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| Happy Valentine's Day! |
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| Flowers from Daddy |
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| T-rex shirt! |
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| A Valentine for Daddy |
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| Decorating cookies with friends |
Showing posts with label Holidays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holidays. Show all posts
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Happy Valentine's Day!
This year Sydney loved telling everyone "Happy Valentine's Day", and continued saying it for several days afterward. We had fun making cookies and decorating them with friends as well as giving and receiving Valentines. As sappy as it is, I love any reason for telling each other how much love we have!
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Merry Christmas!
This Christmas we had a four day extravaganza. We started out at Sydney's Nana and Grampa's house and were joined by Uncle Matthew and Aunt Katie. Nana and Grampa bought Sydney some Christmas "creatures" (snowmen, reindeer, and santas) which she carried around and played with nonstop. She also loved decorating sugar cookies with Nana. They put frosting and sprinkles on the cookies. Sydney loved putting sprinkles on the most. She also liked serving everyone. :) Sydney was also spoiled with many gifts and had a blast opening them.
We stayed at Nana and Grampa's through Christmas Eve, but came home that evening to prepare for Santa! I have enjoyed starting new traditions with Sydney this year, especially since she is old enough to truly participate. This year we made cookies for Santa- chocolate chip, of course! Sydney helped with adding ingredients, and I think it's a miracle the cookies turned out as well as they did since she "helped" so much. When we put the cookies out for Santa, I asked her how many she thought we should put out, and her response was "all of them!". After we baked the cookies, Blake showed Sydney the Norad Santa tracking website. She was definitely intrigued, and I know this will be a tradition in years to come as she becomes more aware of the fact that Santa goes to everyone's house!
I felt like a kid myself on Christmas morning. I couldn't wait for Sydney to wake up so she could see her gifts from Santa. We asked her if she remembered who was supposed to come the night before, and she knew it was Santa. However, I think she was kind of like "whatever, you guys keep talking about Santa but I'm not really seeing anything". When she came downstairs and saw her Santa pile, though, I think it all clicked together. Her word of the morning was "Look!". Santa brought her a bunch of creatures, per her request, and she picked each one up to check it out as she said "Look!"
As a family present, Blake and I bought an iPad. We had it for quite a while but decided we wouldn't use it until Christmas- talk about burning a hole in your pocket! Well, we had a blast with it on Christmas morning. The best part was getting to do Face Time with Sydney's Aunt Jennifer, Uncle Pete, and cousing PJ. Since they live in California, we never get to see them. While I talk all the time about them to Sydney, it is hard to know how much she really understands. It was amazing for Sydney to be able to hear them and see them! She loved seeing all of PJ's toys as well as their pets. I am so glad she will now be able to get to know her cousin, even virtually!
Christmas evening we headed up to Blake's grandmother's house. She had tons of food, and it was great to just visit with family. Sydney especially enjoyed playing with her cousin Amelia, who is several years older than Sydney, but is wonderful with her. Of course, there were also some presents to open. :)
The day after Christmas (thus the four day extravaganza), we got together with Blake's immediate family- Sydney's MeMe and Pops and Uncle Brent and (soon-to-be) Aunt Catherine. We, of course, enjoyed more food and present opening and Sydney was much the center of attention again. It was so nice having Catherine in the mix as well this year!
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| Cookies with Nana |
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| Sprinkles! |
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| Yum! |
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| Present time! |
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| Pretending to go to the beach |
We stayed at Nana and Grampa's through Christmas Eve, but came home that evening to prepare for Santa! I have enjoyed starting new traditions with Sydney this year, especially since she is old enough to truly participate. This year we made cookies for Santa- chocolate chip, of course! Sydney helped with adding ingredients, and I think it's a miracle the cookies turned out as well as they did since she "helped" so much. When we put the cookies out for Santa, I asked her how many she thought we should put out, and her response was "all of them!". After we baked the cookies, Blake showed Sydney the Norad Santa tracking website. She was definitely intrigued, and I know this will be a tradition in years to come as she becomes more aware of the fact that Santa goes to everyone's house!
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| Adding ingredients |
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| Where's Santa? |
I felt like a kid myself on Christmas morning. I couldn't wait for Sydney to wake up so she could see her gifts from Santa. We asked her if she remembered who was supposed to come the night before, and she knew it was Santa. However, I think she was kind of like "whatever, you guys keep talking about Santa but I'm not really seeing anything". When she came downstairs and saw her Santa pile, though, I think it all clicked together. Her word of the morning was "Look!". Santa brought her a bunch of creatures, per her request, and she picked each one up to check it out as she said "Look!"
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| Creatures!! |
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| Look!!!!!!! |
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| T-rex!! |
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| And...more creatures! |
As a family present, Blake and I bought an iPad. We had it for quite a while but decided we wouldn't use it until Christmas- talk about burning a hole in your pocket! Well, we had a blast with it on Christmas morning. The best part was getting to do Face Time with Sydney's Aunt Jennifer, Uncle Pete, and cousing PJ. Since they live in California, we never get to see them. While I talk all the time about them to Sydney, it is hard to know how much she really understands. It was amazing for Sydney to be able to hear them and see them! She loved seeing all of PJ's toys as well as their pets. I am so glad she will now be able to get to know her cousin, even virtually!
