'Tis the Season

Apparently 'tis the season to be really busy. We apologize for not posting anything since Halloween. We have had a few photo worthy moments in the last 6 weeks and they are in this post starting with the most recent happenings. Sydney was not deterred by the first snow of the season. Instead, she decided to embrace it in all of her winter gear!

Sydney continues to get a kick out of her box hat.

Sydney's Grandma filled her advent calendar with lots of goodies. She has enjoyed opening the doors each day to find a surprise. She made good use of the expanding Mickey washcloth.


Sydney enjoyed opening her gifts from St. Nicholas!


Our 6th Annual Santa Lucia party with the last of our "backyard special" Christmas trees!

Right before our Santa Lucia party our friend Julie came and outfitted Sydney for the occasion!

I love this dress on her...the accents are cows. Sydney saw them and immediately said "Moo!"

Sydney's Grandma and Grandpa came to celebrate Thanksgiving with us...and to enjoy story hour.

Here are both sides of our Thanksgiving table.

We had a visit from Lucy Claire and James Henry (and their parents) before Thanksgiving. Here are the book worms...

And the happy trio!

We traveled for back-to-back conferences in Lawrence, KS and Chicago, IL. Here is Sydney at our friends' apartment in Kansas.

Halloween

One more picture of Sydney and her mom with all the leaves in our yard...

Sydney was able to wear her costume to Mom's Time Out last Thursday. It was a big hit!

Here is Sydney's "World's Cutest Witch" shirt from her Grandma.

We went to help Megan and Bo celebrate their birthdays and Sydney livened things up in her costume.

Since giraffes don't make much noise, we taught Sydney to stick her tongue out in response to the question "What does the giraffe do?" Pretty cute.

Special thanks to Lucy Claire for lending the costume!

Story Hour

Sydney has recently started to fill-in-the-blanks when we read stories to her. Here is a fun post-bath video of Sydney helping Joshua with "Moo, Baa, La La La."

Fall Fun

We went to Exploration Acres yesterday (which has a huge corn maze in addition to this pumpkin patch). Here is our pumpkin among the pumpkins.

A couple of shots from a lookout/bridge in the corn maze.


It's hard to really appreciate the intricacy of the corn maze but here is a link to the aerial view (http://www.explorationacres.com/Corn_Maze_files/Modified1295maze-2.pdf)
Sydney enjoyed the hay tunnel but did seem glad I was trailing her at one point when it got a little dark.

These pictures are in our front yard when the leaves started to fall.


Joshua was putting away the outdoor hose and Sydney climbed right in.

You can tell from the way Sydney is dressed in all of these pictures that we have had some ups and downs with weather in the last couple of weeks.

Race Day

Joshua ran his second half marathon this year in Indianapolis. He beat his previous time by over 7 minutes (which is a lot) and was under 2 hours. Sydney and I cheered him on right before the finish line. Here is Sydney watching the runners.

Joshua in the last 1/4 mile.

Hooray, Joshua/Daddy!

Visitor from NY and Fall Break in Nashville

Joshua's friend from high school, Joe, visited us here in Indiana. He gave Sydney this red outfit which she loves. Thanks for the visit and the phone, Sydney loves it!

For fall break we went to Nashville to visit Tommy, Mindy, Lucy Claire, and James Henry. Sydney loved Lucy Claire's box of dress up clothes...especially the tutu.

James Henry is getting so big!

Sydney liked their kid-sized recliner.

We went to the Nashville zoo which has this amazing, padded play area for little kids.

Mindy and James Henry watching the mayhem.

Mindy giving Sydney and James Henry a squeeze.

Joshua and James Henry.

We got to show Sydney some real giraffes as a precursor to her Halloween costume for this year.

She liked the giraffe on the carousel.

But she opted for the large spotted feline (leopard?) for the actual ride since it went up and down but the giraffe did not.

The other big hit was the gibbons.

They make this amazing noise by using their throats (see photo and video below).

Someday, Sydney will understand the difference between gibbons and monkeys but for now, she and Joshua had fun showing us what the monkey does.

Here's a nice shot of Sydney with her Godparents and Lucy Claire.

Story time.

James Henry caught in the act...of looking really cute.