Christmas

Well I am trying to recover from the holiday!

On Christmas Eve we went to eat at my Uncle Lou & Aunt Sally Labino's for a lasagna. Then were off to Christmas Eve service. The wind was so strong we almost got blown away. I thought trying to get her to sleep would be difficult luckily with a late service and all the running around she was out like a light! Although, she was up at 5:00AM to show me the bear Santa had left her on her bed and if ask if we could go downstairs. I told her it was too early and she crawled back into bed and slept til 7:10. Thank goodness!!

(I am going to apologize for some of my pictures the lighting in our living room is not good & gives everything a yellow hue Sorry!)

We went down to see what kind of loot she got. I must say she did very well cleaning up as she went. We had a box for her to throw trash in so there would not be major clean up. The dogs enjoyed there chewies. Mom got here after a quick look at the gifts we were off to the relatives. First we went to Aunt Pat & Uncle Ric's. Chris, Todd, & Bill were there too so we had lots of laughs. Syd & I went to visit Gram. Then we were off to Uncle Lou & Aunt Sally's. Mike and his wife Jen were home with her mother Judy & Gavin & Hayden. Also Jen & her husband Chris with Benjamin & Annamarie. So there was alot of us. Syd had lots of fun playing with her cousins. Her & Gavin always have a good time together. We got home around nine. I think I could of went to sleep then.
I made Steve a Redskins blanket and some pillows. Which I think turned out pretty well (with help from my Mom of course).

As you can tell from the picture Sydney was less excited over her father's favorite team. Poor Steve.

Angus with some of his new things

Of course I could not pass this up!!

I had to work on Friday so Sydney & her Grandma hung out together watching quite a few movies. And visiting Labino's.
On Saturday we decided to go to the Pittsburgh Mills to do some shopping. Much to Sydney's surprise we also went to The Putting Edge which is glow in the dark mini golf. She really enjoyed it. Of course the money she got from Christmas was burning a hole in her pocket so she was on a mission to find something.

Mom left Sunday morning. I must confess I was exhausted. I went back to bed & slept til almost three. Sydney was pretty happy that I decided to have our own pajama day. She did come down Monday morning & ask if we were having another pajama day.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Merry Christmas!!!!!

Hope everyone has a merry and safe Christmas!!!

Steve, Nickie & Sydney

All Aboard the Polar Express

The tuesday before Christmas in the freezing cold weather, Sydney left in her pajamas to board the Polar Express with the rest of the second grade class at her school. They were all super excited to wear their pjs to school. They watched the movie on a big screen with breaks for hot chocolate & marshmallows.

Then after lunch they had their party. Which luckily I was able to go & help with before work so I got some pictures. They played games, won prizes, ate snacks, decorated cupcakes, and had a secret Santa exchange.

I felt bad for the poor librarian because after all that they had to go to library. Not something I would want to encounter. A good time was had by all!

Over The River And Through The Woods

To Bradford, PA we go. Uncle Lou knows the way to guide the ....Okay that's all I got.

Last Sat. Syd & I rode with Uncle Lou & Aunt Sally to Bradford for the Pearce Christmas gathering. The year it was Uncle Ralph & Aunt Susan's turn to have the crew over. Like always Aunt Susan & Uncle Ralph outdid themselves with the food. We even had homemade cheesecake! Very delicious!!

Sydney of course enjoyed hanging out with her cousins James & Parker. They each played their video games. They even played each others. The day ended with Uncle Ralph showing us some video tapes. One was of Christmas when they were younger. The other was slide photos he had put together. Everyone really enjoyed reminiscing and picking on each other.

The brothers & sisters.

Uncle Bill, Mom, Uncle Ralph, & Aunt Sally

The girls...

Me, Amy, Mom, Aunt Susan, Aunt Sally, & Aunt Cathy

Luckily the weather was much more cooperative this year than last year!

Hope everyone is able to catch up with their familes over the holiday. You never know what the future holds!

Sled Riding At Pratt Hollow

While I was copying some photos for my cousin Amy I remembered I had not posted about sled riding. Sydney had the best time sled riding at her Grandma's. We spent a good portion of black Friday trying to find sleds for her & my mom. She was so geared up to go on Saturday. What topped things off for her was cousins James & Parker came over too. After the first trip down I thought we were in trouble as her sled came up & banged her in the ear. Luckily, Mom & Amy were at the bottom to check things out. Her pregnant mother was halfway up the hill taking pictures.

After about the second time up the hill I figured the kids would be ready to go home. It was a really big hill. But they were troopers and toughed it out. Parker even went down on Amy's back he looked like Superman. I missed getting the picture because I was too busy watching. They actually hit the jump and flew through the air. It was pretty cool. I did get a picture of James flying through the air in the midst of a crash.

