A MUST HAVE!

We have a new gadget...it's a baby sling and I don't know how in the world I survived the first 5 weeks of Sydney's life without it?  If you have a baby and don't have one of these go out TODAY and get one!  You won't be sorry!!! :)

We registered for a baby sling and believe it or not, it was one of the very few things we didn't get so I decided to order it in hopes that Sydney would love it and I would be able some things done at home.  It came in the mail a couple of days ago but I was scared to try it out by myself in fear that I would dump her on the floor, so it's just been sitting on the counter waiting for us. I decided today was the day.  I HAD to figure something out because it seems as though every time I start working on things around the house or we sit down to eat Sydney starts screaming.  How in the world does she know exactly when to start crying????? When Corey came home for lunch today I had him reading directions and helping me get it on properly.  And guess what...the second I put her in it she was fast asleep.  I kid you not, the VERY second!  Wow!  I definately wouldn't have left that lying on the counter for 3 days had I know it had magical powers like that.  So now my precious, clingy baby is right next to me while I take a second to update my blog.  Next, we're going to go work on laundry...hopefully that will go just as well. 

Havin' Church!

Sydney's Praise Baby DVD is as close to "having church" as she's gotten so far.  We fired up this DVD yesterday morning and had Sunday service in the living room.  As you can see, she's loving it (plus Corey and I were acting totally silly and trying to make her laugh.)

Next week I think we're going to try the real thing and introduce her to Sulphur Spring!

Too Cute!

On Saturday morning my dear friend Mary Thomas came to our house and spent the morning with us.  She knew my mom and sister were out of town and that we were having company that night and said she wanted to come visit and help me do anything that needed to be done which I thought was the sweetest thing in the world!  When she got here she asked for her "to do" list and I just handed Sydney to her and said, "here she is."  Entertaining her for a few hours was bigger help than folding clothes or mopping floors in my book.  I was able to take a nice, long shower AND shave my legs (which rarely happens these days), fold and put up laundry, pick up the house, finish up some cooking, and finish my last blog post!  Wow!  Talk about a sense of accomplishment!  Before she left around lunch, her parents brought her precious son, Connor, to see Sydney for the first time.  As you can see, Connor was totally in awe over Sydney and loved holding and grinning at her!  His Nan says we can use this picture several years from now in their wedding video. ha!

1 MONTH

Since this is Sydney's scrapbook I am going to try to do a big "monthly" post so that she can look back some day and see what went on in her life from month to month.  This may bore some of you but I think she'll enjoy it when she's bigger. :)

Oh, precious Sydney....Happy 1 month Birthday baby (5/21/10)!  There are moments when your Daddy and I can't believe you're already a month old and other times when it feels like you've been a part of our lives for many months.  You are without a doubt the most special and precious little person in our lives and we somehow love you more and more every time we look at you.  You bring us absolute joy every single day and we are so lucky to get to experience that with you for the rest of our lives. 

There are so many things that have gone on and changed with you during your first month that I know I'll never be able to remember them all but I'm sure gonna try.  :)  Here it goes...

From day one you have been a happy, sweet, and pretty laid back little girl.  Of course that does not include the times when you scream in the middle of the night or decide that you hate having your diaper changed. :) 

You constantly demand our attention and love being held by anyone...Grandad claims to be your favorite shoulder to fall asleep on...but really you'll take just about anyone's as long as we pat your bottom and hold you close. 

You eat like a little piggy (very fast and never want to stop) which makes you spit up every single time you eat.  This worried us at first but Dr. Fraser assured us you were fine and not to worry so much.  So now we just keep cloth diapers within arms reach 24/7 because we know we're gonna need them.  Lots of times after you eat you get those darn old hiccups but they sure don't seem to bother you.  I think they hurt us more than they do you. 

Since you're eating so much you're growing just like you should but you're still wearing newborn clothes and diapers, which surprises me.  I was sure you would have outgrown them much earlier than now.  Everyone who sees you says you have grown since the last time they've seen you.  I will admit, I have put a few 0-3 month onesies and sleepers on you just so you could wear something new!  They're still a little big but it sure won't be long. 

You are so very alert and wide eyed when you're awake which impresses everyone.  You are so strong and have been holding your head up off of our shoulder since you were two weeks old.  You'll follow us around the room with your big pretty eyes and grin every now and then when you see us do something funny. 

For your first 3 weeks you slept very good at night in your swaddle blankets.  There were only a couple of nights that you've given us fits.  For your first 3 weeks you went to sleep almost immediately after we fed you before bed, but this past week your Daddy has had to rock you until you fall asleep because you fuss when he puts you down.  The only problem with this is he falls asleep too in the glider and usually doesn't wake up until 4 hours have passed and it's time to eat again.  Last night we got you back on track and you went to sleep right after we fed you...Daddy was sad that he missed his "rocking time" though. 

