The Past THREE Months...

Well, there's a LOT that you've missed since the last post. I know, I'm a HUGE slacker when it comes to updating the blog now. I HAVE kept up with taking pictures so you haven't missed much there. There's also plenty of videos courtesy of Kjell. He likes videos. Anyway, we left off at me getting a new job and training and daycare for Sydnee and,blah, blah, blah...

So, here's how everything went down. We have been fortunate enough for me to work the 3pm-12am shift at work which means, NO DAYCARE for Sydnee. However, the time we spend as a family now is VERY limited. This means Sundays when we're both off and Tuesday evenings...VERY different from the amount of time we're used to spending, but we've adjusted somewhat. However, this means we have to use our time wisely.

Sydnee gets to spend the days with Mommy and the nights with Daddy. She has a huge vocabulary and will repeat almost anything that's said. As soon as she got good at walking (which didn't take long), she started RUNNING...EVERYWHERE. We've had a few disasters because of this and several of them result in a bruised forehead. She doesn't let it slow her down though. She spends her days between Mommy and Daddy at Aunt Sarah's, with Cody, until Daddy can pick her up. She's helped Cody eat more and they both have learned to play together.

Also, since it's been warmer, we've made several visits to the pool to accommodate our water baby. She LOVES playing in the water and runs through all the sprinklers and fountains at the pool. She never wants to wear a life vest or floatie though. So, she just swims while we hold her. She shows more of an interest in the fountains now instead of kicking and "swimming" in the pool.

Sydnee also has a very healthy appetite. She frequents our pantry and brings us all kinds of stuff that she wants to eat. The downside is that she is terrible at sitting still for any length of time. This has weighed heavily on our dining out experiences because she kicks and screams every time we put her in her high chair. She would rather run across the booth and make a terrible mess. While this keeps her quiet long enough for us to eat, it's not IDEAL.

She likes to be on the move at ALL times. The only thing that keeps her still is when she is focusing on fastening the belt on her car/buggy that we got her for her birthday. She will sit there for a short time now because it doesn't take her long to fasten it. Then, she begins screaming for us to unbuckle her...and she does it all over again. This is the same problem with the swing that we bought her. She has to be strapped in so she doesn't fly out, but she wants to play with the straps instead.

She loves playing with her bubbles and her chalk outside. We have several pictures of that. Also, many pictures of her running around the house naked, because this child wants no part of clothing or diapers. I thought that might change, but she still throws a fit every time we try to put on a diaper. Hopefully, this will make potty training easy though.

Well, this is just the short list of all the action going on around here. I'll make some more notes and update later. I'm in the process of uploading all her albums to Picasa right now because there are several pictures that I have that are not posted to the net. Just follow this link to see them:

http://picasaweb.google.com/nicoleredwood

Sydnee's...59th, 60th, 61st, 62nd Week

Wow! We went a WHOLE MONTH before I updated this! I can't believe I was slipping. Well, it's with good reason because we've got a lot of changes going on around here. Where do I start?

Well, we've been checking out daycares for Sydnee because I got a new job that I start on Monday. We found one in Providence that we like really well. I signed her up and Mary has volunteered to watch Sydnee for the 3 weeks that I have training. I won't know what my schedule's like until the 2nd or 3rd week of training. Then, we'll know what hours Sydnee will need to be in daycare, if any. It's a 24/7 call center that I'll be working in, so my hours could be anything. We're hoping for a late afternoon shift so that I can watch Sydnee during the day until Kjell gets home and still have time to sleep when I get off work before Sydnee gets up the next morning.

She seems to like the daycare pretty well. She didn't cry at first when I left her there with the other kids. She just sat down and didn't move. She was checking everything out and the kids were checking her out. I just don't know what she's gonna do about sitting down to eat or naptime on a mat instead of her crib. I've heard people say that the kids will act differently at daycare than they do at home and once they see other kids doing something, they will follow suit. I hope that's the case because, in my opinion, I think Sydnee has some tricks up her sleeve for them.

Anyway, with a new job comes a second income and a second car. We've been looking for a year now, but just didn't have the extra money for a car payment. Well, we found a Saturn Vue we liked that was loaded. I didn't mind that is was a 2006 because it had low miles, leather seats and a sunroof. We couldn't touch any of that on a 2008 in our price range. So, with the second income, we have extra bills. Needless to say, the next month or so will be quite the adjustment around here. After all the up front costs of everything before we start getting a second paycheck, we'll get caught up and get our small credit cards and my student loans paid off. Woo-hoo! I'm very excited about that!

