Christmas 2011

I have a very strong feeling that this may be a multi-post update but we will see if the spirit overtakes me. First I just want to say that I hope you and yours had a Merry Christmas and that the holiday season found you healthy and happy, regardless of who you spent it with. I will say that Santa was very good to everyone in the Mitchell clan, but the best part about the weekend was the memories that we could capture. I apparently also tried to capture every memory in pictures so I hope you enjoy my trip down memory lane even though it was just a couple of days ago that this all started. It is like your wedding day...so much planning and its over before you know it!!


Friday, December 23, 2011
So Friday evening, Sydney had her first Christmas program at school and it was so special. We had bought her a special Ms. Claus' type outfit, knowing very well that she would not be participating in much of the "concert" festivities. She was there and that was all that mattered to us. Participation will come very very soon. Isn't this the cutest dress ever?

We rarely get pictures of Mommy and Sydney so I was very excited when we snapped this gem..

And a good family picture that wasnt a formal "family picture"? Well I guess Sydney may not be quite with it, but she is easily forgiven :)

Saturday, December 24, 2011
Saturday morning we woke up very excited to start our day. Our plan was to have Nana, Opa, Billy, Bridget and Eric over for some general Christmas Eve festivities. We needed to assemble the playground that Santa got Sydney and there was a lot of baking going on. In general, the morning started with a fun meal of bananas, a breakfast bar, and some goodies while mommy baked some blueberry streusel cake. We made it fun though for the Christmas Eve effect :). It was basic, but I was so proud of myself because my creative mommy brain seems to be developing ever so slightly.

Someone loves her blueberries!!!



Then Sydney helped Mommy bake 7-layer bars for our guests:

And then the comedian got herself all wrapped up for this one... ha ha 

Then she had to take a break to tend to and feed her kiddies :) my little nurturer

We also attempted to go to Children's Mass at a Catholic Church on Christmas Eve. With the word "attempted" being used, you can assume our success...0%. We didn't have too much crying, she just could not sit still. Let me clarify, she would not sit still, stand still or sit/stand near me. She just wanted to run! I was officially "that" parent, but we had to learn somehow. Girl sits through a hockey game, but she does have limits and we were asking her to behave way too well, ha ha.

At the end of the night we got ready for the big guy so that he would make sure to leave us something very nice to enjoy the next day. Sydney also called Santa on Daddy's phone and that was a great thing.

Video of our Call to Santa: I don't think you can hear Santa, but you can hear Sydney. I also hope the quality isn't "too" bad...

Then we all went to bed with dreams of Santa dancing in our heads :)

Christmas Day update will come tomorrow night :) If you are back to work tomorrow, I will be right there with you but we can all get through it together! I have an AMAZING husband who, among a million other things, is going into work late so that he can take Sydney to school and I can go into work early to work all of my overtime in the morning instead of being at work until 5:15 again all week! :) I am sooooo blessed and lucky :) Have a great week!

WHOA...

It was early November when my last post was written... busy much? Definitely not my goal when I first started this blog to skip so many days! This will be a resolution for the New Year, I promise you that. So what have we been up to lately? I can give you a brief update and then the details will have to come eventually over time...

For Thanksgiving, we went to Dallas to spend the holiday with Cory's family. It was a great trip.

Daddy, Uncle Colton, and Sydney at the Dallas Stars game.

In December, we have spent the majority of the time enjoying our second Christmas season. We got our family pictures taken by the amazing Erika Ross (www.urbanpeacephotography.com).

We also spent a portion of November and December sick and on antibiotics. We had 2 ear infections and Roseola virus. Oh the things these kids get at daycare!! But we are all better now and I am LOVING my happy girl again. We have our occasional terrible two moments (prior to 2 which I am learning is normal). I also think that we are getting some molars so some fussiness is to be expected. All of our patience is being tested but we are all working through it.

We also went to see good old S-A-N-T-A!! Santa and Sydney became great friends this year. She did so good and I was AMAZED that she was not scared or squimish with him. LOVE HER!

Well I promise more over the next few weeks. Have a great holiday week everyone!! 





Race for Breath 2011

Today, Sydney and I participated in the Race for Breath in Virginia Beach, VA. The Race for Breath raises money for lung cancer research, education, advocacy, and treatment. Lung cancer is a nasty nasty thing that has affected our family directly more times than I would like in the last few years. My Grandpa was diagnosed in 2007 and is currently in remission. My Dad's girlfriend's father is also currently in treatment after being diagnosed recently. And it doesn't stop there, but for the sake of continuing, I will move on...

