Spa Day

This morning Sydney and I had a fun "girls day out." We went to my friend and stylist, Shannon, and Sydney got her first haircut! She looks so grown up now. She wasn't so excited about getting her hair wet or the blow-dryer, but she chatted it up with Shannon the whole time and had a blast.







After the haircut, we went and got mani/pedi's. I love this shot of her hair the best, she looks totally grown up here! They painted her toenails and fingernails and included little flowers on her thumbnails and large toes with a rhinestone center and glitter. She was so excited!

Birthdays and BBQ's

This week was my mom's birthday (Happy Birthday, Mom!!) and on her birthday Sydney and I met her for lunch. We went to our favorite restaurant, one we go to all the time. Sydney thinks she owns that place, all the waitresses know and love her and Sydney knows every inch of that place. This week the waitress let Sydney help "pay." So cute! She even let Sydney bring us the the card and receipt to sign.


Last night we went to our church for the summer BBQ and family fun night. We initially had fun. Sydney got her face painted and we enjoyed BBQ burgers and tacos.



Maybe you noticed how I said we had fun "initially." Well, after about 10 minutes, we noticed that there were these tiny little bugs EVERYWHERE! They were crawling all over us, the tables, and it looked like the ground was moving because there were so many of them crawling everywhere. We tried to get Sydney to go into the bounce house and right when it was her turn, we noticed that the inside of the bounce house was covered in bugs, too. Well, that set Sydney off. She immediately started sobbing and was terrified of all the bugs. They were all over her legs and feet and arms. Melissa summed it up best, it was pretty much Sydney's worst nightmare. She hates bugs. We have had to get rid of all her polka-dot sheets because she wakes up thinking she is covered in bugs. Everywhere we tried to go, there were bugs! We did manage to get her to play in the water a little bit. There was tons to do...

...but all she would do was play with the water from the tiny pools. She wouldn't go in them, of course, because there was grass and bugs in them, but she would dip out water and splash Chris! Poor baby.

When we tried to leave, the bugs were following us in the car and everything, so we got in and crawled around the inside trying to kill all the bugs while Sydney sobbed in her carseat! After we went home, she had a nice bubble bath and felt much better. So much drama!

Nothing New

I know it's been an entire week since I posted, but really not much has been going on. I've been holed up in the nice cool house trying to wait out our 90+ degree heat. The camera is packed in the hospital bag, so I haven't even taken any pictures lately. But since I felt so guilty about depriving you all of cute pictures of our daily lives, here you go. These are actually from a few weeks ago when Melissa and I took all the kids to a park to play in the fountain.

Here are the cheesy girls, soaking wet and having a great time playing in the fountain.


It wasn't originally the plan to let the twins play in the fountain, but it was so hot and they looked so sad just sitting in their stroller, Melissa let them out and they had so much fun! I love how they were crawling around like Mowgli (is that how you spell that) from Jungle Book, with their butts straight up in the air! So cute.

Ballet Class

Last week Sydney started a ballet and tap class for 3 and 4 year olds. Needless to say, she had a blast and so did I! This is what having a daughter is all about! I see a ballet birthday party in her near future. Some of these pictures are kind of dark because they were taken through the viewing class that I was sitting behind while watching her class.

Sibling Tour

While I would fully agree that however many years separate your children presents it's own set of unique blessings and challenges, I have to say that I am loving the age difference between the girls already, and Savannah's not even here yet! Sydney has been able to be so involved in the pregnancy in a way that I know she wouldn't have been able to be a year or even six months ago. She has helped with the room, the purchasing of things, and the packing of bags. She loves to feel the baby kicking, and she loves discussing everything we will do with the baby. For example, she thinks it's halarious that we will bathe Savannah in the sink. She always says, "You're going to put her in the sink?!" like we're crazy or something. Each of my doctor's appointments, in Sydney's little mind, are purely for her entertainment. The doctors and nurses give her treats and stickers and let her "help" check my blood pressure. Last week the nurse let her help with the doppler. Sydney got to spread the goopy gel on my belly and help position the doppler to listen to the heartbeat. She was so excited!