On top of all that, it gives Kjell some breathing room to actually USE some of his vacation time at work & spend time with Sydnee like he's wanted to. He can also get to work on Mary's car since he hasn't done anything with it since July or August. On to Sydnee though...

She's been walking and talking up a storm. She signs "Mommy", "more", "please", "up", and sometimes I can get her to sign "Daddy". She usually just laughs at me when I do it. She also likes the new car because she can see out of the windows and there's more room in the back seat. She can also see out of the sunroof.

Last week was the first week without bottles. I threw ALL of them out so we couldn't give in to Sydnee crying at night. She still puts up a small fight, but not like she used to. She even got used to the cup after a few days. She got thirsty enough that she didn't care what was in the cup in the morning. She also starting eating more. She had gotten so used to milk out of a bottle and that was the only thing she wanted during the day. Now she eats oranges, bananas, raisins, yogurt, Goldfish, chips, waffles, pancakes, spaghetti (her favorite), and just about anything else that we're eating. She tries it all at least once.

We can't wait for Easter this year because Sydnee will actually get to hunt for Easter eggs. At least, we HOPE she will. It will be fun to watch her anyway. Hopefully, we can work something out with my new work schedule and it will fit into the plans for Easter. We still have to get her Easter basket and get some pictures made. Professional pictures are a must now that she's getting older. We're limited on getting any pics now because she runs away OR runs toward us and the camera won't focus. Well, check out the pics that we did get these past few weeks. There's some really funny ones of Sydnee wearing her new shoes. She LOVES those shoes. She carries them around EVERYWHERE! I guess she just likes that they light up.

Sydnee's 58th Week

Well, I'm a LITTLE late on my blog, but at least I'm back to doing them once a week instead of once every 2-3 weeks. I got paybacks for posting early last time because Sydnee had all kinds of tricks up her sleeve the next day.

We were sitting on the floor and I always try to get her to say everyone's name. She only likes to repeat "MaMa". I was signing thinking that it would be easier for her to just sign the names...and she DID. She actually signed "Mommy", but I couldn't get her to do it again OR sign "Daddy".

Kjell had also been working with her to stack her blocks. She usually just likes to sit and watch us stack them and then she pounces on them to knock them down. He got her to stack them up 4 high last week and, a few days later, she stacked them up 7 high.

Also, the very next day after I posted (actually, it might have been the same day), she broke her bed. She likes to stand up and jump on the bed when she wakes up until we come and get her. This time, she was protesting her nap and we heard crying and jumping...then...crack. She didn't scream about that so we didn't know what happened. We walked into her room and the entire right side, where she was standing, was leaning. She had broken the plastic that holds the mattress support. Kjell just broke off the 4th piece so the bed would lay level. So far, it hasn't completely fell apart. She's still sleeping in it, but I bring her playyard back home with us now instead of leaving it at MiMi & PawPaw's, just in case it DOES break.

She's also started sorting her shapes in her cookie jar shape sorter. I can turn the cookie jar to a shape & she puts it in. This takes a little practice though because the cookie jar is a bad design. The openings for the "cookies" is at an angle so it makes it hard for her to fit the shapes in. She turns the shapes around in her hand though until they are where they need to be for her to put them in the jar.

Another funny story, she heard me playing with Izzy and I usually growl at him because he growls at me when we play. Next thing I know, she's growling at him too. She also barks at the dogs, even if they're outside barking at something else. If she hears a dog bark anywhere, she barks. Instead of "woof,woof" though, it's "bar, bar", like she's saying "bark, bark" instead of actually barking. She also tries to say "Izzy", "oww", "uh-oh" (minus the "oh" part), "more" and "dog". While we know she knows how to say these things, she usually doesn't say them when we ask. It's usually done completely randomly when she's mocking us.

