Starting Young

Spencer and I play volleyball in a league on Monday nights with other dental students in his class (dead giveaway... our team name is "Gingiva"). Sydney comes with us every week and chills in her car seat, or if she's grumpy she gets passed around to whoever is rotating out at the moment. Last night was our final game of the season, and Patty, our referee, brought Sydney a little present: a mini volleyball. It fits perfectly with our plan to brainwash all of our children to love this sport :)

Have I mentioned she loves to eat the tag on every toy? It's pretty much the first thing she goes for.

American Idol

I voted for him tonight.

It was my first Idol voting experience! I liked Adam quite a bit for a 3-ish week span, but now I think it would be ideal to have Kris and Danny face off. I know the odds aren't good, but it could happen, right?

What Not to Wear

I pretty much love this show. Whenever I watch it I imagine being the "winner" of a new $5000 wardrobe, but then tell myself that although I'm no fashionista, I don't dress badly enough to qualify. However, as I traded out the winter sweaters in my closet for some short-sleeved shirts, I couldn't help but think of one rule Stacey and Clinton ALWAYS give:

No horizontal stripes.

And yet somehow I always get sucked in by their cuteness. In the words of Joey Tribiani, "It's like moth to a flame."

A Little Bullet Happy with Months 5 & 6

Since I neglected to do a "Sydney is 5 months old" post, I'm playing catch-up.

Her biggest developmental milestone was that she learned to roll onto her tummy. Sadly, we actually missed it (twice!). As the story goes, we were having some friends over on the evening of March 27, so I put her on her back in the middle of our family room rug to play with toys while Spencer and I cleaned up other rooms of the house. After a while I heard Sydney crying, and when I came in to see what was up she was on her tummy on the wood floor! I returned her to the rug and put her on her back, then we went back to our respective cleaning tasks. About 5 minutes later I heard more crying. She had rolled onto her tummy again, and we had missed it again.

She also learned to:

• Make lots of spit bubbles, which made us laugh quite a bit. It also made her drool even more, so her shirts were usually soaked through from the neckline to her chest.

• Use her hands and feet to splash the water in the tub.
• Say "ah" while breathing in. Check out a video of it on my cousin Heather's blog.
  
• Eat rice cereal. Well, at least we introduced it for the first time over Conference weekend. Everything that went in was drooled out pretty quickly, and feeding sessions always ended in crying.

Here are some new things she's doing at 6 months:

• Squeals with delight, often instead of laughing.
• Rolls over both ways. She just barrel rolls all around our family room; it's getting harder to contain her!
• Grabs my hair.
• Scratches her head while nursing. I love watching the slightly uncoordinated movement of her fingers when she does this.
• Says "dada" and a labiolingual form of "baba."
• Puts her binky back in her mouth after yanking it out. I'm a big fan of this.
• Sits up with support. She tends to kick her legs, which makes her fall backwards or to the side.
  
• Holds onto her legs and feet, which she pretty much never noticed until a few weeks ago.
• Eats the rice cereal instead of drooling it out.
  
• Her poor little skin around her mouth is constantly red and dry from drooling.
  

I took her in for her 6 month check-up today, and her stats were:

• weight: 13 lbs. 15.8 oz (13th percentile)
• length: 26 in. (59th percentile)
• head circumference: 52nd percentile

We left with 3 more shots and 3 more Snoopy Band-aids on her thighs. Thank goodness there won't be any more of those for a while!

Enjoying the Sunny Weather

The past few days have been so gorgeous outside! We finally retired our space heaters and even broke down and turned the AC on last night. Crazy how the weather can change on a dime, but we'll take the sunshine over the cold any day of the week.

On Saturday afternoon we grabbed some bread and went to Horseshoe Lake in Shaker Heights to feed the ducks. There was just one goose by us when we started throwing bread, but by the time we were done there were about 5 geese and 4 ducks. Then we walked around the lake and admired the gigantic houses that lined the nearby street.

This one was our favorite. Check out the twisty chimneys.

We had so much fun with our dream house hunting (ha!) that we went back on Sunday evening to check out some of the surrounding neighborhoods. Again, the houses were amazing, but the sidewalks sure left a lot to be desired. Poor little Sydney was being jostled all over the place in her stroller... I eventually just took her out and carried her.

Mini Makeover

I have never been a "glasses wearer."

That is, until last spring when I started getting lots of headaches during the early stages of pregnancy. Contacts only made them worse, so I ditched them and transitioned into a glasses-during-the-day kind of gal. When I went in to get a new prescription last summer, the optometrist wouldn't let me get new contacts because pregnancy can change your eyes, blah, blah blah. (He wouldn't even give me a trial pair. It was like a week before I was going to see Spencer graduate from ODS, and we'd been apart for 5 weeks. I just wanted to look extra cute for him, but the Dr. wouldn't give... lame.)

I've procrastinated it quite a bit, but last week I finally said goodbye to these babies (the glasses, not the actual baby):

I thought I looked a little naked without them, but that only lasted a few days.

Spencer didn't notice when he got home from school. He just said to me, "Are you wearing makeup?" to which I responded, "I'm always wearing makeup when you get home," and left it at that. Then 30 minutes later I couldn't take it anymore and said, "So I got contacts today," and he was like, "Oh that's what it is!" Ha!

I was also ready for a new haircut and felt like some highlights would be nice too. Last night my beautician friend Stacey made them happen:

Feels good to be me again.

Happy Easter!

We started our celebration last week by decorating a ton of Easter eggs with Stacey, Jack, Justin, and Mike.

We had an unofficial contest to see who could make the best egg, and Stacey liked one that Spencer made- he wrote "Suzy" on it in white, then put it in the brown dye. Seriously, who includes brown in an Easter egg coloring kit?

It was not easy trying to write on the eggs while holding Sydney. I think she was entertained with this for about 5 minutes, but Spencer and I took turns holding her for most of the time. Earlier in the evening, Spencer was throwing a big plush soccer ball to/at Jack, and when it hit him Sydney would just laugh and laugh. It was sooo cute, but unfortunately we didn't catch it on camera.

Cutie pies.

I searched high and low for a cute Easter basket for Sydney and finally decided on this little white one with purple gingham lining.

I've been saving this darling dress from Grandma H. specifically for Easter. The hat didn't last long, but it looked so sweet I had to at least put it on for a few pictures.

Checking out the goods: a new outfit from Grandma B. and some eggs (which I filled with socks, size 12-24 months for those big feet :)

Happy Easter!

Spencer was the closing speaker in Sacrament meeting, and afterward we headed down to Warren to have dinner with some of my extended family. Sydney got to meet several of her great-aunts and uncles, as well as lots of cousins. It was fun to see everyone, and as always, the food was excellent. Plus, nothing's better than topping off a good meal with some of Jacque's strawberry pie. Yum!