(Sorry this the first time I have posted a video so it just ended up here.)

Anyway on the sled are James, Mom, Sydney & Amy. You can tell they are having a blast I do believe my child's mouth was open the whole way down the hill. As you can imagine she cannot wait to go sledding again!

Winter Funny

A Night of Frosty & New Christmas Cartoons

Sydney was very excited about Frosty the Snowman being on tv. I was quite confused as she has it in dvd along with several other holiday favorites.

She said but I don't have Frosty Returns. Now I know most of you agree this one is not as good as the original, but she is younger. Although I am kind for spray in a can that would get rid of the snow off the roads! There is a new one called The Flight Before Christmas. It looks a little strange but it is her holiday. So our night of cartooning and popcorn began!

Syd & Angus enjoying the shows

Christmas Tradition

A little while ago my sister blogged about our family Christmas traditions. Though I do remember those fondly. I have my own copy of Chipmunk Christmas that I requested from my mom several years ago. The other we still use with Sydney which I cannot comment on because she reads very well and that would ruin Christmas for her. (You can't wait for them to read but then you can't hide things either anyway...) I did remember another one. This was more of a tradition with our Nana & Grandpa. It started every year at Thanksgiving. At the end of the meal we would get our advent calenders. They would make one for each grandchild which ended up being 12. Yikes. From what I can remember they were different every year. We would get pennies through the week, nickels for Sat., dimes for Sun. and quarters for Christmas Eve & Christmas Day. I do remember some days were alot harder to get off than others as you can see if the pictures. It would continue til we graduated from high school. It was something we all looked forward too.

Now that Sydney has gotten old enough her Grandma makes one for her also. Sydney actually asked a couple of days before we left for Mom's for Thanksgiving if Grandma was going to make her one. So she would know how long til Christmas. My reply was your going to have to ask Grandma as I had no idea if mom had planned on it or not. Thank goodness she had. I know Aunt Sally has also continuesthis tradition with her grandkids.

Close up of calendar

Syd's 2007 Advent Calendar

Creating Her Own Snow Day

When Sydney came downstairs from changing into pajamas I thought she had accidentally put her shirt on wrong. As this does happen from time to time when she is rushing. When I brought this to her attention she said "Mrs. Hill told us to so we could have a snow day!" What? Then I realized her pj bottoms were inside out also. She was really into it. She told Steve & I she wanted a snow day so she could study more. YEAH RIGHT! She wanted to stay home watch cartoons & play video games.

Heaven help us if all seventeen kids in her class did this. I guess I should be glad she was paying attention.

By the way it is snowing pretty good outside!

(I am not sure wht she is saluting except she would not stand still & I kept telling her too. So I got a yes sir. Note the tag at the front of her shirt.)

Oh Where Oh Where Did My Parents Go?

MOMMY???

Hey you guys forgot me! Maybe they are just going for some milk.

I don't think they are coming back!

I would like to know who thought this would be a good idea. Did they not realize these other dogs are crazy. I was never that annoying when I was growing up. They don't ever sit still.

At least they did feed me. Those little twerps better not even think about trying to get my food.
Could I just get some alone time PLEASE!! (PS. I am NOT on the bed!)

This one does lay still every now and again. They must of give him his medication.

Dad?

Wow, he is laying down again!

I really must say I do LOVE this kid!!! If it weren't for those other dogs this would be GREAT!!

(AGAIN I AM NOT ON THE BED)

Grandma Are You Coming?

Sydney had the BEST time playing in the snow. You would think with her growing up in the south she would not stay out very long. It is the opposite. You can barely get her back inside. . With eating turkey, being pregnant, chasing dogs and walking dogs. This was one of my afternoons to take a nap. Her and her grandma decided to play in the snow. At first it started out as snow forts for a snowball fight. Then one fort turned into a tunnel. Here are a few pics of the finished product. You should of seen her hair when she came in. OH MY! The one thing I forgot to bring was the detangler. Yeah, for snow as long as I don't have to drive in it!

Thanksgiving

As I had said before we went to Bradford for Thanksgiving. I need to give a BIG THANKS to Aaron and Jackie for meeting us halfway so we could still visit. Steve took a detour through a cornfield and I needed to leave my car at home. Oh, by the way he is fine.

Of course it goes without saying the food was great. Especially, the sticky buns!! A fav that my sister & I request whenever we think we can get away with it. Syd would disagree about one thing on the menu. If any of you have spent anytime with Syd you know she is kind of picky when it comes to eating although, she is getting better. I somehow convinced her to try sweet potatoes. What I did not know is that she would gag upon eating them. I mean I heard her I though we were in big trouble luckily, she kept it under control. It was a scray couple of seconds though. She was a trooper about it I thought.

