Sydaleigh's 3

Our pre-birthday dinner celebration last night.

Sydaleigh had a three year old sundae that was more than she could eat, but she gave it a good effort

And today we had a little party at the house.

I made this Ariel cake for Sydaleigh last night.
My "personal cake maker" had to tend to a little sickling and wasn't able to make a cake for me this year so I thought I'd give it a go. This is what I came up with in one day. It's no "Holly" but I worked with what I had and Sydaleigh loved it. That's all that mattered. She saw her cake this morning and I thought her eyes were gonna bug out of her head. This has definitely been the year of Ariel. She got fixated on her when she turned two and loves her even more as a three year old.

She had all her favorite friends over to play, eat Happy Meals, open presents, play kazoos, and eat cake and ice cream.






THIS is the present we have been waiting months to give to Sydaleigh. Every time we step into Target Sydaleigh begs to go visit Buzz Light Year-she pushes all his buttons, talks to him, waves goodbye when I force her to go down another aisle. I was just as excited to give her this as she was surprised to get it.


But there was one more special gift that we waited to give to Sydaleigh until after her friends went home, to open up with just her family...and that was a.......

Prince Eric doll!
(yes, I was very excited about this too. I went into my fav thrift store this weekend and saw him sitting behind the counter. I couldn't believe it. This Prince Eric doll came out the year
The Little Mermaid was released, still in the original box, barely used, perfect for a three year old who is completely fixated on all things Little Mermaid right now.)

in her pretty new birthday dress



pictures with our birthday girl

Christmas Week

We got the festivities rolling on Monday with a little Christmas party at Wheat Fields for all these fabulous girls. There were lots of pretty dresses, gifts, sharing, and girls! They are all such good friends, as us moms are too, so it was fun to watch them all have their own intimate Christmas party.

Christmas Eve we headed to church as we do every year. This year Sydaleigh got to participate on stage singing Away in a Manger and Silent Night. Well, at least that was the plan-she didn't make it past the rehearsal before she got nervous, refused to sing, told me very loudly to also stop singing, and then told us again very loudly that she wanted to get down. Maybe next year.

Christmas eve night me and Isaak always stay up after the girls go to bed and wrap presents together and watch a Christmas movie-well, that was also the plan, until one little girl decided to stay up and join us...one guess who that was...

got into all the toys- tested them out, got into the wrapping paper-ate some

Christmas morning...

me and Isaak actually woke up before the girls, which is beyond rare, so we just laid in bed until 8am wondering where the heck Sydaleigh was. We figured she was in her bed playing quietly so I told Isaak to go get our Christmas bell and start ringing it to lure her out, but when he went in her room ringing it she was still asleep, and really grumpy that we woke her up ringing a bell. I probably would be too. But that mood was very short lived because as soon as we told her it was time to open presents her grumpiness vanished-how bout that!

A new bike, movies, animals,

custom aprons for all us girls,

happy faces all around.

Sydaleigh definitely "got" it this year. She got the whole Christmas celebrates Jesus' birthday and we open up presents in celebration of His birth. She was oozing with big sister syndrome, 'helping' Marvelly with every gift, examining every toy for approval, eager to help, happy to watch, thrilled she has a sister to share it all in. It was cool.


In the afternoon we headed to Dave and Heidi's to visit with Isaak's family who came into town for a few days. It was so good to see Isaak's aunt Marcie, Uncle Ray and cousins Sebastian and Sterling. When we got married Sterling was only 4 years old, and now she's 12, and Sydaleigh just adored spending time with her.

We took his family to the Durham Western Heritage Museum on Friday. Below is a 50 foot Christmas tree they have in the lobby. It's massive, and beautiful and the biggest real Christmas tree I've ever seen with my two eyes.



family

This used to be the old Union Pacific Station that they remodled into a museum some years ago. It is fabulous.
Below we are making our way through a teepee


and aboard a train


later that afternoon me and Aunt Marcie escaped for three hours to do some thrift shopping, with no kids. I haven't been able to just linger in a store, peruse, take my time, in a long time. It was a much needed and much appreciated break.

Saturday Isaak's family left for South Carolina so we capped off our week with an outing to the movies with our buds the Loveless' to see Bolt. I was a bit nervous to take Sydaleigh back to the movies because the last time I made that attempt we left not even ten minutes into the movie Horton Hears a Who. She was absolutely terrified, but this time she had a ball. Go figure.
I loved this week. It was fun, hectic, jam packed, new, and chock full of memories.

I'm ending this post with this picture of Sydaleigh. I just love this picture.
It's Christmas.

Baby it's cold outside.

We headed outside the other day for our first sledding adventure of the winter.
We didn't venture out too far, just our back yard as we have a pretty nice hill that if you're not careful will send you flying through the trees (or into them) down into the road below.

I must have had a momentary lapse of crazy going out just me and the girls. But it was the nicest day we had in a while-(I think it got up to 20 degrees), so we bundled up and headed out anyways.

Sydaleigh had a blast. She was very excited to pull Marvelly in her sled and then try to push her down the hill (all in good fun of course). She has "big sister" syndrome so getting to pull Marvelly totally thrilled her.
Marvelly had fun too-for about two minutes, and then she was done.

Below is Sydaleigh pulling Marvelly while she's having fun

"yeah, weee fun, I love the snow!"

"look, I'm smiling, having fun"

"okay definitely done having fun, I'm cold, I want to go in, stop pulling me!"

walking back up our modest little hill, perfect for kiddos

Sydaleigh getting in on the sledding action
(she's doesn't fit quite as well in her sled as she used to)

all bundled up close to Mommy