O Christmas Tree

Today we ventured down to the valley to find the perfect Christmas tree. We live just a couple miles away from some local farms and we love it. It's great for fresh produce during the summer, corn mazes and pumpkins in the fall and Christmas trees in the winter. With all the housing developments going in around us, it's nice to see farms still exist-and thrive in our area.

It was the perfect day to search for the perfect tree. Fifty seven degrees-wow, when has it ever been this nice going into December? Umm...never. After scouring the tree farm for the perfect tree, we found it! Last year we bought a huge tree and it was really just way too big, it took up half the living room. This year we decided to go much smaller and it's a nice, manageable size.

Here are the pictures of Christmas tree hunt 2008:

This is such a cool picture-there's a skydiver behind Anthony and Sydney with a beautiful view of the Cascade Mountains
Off to find "the" tree
Sydney loved the "Sydney-sized" trees

The classic O fam shot
Where did she learn these poses? In front of "the" tree
Look at that determination, future firefighter maybe? Anthony let her hose down the tree stand and well, just look at this picture. I think she had a good time.
And the decorating...Sydney loves this nativity scene my Aunt Sue bought her last year. She loves to re-arrange and line everyone up. Her favorite is baby Jesus.
Anthony and Sydney found Dora candy canes at the store. Yes, Dora really has taken over the world.
Candy canes make this girl silly
These candy canes will last for years. The girl takes two licks and she packages the candy canes back up. She's not really a candy girl. Now a cookie and M&M girl, that's a different story.
Putting on the angel
Sydney chooses an ornament every year. This year it was a John Deere tractor she bought with daddy at Lowes, one of their favorite stores. She says this is her very favorite ornament.
Putting on the ornaments. We actually had extras since this tree was so much smaller than last years tree. The important ones are up though, including all the ones Anthony and I have purchased together since 2001, our first Christmas together.
And a picture of our stockings. Yes, there is one for the baby too. I scoured the internet to find stockings that matched ours since the company that makes them changed their designs. I found it though, and it arrived just in time for Christmas decorating. I'm a little in love with our stockings. The lettering is an iron-on from Michaels craft store.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I can't believe Thanksgiving has already come and gone. It's almost 2009 already, wow!
We had a really nice Thanksgiving. We went to my aunt Char's house and had a great time. The older I get the more I realize just how blessed I am to have such a terrific family. I love having my aunts (my mom's sisters) in my life. My aunt Char is so much like my mom so it's just wonderful to spend time with her. Dinner was great and socializing with the family was even better. And it's just not a family event with this side of the family without busting out some dancing. I don't know what it is but we do this often. And I love it.
Sydney spent nearly the whole time petting their dog Sasha. She loves dogs so much. I actually forgot my camera-I know! I hardly ever do that yet I have done that a lot lately, hence the few pictures. My uncle Craig took some great pictures so hopefully I'll be seeing those soon so I can post them.

And now on to Christmas! Anthony actually has three days off-in a row! Today was a nice lazy day, it was great! The rest of the weekend will be spent getting our Christmas decorations put up, and going out to get a tree. Our Christmas shopping is pretty much done, with exception to a few things for the stockings. We definitely did not go crazy this year like we normally do, and I feel really good about that.

Okay okay, and because it's just not a post without a picture-here's Sydney a couple weeks ago making brownies with daddy. She just loves to bake and cook with daddy and mommy. Okay, mostly daddy.

Umbrella ella ella

Yesterday we met up with our buds Samantha, Lisa and Jakey at the UW bookstore for toddler story time. It was packed and a little disappointing-the storytime consisted of two books and twenty minutes. The kids did get water and animal crackers though, possibly the highlight of the story time. Samantha and Syd didn't even notice the stories going on. They sat up in front at a table and colored, ate their snacks and chit chatted the whole time. It was like they owned the joint. The girls are just so much fun to watch together.

Afterwards we enjoyed some yummy Mexican food and Kristin, Cole and Brady joined us for lunch. Mmm, Mexican. Okay, so this might have been the highlight of the trip for me, but for Sydney it was all about Samantha's umbrella. Sydney is obsessed with umbrellas and has been asking for one for months. It's definitely on the Christmas list for Sydney.

All three kiddos


Check out Greg and Jessica's blog for some super cute pics and stories of Sydney's day with her bff's Greg and Jessica. Sydney is one lucky kid.

