Sydney and Madison

I was thumbing through some older pictures of Sydney and Madison and I came across this one of the girls at 16 months old. Look how little they are!


Now, here they are at the last Duck game. Look how they've grown! We met up with Matt, Melissa, and Madison during half-time because it was so cold and the girls get restless sitting for so long, it's always great for them to be indoors for a while and they can run around together.



Melissa and I recently took the girls in for second birthday pictures. In just a few weeks, they will be turning 2, which is so hard to believe! Last year they were still babies, and now they're both potty trained, they talk in sentences, and they are so grown-up! They really love each other and Madison will be needing Sydney's girly-girl friendship so much more in a few months when Melissa has twin boys.


For their first birthday's, Melissa and I went all out and threw huge parties for the girls. This year, we are doing a very small joint party for the girls with a Veggie Tales theme. We're inviting a few of their friends from church, all boys since they are the only girls in their class. Here is the picture from the invitation. Sydney is Larry the Cucumber and Madison is Bob the Tomato.

In a few weeks I'll post some pictures from the party. We hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving!

My Christmas List

Dear Chris,
This is my Christmas list for you. I thought I would include pictures so you could know EXACTLY what it is that I want.

First off is the "First and Ten" cake pan set from Joanns. Think of all the fun cakes I could make with this one around football season, or for Superbowl parties!


While you're in the cake pan aisle, I also want this "Sports Ball Set" of pans. This would just be cute, and while I know your ideal day doesn't include a shopping trip to Joanns, at least I'm not asking for girly cake pans like a princess coach or the barbie one (not yet, anyway).


The last item in the cake pan aisle is the Wide Glide roller. When you're walking down the aisle, it's on the immediate left just after you enter the aisle, up on top.


Next, just pop on over to my other favorite store, Hallmark. There are 2 Willow Tree figurines that I would like this year. I would like "Mother and Daughter" and "Child of my Heart."


If you still have some time and money, I would love the movie "The Waitress" and a gift card for I-Tunes or Starbucks.
Thanks so much, and I Love you!
Your Babe-alicious Dara

"Your Hair Looks Like A Haystack"

Last night I went to the movies with 3 of my friends and about 100 screaming, ecstatic 15 year old girls to see the movie Twilight. I absolutely loved it, but don't go see it if you haven't read the book. There aren't too many movies that follow the book almost word for word, but this one did. I can't wait to go see it again, and the way it ended left us all to believe that they will make a second movie. Anyway, I have some recent pictures of Sydney with some WILD hair, and I decided to post them now because they remind me of a scene in the book. One morning the main girl in the book, Bella, wakes up and her boyfriend, Edward, is there. He tells her that her hair looks like a haystack, and he likes it. Here are some haystack-hair pictures of Sydney!

This one she is "posing." If you tell her to pose, she puts an arm up, sticks out her hip, and grins.


This ones a little blurry, I know, but I like it. She sure is wild!

Why I Love My Husband

There are a lot of deep, personal reasons why I'm so fond of my hubby, Chris, but I'm not going to get into all that. I was just thinking today of some little things about him that I love.
1. He is a wonderful daddy, and Syd adores him. He is very patient with her.
2. He may not be easy to sleep with (nothing dirty there, I just mean that he snores), but I am not an easy person to live with. I get kind of crabby, and he's totally cool about it.
3. He gives in to my coffee addiction.
4. He lifts the big, heavy, 48 pack of my Diet-Pepsi at Costco because he knows I can't live without it.
5. He has a cute butt.
6. He's a hard worker and usually does the dishes for me.
7. He is a Duck fan.
8. We like the same kind of shows most of the time, but he understands about compromise and when I watch football with him, he watches John and Kate Plus Eight with me.
9. He humors me. For example, this past weekend he let me listen to Christmas music all the way to and from Eugene, even though he thinks it's way too early. Then, when we got back, he even put up the Christmas lights for me because I couldn't wait any longer, and he did it with a smile.
10. He gets me. This past weekend before the game, some student athletes came around collecting money for a 2 year old girl who has brain cancer. Most people were throwing in a dollar or two. I knew Chris had a dollar in his wallet, so I asked him to throw it in. Without even thinking, he put in a $20 bill. This from my husband who is very careful with our money, he does a good job balancing out my tendency to overspend. He put in the $20, and our eyes met, and I know we were both thinking "please dear God, not our baby, not ever our little girl." And that is why I love him, for moments like that. He knew my heart would be breaking, thinking about that other little girl and her parents, and he acted on it. What a man.

