Spring is coming!

We love play time at the park!



Seoul loves to say “come on mom!” and wave her arm in a circle to show me where to go.
















Teeter-totters! This one is more of a bouncy thing rather than an old-school up-and-down motion.











Good times with Grandma at the park! It’s always more fun since one can chill with Sydney while the other can play with Seoul.








Seoul loves the slide… and is quick to point out when there is water, dirt, or bugs on it. If that’s the case she won’t go down.













Giddyap! Giddyap!













Of course Sydney naps a bit… she is loving looking around at everything, though. I think she will love sitting forward facing in the stroller when she can sit up a bit better.








We are ready for more consistent warm, sunny weather! Seoul is quick to point out every day if it’s “chilly,” “raining,” or “SUNNY – go to park today?!” Plus we can’t wait to really bust out the stroller and walk around town again.

March Purge

I have a bunch of miscellaneous pictures that I really like that never got posted. I know, we're now in the month of MAY - but oh well. Better late than never... for blogging purposes. Time is flying by at the speed of light it seems! Kelley and I were just talking about how the months are going by so quickly and Sydney is growing like a weed! At least we can't complain that life is boring or slow... we love it... we love our girls... we are at such a happy place right now.

We love this little face so much!

Seoul and her friend, Grace, working on a pinata at play group. One week they made the pinatas, and another week they broke them. Good times (except Seoul refused to hit it... she just wanted the loot)!

Seoul loves to help in the kitchen! We were making St Patrick's Day cookies - yum!

Sydney just chills while Seoul & I do stuff sometimes. She gets funny expressions when Seoul does something extra silly at her.

Seoul loves window clings. It started with a gift of Valentine's Day decorations... from there we moved on to St Patrick's Day and then Easter. So sad they probably don't have anything again until Halloween.

Sydney just chillaxing as usual...

Seoul had her first ice cream sandwich. Silly girl insisted on using a spoon to eat it!

Daddy and Sydney snoozing after a hard day.

Seoul LOVES stickers! They usually end up on her face but this time Kelley discovered this after just a minute... the whole sheet of stickers ended up on her leg, with just the one on her face.

Seoul likes to feed her baby Toot-Toot. She uses the boppy pillow, covers the baby with a burp rag (like I use a nursing cover), and then holds her up on her shoulder and pats her back to burp her.

We love this sisterly love!

Sydney chilling on her tummy. (I will confess that she has rolled over three times in her little life - once on video camera even).

Smiles after eating... we call this the milk-coma :)

PLAY TIME!!

 

Happy times with our family!

Sydney’s Blessing

Kelley blessed Sydney on April 17th. She wore the same blessing dress my mom made for Seoul so that was neat. Despite my fear that she’d have a giant blow out in the dress and Kelley’s fear she would cry the entire time like her big sister did, Sydney proved us wrong and was an ANGEL. (She had the blow out right before I changed her and she slept through the blessing prayer.) It is such a neat experience to have friends and family who hold the Priesthood be a part of the circle. Kelley did a wonderful job with the blessing. One of the things he said I found a little amusing & spot on was that Sydney needs to have patience with her sister because she loves her. Every day I wonder what Sydney thinks as Seoul “loves” on her. It was a beautiful day outside and we were able to visit with friends and family.

 We have such a lovely family :)

 

Nothing like a daddy and mommy’s love for their baby.

 Seoul loves Sydney.

This is one of the better cousin pictures… and there is our beautiful 2-year-old with her finger in her nose. Nice. Sydney is just chilling.

Just like Seoul did on her blessing day, Sydney was content to chill with Grandpa.

I think Sydney was more mellow on her blessing day and didn’t sleep as much as Seoul did. Love the differences because it means they have unique personalities! How lucky we are to have two beautiful girls, and so many friends and family to share the special day.

{I will post some more pictures once I get copies from people.}

Tulip Festival

We hit the annual Tulip Festival in Woodburn this year. The flowers were beautiful, although the place was a big mud pit due to the rain lately. Seoul was good to go with her cute mud boots, though. I got to briefly see some old roommates, which is always nice. I’m so glad people make the effort to have things like this so I can enjoy them. To my dismay I found a half-off admission coupon in the paper the night we went. Bummer.

Worst Mom of the Year Award

I feel so sad. This was the scenario 30 minutes ago:

Sydney is starting to get fussy on her play mat in the hall while I'm trying to get Seoul down for a nap... progressively getting louder. It's part of the routine for me to rock Seoul and sing her some songs. I kept trying to ask her what song she wanted and I couldn't hear because Sydney was so loud. I was getting a bit frustrated. So this is our conversation:

Me: I'm going to put you in bed after singing just one song.
Seoul: (getting upset) No! Another song!
Me: I need to take care of Sydney because she is crying so loud you won't hear me and won't be able to sleep.
Seoul: (now crying) Another song! Rock me! Please!
Me: Don't you hear Sydney crying? Do you like to hear her cry?
Seoul: Yes.
Me: Why??
Seoul: Because you are rocking me and singing to me and holding me.

Did that break my heart? Yep. I try and divide my attention but my poor (baby) Seoul gets the short end of the stick because it does seem like Sydney gets first dibs for my attention - eating, sleeping, diaper changes, etc. I held her a bit longer but of course Sydney won because the crying was getting to me (she does not have a quiet, cute newborn cry... this is an ear-piercing-someone-is-killing-me-slowly scream while her face turns red like her head is going to explode).

So, today I win the worst mom of the year award. I do love my girls, though.... and hopefully one day Seoul will forgive me for the lack of attention to her sometimes.

I Can be Anything!

One of Seoul's current favorite books: (yes, everything relates back to a book Seoul remembers)

One of the things the boy can be is a "PUDDLE STOMPER" - and every time we look at the page she says "I like jumping in puddles!"

So, with our glorious Oregon rain, Seoul has discovered the only thing to do:

JUMP IN THE PUDDLES!

Unfortunately (or not) we don’t have huge puddles at our house but we jumped in them at a friend’s house and at the library. She found the small ones she could stomp in at our house:

Here is a video of her running around super happy:

{Video taken March 3, 2011}

Happy 3-Month Birthday Sydney!

Sydney is our chubby-cheek, happy, smiley girl these days! She “talks” mostly in the evening and is really starting to giggle. It’s hilarious! I forgot how adorable those open-mouth baby smiles are. Her legs are super strong, pushing off anything she can get her feet against… including when sitting in the infant chair. She almost launched herself out the other day when I wasn’t looking (yes, now I always buckle her in). Just today she decided she doesn’t really like the car seat and bucks her body forward so it makes it difficult to buckle her. She is obviously great at eating (her chubby cheeks prove that), and is sleeping so well. The last couple nights have been 9 hour nights! Of course she has her not-so-great nights that she wakes up after a few hours but lately I’ve been able to comfort her back to sleep instead of feeding her.

She was pretty excited on her 3-month birthday… can you tell?


I don’t feel like smiling… try again later!


These days it’s all about the hands/fingers in the mouth. She’s learned to bring her hands together, up to her mouth to suck on her fingers, and to reach out and hit her hanging toys.


Here’s a smile for you… now that it’s bedtime!

Special Person’s Day

Amanda invited Seoul to be her Special Person at school (I was just along for the ride since Seoul can’t drive herself). Seoul was so excited to go to Amanda’s school and asked me to go to school for days afterward. Amanda introduced us to her class, along with Sydney even though she wasn’t there. We got to see her favorite programs on the class i-touches and eat lunch and go to the book fair and play at recess. Good times in the life of a 5th grader!

 



 

 

 

 



Ella invited Mindee and I got a few photos of those girls since the times overlapped.