Sydney starts Pre-K! Fun with Nail Polish...

This past week was really fun and a bit busy planning and preparing for Sydney to start Pre-K!

Sunday, we got to have Brendon and Ross hang out with us after church, the kids loved that! I got a blackmail photo of Ross though because he put on Sydney's barbie gear and rode on her pink and purple bike!

That night, I painted Sydney's toe nails and finger nails. Jonas wanted his painted too! In the past, I've gotten away with using the clear nail polish on his nails. I tried to paint them with the clear polish and he blocked my hand and started crying, "No! Like Sydney!" so I got out the blue polish and only painted his toe nails. Then made sure I put socks and shoes on him all week!! One day this week when he had his shoes off he said, "Mom, look at my pretty toes!" lol He has no idea!

Sydney was so excited for her school to start!
She started counting down the days. Tuesday she had to go in and get tested by her teacher and we bought her some school uniforms. She seems to like the uniforms ok, especially the shirts and dresses! The day before Pre-K, we worked on her "All About Me Block". We taped pictures of our family and her cousins on the box, as well as cut out some pictures of princesses from her magazine. I printed off pictures of an elephant, giraffe, penguin and peanut butter sandwiches- her favorites! She was so excited to show it to her teacher. We all went into the school with her. She knew right where her classroom was. She came back out of her classroom, gave me a hug goodbye and went back in! Jonas wasn't as upset to leave Sydney there as I thought he would be. Here's my big girl on her first day of Pre-K!

While Sydney was at school, I took Jonas to the duck pond and packed a lunch. He had so much fun just walking along the shore, looking for the ducks. He also had fun throwing sticks into the water.

Then we came home, he napped and I exercised, and showered. And then it was time to get ready to get Sydney!

At the end of the day, I went to pick her up. I could tell she was tired! It took a while for her to talk to me about what happened during the day. I asked her if she missed us. She gave me this little smile and said nothing, which said, "I know you want me to say I did but...". Finally I got from her that a classmate had a birthday so they had cupcakes for snack time! Then, I almost NEVER let her have chocolate milk but the drink with her lunch was chocolate milk! So yeah, they won her over there! She also said they read a book about the gingerbread man and then did a search all over the school for him. I thought that was such a cute idea because what they did was take the kids on a tour of the school, visiting the library and the office, and other places. She did say there was 1 thing she didn't like about school and that was quiet time/nap time. This kid will snooze on the way to pick up Brian from work but not for quiet time! So she didn't like that. But, hopefully she'll get used to it! She is so excited to go back tomorrow and I am glad she did so well and had no problems!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Poor Sydney, ever since we put up our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, she has been asking if it's Christmas yet about 3 times a day. Wrapping the presents and putting them under the tree recently didn't help either. I have an advent calendar on the wall and try to use that to explain to her how many days away it is but she still asks and now she thinks if she can move the 25th on the advent calendar that somehow it will make Christmas come sooner.

Personal request: I recently maxed out my photo storage with my blog. I did some research and when you upload photos smaller than a certain size it doesn't count towards your free storage space but if you get over that (and all my photos taken with my camera are bigger than this size) then it starts adding up and you have to pay- $25/yr or $2.50/month! Sorry, I don't want to pay to have to share things with you so I am having to go in and resize all my photos before posting. This adds another step to an already long process since I take hundreds of pictures and then have to choose which ones to post and then edit/re-size them. Please be patient if I go a while without posting. Thanks!

Dec 1st- Bass Pro Shop with Santa
Free pictures with Santa were going on as well as some fun and games for the kids. Sydney and Jonas both liked this animatronic reindeer!

 There was also a cool train set the kids could play with!

And here's a shot of Sydney with Santa. 

Jonas was having too much fun with the games that when we pulled him away to be with Santa, he was mad. I'm not forcing an upset kid to sit on this poor guy's lap.