Then yesterday we went on a sibling tour at the hospital. Designed for siblings 3 years old and up, they watch a movie about babies, then practice holding dollies, and then they make a birthday card for their baby.


After that comes a tour of the mom's room and the nursery. Sydney was the only brave one who volunteered to ride on the "magic bed." She wasn't too sure at first...


...but eventually settled right in and got nice and comfy! She went up as high as the bed would go.


Last stop was the nursery where there was a bay for them to all look at.

It was such a fun experience for her! I hope all this excitement carries over when Savannah is actually born!

Swim Lessons

The last two weeks Sydney has had swim lessons. While I'm glad the daily laundry of towels, swim suits, and wetsuits are done, it was totally worth it because Sydney had so much fun. She came really far in the two weeks, too. She learned how to do bobs, dunk her face, blow bubbles, and do a tiny bit of floating. She does NOT, however, like to jump in the water! Isn't that weird? Most kids love jumping in, that's their favorite part, but not Sydney. She had one week of lessons with a family friend, Jade, and another week with my sister, Abbie. It just kind of worked out in the schedule at the pool to have them teach Sydney and she had so much fun!

Sundays with Sydney

In this week's edition of photography by Sydney, we can see that Sydney is also getting in the spirit of baby preparations. Here are two views of the exersaucer, which Sydney herself used when she was a baby.


The thing that's funny is that I'm not sure how she got my camera this time. Chris and I packed our bag for the hospital and the camera was packed, too, along with extra batteries, the IPOD, and Gilmore Girls season 2. She must have taken it out of the bag, taken her pictures, then returned it to the bag before I realized it was gone. Little stinker.

Savannah Pictures

At my 35 week ultrasound yesterday I had another ultrasound, which is always fun. She is growing right on track, seems to be a bit bigger than Sydney was and they are able to see she has a little bit of hair, at least in the back.
Here is the customary profile shot...


And here we have one of those 3-D images. These are always so weird. It's nice to see so much detail, but the image is so odd! Look at those chubby cheeks, though! The weird thing is she was curled completely in half, holding her little foot up against her face like it was a blankey or something! Adorable!


I could be wrong, but I'm just going to put this out there. I think Sydney will be my little dancer and Savannah will be a gymnast. We'll see, either way it's super fun!

Friends and July Happenings

This summer has been so busy! Besides being hugely pregnant, Sydney has been very busy with daily swim lessons and playtime with friends, I have had lots of doctor's appointments, plus the normal running around that always seems to come with summer. All of that busy-ness will come screetching to a halt when Savannah comes, which I'm really looking forward to. Anyways, here's what we've been up to.

This is my friend Emily. This is her fourth pregnancy and my second, but the first time we've been pregnant at the same time. As I write this, she is in the hospital having her baby girl, Harlow. It will be fun for our girls to be so close in age!


Sydney and Madison recently had a playdate and busted out the princess costumes for some dress-up play. I love this age of princesses with them!



We went to the annual 4th of July parade. Thankfully it wasn't very hot, it was actually very pleasant.


Sydney brought her sidewalk chalk, which in our family is a parade tradition. She loves to get a chalk outline!


Then, of course, she had to draw a chalk outline! Here she is drawing around her swim instructor, Jade.

I totally stole this fom Melissa

First of all, these are not my photos. Melissa took them today of the girls while they were playing at her house during my doctor's appointment. I should probably let her post them first since she is the one who took them, but it's so much easier to save pictures off her page and post them on mine instead of uploading pictures from my camera, re-sizing them, and creating a post! I will post pictures of 4th of July, swim lessons, and Savannah's latest ultrasound soon, however, but here are some really cute pictures of Sydney and Madison having some fun in the sun today. Thank you Melissa for doing all the work!

Second generation BFF's!