Gymnastics at the O house

Gymnastics is still going really well for Sydney. She absolutely loves going to class each week. Her favorite part of gymnastics are the rings and bars. She also loves the trampoline and running around with the other kids. I really enjoy watching her, she improves each week and it's great to see how much she has progressed the past couple of months.
Although-my only beef is the chatty moms. Now don't get me wrong, I too love to socialize (just ask my teachers who made mention of it on my report cards as a kid) however I'm there to watch my child and I really enjoy watching her. Today I missed her first forward flip on the bar because Chatty Cathy next to me was chatting it up. But I was lucky enough to hear all about her real estate woes and all about her kids. I just don't get the parents who go there and don't pay attention to their kids at all-their on their mobiles or reading the latest People magazine. Should these parents be watching their kids? Isn't that the point of the parent viewing area? But I digress.

So the hub decided to build Sydney a balance beam and bar for home. Well, I think the plans are still in his head for how to build it, but we have a temporary fix for now set up in the family room.
Here's Sydney on the balance beam and bar... she does this nightly now.




(Don't try this at home folks)

And she is definitely her father's daughter. She was so excited to ride her motorcycle and wear her helmet.

Happy Birthday Cole and Samantha!

Cole and Samantha both celebrated their 3rd birthdays this past week. Lisa had a birthday playdate at her home last week, but unfortunately Sydney and I were both sick and we missed it. Since Sydney doesn't forget a thing and kept asking me 100 times a day when the birthday party was, we decided to have another birthday party playdate at our house. She was parked in front of the window 30 minutes before they were to arrive, and she would have been there two hours earlier if I hadn't made her do other things-like eat breakfast. She was so excited!

She helped me plan the day-she decided her and her friends would eat chicken nuggets, strawberries, grapes and bananas. She also decided we would do a cake instead of cupcakes this time. It was adorable, my little girl is a little planner like me already!

Anyway, the kids had a great time. You can tell by how many toys are spread out throughout the house. The more toys, the more fun they had! Jakey had a great time too. He is such a big boy now and enjoyed playing. He's no longer the baby of the group!

A picture of the birthday kiddos in front of their cake...
Happy birthday Cole and Samantha!

And a couple random pictures from the past week or so...

I moved furniture and toys around in our family room this past week. Now I remember why I never put the chair here before...this took 4.3 seconds for Sydney to figure out.

Like our Halloween decorations? I tried taking them down right after Halloween but Sydney really wanted to keep them up for her friends and protested. So I kept them up. The day of the party I plugged the lights in and she told me, "Mommy, Halloween is over." Oh boy, my three year old already thinks I am soooo uncool.

Wearing daddy's safety glasses...

And the reason why a three year old still needs help getting dressed- pajama pants on the head and shirt on the legs. Silly kid.

Dress up

Sydney has discovered that dressing up like a princess is pretty fun.
Cordelia and Ivy bought Sydney a Barbie outfit quite a while ago. It's been hanging in her closet for over a year until recently. Really I just wasn't sure she'd be into the whole dress up thing...I was so wrong. She has worn her Barbie outfit all day long, even insisting on taking a nap in it today. Tonight Anthony and Sydney ran out to the store and Sydney wore the outfit. She loves this thing and is now saying that Santa might need to bring her more dress up outfits. Like her pajamas and sparkly shoes too? Now this kid has style.

Fun times with Mam-o

Sydney had the best time with Mam-o this past weekend. She enjoyed trick or treating with her, but especially enjoyed spending every single second with her-no kidding. I think Mam-o had a total of five minutes to herself all weekend. Sydney has always loved Mam-o but she was attached at the hip to her this weekend. At 6:30 the first night Sydney asked, "Is it time to go night night yet?" I am fairly positive my child has never said that before, nor will she ever again. She was so excited to have a slumber party with her Grandma that she couldn't wait to go to bed! Mam-o always reads her a lot of books and these girls just have so much fun. Sydney wanted to take Mam-o to her room to play quite often and only Mam-o could feed her meals and help her with the potty.

Some pictures of Mam-o time...

Blue puppy is very well loved. Poor guy, Sydney uses him as a pillow every night so his stuffing was just about gone. Mam-o brought up her puppy stuffing supplies and the little blue puppy is good as new. Here are the girls stuffing blue puppy.
Hanging out in the baby Papasan. We have pulled out all of Sydney's baby belongings for baby bro and she has really enjoyed them. Will she even be able to share with baby brother when he arrives? She loves sitting in this thing while watching tv, this along with her Bumbo. She loves her Bumbo and sits in it every day.
We used watercolor paints for the first time. Sydney is still enjoying her painting very much and we now paint a few times a week. Thank goodness for washable paint!