So Sydney and I were participating in the 5K Walk this morning and Boy Oh Boy was it windy outside!!! I mean, this was a massively painful amount of windiness, lol. The first half of the journey was manageable because the wind was at our back. But for the second half of the trip....WHEW! The wind blowing head on at us was so intense that we actually had to move from the oceanfront side to the other side of the boardwalk to avoid some of the wind. I stress how windy it was, but in reality, for those of us who were participating---it was a very temporary inconvenience in our busy lives and that is nothing compared to the constant journey of someone suffering from this icky icky form of cancer. It was probably not nearly as bad as I remember at the moment in my sleepiness, but I just feel so blessed that we were able to be there and participate.

The other great part of the story is who I was with today. A really great friend of mine, Karen, is engaged to a man whose father passed away from Lung Cancer. Since then, Karen's future sister in law (who is also a great friend of Karens), has become very involved in fundraising for this cause. They have formed a team of participants for the Race for the Breath and from what I can tell, they are doing some really amazing things. But I have not seen Karen for YEARS. It is really sad actually because from our senior year of high school into college we were pretty much inseparable. But it was great to see her and all of the other girls that I met through her during our closer years. One of the girls, Amber, has a little girl Melia and she is PRECIOUS. She is going to be 1 this month and Sydney was tickled by her once they could get themselves out from all of their blankets and cold weather gear. Here are a couple of pictures from our day!

Brrrrrrr Mommy!!! But I don't want to keep this hat on!  

 Karen and her fiance Erec

 Karen and I

 Sydney and Mommy!

 She was so so so cute all bundled up!

 Precious little Melia

Just one of those wonderful faces my Baby Girl makes! :)

Trick or Trading!!!

Happy Halloween everyone! So without further delay...here is our sweet baby ZOMBIE!!!

So I am sure that you might be mortified but think about it this way... Sydney waddles when she walks (thats how toddlers are at this age). Zombies waddle too. Its a no brainer. And every other year from this year out she will get to choose this or that costume and she will get to choose all of the amazing Disney princess or other trendy character. And I will LOVE that just the same. And we will dress up and twirl and sing together. But this year we had a little bit of entertaining fun. :) and you know you LOVE it, ha ha. Anyways....We had a great time. I am so happy that we did it.

We also did our first Mitchell side of the family "trick or trading"! I always traded my candy in to my Dad for one small item each year. So we went ahead with that this year and will do it for every year after it. This year we got Sydney a new Elmo training potty. She is starting to show us small signs here and there that we may be ready for potty training sooner instead of later. She tells us when she has gone potty (very rarely but still happening) and at school she sometimes goes between some cribs to have some privacy. So just to make sure she is ready for what it looks like when we finally do get there we went ahead and bought it for her trick or trading present.

Hope you all have a great week and had a safe Halloween!

Happy Halloween!!!

So lastly, I have to get a head start on the Halloween update. Tomorrow I will have more but we have been very excited about our year so far when it comes to the Halloween plans. I was dead set on getting a pumpkin this year and really wanted to go pick one out of a pumpkin patch to really get the whole experience of it with Sydney and boy did we have a great time!!

She had such a good time. We really wanted to reward her for being such a good girl that day because this was the same day that we went Yard Sale-ing for the morning. So we really appreciated how good she was that day.

My honest confession--I had never actually carved a pumpkin :( so I had to do some googling to make sure I didnt mess it up and knew that I could probably get a template or pattern or something. Well what I came across was so amazing and it was definitely a "Sydney Pleaser":

If you don't speak "toddler" that is Blue from the show "Blues Clues". He is a favorite in our house and the second Sydney saw the pumpkin she said "Boos Coos?" My life was complete. I met my purpose. I was so excited. I felt like such the cool mommy, I can't lie. And I know my picture up there is blurry, but you can really see the excitement that I was feeling :).

Friday, they were allowed to dress up to school (daycare) and they went trick or treating in the shops around the school. We picked up a very cheap "Pumpkin Witch" costume for the day so that it was no fuss, easy to keep on, and not expensive enough to ruin and be mad about it. It was so cute. Here is Sydney at school with one of her teachers, Kellie.

I was amazed that it stayed on all day. Now for tomorrow we are doing the trick or treating thing and I am soooooooo excited about her costume. I am so excited about it that I am not going to reveal yet what she is going to be. I haven't been keeping it a secret, but if you don't know, its going to be better just to see it. It is just so funny! But I will show you all tomorrow or Tuesday so stay tuned! Have a great Monday!

End of October update continued...