I love that the girls are old enough to play together well (most of the time) and that they can do fun things like run through the sprinkler together. When Melissa and I were teenagers, we always imagined having children but never could we have imagined 2 girls, one day apart, different as night and day, who love each other like our girls do. Thank you God for the amazing blessing of my best friend and our daughters!

A Girl and her Taggy

Before you read this post, you have to read my friend Annie's post from earlier this week, so click here
Now that you've read Brendan's adorable story, you can read Sydney's. Aren't you lucky. So in case you hadn't heard, last week at my 34 week appointment the doctor discovered I was 1.5cm dilated and 50% effaced, so I bought myself a week of modified bedrest. I have another appointment tomorrow at 35 weeks to see how things are and evaluate what to do next. So, I'm supposed to be down, and I have been, but I also have a 3 year old who has needs. She's pretty independent with most things, but then again...


Last night at 4:15am I hear this "mommy, I need you" over the monitor. I go in and she has lost her taggy (See picture, the taggy is the pink flower with tags on it on the right). In fact, she has 2 taggies and they are both gone. They were there when she went to bed, and now they are gone. I practically stripped her bed to no avail. I finally go hunt down a flashlight and peek behind her bed and there they are, just out of reach. I ended up having to move her bed over in the middle of the night so I could reach down with hangers and move them, inch by inch, to the end of the bed where I could reach them. Then I pushed the bed back into place, tucked Sydney and her taggies in, and went back to bed. I wasn't really thinking about the fact that I shouldn't be moving large pieces of heavy furniture while pregnant and on modified bedrest because it was the middle of the night. When I got back to bed, I started having contractions and they weren't really pleasant. Thankfully they went away after an hour but the whole time I'm lying there, contracting away, and all I can think about is poor Brendan and his bear. I keep picturing that darling little picture of him with his bear and knowing how sad he must have been, because I know how sad Sydney was for those 10 minutes before I moved the bed. I wonder if his bear is stuck between his bed and the wall? Annie, you should check there if you haven't already.

Flower Shower

This last weekend I was honored to have a baby shower for Miss Savannah, which was hosted by my bestie Melissa. Melissa and I love to plan parties and we always do them together, so it was very difficult to keep secrets about how the shower would be decorated! She did a fabulous job and the shower was tons of fun.
Here is a picture of the invitation that Melissa created and made. We had found the little flower on another website and loved it, so Melissa took the flower and made a beautiful theme.

In keeping with the theme, here are the centerpieces. She did two different kinds. The diaper cakes are kind of funny because traditionally I always make diaper cakes for showers and gifts, but have never received one myself. There were 6 tables, so 3 of them had these little diaper cakes. I love the ribbon!

The other centerpieces had little die-cuts that I can take off the sticks and use in scrapbooking. Cute, clever, and will come in handy when I make Savannah's scrapbook. The little bags had chocolates in them with "Dara's Baby Shower" and the date on them. These were the party favors to give out to the guests.

To check out more pictures of these die-cuts and Melissa's other products, click here.
Here is the food table with the "It's A Girl" banner that Melissa made.

She spent a ton of time working on these dipped pretzels and aren't they adorable? They were super yummy, too!

And in keeping with the pink, white, and brown theme, marshmellows dipped in pink chocolate with chocolate sprinkles. These were a huge hit with Sydney who polished off at least 5 at the shower and many more at home.

Here are the cupcakes. My cousin Gretchen made these and besides being very tasty, they fit right into the theme by being pink and brown! Melissa added the cupcake toppers to finish them off.

Even the cheese and crackers were in the theme...see how the cheese was cut into flower shapes?

These are the gifts from Melissa. She is so creative, aren't those bags cute?

My friend Alisa planned the game. We played a version of Scattergories with the letter being S. It was a lot of fun and we had some very creative answers.

Me and my girl. She was the highlight of the shower! She had so much sugar that day and was running wild!

Besties. Thank you so much, Melissa, for the beautiful shower! It was such a blessing.
Thank you to all who came or sent gifts, Chris and I can not believe how much little Savannah is already loved!