Sisters

Having grown up with two sisters, I have many fond memories and a firm belief in the value of sisters. Luckily, Sydney is going to get to experience that too soon! Her baby sister was not shy and full of energy at our ultrasound!

In thinking about sisters I starting reading some quotes to someday paint on the wall in their room, haha. A few struck a chord with exactly how I feel about sisters both the good and the anxieties I have about having two girls ;D.

"A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves - a special kind of double."  ~Toni Morrison


"Sisters is probably the most competitive relationship within the family, but once the sisters are grown, it becomes the strongest relationship."  ~Margaret Mead


"There can be no situation in life in which the conversation of my dear sister will not administer some comfort to me."  ~Mary Montagu

"When mom and dad don't understand, a sister always will."  ~Author Unknown

I love my sisters so much and excited for Sydney to have the same blessing throughout her life.

December Pictures

Between the tree, gingerbread houses, snow fun, and other activities, I wanted to share a few pictures before we leave for the holidays!

Happy 2 Wynn!

Wynn grew up and decided to turn 2! He definitely has a little personality growing. He doesn't usually let people push him around but he's a very sweet boy too :) He still loves his cuddles and will put my hand on his back or hair to rub them. He adores Sydney and follows her everywhere she goes. He likes to try to sing and dance now but only says "yo, yo, yo, yo" over and over again and spins around. His vocabulary has exploded in the past few months and I can't even count the number of words he knows. He plays really well with older kids and is bounds ahead of most kids his age in social interaction... which makes it really hard that he can't stay at preschool with Sydney because he REALLY likes it there and wants to stay every time we drop her off. When we have play dates with kids his age, he seems pretty confused and gets frustrated at their inability to play with him. His favorite foods are GRAPES, Macaroni, applesauce, apples, and anything either I or Sydney have. He has an awesome belly laugh and loves to play games. On his birthday every time someone mentioned it was his birthday he would just shout, "No." He doesn't perform for others, so if you ask him how old he is, to dance, to say the prayer he'll just say no most of the time. He likes to make his own decisions and definitely is ready to start growing up like big sister!

Shoveling is a family affair

The snow we've had so far this year hasn't been great for building snowmen or making snowballs; it doesn't stick together. Its a good thing we have kid sized shovels and they are happy enough to dig holes and throw snow around too!

Halloween

Better late than never! We had a fun Halloween. It started the weekend before at the preschool's fall festival and then we did the Trunk or Treat at the church on Halloween. Sydney and Wynn of course had tons of fun. It didn't take long for Wynn to catch on to the idea that if he said "Trick or Treat!" people would give him candy. Sydney picked all of our costumes and made an adorable Tinkerbell :)

5/13/14

Our anniversary this year will be overshadowed a bit by the fact that I'll either be very pregnant or have a brand new little one! We are 15 weeks in and the next 25 seem to be incredibly long, but only a few more until we know whether we'll have another brother or sister joining our family. :)

I can't smile when I take my own picture... it always looks weird :)

Wynn's Big Bed

Since Wynn had been climbing in and out of his crib at will for several months now, we finally got around to switching him to his big bed. Just like with Sydney, we put the bed in his room for a few weeks beforehand and tried to get him excited about it. We got him cool airplane sheets and I checked the "Big Bed" book from the library. He seemed to like his bed but had no interest in sleeping in it, so I was pretty nervous the day we took the crib out and he had no other option. Surprise! He climbed right in went to sleep and didn't get up until morning. Of course, as soon as he wakes up he demolishes his room, disassembles his plastic drawers, pulls off his curtains and gets every toy out that he can reach, but at least he goes to sleep without a fuss! We made sure to get a door lock for his closet to save us the headache of cleaning up every toy he owns twice a day and he's been doing great. It's so happy to see him adjusting and growing up :)

Kids Update

An update on things the kids have been doing lately...

Sydney is back in preschool and has really taken a liking to her new teacher Miss Lindsay. She is fascinated by books and beginning to read very well. She also is loving to write. She spends most of her free time drawing pictures and "writing letters." She can sit for several hours if she has enough markers, scissors, and paper. Every morning when she wakes up she climbs out of bed, goes to get her markers and sits and draws until everyone else is up. She is definitely a personality that doesn't like to be alone and talks most of the day. It is rare for her to not be talking if someone she knows is in the room. She still takes awhile to warm up to people she doesn't know though and spends most of her time at preschool in the room with less kids in it. She has gotten into a big helping phase and constantly asks me if she can sweep or take out the trash. She takes very seriously what she learns in Primary every Sunday and brought home a job jar one Sunday and wants to do the jobs in it ever since.

Wynn has grown up quite a bit in these last few months. He speaks in full sentences and I can understand him about 80% of the time. He can do a lot of things by himself such as choosing his own clothes, getting his own plate, spoon and bowl, as well as getting "drinks" of water which he spills everywhere and finding his own snacks. He has figured out how to open about half of my child locks and keeps me busy! He loves his family and is very aware of where everyone is at all times. Every morning he wants to know "Where'd Sydney go?" followed by "Dada at work?" and then "Dada fly airplanes or fix it?" He is still an avid climber and there isn't anywhere he wants to get that he can't find a way how. He likes to follow Sydney around and they play well together about half the time now which is quite a relief from before! One of their favorite games is to repeat what the other is saying and laugh. Wynn still takes one nap most days and ends up just playing in his crib the rest of the days. He can get in and out of his crib at will now, but chooses to stay in his crib during nap time and play if he is not going to sleep which I am very thankful for. We have his big bed all ready for him to switch too when I get the motivation to actually do it. He still feels very much like my little baby boy and loves his cuddles. I can't get enough of his little man hugs.

Family Reunion

 It took three flights to get there, but we made it to South Padre Island, TX for our family reunion and Wynn slept for like 13 hours the next day and we had to wake him up! Andy and I were excited to see everyone and go back to our honeymoon destination and show our kids the "warm beach" as we called it, the dolphins, pelicans, sea turtles and more! But first, we enjoyed the pool with cousins while everyone settled in.

 
 
 
 After everyone got settled into their rooms at the beach house and rested up, we spent the majority of the rest of our days at the beach. The older kids... and adults.... were really into catching sea creatures, and even though almost all of us tried, no one could snorkel around and manage to catch some of the bigger fish swimming just a few steps out in the waves. They caught baby fish, crabs, snails, jellyfish, and Andy even managed to find a horseshoe crab, which I think looked more like a bug than a crab.

Sydney and her kite

Kevin and Emily rented this crazy bike contraption one afternoon, so we made use of it by taking it to do a little souvenir shopping. I think we could have walked faster than it went, but it was hilarious to ride it alongside the road.

 Another morning we ventured off to do some tourist-y things and visited the local sea turtle rescue. Of the fifty or so turtles housed there, only four are resident turtles and the rest will be nursed to health and released back into the ocean. Unfortunately the sea turtle nests just finished hatching the week before we were there, but we did get to see some pretty small baby turtles! We also ventured out to the southern point to watch the dolphins playing in the bay and swimming along in front of the fishing boats as they went by.

 On Friday, we drove into the Brownsville Zoo and the kids had a good time, especially once they got soaking wet in the splash zone and cooled down from the Texas heat.

 Finally, we took Wynn and Sydney to see the fireworks at the Hilton on Friday night. It was Wynn's first experience with fireworks and I think he was impressed, since he wouldn't look at the camera!

 More beach pics to enjoy!