First Christmas

The bright side of Brian's mom, dad, grandma and extended family living down South is that we get to spend a lot of time with each of our families during the holidays instead of having to go from place to place trying to see everyone on the same day.

We came home from San Antonio middle of the afternoon on Christmas Eve and we were so tired. Sydney decided to regress to waking up between 3 and 4 in the morning over the weekend and she's still doing it. Hopefully since we're home and she's going to daycare some this week she'll get back on her schedule.

Anyway, we woke up Christmas morning at our house and opened presents. We really didn't get that much for Sydney and Santa brought her a few things. I figure she's 3 1/2 months old, has a lot of new things already and there's not really many toys she can play with yet we'll just wait until her 1st birthday and next Christmas to do a lot more.

We went to my parents house for lunch and to exchange gifts then went to my grandma's middle of the afternoon. I've spent the better part of the day today trying to organize our house and put away, display, wash, etc our new gifts. Everyone was so generous, especially for Sydney. I think I'm going to have to ask Santa for a new house next year with bigger closets to hold all her clothes! Like mother like daughter! Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas in San Antonio

We spent the weekend in San Antonio to have Christmas with Brian's family. We trade off Thanksgiving and Christmas with our families and fortunately can always make it down to San Antonio before or after Christmas since I always get several days off work for the holidays. We had a lot of fun even though it was a short trip. We celebrated Christmas on Saturday at La Fonda, of course! Brian dressed up as Santa so we could get a picture of Sydney with Santa Claus. I didn't take her anywhere to have it done since it's always so busy and if we'd have to wait a long time she'd either be asleep, mad, sad, etc. I'll have to plan early next year so we can avoid the long lines for Santa. I'm also planning for our San Antonio trip next year and told Brian that we'll have to start going down to the Riverwalk during Christmas since it's decorated so pretty and I know Sydney will like it a lot.

Christmas Party

Today was Sydney's Christmas Party at school. We drew names for a 'secret santa' so all the babies could exchange gifts. The party was during lunch so Brian and I were able to go and most of the other kids' parents came too. She likes her reindeer bib that she wore because the antlers come up close to her face, so they're easy to suck on. The last picture here is her with her teacher, Ms Max.

We're leaving tomorrow for San Antonio to have Christmas with Brian's family then we'll be back on Christmas Eve. I hope this roadtrip goes as smoothly as the Thanksgiving one did.

Getting Ready for Christmas

We've been very busy the past several days getting ready for Christmas. Sydney was sick again last week with a mild fever and the Dr was pretty sure she had RSV, although it was very mild. So far this week she's been doing good, I'm hoping we can make it through this week (her 4th in daycare) without missing a day. We put up our tree a couple of weeks ago, but haven't really put up much more as far as decorations. I usually love to have everything up the weekend after Thanksgiving, but it's been so hectic with going back to work and having Sydney and everything I just haven't had the energy to do it all this year.

Sydney loves the tree, she likes to stare at the lights. Cara, Jordan and Jared came over last weekend and we went to look at lights. There's a house close to us that puts up I think over 100,000 lights, the whole house, yard, trees, bushes, etc are all covered in lights it's like on Christmas Vacation to the nth degree. It was really cool to see and the house across the street from this house had a live band in the yard signing Christmas songs. Sydney was so wide-eyed she didn't know where to look!

Little Giggle Box

Sydney laughed for the first time tonight. I was changing her into her pajamas and she was smiling and in such a good mood and she just started giggling. Brian heard her from the other room he got the camera and she did it again, which I'm surprised she didn't stop as she usually does when we get the camera out.

Graduation Day

It's been a crazy week for us it was my first week back at work and Sydney's been sick all week with a stuffy nose and cough. I told Brian I would be better about leaving at a decent hour but by Wed I was back to getting home at 6:30 and Thurs it was 6:45...oops.

Thurs morning I could tell she felt bad but she didn't have fever and slept well (9 hrs) the night before I really didn't want to take her to daycare but I had an all day client meeting I had to go to and Brian had a dr appt that a.m., what are the odds we both had things to do that we couldn't get out of? I felt really guilty for taking her to daycare and that I couldn't stay home with her but Brian picked her up after his dr appt so she was only there about three hours. Anyway later that afternoon she had fever and I also had caught her cold by this point and this was the night of Brian's Christmas party at work. I told Brian that I wouldn't go to the party and would stay home with her. I got home from work about 6:45 and I looked at Sydney and she just looked so sad when she caught my eye she gave just a little tiny smile as if to say, "I'm happy to see you mommy but I just feel too bad to smile." She was so sad and whined and cried most of the night, I did the hot shower trick and gave her Tylenol, by the time I put her down to sleep around 11 her fever was gone. She was in a much better mood Fri morning and didn't have fever, but the dr still wanted to see her. She just had a cold nothing major and she's doing a lot better now.

Anyway for the big news this weekend Cory graduated on Sat from UTD with a B.A. in Chemistry. Jason keeps calling him "B" since he got a B in biochemistry...I probably could never even get accepted to a biochem class much less get a B in it! She was 'dancing' with Cory in this picture and having so much fun! Congrats again Cory!

3 Months Old

Sydney is three months old today. I don't know where the time has gone, and I'm sure I'll say that every month form here on out so I apologize in advance for being redundant. I started back to work this week and it hasn't been too bad, I think starting daycare last week helped the transition for all of us. She's doing really well with daycare of course she's so young she doesn't know any better. She has been coughing and has had a stuffy nose for the past several days and of course Brian's paranoid and has been researching and it's making him more paranoid. He talked to the nurse today and she gave him a few tips like use the humidifier, give her drops in her nose, have her sleep sitting up...we'll see how these help. Otherwise she's been fine, she's in a good mood and smiling and playing a lot, sleeping well (9 hours the past two nights) and eating well so I'm not too terribly concerned.

We put her in her exersaucer for the first time the other night, which we had given the exersaucer to the Lieck's and they so graciously gave it back to us, we have to stuff a blanket around her since she's really too small for it and her feet don't touch but she sure had fun in it...watch the video.