Back on the Blog

I know it's been ages since we've posted or explained anything. I'd like to claim travel and being busy...but today I sent an email to a group of grad school friends here at Purdue and within about an hour my two friends who have had babies within the past 5 weeks replied. So no more excuses, here are some photos from the last several weeks. I also have some great videos and I will try to get those up in the next couple of days. I went to a seminar at WVU and Sydney and Joshua headed on to Baltimore to meet up with some of our Peace Corps friends.

Mike with Sydney and Maddy G (Madeline Grace).

Syd and Maddy G.

The usual antics.

Syd in Maddy G's hooded towel.

The munchkins less James Henry.

James Henry!

Sydney and her godmother, Mindy.

Lucy Claire and Maureen.

These next pictures are back at home. Little Miss Ham for the camera.

Smiling with her long blonde locks.

Fun times in the pool.

What do you have in the bucket, Sydney?

I love this picture!

Acrobatics.

Sydney had fun in the pool with her friend Allison. I did not manage to get any pictures while they were in the pool (of course!) but got some nice "after" shots.

C'mon dads, keep 'em still for the picture.

Just when you think pool time is "all done."

All frogged out with her hooded towel and frog shoes.

Allison and Sydney had no fun at all chasing after me with the camera.

Our neighbor's new baby girl, Claire Noel.

I will post other videos soon but this first one is Sydney looking at the screen on our new video camera. I bought it for my research project and to use with Sydney. She loved being able to see herself (surprise, surprise). The part in the video when she fusses is when I flipped the screen back toward me so I could see if she was still in the picture. The smiles at the end are when I turned it back around! The song I am singing is from a Sesame Street video that she watched during our travels. The tunes are pretty catchy. As always, sorry for the off-key singing voice.

May at a Glance

Pictures now...explanations...now...

I had a conference in Chicago and we stayed with my good friend, Julie. We were also able to catch up with our friends John and Maura and to meet their new baby girl, Maeve. Graham was also in Chicago and thankfully his wife and our good friend Ashley and Sydney's good friend Eden visited us in Indiana just after the conference. We had a bbq at our place and welcomed friends of ours and friends of Graham and Ashley's who were excited to see them upon their triumphant return to West Lafayette.

Here's the group in Chicago at John and Maura's.

John and Maeve.

The happy family. I love this picture, it's so sweet with the sleeping Maeve.

Julie was gracious enough to host us and hang out with Sydney during our stay in Chicago.

Julie sharing her love of books with Sydney as they read Sydney's favorite book. She likes it because she likes to say the "Pop" in "Hop on Pop."

Back at home with a bbq for some local and non-local visitors.

Our attempt to get a picture of Lance and Maren's sons, Spencer and Josh, and Sydney and Eden. Trust me, this is the best shot of the bunch.

Eden loves the camera as much as Sydney does.

Ashley and Eden.


Sydney, Eden, and our friends Elizabeth and Mark's baby girl, Grace.

Sydney was delighted to get a pool in the mail courtesy of Nana and has enjoyed it almost every day since then.



Firefighter in training?

Fun to Be One

Sydney turned 1 on May 7th. There will be future posts showing how thoroughly she is enjoying her gifts from family and friends but for now...here are some videos and pictures from her birthday dinner - waffles, blueberries, strawberries, and Redi Whip!!

Here is the set-up.

The best part of this video happens about 22 seconds in...it was only a matter of time.

How does it taste?

Teaching Sydney the essentials...like eating out of the container and making a Redi Whip beard.

Not messy enough? Easy fix for that.

Race Day

Last Saturday, Joshua ran a mini-marathon (a half marathon) and Bo, Catherine and I did the 5K. Joshua and I were pleasantly surprised by our times and our ability to run all of our respective races with limited time to train (granted - he did do 10 more miles than me). Joshua finished in 2:03:33 and I finished in 30:02. Sydney was a very good sport despite us getting her out of bed at 4:45 am. Here are some pictures from the day. Although Joshua ran the farthest...MVP of the day goes to our friend Megan who got up early and came with us to hang out with Sydney while the rest of us were running. Thanks, Megan!

Here is the "Before"

Joshua's race started first so the rest of us walked by the capitol building to wait for the start of the 5K. Here are Bo and Catherine with the capitol building in Indy.


The starting line for the 500 Festival Mini-Marathon.

Here is the other "race" that was going on at the same time.

People starting the mini.

Sydney enjoyed the medal and I enjoyed being done!

Joshua's impression of his performance.

The "After" shot.

Catherine congratulated Sydney on some well done waiting.

The future's so bright...

We still managed to have enough energy to play in the yard. Sydney couldn't understand why we would consider doing anything else.

MVP!

Why walk when you can run?

We alluded to this but Sydney has really gotten her feet under her in the past week or so. As Joshua and I teamed up to capture some footage, we had to walk back and forth across the room 3 times because that is how many times she moved back and forth in the amount of time it took us to get the camera ready to shoot the second video. Crazy.

Tulips

We can tell Sydney is pushing a year because the tulips from our yard that we brought with us to the hospital last year when she was born are back in full force. Here are the ones from a year ago.

Here are some tulips and daffodils with Sydney. Notice her festive frog moccasin first shoes.

She was trying to play peakaboo and was fairly amused that she could do it without the hat actually coming off. I thought she might get frustrated, but I was wrong.

I had her stand up to get a close up of some of the tulips in our side yard. I like how in this photo it looks like she is pointing at the purple tulip as if I just asked her "Which one of these does not belong?"