Here's some pictures of Chris putting up the Christmas lights. Sydney was a very good helper.

My Sistore

I love my sister, and she's probably going to kill me for what I'm about to write! Let me start out by saying that Abbie is a super cool kid. She's a sophomore at the U of O, and she is adored by Sydney. Sydney doesn't just call her Abbie, she calls her "Go Ducks Abbie," which makes me so proud! I call Abbie my sistore, pronounced sys-store-eh. Abbie is the easiest person I know to shop for, and while we are VERY different, we have a fun relationship. We are 8.5 years apart, which gives our relationship some different aspects. I remember life before she was born, I remember the day the ultrasound said she was a girl, I remember her birth, and a lot of other things that sisters don't usually remember. One of the funniest things about Abbie as a kid is that she used to be obsessed with toe lint. Whenever we would go anywhere, she would immediately sit down and pick out her toe lint. I remember clearly walking into church with Abbie at 3 and her sitting down, ripping off her shoes and socks, yanking her toes wide open, and cleaning out the toe lint. Now, Sydney is doing it! Usually when she is going potty, she pulls up her feet and picks out the toe lint!


I'm probably the most uncool mom ever for posting pictures of my kid on the toilet, but there you go.


Now here's a random picture of Sydney looking adorable in her pony tails to help make me cool again after the above pictures.


We miss Abbie when she's off at school, and I'm so thankful that we get to see her so often when we're down for the football games.


Whenever the band comes out on to the field, Sydney goes nuts, clapping and cheering for her Abbie. I don't know where she is, but she's one of the tuba players down there.

Obama Drama

For crying out loud! (that is cursing, for me, and about as strong as my language gets). The election is OVER. O-V-E-R!! Do we still need to harp on it all day long? Obama won, fair and square. Don't be such a sore loser. I have heard so much Obama bashing this past week that I could just scream. I don't know what you expected, what with how things have been run the last 8 years. I'm just saying, it shouldn't have come as a shock to any of you how this election would turn out. I am also extremely tired of being considered less of a Christian because of how I voted. I love God with my entire heart and prayed long and hard about this election. I know lots of Christians who voted for Obama. And, I didn't only vote for Democrats, I actually researched each and every candidate and ended up voting 50/50%, democrats and republicans. And don't get me wrong. I love republicans. My best friend is one, so is my mother. And so am I sometimes, for that matter. Unlike most of you people who have been bashing me, I actually research candidates and don't just vote based on political party, or vote based on my opinion of one issue. I was sick that Gordon Smith didn't get re-elected, he is a fine man and a wonderful politician. Shame on you democrats and republicans alike for voting based on party only. So get off your high horse and stop judging me for voting for Obama, it came with thought and prayer and I think this country will be better off for it.
Anyway...now that I have that off my chest, here is a picture of Sydney with our ballots on election day. I am so proud to raise my daughter in a country where she can be free to have a voice in our politics. I think it is amazing that in the first presidential election of her lifetime, there was a possibility for a white man, a woman, or a black man to be president and they were all considered equal. I think that, no matter their policical positions, suffragists of the 1900's and civil rights leaders would be proud of how far this nation has come.