She also aspires to be a junk food junkie. Any time she see's Kjell's glass and it looks like it has Coke in it (or a Coke can for that matter), she starts reaching for it. Two nights ago, we decided to order wings from Wing Stop. Well, Kjell got there just as I had finished ordering so I told him to go get me a cinnamon donut from Dunkin' Donuts (yes, he got me hooked on them). Well, when we went Sunday to get donuts, they didn't have any of the vanilla creme that he likes. This time, no cinnamon and 3 vanilla. He got all 3 vanilla for dessert. Well, he gets home and Sydnee only wants the tiny little white bag, not the big brown Wing Stop bag. When she got done eating some chicken strips with me, she went straight for the bag again. She gave it to Kjell to open and he tried to get her to open it. Well, needless to say, he opened it. She looked inside the bag, her eyes got big and she reached in and pulled a donut out. She looked at it, grabbed it with both hands and took a HUGE bite. She didn't even skip a beat. She hadn't had a donut before, but she wasn't letting go of that one. She carried it around the house until she at ALL of it. While it WAS cute, I don't plan on making it a habit.

Well, I DO have pictures of the donut incident below. Check them out.

Oh, I also forgot to mention, we're up to 7 teeth. She acts like she trying to get a few more too. She has 4 on top and 3 on bottom.

Sydnee's...55th, 56th AND 57th Week

Well, I know the 57th week isn't quite done yet, but I've been slacking lately. I thought I would just get a head start so I can get back to updating every week. So...

I can't really say there's much to update about. It's been so cold, that Sydnee's gotten outside for walks about 2-3 times in the past 3 weeks. I've decided that we're gonna take her bottle away next week for naps. Then, the following week, we'll take them away at night too. She's gotten in a habit of waking up at least once a night now. It's not at any particular time, just whenever she wakes up, she cries because she doesn't want to look for her bottle. Most of the time, we go in, give her the bottle, and she goes back to sleep.

Besides her weird sleeping patterns, we've gone to feed the ducks at the park, met Laura & Junior at Lake Texoma, tried opening doors with the door handle, climbed onto the ottoman unassisted, walked around most days with our sippy cup or bowl of cereal and hit Mommy or Daddy in the face with one of the three TV remotes. That's been the excitement these past few weeks. She's still getting into everything. She tries to open the closet door now. If she stands on her toes, she can reach the handle (most of the time) and pull down. She just doesn't know what to do next.

I've been looking for something to do for Valentine's Day this year since Sydnee is more mobile. I haven't found anything yet. I DID find a woman on Craigslist.com that is wanting to expand her portfolio and do a photo session for free. She is wanting to set something up next weekend, but I don't know if she realizes it's Valentine's Day weekend. In fact, I just realized that myself. Who knows. It IS free pictures though and I've been wanting some more of Sydnee that aren't taken by us.

Another highlight is Sydnee's new play yard. I ordered one from Amazon.com a few weeks ago. She's used it two weekends in a row now. That thing is the best thing that's happened to us. We can use it at everyone's house for her to take a nap and don't have to worry about her falling or getting into anything.

I wish that we had a place to put it today though. We went to Lake Texoma and Sydnee didn't take a nap all day. She stayed up until we left at 3pm and fell asleep for the hour drive home. That was the ONLY nap she took all day. She wasn't sure what to think about the water and the sand. She wouldn't walk on it with shoes or barefoot. She wanted us to carry her. Hopefully, she'll grow to like it in time for the summer.

I took her for a walk to feed the ducks Friday and she walked most of the way home. She liked to walk with just her socks on. She refused to walk with her tennis shoes on. She wanted to cross the street and go back to the ducks when we walked home. She was also trying to RUN down the sidewalk to play with someone's puppy.

Speaking of puppies, Izzy has gotten better around Sydnee. He will actually lay near her now. He even lets her pet him...until she starts slapping him on the head.

Sydnee's Fifty-third & Fifty-fourth Week

Well, it seems like forever since I've made a post. It seems like it's so busy around here. I covered Sydnee's 52nd week in her birthday post. These last two weeks, Sydnee's been perfecting all kinds of skills.

We'll start with her doctor's appointment back on 1/7/09. She went to see Dr. B & he said everything looked great. She's in the 95% for height & 70% for weight. It's not hard to believe just looking at her. She's too tall already. It won't be long before she's taller than me. She got 3 shots and was more mad that they held her down than about getting the shots. We were also told to cut her off the bottle and formula completely. This, I thought, would be a hard feat since she still takes a bottle at night to go to sleep. It hasn't proved to be a problem yet. I've just replaced her milk with water so that everyone can sleep. Although, soon, I'm going to have to wean her off completely. I just started my Body for Life challenge, so with all my favorite foods gone during the week, I don't think I could be sleep deprived too.