So back to the updates :) I am sure if you are reading this, you understand how the time goes when you are living with a toddler. There are no other events that can really go on productively when you have a toddler on the loose. Not that I will ever complain about my responsibilities of being a parent, but it has to be understood that it is very hard to get anything else done around the house when they are in "that" stage of their development. Sometimes it makes me feel like a failure of my other life "duties". Most days I feel like I am the failing at wife duties, household duties, and work duties. The only thing that I usually want to do is devote every ounce of attention to her and that means that cooking, cleaning, and many other things are thrown to the side. Well when they can. Sydney has to eat too so the cooking thing comes through. I find myself getting very tense though and I probably should find some type of creative outlet that is affordable to do but will let me keep my hands busy during the little bit of downtime that I have. Probably wouldn't hurt. I totally wasn't planning on going in that direction during this update, but since my last update thats what has transpired (in about 4 hours time) so I felt the need to vent. That is what a blog is about right?

So rumor has it that most, if not all, young families struggle with finances. I really hope that this is true. Not that I will whine about specific things here and there but we pinch pennies sometimes and I would really hope that this is fairly normal. One thing that I actually have found a little bit of an outlet in is the ability to find a deal at any point in time. I LOVE finding a steal. Coupons or yard sales....love them both. Last Saturday we went out and about looking for yard sales. We had the paper so we definitely branched out and found some and let me tell you---I was so excited. I spent $15 that day and this is all that I got:

I just have to say it...saying that I spent $15 and even just seeing 2 books in the picture is pretty lucky, am I right? Books are so expensive! and Sydney LOVES them. I LOVE that she LOVES books (I was a killer nerd for some books as a kid), but this can be an expensive thing to keep up with. Luckily, you can really find the deals and that way Sydney doesn't have to miss out on a single thing because Mommy is really tight with our finances.

Anyways, on to lighter notes :) If you know my husband...you know that he is very 'specific' about the foods that he eats. Ever since we first met I have been trying to get him to try Pierce's BBQ in Williamsburg, VA. They have the BEST BBQ I have ever had in my life. Well, Cory is from Texas so he begs to differ on that fact. And he also says that he eats BBQ in Texas but I have NEVER seen him eat it ever---in the entire time that I have known him. Long story short, I got him to try it finally. And he loved every minute of it. And I loved every minute of the experience as well. As weird as it is to say, it was some of the best comic relief that we have had in a really long time. This is his first bite...look at how scared he was!!! But he loved it so that is the only part that matters.

So as it is the end of October we are now in full swing getting ready for our Thanksgiving trip to Dallas. Last year we went for Christmas and this year we are going for Turkey Day. It is really important that we get down there to see Cory's family. We miss them so much during the year and wish that we could go down there a LOT more. But with finances and everything that goes into it, it gets tough. But we are very very very excited for this trip. We are going for one of the longest trips we have been on yet so its going to be some good quality time. I am still waiting for some of the time off of work, but I am thinking that with the way things are going that I should not have much difficulty. But we are planning on catching some great sports events while we are there if everything works out. First up would be the Thanksgiving day Cowboys game between the 'Boys and the Lions. That is like monumental right!? We are hoping so. We are also going to check out a Dallas Stars game on Black Friday. Very exciting. But overall, its going to be a very exciting November. Cory is going to a Carolina Hurricane game with the "guys" on the 12th and then all of the Thanksgiving month activities. So it should be a good month! Hope it is for all of you as well!

End of October already?!?!

I am in absolute shock that tomorrow is the last day of October. With that being said, it seems like a good time to update the blog because I have (once again) been slacking on my postings...

I don't even know where to start here! I guess the first thing to mention is that I have been in my new rotational position at work for about a month now and I am LOVING it so far. No one situation is alike so you are always learning something different or new. This has kept things exciting and I have definitely been on my toes for the last few weeks. It is also an extremely long training process, with no set time line, so my type A personality is really have to adjust to the way that things are in there. But it's great. I cannot complain one bit. Friday was our Fall Fest at work and to say that we get into the costume part of the day is an under-statement. Here is the proof:

Sydney has been a full two hands full lately, but in the most amazing way possible. She is too funny. She is learning so much that it is hard to keep up. She tries to pronounce things like hockey, thank you (which she signs very well now), please, milk, papa, down, up, trick or treat (for Halloween of course), and the numbers 1-10. When it comes to counting and the numbers she will repeat what you say so I am not sure that there is any true understand or comprehension but maybe a little bit. Or at least we are getting there, so I think that for 16 months she is doing pretty well. She is turning into such the little nurturer and she is always trying to take care of Elmo, Tad her Leapfrog, or her Baby. She changes their diapers and tries to feed them. She also puts them in their pajamas and puts them night-night.

She is also becoming such a little ham! She understands the concept of the camera and that she is supposed to do something sweet or funny for the camera:

She is also constantly doing the funniest things, like the modern day version of "mouse"kercise:

And then of course there is her helping Mommy clean the house. I am hoping to help this continue as long as she would like:

So we are absolutely loving our little angel. I will have to update more later :) The little princess just decided that she isnt going down for her second nap and that means Mommy isn't allowed to touch anything else but her! Isn't that what that means?!?!?