Dear Melissa,

Dear Melissa,
I'm writing to apologize for the massive poopy diaper explosion that I had at your house last Monday. I've been potty trained for a while now, but when I'm sleeping sometimes things just get carried away. I'm sorry you had to clean up poop that was up my back and down to my ankles. I'm sorry that you had to scrub out my jammies and sleep sack and wash them. And I'm sorry you had to do that while you are pregnant and nauseated. Did you know that was my first ever diaper blow-out? I would just like to point that out because your daughter used to have them all the time, and I thought you would like to share in that moment with me, too. I know you're not mad at me, but I'm sorry anyway. Here is my sheepish sorry face.

I love you,
Sydney

Apparentely, Cinderella Was Naughty

The night before Halloween, I hosted my book club's Halloween party. We had so much fun and ate a lot of junk food! I was dressed as Amy Winehouse. If you don't know who she is, please just google her because I can't even begin to describe her. Let me tell you, it is tough to be Amy Winehouse! All that hair is so heavy, and any time I wiped my eyes, I had to reapply my make-up because it smeared so much!


Emily came as a drunk Mexican!


Hannah was Sandy from Grease.


Andrea came as a baseball player.


Melissa, prego-with-twins-belly and all, came as a 70's pimp!


But by far the best costume was Alisa. Remember a few weeks ago I had a picture of Alisa and her son Eli at the pumpkin patch, and I mentioned how she sounded like a Disney Princess and how birds probably dressed her every morning? Well, she was inspired by that description and came as a Disney Princess. She had even printed out birds and woodland creatures and taped them to her arms! Although, she is the naughtiest Disney Princess I've ever seen since she's 5 months pregnant! Like I said, apparently, Cinderella was naughty.


Here's the whole group. I can't wait for next year's party!

Pumpkin Patch, Round 2

The weekend before Halloween, we went to the pumpkin patch with our friends Eric and Shelley, or as Sydney calls them, Eye-gunk and Sha-Shee. Sydney loves Eye-gunk and Sha-Shee. We had gone to patch a few weeks earlier with my mom group, but we wanted to go as a family and we always go with Eric and Shelley, it's a tradition. Sydney had a great time. She loved to help Shelley push the wheelbarrow, and then when she got tired of that, she rode in the wheelbarrow instead. We all got pumpkins and let me tell you something I learned about my dear sweet husband. He is apparentely very particular. It took him FOREVER to pick out his pumpkin! Oh well, it was lots of fun and his pumpkin was very cool, I'll have to admit. When we were riding the boat back to the entrance, Sydney went up to this lady, a total stranger, and sat right down next to her and started talking to her! She is usually so shy, but she really liked that lady!









This isn't part of the pumpkin patch, but I made some Halloween cupcakes for Chris to take to work and I couldn't resist snapping a picture of my cute pumpkins, ghosts, spiders, and mummies. Yum!!

Pre-Halloween

I'm sorry this is so late, but here are some pictures of our Halloween festivities. Pre-Halloween, there was a party at my mom's group at church and we all dressed up the kiddos in cute little costumes. It's a fun tradition, and the kids enjoy it. We also went to the party at my mom's work, and Sydney loved all the games and candy. She loved even more seeing Sam and Brianna, who were there helping out. Here's some pictures from those 2 events, it's not a very long slide show.

Wasting Time

One of my friends told me about a website, yearbookyourself.com, where you can upload a picture of yourself and it will put it into different decades. I was wasting some time this afternoon and thought it would be fun. These make me laugh so hard!

This one actually kind of freaks me out because it looks just like a picture of my mother when she was in school and a picture of my grandmother on her wedding day!


I actually kind of like these next two, I would totally do my hair either of these ways if it would stay.



This one makes me look like Beyonce in the third Austin Powers movie!


I actually kind of used to look like this in 7th grade!


This one makes me look like a cast member in Saved By The Bell (OMG, Zach is SOOOOOO dreamy!!).


It's harder to do on guys, but here are a few on Chris. What a handsome stud!




My friend Jill is making it a goal to blog every day this month. Jill, if you run out of things to write about, you should try this website!