ways to entertain ourselves...

Making faces

Trying on hats

Trying on bows

Playing around

Six Months Old!

Where has the time already gone?  Everyone says how fast children grow, and now we are experiencing that first hand!  It truly feels like yesterday we were packing Sydney up to bring her home from the hospital.  Now we are witnessing her personality take shape and both her mind and body grow right before our eyes.  She continues to amaze us!  Here are just a few pictures of our beautiful girl.

Starting to sit up on my own!

Sitting in the big girl part of the stroller

Doing big push ups- maybe crawling soon?

Standing up holding onto Mom's hands