Anyway, she's been learning how to put her shapes into the sorters she has (one on her play kitchen's fridge & one on her cookie jar that sings). She loves her new swing. We finally got the hardware for it a few weeks ago. She screams when you take her out to go inside. She also likes her car. Although, I don't think she likes it quite as much as Emma does. She's also learning to perfect her fine motor skills to stack blocks with us. I guess the wooden blocks we have are just to small for her right now. She doesn't have quite enough control to stack them without knocking the whole pile over.

We ordered her a play yard, FINALLY, and it should be here today. It's about time we did because we can't go anywhere with her because she refuses to lay down and take a nap. At least this way, we can put her in it and she can scream until she falls asleep without us worrying about her crawling around. It's also a good backup unless her bed completely breaks. She jumps so much that she's broken off the plastic part of her bed that holds the mattress up. We found out that we have to order a different replacement kit because they don't make beds with that kind of support anymore.

I still have to take a picture of her in her new carseat. She loves that thing. It's rare that she throws a fit to go for a ride now. She DID throw a small fit when I had to leave her last week for my interviews. She stayed with Mary while I went to two interviews Tuesday and Wednesday. She said that Sydnee didn't cry for long after I left. However, she DID scream at me and cry when I got there to pick her up. As for the interviews, I still don't know anything. Who knows if I'll ever find a job.

We spent our Gymbucks and got Sydnee some more snazzy clothes (like she needs anymore). She got her Valentine's Day outfit, some bright colored candy stuff, and a BRIGHT pink coat. She was in need of a heavy one since it's been so cold lately. It's 12-24 months so she should get a lot of use out of it.

And I almost forgot, she's cruising around the house all the time now. She gets pretty brave by climbing all over the dogs. Sabre just lays there, but Izzy gets up and Sydnee usually falls on her butt. She challenges herself to walk from the living room to the back door or fridge. We all know how she loves to climb up into the fridge. She usually walks back (if she doesn't see the dog's water bowl to play in) to the living room laughing.

She's not saying anything too clearly yet. She says Da-Da, Ma-Ma & no-no-no randomly, but not when asked. We still watch her sign language DVD & she just laughs when we do the signs, but she won't do them yet. She laughs because she knows what we're doing. She does randomly babble, but we have no idea what she's saying.

She's figured out how to get into the bathtub, by accident. She almost fell on her head, but Kjell caught her. She was playing with a cup while Kjell was getting the water ready, and it fell into the tub. She bent over to get it and went flying into the tub. Now, she tries to climb in.

She also has a new toy that I hate...the DISH box. We switched from Sudden Link to DISH Network last week and she hasn't stopped playing with the box or the remote, when she can find it. She turns the TV on and off. She records stuff. She's even ripped the door off of it where the card is stored. She rewinds & fast forwards on the remote. She pauses it, performs searches for the dish, and all kinds of stuff.

Hopefully, I'll have more pictures of her these next few weeks. I have some of the last two weeks. I'm just in the middle of reorganizing my albums since I'm about to run out of free space on my Picasa account. I will post all of it as soon as I can though.

Sydnee's First Birthday!

We've got plenty of pictures to celebrate Sydnee's FIRST birthday! She got THREE cakes (only because the bakery wouldn't stack them without charging us for a wedding cake-$150), two dozen pink roses, 38 balloons, and a TON of food.

As for the presents, Sydnee got a new kitchen, swing, car/buggy, diaper bag, clothes, ball popper, musical jungle, musical table, ring stacker, and money to buy whatever she wants.

We thought that Sydnee might pull a "Nick" and stick her whole face in the cake, but she didn't. She just stuck one finger at a time into the frosting on her cake. She didn't want to get herself dirty or she just didn't know what to do. She didn't waste any time ripping the princess off the top of her cake though.

She did pretty well for most of the day on two short naps. She lasted longer than we thought she would. She liked her bath and playing in the sink after we took her frosting-covered clothes off. She even raced Emma up and down the street on their cars. We DID find out that she doesn't care for the balloons too much. She got scared when PawPaw was blowing them up. She even did some walking while playing in her room with MiMi, Daddy, Courtney & Emma.

Check out the pictures below and her videos on http://www.youtube.com. Daddy captured all the action that day. I just have to get pictures of her in her swing when we get it hung up. It was a beautiful day for her party. We just didn't have the stuff to hang her swing that day. It's been cold and raining the past two days so she hasn't gotten to use it yet. I also have to get a picture of her in her new carseat that Uncle David & Aunt Janet got her for Christmas/Birthday. She LOVES going for rides now. She doesn't even put up a fight when you put her in the car. It's a miracle really.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SYDNEE! We LOVE you!

