Gettin' Into the Christmas Spirit

Kind of random, but Sydney loves her changing table. Not so much the diaper changing or clothes changing part; it's after that that she's super happy. In fact, it's usually when she's laying there kicking her arms and legs that I'll read her stories, make silly faces, and sing to her.

Then she'll smile and coo, and sometimes even sing with me.

On the 19th, I dressed her in a cute Christmas outfit, and we went to decorate gingerbread houses with some friends.

Sydney and her cousin Alex hung out while the adults made these beauties:

From left to right, they were made by:

Jonathan and Janil,

Eric and Dalyce,

Spencer and Me,

and Jason and Heather.

A view of our gingerbread neighborhood from the back.

Our roof was a bit of a disappointment compared to everyone else's. In fact, Jonathan was joking that the gum drops looked like warts. Couldn't really compare to the Yearsley's front porch or the Sutherland's candy pathway leading to the front door. We still had a good time eating all the candy!

Sydney's Blessing

Our sweet baby girl was blessed this morning at church. Spencer did a great job and gave a beautiful blessing. I was so impressed that he didn't sound nervous at all! My parents and sister Shauna's family were able to come up from Columbus to be part of it.

Our little family.

Sydney with her Grandpa & Grandma H.

With Uncle Dan, Aunt Nonny, & cousin James.

The Christmas Sweater

A few months ago, Spencer signed up to receive Glenn Beck's daily email updates. He found out on Thursday that Glenn was coming to a local bookstore to promote and sign copies of his new book "The Christmas Sweater." We thought it would be fun to meet him and do something a little out of the ordinary.

Sydney is pretty much guaranteed to fall asleep in the car if she's bundled up and has a binky. Except at red lights. She's got some crazy accurate internal monitor that makes her wake up if we stop moving for even half a second.

Doesn't Spencer look so handsome? I like how he's trying to make Sydney a part of this picture too, even though she's all covered up.

We met our friend Justin there, and since we were in the 4th wave of the signing, we thought it might take a while for us to get our books signed. Surprisingly, the line moved really quickly and we were through in about 15 minutes.

Glenn signed our books, shook our hands, and checked out the babe. He thought she was cute (but let's be honest... who doesn't?). And no, we didn't tell him that we're Mormon. The whole interaction lasted about 10 seconds.

We weren't quite as shocked that the line moved so quickly after we check out his signature. Doesn't look like it would be a hard one to forge :)

False Alarm

On Monday I woke up to the sound of chirping... like the ultra-annoying kind you hear when you're smoke detector is dying. Spencer was in the shower, so I went to investigate. After realizing it wasn't either of our smoke detectors or space heaters, I followed the sound into the basement to the carbon monoxide detector. It was beeping every few minutes, and a little red light would come on with words underneath that read "Alarm. Get to fresh air." Yikes!

Spencer was going to the library to study, so Sydney and I went to a neighbor's house. After doing a Google search of "what to do when your carbon monoxide detector goes off," I read that I should to try to reset it to see if that would turn it off. I went home and did that, but the beeping continued. So I called the gas company, and they told me to call 911 and have the fire department come check it out. They ended up sending a fire engine to our house (no lights or sirens, thank goodness), and determined that there was no carbon monoxide; our detector was just dying. How embarrassing! But we were grateful that everything was fine.

P.S For future reference, it says on the back of the detector what the alarm will sound like if there's actually carbon monoxide. You'd think something like that would be important enough to put on the FRONT, but what do I know?

And since pictures really are the best part of blogging, here's a little "Hello" from 5-week-old Sydney:

She's starting to enjoy her bouncer and will just hang out in it for 10 - 15 minutes at a time.

Notice the "mittens" and unnecessary shoes. Turns out socks don't stay on her feet, and mittens don't stay on her hands. So in an effort to keep her from scratching her eyes out, we now put the socks on her hands. Sounds ghetto, I know... but it works sooo much better. As for the shoes, well, I just don't want her little feet to freeze.

Venturing Out

After a 3 week hiatus, Sydney and I went back to church for the first time yesterday. It was fun to finally put her in one of her darling dresses.

My only complaint: almost all of the winter dresses for babies have short sleeves. What gives? She wore her coat the whole time to keep those tiny arms warm. I have to say I loved those tights, mostly because they weren't tight at all, and I know she will outgrow these tiny clothes before we know it.

Giving Thanks

We spent this Thanksgiving at my parents' house and had a really great time. As we tend to be big "gamers," we played a little Scrabble the night before. Spencer and I were on the same team so we could take turns with Sydney, but it pretty much ended up that I played the first game (and won), then he played the second game (and won). Just had to put that on the record since it doesn't happen often :)

This little turkey does not like to sleep in her pack 'n play, so in order to help Spencer at least get some rest, I slept in my Dad's super comfy rocking chair with her in my lap. It actually worked really well- she only woke up once!

I sure am thankful for these two.

While Thanksgiving dinner was cooking, the girls danced as Grandpa rocked out on the guitar.

Had to laugh at little Riley, who thoroughly enjoyed bossing around Elayna and James. She dressed them as a bride and groom, then had them come downstairs and parade around the family room for everyone to see.

Since I know the kids enjoy crafts, I brought stuff to make these cute little pilgrim hats. Thank you, Taste of Home magazine, for the idea!

The whole gang watching Home Alone. Somehow I never think to take pictures of my whole family until just before we're getting ready to leave, so I guess the back of everyone's heads will have to do this year.

Happy Thanksgiving!