We went outside for some photo ops. Bradford had alot more snow than us so it made it nice for pics. Since Aaron was there to help corral the dogs we decided to let all the dogs run around. They had a blast. I think mom & I were slightly worried ours would decide to go for an unsupervised run. But we managed to catch the young ones.

Aaron showing Syd how to make a good snowball to throw at Boone. Yes, at Boone he likes to catch them.

We had alot of fun visiting with everyone. It was great to spend time with my sister & brother-in-law. I know Syd would agree! More to come on other things we did!

Recovering

This is how I felt when I got home. (Yes he is sleeping that way)




I have to apologize for not posting lately! We had a nice visit up at my mom's over thanksgiving. But being pregnant I am tired ALOT. So I have been trying to recover, catch up and get back into the swing of things. Although, at work this evening I realized in 3 weeks it will be Christmas Eve. Holy cow I am not even close to being ready for that. YIKES!!
I hope everyone had a great holiday!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thankgiving! Hope everyone has a great time with family & friends. And gets LOTS to eat.

Wow! Gas is at $ 2.09

I stopped today to get some gas. And imagine my surprise it was down another .10 cents from earlier this week. It only took $40.00 to fill up YEAH!! My big question is if it can be $2.09 now why could it not of been that a few months ago.

Especially for all of us gas guzzling SUV drivers.

Going To See Vampires

I am going to see Twilight tomorrow with my cousin Chris. I am VERY EXCITED!!! I first heard of it when my sister's friend Karen talked about it on her blog. So I read the first book. Thank you Karen!! Chris was kind enough to let me borrow all the other books. They were great too! I know after tomorrow I will be mad because I will have to wait forever to see the other movies.

I can't wait til tomorrow afternoon!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEVE!!!

Happy Birthday to the big guy! My hubby turned 35 today. He's getting to be an old man. I am not posting a pic because I am lucky I got away with the one to the right!

Sydney and her Uncle Aaron

As Sydney was watching cartoons the other day she saw a marathon for Thanksgiving Day. Of course she said I am going to watch that. And I quickly told her no you are not we are going to be at Grandma's. She responded with I thought we were going to see Aunt Jackie and Uncle Aaron? I then found myself explaining Aunt Jackie was going to be at Grandma's. This is what gets said to me an a very anxious way " WHAT ABOUT UNCLE AARON? Is he not going to be there? I want to see Uncle Aaron!" I was not trying to exclude my brother-in-law by any means. I was just grouping them together. After clearing this up she says "YEAH UNCLE AARON!" She loves her Uncle Aaron, well except when he acted like he was going to throw her in the creek at my mom's but that's another story. Sorry Aunt Jackie she still loves you.

Poor Aaron he has it coming over Thanksgiving.

School Picture 2008

When I arrived home I noticed Sydney school pictures had arrived. I was afraid to open it because as you can imagine you never know how these things will turn out. Luckily it turned out fine. She just looks so much older!

BIG NEWS

Since we told Sydney today now I can make the grand announcement. We are expecting!! Not it is not the four-footed kind as many of you would think. Our second child is due the beginning of June.

We weren't sure how she would take the news. As there will be quite an age difference between them. It was pretty anti-climatic. At first I think she thought that we were joking with her. She kept looking at my stomach. Her first comment was "GREAT" (said very sarcastically) Steve told her she would be a babysitter she said no to that and she was not gonna change diapers. Then she said she wanted a sister. As we quickly tried to explain that was not up to us. Better than her telling us a few weeks back she wanted an older brother.

Several hours later she asked me "Mom were you serious about the baby stuff" . My reply was yes we wouldn't make something like that up. Then she restated that she was "NOT changing any diapers".

We figure there will be questions about where babies come from at some point.

I think she will make a rockin' big sister (in time anyway)!!

Happy Veteran's Day!

Just wanted to say a BIG Thank You to all who have served and are serving now! Without you who knows where we would be.

Everyone will be looking at my bottom

As you can see I found some gray pants for Sydney. What I did not realize is that there were words on the back of the pants. When I realized this I let it be up to he whether we kept them or not. She said most definitely " NO!! Mom everyone will be looking at my bottom" . I can only hope that she keeps this attitude as she gets older. Which I am sure will not happen (big sigh)!

Hello All!

I have been saying for awhile that I was going to start a blog. Well here I finally am. You can except everything from soup to nuts. Especially crazy things that Sydney comes up with. You will find that she takes after my sister quite a bit. That's the excuse she uses anyways.

I hope to come up with interesting things for you, but if not I apologize in advance!!