You've been busy in the last month even though we haven't really taken you in anywhere yet.  You've been on lots of rides while someone sits in the car with you.  You've been to the Mall and Target while Great Grandmama Burr sat in the car with you, you've run errands in town with Mama, Grandma and Great Grandmama Burr, you've been to Bowling Green to have your newborn pictures taken, and you've taken a Sunday afternoon drive with Mama and Daddy.  We've been to Grandma and Grandad's to stroll around their neighborhood and eat supper a couple of times.  They kept you one night while Mama and Daddy went out to eat and they kept you while Mama played Bunco one night while Daddy was still at work.  You've also been to Papoo's while Mama and Daddy went to Bowling Green shopping and running errands.  We celebrated Mothers Day at our house and Aunt Nat Nat's birthday at Grandma and Grandad's with a party and the next night at our house.  Needless to say, it hasn't been boring for you in the last month.  We've kept your pretty busy and you've handled it wonderfully. 


Last night we celebrated your 1 month birthday with a trip to Olive Garden in Rivergate which was your first trip out to eat with Mama and Daddy.  Funny thing was, you didn't even know you were there...you slept the whole time.


We love you so much and can't wait to see what kind of fun we can have in the next month with you!


Love, Daddy and Mama 

I love it!

I absolutely love cards.  I love buying them and sending them to people whether there's an occasion or not!  I could spend hours in the card aisles thinking of people to send great cards to. 

Yesterday, I received a card in the mail from my Aunt Nadean and I just HAD to share it!  It's great!  I couldn't have said it better myself...especially since this TOTALLY happened to me last week.  I literally about had a breakdown when I dropped the pump AND milk on the floor as I was trying to get out of the chair.  It was not pretty and poor Corey was a witness to the whole ordeal!  No one should have to witness that kind of dramatic scene.  ha! :)

Trying out the crib

Of course I had to capture Sydney's "first time sleeping in a crib."  She tried it out at Grandma's yesterday and snoozed pretty good in it.  This crib was actually the one that Natalie and I slept in when we were born.  Mom had Dad drag it out of the attic and clean it up and it works perfect for Sydney to sleep in at Grandma and Grandad's.  Notice in the picture Grandma patting her bottom.  She loves that!  So any time she makes a peep we start patting and she drifts off again.  We haven't put her in her crib yet at home.  She's been sleeping in the pack n play in our room at night and she'll take naps in her bouncy seat or cradle in the livng room. So, it looks like pretty soon we can add one more sleeping option to the list.  I think we'll wait until she starts sleeping through the night before we put her in her room so I don't have to feel my way, half asleep, to the other side of the house where her room is in the middle of the night to feed her.  Many of you know my luck with running into couches and such! :)

Happy B-day Aunt Nat Nat

Sunday night we celebrated Aunt Nat Nat's birthday at our house.  She celebrated Friday night in Louisville and Saturday night with a party so we had a very low key family celebration with pizza and ice cream cake on Sunday night at our house rather than dragging Sydney out in the rain.  It was so low key that look who slept through the whole thing....imagine that...

Hope you had a fun birthday weekend Aunt Nat Nat...we love you!!!

Fun Weekend!

We had a fun weekend and have lots of pictures to share! Sydney is just a little trooper and hangs in there no matter what's going on.

 

On Friday, we took Sydney on a shopping spree to get her Mama some new and much needed clothes. We were accompanied by Aunt Nat Nat, Great Grandmama Burr, and Grandma. Grandmama sat in the car with her all afternoon while we rushed from store to store trying to find something that would fit my new body size - which I am still trying to get used to! :) She did wonderful and slept the whole time for Great Grandmama.

 

When we got back home, Sydney and I hung out at Grandma and Grandad's to visit, play, and wait on Daddy to come eat supper with us. While we were there Sydney's cousins, Eliza and Macey Cook, came to visit and hold her for the first time. Eliza was very good with Sydney and held her like she totally knew what she was doing. Macey on the other hand was much more interested in finding out where Aunt Dianne's candy stash was. She also watched as Mom changed Sydney's diaper and her comment to that was, "oooh, nasty!" Too funny!

On Saturday we hung around the house all day since Daddy was working. Grandma and Great Grandmama Burr came over to bring us some pretty flowers that afternoon while Sydney was taking a nap but just the though of it excited her and she didn't even have to open her eyes! Actually, we catch her sleeping like this lots of the time.

Finally she woke up because she heard her Cousin Katelyn was coming to take pictures with her before she went to the prom. We were so glad that we got to see her before her big night and she looked absolutely fabulous! We hope Sydney grows up to be just a sweet and beautiful as her older cousin.

Sydney is still all grins after her prom photo shoot.

Sunday was an absolutely wonderful day for several reasons. First of all, it was my first Mothers Day, which was very special, and I got to spend the entire day with my precious baby girl. What made it even better was that not only did I get to spend the whole day with her, but her Daddy was home with us all day too! As Summer time approaches this is sometimes rare, so my favorite days are the days when we get to be together. I got 2 very sweet Mothers Day cards (one from Corey and one from Sydney and Daddy) AND Corey got me a GORGEOUS diamond necklace! WOW!!! I was one happy mama after that! After I opened my cards and gift we got ready and spent the rest of the afternoon running errands and taking a drive together. That night, my family came over and we celebrated Mothers Day and Jamie's Birthday together which was the perfect ending to a very special day. It was such a sweet day and I didn't want it to end!

