Christmas morning

Sydney and Kaden had a great Christmas. This video is from Christmas morning when Sydney first went into see the tree and presents. The first one she opened is a Go Diego Go rescue pack from her uncle Chris. She absolutely loves it.

Kaden Dalton Hodges

Kaden Dalton Hodges was born at 3:03 on December 8th. He weighed 7lbs 9oz. This is a video of his first bath.

Where is the baby?

We have been telling Sydney there is another baby due to arrive soon. She seems excited. She already likes to give the new baby kisses.

These Boots Are Made For Walking?

Sydney's Auntie Carol, Laura's good friend, gave her some pink boots for her birthday. They're still a little big for her, but she's learning to walk in them. I think the soles are a little slick and the heels throw her off balance too. Is it wrong that we were cracking up laughing?!?

Halloween

For Halloween Sydney was a ladybug. She had such a long day and had so much fun. Brian brought her up to my office then we stayed at home for trick-or-treating. She just had fun running around in the front yard and carrying her pumpkin. She was so tired that night she slept for about 12 hours. She was so distracted by everything she even kept her bow in!

Sydney plays basketball

Sydney has been practicing her basketball skills with Mom. She's only one year old and she can already dunk.

Sydney's Back

Sorry for the big delay. I promise it won't happen again. Here are a bunch of pictures to get you up to speed on what Sydney looks like now.

Swimming Lessons

Sydney started swimming lessons on July 19th and she had so much fun. She loved splashing in the water and she smiled and laughed pretty much the whole time. And the best part...she took a 3 hour nap after!!! She hasn't napped like that in months. Thanks for the early birthday present Sally. :)

Sydney at Kamp

We spent the 4th of July at Kickapoo Kamp. Sydney had a great time playing with Callie (grandma Laura's golden retriever), and swimming in Turtle creek.

Sydney walks (with some help)

Sydney loves to push her toy car. It only works on the carpet in the bedroom. When she tries it on the wood floors it just slides 0ut from under her. She has taken a couple of steps on her own, but she falls after one or two. Angie says that counts as walking. I think until she can take a couple of steps and not end up on her rear end, she is still just a crawler.

Sydney Stands

Sydney loves to stand up now. She pulls up onto everything. She's bumped her head a few times at daycare but she doesn't seem to mind.

Splash Park

Last weekend we took Sydney to the splash park with the Liecks. She wasn't real sure at first. Once she got used to the water spraying in her face she had fun.

Playing on the floor

This is just a video of Sydney playing on the floor in her room.

Stuffed Animals

Sydney likes to play with all of her stuffed animals at the same time.

Afraid of Abe

Sydney has been around Abe since the day she was born. She has now decided that she is scared to death of him. We have no idea why.

Gordo's

The picture above from left to right is me (Brian), my brother's Chris and Greg, and our cousin Trey. We are wearing shirts from our grandfather's restaurant, Gordo's. My grandfather, Gordon, was extremely influential in helping me become the person I am today. I was so excited to learn that my grandmother Bimmie saved a baby sized t-shirt from Gordo's. Gordo passed away the month after we found out Angie was pregnant with Sydney. Sydney wearing that shirt is a small connection between two people who just barely missed each other.

The Little Things In Life

How great it must be to be so young, sweet and innocent and to truly enjoy the little things in life because you don't know any better and you have no expectations.
We went to Chick-fil-a yesterday and Sydney got a balloon. She had so much fun with it and just watched it and chewed on the ribbon. Brian tied it to the side of her bed and put the fan on so it would blow, of course she was supposed to be taking a nap but this balloon was a distraction.

This video is from Easter and Sydney's first trip to Kamp and first time to sit in the grass, she was very curious about it.

Oh Daddy...

This is what happens when I don't dress Sydney or don't put clothes out for her for Brian to dress her. Here's his rationale her shirt is green so the socks match and there are blue flowers on her shirt (which there aren't) and so blue shorts (which they're really aqua) go with it.

Happy (Late) Easter

I'm getting really bad at keeping up with my blog, but the last thing I want to do after working 9-10 hours a day is get on the computer at night...sorry!

Anyway...for Easter we went down to San Antonio to be with Brian's family and we had a really good time. Sydney tried ice cream for the first time, thanks to her great-grandma Bim (she really would rather have Bim's jewelry), and had her first trip to camp. She liked sitting in the grass and feeling it on her feet and in her hands. Next year she'll be able to eat our traditional Easter meal of lemon butter chicken & lima beans.

Bim got her a new exersaucer she was so excited she didn't know what to chew on first.

We got home middle of the afternoon on Sunday and went to my parents house for a little while so my family could see Sydney on her first Easter.

Brrr...It's Cold Outside!

The weather's so crazy this week, sleeting and 29 one day and 12 hours later 68 degrees and 24 hours later back to 30 and more sleet and ice. I'm looking on the brightside though, Sydney can finally fit into her coat, so she'll get total of 2 hours of use out of it. Oh well!

Yesterday she turned 6 months old we have her 6 month check-up next Friday, and she has a new little buddy. Michele and Brian had their baby on March 4th, Benton, mom and baby are doing well.

She finally really loves her bath, and she loves to be splashed in the face with water.

Laura came into town last weekend so Sydney had a lot of good Grandma time and she got a lot of new clothes courtesy of Grandma Laura and Autie Carol. We at a lot Mexican food twice, of course, and continued with Brian's birthday celebration. We're continuing to work on sitting up, she'll do it for a few seconds then she falls over but she's getting better at it.

