Well another Christmas has come and gone in the blink of an eye. Every year it always seems that it goes by so fast in comparison to all the time you spend preparing for it. This year seemed especially fast for me. One of the things I always love about Christmas is getting together with my extended family. However, this year I feel like I hardly spoke to them. When you have a little one, it seems that you don't have the same opportunity to get into any deep conversations about how things are going. Mind you, I would not trade it for the world. The joy you get from watching your child interact with family, new toys, and new experiences overshadows anything else you might be missing. I also know that in a few years Sydney will not care where Mom & Dad are & will just want to be left alone to play with her cousins.
We spent Christmas Eve with the Taylor's and between Sydney & Max we heard the songs for the dancing snowmen countless times (not one snowman, but two)! It's a decoration that is great to have at Grandma & Grandpa's to entertain them rather than at home. This is Max's play with the snowman.
Christmas morning we were actually waiting for the kids to wake up instead of the other way around. I am sure that there won't be many more years that we can say that! Santa brought Sydney a little sled which I think was one of her favourite gifts. However, we will have to see how much she likes it when we put her in it to pull in the snow. She seemed to think it was more of a jungle gym to climb in and out of for the bulk of the morning.
After Santa presents, then came the opening of the other presents & with the stack we were thinking we might be there for hours. Amazingly we completed this task in just over an hour. It seems that Sydney's favourite gift from this stack was her cousin Max's cell phone. Which since this post has taken me 5 days to complete I can now advise that Grandma & Grandpa went out to get one for Sydney in the Boxing Day sales...spoiled or what?
Our trip to my family's Christmas was much better than our last trip where Sydney cried to whole way...the Nap God was present for the drive. Sydney kissed & made up with G.G. since the last time we tried to get a picture, Sydney cried. Our family always does a pot luck for lunch & this year the "young girls" (that's me & my cousins) were responsible for dessert. Well, I don't think my Aunt Lois will make that assignment again. We had NO PIES!!! There were a lot of great desserts, but they all had whip cream. I have decided that I can no longer put off my pastry making lesson with Brad's Mom. The next time I am assigned dessert, I want to be sure there is a pie! The day was filled with family, fun, and presents. Sydney enjoyed her day with her cousins & had minimal injuries (stepped on a tractor in her bare feet & has a little wee bruise).
Our final travel destination for Christmas was to my sisters. Since we were the first to arrive (because the chances of Craig ever beating us are slim) we got the official showing of Regan's gifts. Her parents actually chose to give her a toy electric guitar...can you imagine? That is one noise making toy that does not need to be handed down to Sydney. Regan asked Uncle Brad to play UNO with her, but he got ditched as soon as the twins showed up & Regan informed him that she had to go becuase "her friends are here!" Poor Uncle Brad.
Regan is crazy about horses. I've never seen anything like it. Her Mom & Dad got her this "pillow" to lie/sit on the floor, but Sydney seemed to like it too. Not only do all Regan's gifts have a horse theme, but the gifts she chooses for others do too. (However, Tyler seemed to be spared from this present theme.) The twins got My Little Pony & Sydney got a Little People horse stable. Which turned out to be a nice match to the farm she got from Grandma & Grandpa. Nana gave Sydney this Leap Frog toy "Tad" which I learned that you need to record stuff that is specialized to Sydney...still need to improve this feature.
It's fun to see how some of the old favourites from when we were kids are still around. The girls got Kerplunk (spelling?), but we learned that the game is not well suited to be played by 3 very excited 4 year olds.
Finally, this is the picture that some of you received in your Christmas card, but most of you did not. Brad liked one with her smiling better. I like this one because I think Sydney looks like she is singing & Logan is looking at her like..."are you ever going to be quiet?", which I think closely resembles Logan's thoughts towards her sister. So with this, I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas & have a safe & happy new year.
This week we had our nieces Brooke & Bailey spend a couple of days with us. It is the first time they have spent this much time with us & our first time having them overnight. I am happy to report that all went well & I returned them to my brother unscarred.
Bailey loves dogs & Logan was not too impressed with our little house guests, especially when she was required to pose for pictures. Sydney also enjoyed having her cousins stay, to an extent. We saw the beginnings of an unwillingness to share emerging. It seemed that Sydney wanted to play with her toy (any toy) only after it was being used by someone else. The worst part about this now is that she has a renewed interest in her gliding horse, but will only stay on for about 20 seconds at a time. Up, down, up, down.
During Sydney's afternoon nap, Brad took the girls to an indoor playground that we heard about. Since we heard that it wasn't really appropriate for Sydney's age, she missed out- the twins had a blast. They have a huge jungle gym with slides & battery operated motorcycles. I can hardly wait until Sydney is old enough to go. Hopefully it will still be around. Here are some pictures from their fun (Bailey is in pink & Brooke is in stripes).
During this trip, Brad got to learn some valuable parenting skills. The main one? Using the flip a coin method results in less tears & pouting than the turn-taking option.
