The Joy of a 2 year-old

This is how I found Sydney tonight... "making out" with our Gingerbread house. She is so proud to have discovered that climbing onto the table means all you can eat treats. If you look closely at the mint at the front of the house, you'll notice that the stripes are gone. That is because she must have done this earlier in the day when I had the gingerbread house on my black table (I must not be watching her very closely because I didn't even know she was on that table). When I was polishing the table today, I noticed little feet prints on the table top next to where the house had been. The little foot print, Sydney size, and the missing stripes on the front mint lead to only one thing... Sydney is in love with the mints on the Gingerbread house and I need to do a better job at watching her :-).

Gingerbread House

Addison is now 7 months old and is such a nice baby. She cried for the first 5 1/2 months and now she is so wonderful and mellow. She can be sitting in her highchair now... STARVING... and she'll wait patiently until I get everyone else their food. She just looks around at everyone and waits for her turn. Now I can lay her in her bed and she'll go to sleep all by herself. Hopefully I won't loose all the tone in my legs from all the bouncing I've had to do, but I'm sure grateful that she is happier these days.

This was just a quick snapshot before we went to church today. Sydney did not want to cooperate, hence the candy cane in her had. What cute kids.

My cute master builders. They always do a great job. Tanner did the sidewalk extra great this year and I love Kaitlyn's tree and the roof.

My 2 year old on a stealth "candy seeking mission". Needless to say, the gingerbread house is at a much higher location now.

Sydney's 2nd Birthday

Today is Sydney's 2nd Birthday... So, obviously this was not part of the plan. Sydney is a wonderful 2 year-old climber. I found her on the table and she leaned down and licked her cake. It was hilarious! So we quickly grabbed the video camera and camera and snapped away. This was definitely an impromptu party. She was quite pleased with herself. Then we gave her a "Word World" DVD and toy (this is her favorite show on PBS). She can now proudly say, "I two." We are so grateful to have sweet Sydney in our family.

Baby Addison on Thanksgiving Day. She's getting better at sitting without support.

Cute Kaitlyn doing such a great job on setting the table for our first Thanksgiving dinner in our home. We loved it.

Cute Sydney took over Tanner's job of loading the dishwasher. She was thrilled. I wasn't. Climbing is a curse in an almost 2 year old.

Tanner's cute Indian outfit that he made at his Kindergarten feast. So cute.

Tanner and Kaitlyn showing off the pies they helped their grandma Omi make.


Sydney still proud of herself and making a big mess with the soapy water.

My early Christmas present: a new bedroom set

I am so excited about this new bedroom set. We've been using my husbands childhood bedroom furniture for almost 9 1/2 years. I think we deserved to get our very own. Our friends furniture store in town is downsizing to just 1 store (instead of their 2 stores) so they were holding fabulous sells. I didn't think we would be lucky enough to find anything... but we were. The bedding is a hodge podge of whatever I found that was the right kind of blue. I didn't want the room to be too dark... and I really wanted this color of blue. Luckily I found the decorative pillows at TJ Maxx and the sheets. THat made me very excited given I really wanted this steel blue color with silver and black. Next the curtains, rods and lamps were the perfect color blue and matched the hardware on the dresser on end tables (there is also a large dresser with a mirror.. the mirror is still on the floor so I didn't take the picture). FInding the duvet cover was more of a trick... Trying to find fabric without a lot of crazy stuff going on was very difficult. Luckily Pottery Barn came to my rescue with steel blue embroidered dots as an accent. I LOVE IT!!! I feel so grown-up now.

Silly Sydney

Just a cute picture with her "dancing" her dolly, Jessie. It looks more like Jessie is hiding, but she had just been bustin' a move.

This is Sydney's signature dance move. I call it the "doggy swap". She'll do this with both legs. It is hilarious. I love her age. She is our little entertainer.

I'm going Private!

I've decided that I should protect my precious family by going private. Please post a comment on my blog so I can invite you soon. I will make it official in the next couple of weeks.

Halloween!!

Those are some creepy lips Tanner boy

Sydney loves CANDY!!!

Counting the loot!!!

Kaitlyn is proud of her pile.

My beautiful little butterfly and my cool Clone Trooper

Neighborhood Fun

Water Red Rover

Dress-up fun with our great neighbors Brinley (pretty princess) and Bryson Hiskey (cute fireman), and Aiden (muscle spiderman) and Cameron Humble (precious princess). (Kaitlyn and Tanner are the Red and Blue Power Rangers).

Tanner is one bad Red Power Ranger.

Just a cute girl. Last summer she taught herself how to ride a bike. One day she just asked me to take her training wheels off, so I did. Next thing I know she's riding her bike around. She's a great biker just like her mom and dad.

Neighbor kids Myla, Bryson, Cameron and Tanner were doing this huddle thing where they put their hand on the kid at their rights head. Who knows why, but it was cute.

Cute little 5 year olds.

Pumpkin picking

Happy pumpkin picking with all 4 (count 'em), yes, all 4 of our children.

I almost lost my son in "quick straw".

My beautiful little cheetah girl.

Sydney is licking the pumpkin. I had no idea, but I guess that's the best way to pick a pumpkin. The funny thing is, Kaitlyn did the same thing when she was Sydney's age.

All Sydney wanted to do was to dig in the dirt.

The kids going for a 4 wheeler train ride. Tanner's fangs are awesome!!!

And her name is ... ADDISON CLAIRE

Yes, I finally did it. I changed my new baby's name to Addison Claire Young. I was just struggling too much with her former name ( I won't mention it because we're trying to get it out of our memories). We had just ordered our Christmas cards on Friday, so luckily I was able to call the photographer and have her name changed on Monday morning. She is such a fun and happy baby now. It's almost like she's totally different so she needed a happier name to go along with her happier self. So now we have sweet baby Addi.