Pre Halloween Activities

One of the things I remember most from my childhood, and I don't remember that much, is all our family holiday traditions. Even now that I'm an adult, I still feel robbed if we somehow don't fit the major traditions in. The first tradition I remember is decorating for the holidays. Ever since we first got married, I had a meager but existent holiday decor budget to start my collection. I limited myself to one tote for Christmas and one for all the other holidays when we moved to Alaska, but I'm happy to say my Halloween decorations were up about the middle of September :)! Sydney and I made Halloween sugar cookies again this year, but this time we didn't frost them all at once. We frosted a few, waited til they were all gone and then frosted more a few days later, etc. etc. I like that tradition because we got to do the funnest part in my opinion, decorating, more than once. While in Texas earlier this month we had decorated pumpkins with pipe cleaners and on Monday, Sydney got her first real carving experience. She was excited to pick out the pumpkins, not so excited about what as inside them though as you can tell from her face below. Andy helped her draw the face and she was thrilled when we put a candle inside and let her keep it in her room for a while. She named hers Jack and mine Jill. The last of our Halloween activities so far involved making haunted Gingerbread houses with some friends last weekend. Again Sydney loved eating the candy and randomly placing it on the house, but she has a hard time understanding why we can't just eat her house now. I had to move them higher up out of her line of sight because she constantly got frustrated at the fact that we said we had to wait to eat them because they were like decorations now. I understand that I could just let her eat it, but with all the other treats around right now we don't really need nasty cement candy. Our trunk or treat is tomorrow night. I'm excited to see how much more she understands and gets into the festivities this year since last year she was really confused and didn't understand what was going on. Happy Halloween!

Recent Happenings

These pictures were taken about a week ago. Fall is drawing to a close and winter dawning on Juneau. Every day Sydney looks at the mountains and reminds us that the snow is getting closer and closer. She knows when it gets here it will be almost time for baby brother... but more exciting to her is the fact that baby brother means grandmas are coming. Only six weeks to go! Since last week most of the trees lost their leaves due to the wind, and there is snow on all the mountaintops now, not just the glacial mountains in the distance. My Relief Society president described fall in Juneau to me as 'someone putting the lid on.' I think that's a pretty good description. The clouds completely cover the sky day and night, so it kind of always looks like dusk. They are usually pretty low as well, but it keeps it warmer than if it were clear. It stays about 40-45 without wind chill right now. I don't feel really bothered by the weather. I didn't think I would be so that's great! Sydney misses being able to see the stars and the moon. She asks about them every time its dark, but we're enjoying the fall. Our outings since the weather has taken a turn for the worse include more library trips, more trips to the bookstore to play with the trains, the pet store, the pool about once a week and the indoor park when I'm not at an appt in the morning. For some reason, it seems like I have a million appointments! I do meet with a midwife a lot more than I would with a doctor and I meet with my doula regularly as well. Baby boy is doing great. Measuring exactly how he should be and getting cramped. I'm feeling pretty awesome despite my endless heartburn and increasing acne (I think it may have something to do with all the fall sweets though :) ) and I can still sleep really well at night which I'm very grateful for. Just like with Sydney, we are slow in the naming process and probably will go into delivery with a few names to choose from, but I'm getting more anxious/excited the closer it gets. I believe today marks 40 days til my due date... let the countdown continue!

Fairy Princess Tea Party

Sydney got to go to her first friend birthday party this past weekend. It was fairy princess themed and all the little girls were asked to come dressed up. It couldn't have come at a better time because in the past two weeks, Sydney suddenly realized what a tea party is... although at home I was calling it a water party.  She talked about the party all morning before and kept reminding me that we needed to hurry so we wouldn't be late. She liked getting all dressed up and I think she liked it even more when she realized all her other friends were dressed up too.

At the party, the girls got their nails painted, faces painted, got new fairy wings and wands, ate cake, sang happy birthday, and best of all they got to have a real tea party. Carrie, the birthday girl's mom, is apparently quite the birthday party genius. She had a tea party table set up with individual tea cups, saucers, and spoons for each girl. She had tons of yummy food for both the kids and adults alike. I came home having ate way too much food and sugar; Sydney was loving it! I was really proud of Sydney... this having been her first birthday party for her patience in waiting to do things until the hostess was ready, (She wanted to paint her nails and eat as soon as we walked in.) and being content to watch the birthday girl open her presents without getting upset that nothing was for her. We didn't talk much about party etiquette before we went, and she had a really fun time. I couldn't get any really good pictures because she was too absorbed in loving everything around her.

I love watching her grow up and experience new things for the first time. I think I had as much fun as she did... even though I never thought I'd get so much joy from the girliness. I guess she inherited the girly genes from somewhere, so even though it's not my forte, I like to help her be girly when she wants to because she loves it  and is so dang cute :).

Texas

We just got back from a week visiting my family from Texas. It was a really fun trip, and we were all sad to see it end. Its always hard to get back to the monotony of home the first few days. While we were in Texas, our main goal was to attend the temple which we were really grateful to be able to do since my mom watched Sydney for us on Thursday and Friday. We also got to spend time visiting my sister, Emily and her family who live in Dallas as well. Sydney and Brooke became great friends again, and Sydney loved having someone to be crazy, silly and play with. We hadn't seen them in almost a year, and it always feels good to spend time together. Some of our outings throughout the trip included The Living Aquarium, the Dallas Zoo, some water fountains at the mall, decorating pumpkins, swimming, and riding the DART train. Sydney got to ride a horse for the first time at the zoo and this was her first time on a train outside of the airport. Even though while at the zoo, she seemed less excited than I expected her to be, she has talked about it all day since we got back so I know she liked it. It was very hot and I think she wasn't used to the heat and direct sunlight, haha. It was also really great to be at my parent's house for conference so we could stay at home and watch the sessions while Sydney was thoroughly entertained by all the new toys and environment.  I have to admit that by the time we got home late Tuesday night, I was thoroughly exhausted from all our travels and fun, but I am so glad we went and took one last little trip before the little man comes in the next couple of months. At only eight and a half weeks to go, I'm definitely starting to feel the reality and anxieties of what a second child will/might bring :). Sydney keeps asking me when we are going back to Texas and talking about all the fun things we got to do. Luckily, we'll get to see some family again soon.