Christmas evening we headed up to Blake's grandmother's house. She had tons of food, and it was great to just visit with family. Sydney especially enjoyed playing with her cousin Amelia, who is several years older than Sydney, but is wonderful with her. Of course, there were also some presents to open. :)
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| Sharing creatures with Amelia |
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| Presents! |
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| Ernie from Aunt Carolyn |
The day after Christmas (thus the four day extravaganza), we got together with Blake's immediate family- Sydney's MeMe and Pops and Uncle Brent and (soon-to-be) Aunt Catherine. We, of course, enjoyed more food and present opening and Sydney was much the center of attention again. It was so nice having Catherine in the mix as well this year!
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| With MeMe and Pops |
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| Aunt Catherine and Uncle Brent |
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| Delicious food at MeMe and Pops |
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Holiday Express and Seeing Santa
For the second year we went to Pullen Park for the Holiday Express. It was a blast riding the train in the dark with all the Christmas lights decorating the park. Sydney's favorites were Santa in the helicopter and (of course) the dinosaur lights.
After the train we went and waited in line for Santa. We had to wait about 20 minutes or so, but Sydney did great. We weren't sure what her reaction to sitting on Santa's lap would be, but she said she wanted to sit with him. Once our turn came, she was a little nervous, but sat fine on his lap. It's funny that her nervous tick is to chat, so she chatted the whole time she was on Santa's lap. She wasn't necessarily talking to him, but just talking in general. She did tell him that she wanted him to bring her creatures. Yes, creatures, that wasn't a typo.
We ended the evening with her favorite: the carousel. This event is one of our favorites and is quickly becoming a family tradition!
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| Waiting for the train |
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| T-rex decorating a Christmas tree...random |
After the train we went and waited in line for Santa. We had to wait about 20 minutes or so, but Sydney did great. We weren't sure what her reaction to sitting on Santa's lap would be, but she said she wanted to sit with him. Once our turn came, she was a little nervous, but sat fine on his lap. It's funny that her nervous tick is to chat, so she chatted the whole time she was on Santa's lap. She wasn't necessarily talking to him, but just talking in general. She did tell him that she wanted him to bring her creatures. Yes, creatures, that wasn't a typo.
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| Sydney with Santa- can you tell she is talking? :) |
We ended the evening with her favorite: the carousel. This event is one of our favorites and is quickly becoming a family tradition!
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| Riding on the pig! |
Monday, December 31, 2012
Thanksgiving
We celebrated Thanksgiving this year at our house with Sydney's Nana and Grampa as well as Uncle Matthew and Aunt Katie. Her MeMe, Pops, and Uncle Brent stopped by for a bit as well. We had a nice, relaxing day, and enjoyed celebrating a day of giving thanks for the many blessings we have.
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| Table |
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| What a cute turkey! |
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| Turkey butt |
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| Happy Thanksgiving! |
Raleigh Christmas Parade
This year we took Sydney to the Raleigh Christmas Parade. Sydney absolutely loved it! She enjoyed watching the floats, the couple of balloons, cars, motorcycles, horses, dogs, marching bands, and of course Santa. We had a great spot to watch, although we had to hold Sydney the whole time. We didn't think she would make it the entire time, but she did...she wanted to wait to see Santa!
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| Let's go to the parade! |
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| Checking out the marching band |
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| With Uncle Brent |
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| Cheesy grin |
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| Kermit balloon |
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| Nutcracker balloon |
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| Good view from up there! |
Happy Halloween!
It's no big secret that Halloween is kind of a big deal in our house. I think Blake might even say it is his favorite holiday. So needless to say, the month of October was filled with pumpkins, costumes, candy, and a couple ghosts and goblins. Just around the corner from us is a great produce store which has pumpkins and a corn maze during October. While we didn't do the corn maze since we figured Sydney didn't have the attention span/interest this year, they also have some cool activites for the little ones like a hay ride, play equipment and corn crib. Sydney's favorite was picking out pumpkins!
On Halloween, we carved our pumpkins. It was freezing, so I bundled Sydney up and then put one of Blake's t-shirts on her to keep her clothes clean of all the pumpkin goop. Well, that was a waste, and I should have known it. She was intrigued with watching us carve, but she wanted no active part. I shouldn't have been surprised, the girl hates being dirty!
We started asking Sydney pretty early on what she wanted to dress up as for Halloween. She immediately said a "T-rex". I wasn't sure if her two year old mind would change frequently, but she kept saying T-rex for a couple of weeks so we finally ended up buying her a dinosaur costume. She didn't love the hat piece, but she made the cutest T-rex ever, in my humblest of opinions.
Trick-or-treating was especially fun this year. Sydney caught on real quick that getting candy is a lot of fun. We heard "wanna get more candy" frequently. I bet we went to about 10 houses, and she walked and carried her candy bag the entire time. It was definitely a fun time!
On Halloween, we carved our pumpkins. It was freezing, so I bundled Sydney up and then put one of Blake's t-shirts on her to keep her clothes clean of all the pumpkin goop. Well, that was a waste, and I should have known it. She was intrigued with watching us carve, but she wanted no active part. I shouldn't have been surprised, the girl hates being dirty!
We started asking Sydney pretty early on what she wanted to dress up as for Halloween. She immediately said a "T-rex". I wasn't sure if her two year old mind would change frequently, but she kept saying T-rex for a couple of weeks so we finally ended up buying her a dinosaur costume. She didn't love the hat piece, but she made the cutest T-rex ever, in my humblest of opinions.
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| Sophie- also dressed as a dinosaur, per Sydney's request of course! |
Trick-or-treating was especially fun this year. Sydney caught on real quick that getting candy is a lot of fun. We heard "wanna get more candy" frequently. I bet we went to about 10 houses, and she walked and carried her candy bag the entire time. It was definitely a fun time!
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