Isn't the imagination a wonderful thing! If ever I take something out of the box, I have to leave it in the house for a few days so the cats and Sydnie can get their fill of play. Sydnie created herself a sarcophagus. I know it's a little morbid, but wow. She even made creaking noises as she opened the box while she was inside.

Sydnie and me want to wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day!
We had fun taking these pictures in our matching 'Be Mine' T-shirts.

Sorry for the delay again - my camera broke around Thanksgiving and it took me awhile to replace it. I borrowed my sister's camera to take pictures in between, but haven't got all of them from her yet, but I will. Anyway, here is some cute ones from Christmas.


So my pictures are a little backwards, but oh-well, I am running out of battery power. Our cats even enjoyed the holiday - we got them some new toys and they have loved them!


One of the reasons Sydnie wanted to learn piano was because of this song - Fur Elise, so I found a simplified version of it and she is learning it with the help of her piano teacher. Once she has it mastered, I will put a video up of her playing. She is doing to well with piano.



Here is our annual family version of The Nativity. Our baby Jesus was a little squirmy, but we had a lot of fun!


I took this picture up the road from our house - there is a wonderful lamp post that I just had to use in the background. She had fun blowing the snow at me!


Sydnie has been reading the Harry Potter books and loves them! She is now almost done with book 5. At school she earns points for reading and passing a test on the book she's finished and they get rewards for certain amounts of points. Sydnie was the first in her class to get to 100 which means she gets to choose a book to be donated to her school library. They put her picture in it and put the book in their school library. She chose Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke. Ahhh - my little bookworm!

And finally, we are caught up. Here is Sydnie and TJ on halloween. In case you can't tell, Sydnie is a Ritz cracker - her trick-or-treat bag is a cracker box. I made her dress in orange to be cheese. It took her weeks to decide what to be - what a creative girl! TJ was an Emoo (I don't know how to spell it, but it's a sad, depressed person or something like that anyway).


I got off work early (the kids didn't have school, again) and we took TJ, Gavin, Sydnie, Gramma, Julie, and myself to a corn maze. Then that evening, we had TJ and his mom over for dinner and trick or treating. For dinner we had 'mummy' pizzas and 'eyeball' carrots. The haunted house in the back ground was by Sydnie at school. She did a great job! After dinner and trick-or-treating, we went to TJ's house and watched 'Nightmare before Christmas'. All in all we had a fun day!

We must have pumpkins in October. Sydnie and I picked out pumpkins to carve. She had her heart set on carving this one because it had a mark on it that looked like a scar. She immediately thought it would make a great frankenstein.


Ewe - digging out the insides! I don't like the way my kitchen smells during this process, but it leaves quickly.



And here is her finished product. What a great creation!

Whew - we are almost caught up! Nope, this isn't halloween. During red ribbon week (say no to drugs) at school, they got to do different things every day. This day was crazy hair day - do you like what we came up with? It was a little difficult to get out that night, but fun for the day.

The week after Syd's birthday, she had the opportunity to dance with the local high school drill team at a football game. The night was freezing, but Syd had fun. See if you can pick her out in the photo.


Here is a picture of her and her friend after they performed. As you can see, she was not being very cooperative that night for pictures.

Sydnie wanted sea creatures for her birthday cake theme. She has had a fascination with the Lochness Sea Monster recently. Since I counldn't find one, I made one with a huge gummy snake I found. I made everyone try it, even though it was disgusting. The cake was yummy though and Sydnie love it! Happy #9 Sydnie! She is growing into a beautiful young lady!

Opening presents.

And wearing the bow - what a cutie!

To celebrate our birthdays, Syd wanted to go to Lagoon. The had it decorated fun for halloween. I made Syd pose for several pictures and go through a few haunted houses. You can't see very well, but inside this old hurse was a scary looking werewolf thing - ooooh, so scary!


This was a fun miniature circus - Syd, TJ and Koree posed fun behind the glass.



Sydnie loved the merry-go-round!



Sydnie wanted me to take this picture of her holding the flower. I thought it was a fun one.

We have had a very busy last couple of weeks. We didn't celebrate Syd's birthday until the weekend after. She didn't have school on her birthday, so was able to spend the day with Gramma and some cousins. When I get pictures from her Gramma of what they did, I will post them. We had a little celebration our selves that evening - I bought her favorite cookies, put a candle in it, and sang to her. We had fun! and of course she thought it was a little silly.

A couple weeks ago, we had a small snow storm. We were inside decorating halloween cookies when it started looking like a blizzard outside. Sydnie lost interest in the cookies and went outside to catch some snow. It's still in our fridge - I should probably get rid of it now.




Then she decided to go sledding. Since we do not have a real sled, she tried our garbage can lid...

When that didn't work, she tried just sledding without anything - right on her stomache. As you can see, there wasn't that much snow so it didn't work very well. She had fun and that's all that matters.
Then she picked the last of our carrots - we are slowly getting better at our container gardening. Hopefully next year we'll have an extraordinary one!

Here are some quick pictures we took at our 3rd grade 'photo shoot'. I kind of think the pictures they take at school are a little boring, so I always like to take my own. Plus, we have so much fun looking for the perfect spot and the perfect pose. I hope you enjoy these. I will get more pics and wordage up later. We are both alive and well plus we finally have internet at home so I'm hoping to update at least once a week now.

Now for the Birthday Bash! Sydnie had wanted a magician for her 8th birthday party for 3 years now, so I knew I had to get one. Since a professional was sooooo much money, we hired The Great Kassiopia (Sydnie's cousin). She did an awesome job!


We played pin the wand on the magician...


Took turns batting a 'Magic 8 Ball' Pinata...


Opened presents...



And ate these wonderful rabbit coming out of a hat cupcakes. Yummy!

Then-Grandpa surprised us all with balloon animals! Whew, what a day!

Okay, we'll start at the beginning. First, Sydnie chose to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as was able to do so right on her birthday. Her Grandpa was able to baptize her. We had lots of family and close friends there to support her on this special day! Sydnie sang a song all by herself - what a sweet little grown-up she is!

Grandpa & Sydnie - Mom & Sydnie - Sydnie blowing candles out on her cake while talking to her Dad (what a great multi-tasker). Aunt Buffy made cute little people out of suckers and foam to represent the great day.

Once again, I am behind. It will sure be easier to stay up to date when I have internet at home. Anyway, last month was so crazy with baptism, birthdays, and halloween, but I finally have pictures to share with everyone. I hope you enjoy them! Before I get to October though, I have to share these cute ones from Hogle Zoo. We went with our good friends and neighbors and had a blast!
Wow! Real water comes out it's nose!
This does not smell very good. Can I take my nose out yet?
Oh, what a nice pose!
Hmmmm....almost there, eh?