Finally...Two Weeks Later

I didn't realize it had been two weeks since I last posted, it really only feels like it's been a few days, so here's what we've been up to the past couple of weeks...

She's been doing great at daycare, and is sleeping great she slept about twelve hours last night, yea!! We, and by we I mean me, are working with her on trying to sit up which she doesn't quite get yet she just topples over. She's doing great at picking things up and putting them in her mouth though! She still likes the cereal a lot and in just a couple of week's we'll be starting on fruits.

Sydney and I went to Jared's play the other night at his school, he was Old MacDonald in their play. It was really cute, of course Sydney got really fussy just as they were about to start but she liked it when they would sign and dance.

Brian's b-day was this past Mon on President's Day. We went out to dinner with several friends the weekend before last to celebrate and were planning on going out with the family to dinner this past Sun but he and I were both sick so we'll hopefully be able to celebrate this weekend.

Sydney had a Valentine's party at school all the kids exchanged cards and one of her teachers gave her a Valentine's headband. Here she is in an excersaucer at school all decked out in her Valentine gear.

Poor, Sick Baby

Sydney has the croup now, I didn't know that was a real 'disease' I thought it was more of a non-descript term when you had something but didn't know what it was called. This all started around 1:00 a.m. this past Mon when she woke up crying and was so fussy, she was up about 45 min to an hour and with the help of our friend, Children's Tylenol, she went back to sleep. She felt fine, but was still coughing Mon & Tues, and yesterday daycare called because she had a fever so Brian picked her up and took her to the Dr. She's feeling somewhat better now, she's still coughing and still has a fever but yesterday the Dr said she's at the tail end of it and should be better by Fri or Sat.

I know she's been sick a lot (good old daycare!) but luckily it hasn't been anything major, I just keep telling myself that it's good for her in a way because she's building her immune system.

5 Months Old

Clearly I've been really bad about keeping up my blog lately. Things have been pretty crazy since Brian's started a new job and he's working later now so I have my hands very full!

Anyway, Syd's 5 months old now and growing more and more and doing new things all the time.

She's doing great with her cereal and we'll be able to start on fruits and vegetables next month after her 6 mo check-up.

She realy likes sucking on her teething ring (even though she's not teething) or really anything she can get in her mouth for that matter.

She has recently discovered her feet, she'll hold one with her hand and just stare at it.

She likes being upside down...

Yum...Cereal

We ventured into trying cereal this weekend. Sydney's Dr said we should try when she's five months old, but sometimes she'll eat 7-8 ozs of formula and be starving again two hours later so I don't think the formula alone is satisfying her hunger anymore. I went ahead tried some Sat morning but she wasn't that interested, I think partially because it had been at least ten hours since she had eaten so we just gave her a bottle. So I tried again last night and the first few spoons full she wasn't so sure about it, but after a few she finally got the hang of the spoon and just sucked on it so she'd suck the cereal down.

Happy Birthday Mom!!

Mon, 1/14, was my mom's 60th birthday and we had a party for her Sun at Cara's house. It was a surprise party although she wasn't too surprised especially since her and dad arrived as other guests were arriving too, oh well, we still had fun.

Laura was also in town over the weekend for camp parties so Sydney got a lot of Grandma time this weekend! Not to mention a lot of Mexican food too!

Keep Rollin, Rollin, Rollin...

Don't you love my catchy headlines? Sydney rolled over for the first time on Mon night and she did it several times so I caught it on camera. She gets mad once she gets over because she doesn't really like being on her tummy too much. Hopefully this will inspire her to roll the other way now.
She had her 4 month check-up yesterday and she had 5 immunizations, one was oral and the other four were shots. She did not have a very good evening and I'm afraid we may have scared Uncle Chris into never wanting children! :) Brian and I had signed up for a baby sign language last night, but Brian had to end up going by himself (well, he really went with the Gordo's) because I had clients come in town which I didn't know about until Mon so I had to take them out to dinner. So we had Chris babysit and Sydney was very fussy and had a couple of bad dirty diapers, hopefully he's not too scarred for life! She was still pretty tired this morning and a little fussy and her teacher at daycare said her legs were sore, she seemed a little on the fussy side tonight too. Hopefully she'll be back to normal tomorrow.
At her appointment she weighed 14 lbs 1 oz, 60th percentile, was 25 1/2" long, 90th percentile, and her head was 42cm, 40th percentile. I checked my records from when I was a baby and at 4 months I was 13 lbs 9 ozs and 26 1/2", I must have been the longest 4 month old ever!
We get to start her on cereal when she's 5 months old so we're looking forward to that, then at her 6 month check-up we should get the go ahead to start on fruits & vegetables.

4 Months Old

Yesterday Sydney was 4 months old she's feeling so much better thank goodness. I took her to Kiddie Kandids at the Babies R Us in Plano and they did such a great job. Some of the pics are above, and don't worry I have tons of copies so everyone will get one or maybe more! The dress she's wearing in the first picture above was bought by her great-grandmother Bim in Italy about 36 years ago. She bought it when Brian's mom was pregnant with him. The dress has not been worn since obviously Brian was a boy and had two brothers...Bim's been holding on to it waiting for a girl! I'll take good care of it until the next baby girl Hodges comes along.

The weather was so beautiful yesterday we went to the park with the Lieck's. It was nice to get out of the house, I think Sydney enjoyed being outside and watching all of the other kids play.

We take Sydney to the Dr on Tues for her 4 month check-up and a few shots so I'll post an update then.