December 3rd
Sydney has seen how we have been trying to reward Jonas for going on the potty by telling him about stickers and toys and has been reporting to us when she goes. We had to explain to her that it had to be something she is learning to do, not already known. So we decided she needed to work on counting to 20. She would get jumbled up in the teens. We discovered the main culprit was the 13. So we worked a lot with her on 11-12-13-14. And she finally did it! And here is her prize! A Cinderella doll from Grandma Tuck!

And here is a video of her counting! Even though she asks me "What comes next?" I didn't tell or gesture the 13 to her, it just took her a few seconds and she remembered.

Dec 6
Yay for gingerbread cookies! I finally tried this recipe last year and despite the molasses smelling disgusting, I love these cookies! It's so funny, this has to be one of the few cookie recipes where the dough is nasty. I forgot about this and handed Sydney a beater to lick and she made a sour face and ran to the bathroom, washing out her mouth from the small lick she got of it.  We also had our friends the Terrys come over to enjoy the cookies and decorate with us.

Sydney just wanted a little bit of decorations and then to eat those cookies!

Our friend Declan :)

Jonas was having a pretty good time decorating as well.

We also went outside and raked up some of the HUGE leaves I have in my backyard from my neighbors' trees. It's ok, they provide shade in the summer so it seems fair to have to clean up their foliage. But the kids had a blast burying each other in the leaves and having leaf fights and it was beautiful weather and lots of fun!

Dec 7
Just some fingerpainting. I thought it was cute though that Jonas came up to me to show me his painting.

Sydney can draw great little people figures but for painting she likes to stay in the abstract.

Our Church's Stake put on a lovely Christmas Nativity Celebration. Sydney sang with our Ward's Primary. We'd been practicing the songs and she was doing pretty well just not too loud.

Here's a small clip of the choir singing "Christmas Bells are Ringing". Love how Sydney got really into it. and the bell got into her mouth!

And just be chance! Scarlett and Sydney's dresses were the same! Not the exact same but close enough! So cute! reminds me of when they would dress my cousin Peggy and I and my sister Kymry alike as kids.

Genius! They had play nativity scenes kids could play with there.

Some of my favorite nativity sets:

This is the special bunny nativity my grandmother made! She sewed these herself!

It was a beautiful celebration and a great event to go to as a remembrance of the the reason behind this festive season!

Halloween 2012

I'm a little late in posting things from October but here are some pictures of Halloween night! We went over to Drea's neighborhood and we hadn't planned it but our kids' costumes really went well together! Liam was a knight, Sydney a princess, Scarlett a witch and Jonas a dragon! Worked well! Then Uncle Ian was an executioner. Now, Tessa, Brian and I were nerds and Tessa asked how we went along. I said that we were nerds playing Dungeons and Dragons and the kids were our role-playing characters. I think that works!!

Some hilarious pumpkins we saw

Even Drea's dog Eva was all dressed up for Halloween! But poor puppy, no one was handing out doggy treats.

The stash! Jonas' bucket was filled to capacity more than once and we would dump some in Sydney's bag to make more room! When Sydney and Liam complained of having to carry their heavy trick or treat bags, we knew it was time to go home!

Jonas was pretty slow moving. I think he and Scarlett found the decorations more interesting than the idea of candy. We got him to say at least "Candy please" wherever we went. 

A very fun Halloween! I know the kids had a blast!

Ward Fall Festival

Sydney and Jonas' first chance to wear their costumes was for our ward's Fall Festival. They had a blast! I was really surprised that Jonas would keep his costume on, even the head part! As I would get him dressed in it, he would say "head, head". So he definitely liked that part of it! He also LOVED getting candy!

Sydney especially loved the cake walk!


Here are the kids decorating their pumpkins before the fall festival. We had them sit outside our door as we handed out candy.

Here is Sydney with her friend Peyton!

Jonas waving hi to everyone.

Sydney having some fun fishing!

And there I am as a nerd!

And here is Sydney doing a mash-up of some costumes! She got this wedding playing dress from her Aunt Drea on her birthday and then she decided to be a super bride!

Here are some more shots of Sydney and Jonas, this time before they went to a Carnival at their cousin Liam's school.

And here's a video of them saying Trick-or-treat. It was easier for Jonas to say "Candy, please".