Sydnee's Fiftieth & Fifty-first Week

Well, tomorrow is Sydnee's FIRST birthday. I guess that means we're just ONE post away from finishing her book. I can't wait to put the finishing touches on it and order it. We celebrated a lot this year, heck in the last few weeks. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's and now Sydnee's birthday. We really DO have the holidays all rolled into one now!

As you can tell from the pictures, Sydnee LOVED her Christmas presents. She wasn't shy to open any of them. It was just a matter of getting her to open something else once she started playing with what she opened. She even helped me dig stuff out of her stocking. Since she can't eat any candy, I filled it with Gerber Graduate snacks. She got to try some new stuff that she hasn't eaten yet, like the Cheddar and Veggie Dip "chips", Yogurt Melts, Mini Fruits, and cinnamon Animal Crackers. She likes ALL of those. However, we can't get her to eat anything but her tubs of fruit & veggies (2nd foods and sometimes 3rd foods) and whatever we're eating. She HATES the Gerber meals for toddlers that we got her. She refuses to take more than one or two bites like she did with some of the 3rd foods. Luckily, we go for her 12 month check-up on the 7th and I can ask the doctor about it.

Although Sydnee liked her toys, she stayed cranky the rest of the day. We finally got her to take at nap at MiMi & PawPaw's while we ate lunch and she slept through us opening presents. I don't know how she did, but it was a good thing she did. She acted completely normal once everyone left though. We stayed up most of the night before, so EVERYONE was cranky. Anyway, we survived Christmas and Kjell was off from Wednesday to Sunday. Then, he worked Monday and Tuesday and he's off again from Wednesday to Sunday. Sydnee doesn't know what to do when we're both here. She doesn't like to take her naps. It's as if she thinks she's gonna miss something.

She loves playing with all her new toys, especially her bath toys, her cookie jar (shape sorter), and Glo Worm. She also likes her new carseat that Aunt Janet & Uncle David gave her. She doesn't put up a fight to get in the car anymore and she stays quiet for most of the ride since she can see all around.

Sydnee's learning to play with other babies her age. She gets to see Emma and Cody more so she can learn how to interact with them, rather than just adults. At first, she acts like she's jealous and just wants to play with us. She's warmed up to others in the past few weeks though.

Now, we just have to work on getting her to eat in her high chair so we don't have to bribe her to eat with a Baby Einstein DVD that distracts her. My goal is to get the TV off completely while Sydnee's awake. That's my New Year's resolution (one of many).

She still only has two teeth. She's getting a TON more blonde hair. We can't decide yet if she's going to have blue eyes or green eyes. Sometimes, it looks like a combination of the two. She still has her "tiger stripe" on her right eye that's brown. We're also trying to get her to walk more. She's timid about letting go of things to walk. Tonight, while we were eating, Kjell put a tortilla chip halfway in his mouth so that Sydnee could see it. When she DID see it, she walked towards him with NO problem. It's like she can do it, just so long as she has a distraction to keep her from thinking about falling or not holding onto something. She's looks like she'll figure it out soon though. You can see her wanting to try, sometimes, and at the last minute, she she leaps towards the closest thing instead of walking.

She still tries to play in the dishwasher. She's trying to pull herself up to the stove occasionally by using the handle bar on the door. She does bypass the dog's water bowl now. She still tries to play in their food bowl while they're eating. And, she has a toy box that's big enough to block the fireplace, so we don't have to worry about her playing with the rocks. Sydnee also tried to crawl INTO her crib the other day when Kjell had the rail down. She held onto the bars and put her feet up on the bottom rail. She was in the middle of pulling herself up when Kjell grabbed her.

Well, I think that puts us up to date. I've been slacking the past month with the blog because we've been a little busy. Our schedule has been messed up because of the holidays. We have the latest pictures in the post below "Sydnee's First Christmas". Kjell also took some today that I will post with Sydnee's birthday pictures. I will post Sydnee's last post for her book on Sunday after the party. I still haven't decided if I will continue to post after her birthday, but I will keep everyone updated. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Wish us luck the next two days because it could get hectic hosting our first birthday party. We hope to see everyone here!