I hope all of you had a wonderful Mothers Day!

2 week checkup

We got wonderful news today. Dr. Fraser officially says we have a happy and healthy baby. Those are probably the sweetest words ever to a new mother's ears! She was a jewel in the doctor's office and I was so thankful! I sometimes have this image of a screaming child fighting us and the doctor during the whole visit and it kind of makes me shudder. Granted, we're not out of the woods yet by any means. I'm pretty sure she gets shots during the next visit (2 months). AAHHH!

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  She was 21 inches long compared to 19 inches when she was born. They don't really think she's grown that much. They're thinking she wasn't completely stretched out when they measured after birth??
  
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  She weighed 8 lbs. 8.5 oz. which is up a little from her birth weight of 8 lbs. 2.6 oz. They actually are happy as long as they are back up to their birth weight so we exceeded their expectations by a little bit! That at least lets me know she's getting plenty to eat! :)
  
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  Her head was 36.5 cm. I'm actually not sure what that was when she was born.
  Overall they say she is a little above average in all of these categories and that seemed to please the doctor!
  

I took pictures before we left to show off her cute little black/white/pink outfit that Aunt Nat Nat and Uncle Jamie gave her. We've been saving it for a special occasion when we actually got out of the house and for those of you who know me I'm a huge black/white clothing fan so I was loving this!!! Maybe she'll take after her mama and love it too! :)

My Two Sleeping Beauties!

The title of my post says it all......

Two of the most precious people in my life!!!

just strollin'

I'm trying to capture everything I possibly can with a picture and then blog about it because I've come to the realization that this is probably going to be the closest thing to a scrapbook that this child ever has AND the great thing about my realization is that there's a website that Kacie shared with me that can totally make it happen. It'scalld blog2print.com and I'm loving it!! It will print out your blog in the form of a soft or hardback book and wha-la...an instant scrapbook!

So back to the whole reason for my post...our first stroll. Now granted we didn't go far but Sydney didn't know the difference at all. She just thought we were making progress. We went up and down our driveway several times, ventured across the street to the neighbors a couple of times, and made a pit stop at the mail box. Nevertheless we sure did enjoy getting out of the house for a few minutes and soaking up a few rays of sunshine!

Notice the difference of her face...first we're inside...then we're outside! I'm sure she's thinking MAN, where are my shades????

We made it...

...through Monday with help for only 2 hours! :-)

That may sound silly. I know some moms come straight home and start taking care of the new baby without any help from the beginning and I commend those Moms. In my case, however, I was a little nervous about starting out the morning with no help. When Corey kissed us bye this morning in bed I teared up a little bit. I knew he was leaving, Mom (Grandma) wasn't there waiting for us to wake up, and I wasn't quite sure what the morning would hold. But guess what, it's 6:00 pm and we're OK!!!

Aunt Nat Nat did some for a couple of hours this afternoon so that I could take a shower and do a few things (and because she doesn't want to break her record of seeing Sydney every single day since she was born) and that helped A BUNCH, as usual. And of course Corey came home at lunch for an hour so we had someone to talk to but I'm thinking we're making some major progress for the most part. Pretty soon maybe I'll be able to take my shower while she naps without jumping out every few seconds to check on her.

We had some visitors this afternoon too. Corey Givens, "my" Corey's best friend stopped by to meet her, Granny K stopped by with a few goodies, and then Leslie and Zoe Graves stopped by to bring us a YUMMY LOOKING supper. I can't wait to dig in to Veggie Lasagna and salad!!! I just had to share the card Zoe brough to Sydney. It is the sweetest thing I've ever seen! Zoe is just so precious and sweet and she just giggled at Sydney the whole time she was here!

(Since you can't read the card, here's what it says: Welcome Sydney. We are glad to have you on earth. When you grow older you will be smart you will read books and do math. You are going to play and run and talk you are going to go far. Love Zoe)

After a busy day of being such a sweet girl Miss Sydney is pretty pooped. She's hanging out on her boppy lounger listening to one of her Baby Einstein c.d.'s that's been playing over and over all day. I thought it was WAY too quiet in our house earlier so I had to find some tunes for her...and like most things, she LOVES listening. I know this because she'll whine just a bit when the c.d. finishes which is my cue to restart her music.

On a different note I just wanted to take a minute and ask you all to think about those who lost (or had major damage to) their homes and possessions yesterday in all of the rain and flooding. My heart goes out to those people who are waiting for the water to go down today. We had a window to leak and all I could think about at the time was whether or not my curtains and carpet were getting wet. Then I turned on the news and had a major REALITY CHECK!! I realized that my curtains getting wet (which they didn't) was so minor and petty compared to what so many people were dealing with yesterday. And since I mentioned it, I just HAD to show you what Corey rigged up to catch the water. Leave it to him to figure out the perfect solution...all you need is a little duct tape, tupperware containers, and old bath mats! He's just so good!!!!