Birthday Girl

Sydney was a lucky girl for her first birthday. She had 3 birthday parties! The first was with the family in St Louis, then on her actual b-day at Diane's (daycare), and the 3rd was her "friend" party at our place. I was that mean mom that took her daughter to the doc's for her 1-year appt on her actual birthday (1/18), and she got 4 shots & a toe prick-not much fun. She had a temp of 101 the day after, but luckily it cleared up in time for the festivities. However, I made a first time parent mistake, and took her for pictures on the 19th not realizing she had a temp & couldn't figure out why she was so fussy & not smiling for the camera! I guess even after a year I'm still a rookie at this parenting thing. At her appointment she weighed in at 21.5 lbs (60%) and 30 inches long (80%). The question of the month is "Is Sydney walking yet?". She's not doing any purposeful walking, but some days we think she's close. She'll stand on her own when she wants to for maybe 5-8 seconds, then take 1-2 steps towards the couch or one of us, and at the first sign of the slightest wobble she plants herself down on her booty or grabs on for safety. She has 8 teeth now & is fervently speaking gibberish. She'll also sign for "hungry", "all done", "more", "duck", and she has a version of "water" that looks just like "hungry". I think she may have signed "book" today, but when I recognized it she got so excited that she just started clapping & didn't do it again. She can pick out several things from a picture book: a ball, a duck, a baby, an apple, and the mouse in Goodnight Moon.

Here's just a few picts of us hangin' around the house:

A few weeks back we had a little football gathering. The girls thought it was a Cheerio party after the lid "mysteriously" flew off and they were all over the floor. We like to call this "casual dining".This was just too funny to not post. Brynn (the one in pink) is a pretty big girl for her age (13 days younger than Syd). Not only did she hog all the Cheerios that landed on the floor, but she proceeded to take the remaining ones in the can all for herself. Maddie was just happy that the Cheerios were out in the first place & Brynn decided to leave some for her. Syd was off playing by herself for the first 5 minutes of the buffet completely unaware, and then casually decided to join in. Just goes to show you how early their little personalities start beaming out!St Louis B-Day: Cousin's Erin & Tori Johnson help decorate.Syd wasn't too into opening the gifts. She really just wanted to crawl around & chase the dog.Happy that the "structured" part of the party was over, Sydney happily climbed the stairs the remainder of the evening & dance at the top to celebrate her accomplishments.Before we headed home, we took a pict of all 3 cousins. Its quite challenging to get a 28 month old, a 12 month old, and a 3 week old to take a picture sitting together. With a toy in Sydney's hand for a distraction, this is the best shot we got! Syd & Trevor are both sporting their St Louis Zoo shirts that were a gift from Auntie Meghan.KC B-day: We have an announcement to make, Sydney has a boyfriend. His name is Jackson Shupper & apparently he's the "bad boy" type. He arrived at the party wearing his "Little Casanova' shirt. Here is his putting his moves on Sydney!And checking out her butt....Chasing her down the hallway...And doing is famous "Honey, you've got something on your face" move to get even closer to our beautiful & innocent little girl.Tanner couldn't be upstaged, so he decided to spice up the party by dining naked!All in all, Sydney really liked the whole b-day party thing & she's ready for her 2nd birthday all ready. Jeff and I are really glad there's at least a year in between these things & hope to have the cake out of the carpet before the next shindig!

This is the typical scene mid-diaper change in our house these days. As soon as she feels the cool breeze, she takes off as fast as she can. Its a wrestling match to get the new diaper on her.


Here's a quick shot of her refusing to eat cake in St Louis, and refusing to eat cake in KC...and then happily eating it by herself the morning after her party. What we've learned about Sydney from all this isn't that she doesn't like cake, because she does, but she just doesn't like an audience with her cake.



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Christmas, Finally!

Just a quick post so you don't think we skipped Christmas this year!

To celebrate, Sydney decided to wrap the house in toilet paper.We went to a pre-Christmas bash complete w/ Santa Clause. Below is Sydney's new BFFL, Taylor. Santa was not Sydney's new BFFL, but she did tolerate him for a few seconds before clinging to MommyI think if Santa keeps bringing toys, he'll grow on her.Christmas cookies!We had a few attempts at a family photo, but we were never seemed to look at the same camera at the same time-here's a few so you can laugh at our expense
Or, let alone, even keep all 6 eyes openSydney got her 2 front teeth for Christmas, and the two beside those also. She cut all four in under 11 days...she was ready for a break-we all were! "Grinding" them is her new fun pass time.Sydney got a new Pooh, whom she loves, and immediately showed her gratitude by hugging him for her audienceBooks are always a great giftJeff got a new Cardinal's hat & he's determined that Syd will be a loyal fanSydney LOVED all of her Christmas toys. We had to get a new bin for the basement she has so much to play with now! She was spoiled by all of her grandparents, aunts, and uncles. Christmas certainly was merry!

On the 23rd we welcomed Drew Kayla Morgan into the world. Here's Ryan doing a juggling act with them both. Its hard to imagine that Sydney was this little almost a year ago. That's even one of her little outfits that Dew has on & I'm shocked to think that she was that little once upon a time!

We've now returned home, & returned to our normal schedule for the most part. Here is one of our favorite nights-Pasta Night!Here is how curly the back of her hair is. Its kinda like mine, straighter in the front. Its damp here, just after a bath, so its extra curly. I'm not sure how I'll ever bring myself to cut it!

Loss of a Best Friend

Unfortunately we had to put Velvet down tonight and it was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life- I couldn't even go through the entire process. I told Brenna that I would be able to go in the room with her and Velvet, but I couldn't do it. Velvet was a great dog for our family. She loved us to a fault because of the protection she thought she needed to give us.
Velvet was with Brenna for 10 years and I was with her for 6 years.
We had to put her down for one main reason, and in addition her quality of life was getting worse as the days passed. She had very bad arthritis, a cronic bacterial infection since July, a hard time breathing, severe edema in her legs, and some mystery bleeding that started the last few days. That main reason is that Sydney is now very active and wanted to play with Velvet and once this past weekend Sydney touched her legs and Velvet snipped at her. The snip was a warning snip at most, but we couldn't live with ourselves if something more were to happen to Sydney. You too often hear those stories where the family dog injures the youngest family member & the parents say "they never thought their dog would do that". We never thought that Velvet would hurt anyone, but we aren't willing to take any risks with our precious little girl or anyone else's little one. Our hearts will be heavy over the next several days as we remember the soft, chubby, loyal, snoring dog that we loved.