ABC's of Me!

So I am borrowing this post from a friend of mine that I went to high school with and see from time to time because our families have season tickets right near each other for the Admirals games. I think that she is a great girl and I am so excited that she is doing so well. Her and her husband are expecting their first little miracle on Feb 1, 2012 and that is extremely exciting. I get excited for ANYONE that I know that is getting ready to head into this amazing journey called motherhood. It is always a learning process, but it is the most exciting learning process! Anyways...you can check out her blog HERE. It is much more interesting than mine...I can promise you that. But here is my post for the day :)

ABC's of ME!

A. Age: 25 and I know that is not old, but I feel like that should say 30 with everything we have been through! Although, I will admit that most of it is self inflicted.

B. Bed size: Queen--We have slept in a full though for a time period when we were living with my mom. Until I was about 5 months pregnant, Couldn't have ended at a better time!
C. Chore that you hate: I think that EVERY woman would say Folding Laundry! But its followed closely behind by cleaning bathrooms, doing dishes, washing bottles, must I go on?
D. Dogs: Not ours specifically but right now we are living with my Dad and his long-time girlfriend so we have 2 dogs right now. 2 jack russells Izzy and Henry. They are only here when Christy is here and not in Florida at their second house. We miss them a bunch when they are gone and they are Sydney's little buddies when they want to be ;)
E. Essential start to your day: Running to the shower to get my shower in QUICK! I am not known for my punctuality and having to get a toddler ready too only compounds that problem.

F. Favorite color: This shouldnt be such a hard question but I really have many. My favorite combinations are pink and brown or brown and turquoise. They just go so well together.

G. Gold or Silver: Silver, all day long!
H. Height: 5'8" ... I still wish I was shorter...
I. Instruments you play: I was never one for instruments, but I did chorus and show choir for the most part in school (quit in 11th grade---stupidest choice I ever made)
J. Job title: I guess my title is Sr. Client Service Representative and tomorrow starts Customer Service Appreciation Week!! Thank all of the customer service reps you speak with this week if they provide you with great service! You may be a pleasure to speak with, but not everyone is like you so you can make someone's day by just thanking them and being patient with us too!

K. Kids: 15 month old Sydney Ann, and maybe another one in a few years, but we want to be able to put full attention to Sydney through all the years that she needs us the most! Plus they are expensive!

L. Live: Virginia Beach, VA
M. Mother’s name: Melinda, but if you call her that she will choke you...so call her Mindy
N. Nicknames: Em (real creative, I know)
O. Overnight hospital stays: Maybe when I was 6 and had tubes in my ears? Also, when Sydney was born we had a 2 night stay after my C-section. But I should have stayed longer, I was so anxious to get home and should have used the hospital time to my advantage to get more comfortable.
P. Pet peeves: People who don't say words right or say them "weird": Examples, INTformation, FUStrated, Biness (for business), benefisheraries
Q. Quote from a movie: I don't really remember them

R. Right or left handed: Right
S. Siblings: Oh brother, 2 half brothers: Billy (15) and Brett (29). 2 step sisters: Kara (27) and Megan (26). 3 brother in laws: Colton, Chad, and Philip and 2 sisters in law: Leslie and Lisa
T. Time you wake up: I should wake up at 6, but historically I wake up (late) at 6:45. Sydney also wakes up at 6:45 on the weekend.

U. Underwear: no comment...my parents read this blog!

V. Vegetable you hate: green peppers...they give me SUCH bad heartburn!
W. What makes you run late: Life...we have had this conversation already.

X. X-Rays you’ve had: Teeth, wrist, back, chest, should have had my nose because it was definitely broken. Now with an MRI I have the proof (its still crooked).
Y. Yummy food that you make: I am not very good at cooking. But my husband loves my pizzas.
Z. Zoo animal: Ummmm..... I think the Tigers are pretty. :)

Sydney's 15 month check up!

So my little angel had her 15 month check up today! We had a perfect appointment with the doctor. She weighs 24 lbs 14 oz and stands at a whopping 30 3/4 inches. We got a brand new book that has lots of bunnies and kittens and puppies in it. The doctor seemed to be impressed at the wide range of vocabulary she is working on so we are happy about that. He also eased my fears about the eating issues that I have thought we were having. He reassured me that she is eating just fine and she has the magical ability that most of us adults battle with...she eats until she is full and that is it. And he said technically she is 50% percentile for height and 75% for weight and they should actually be even. So she is a tad bit more than she should weigh if I am concerned about it, BUT its not something that you worry about right now. So all my fears are brushed to the side. We were very happy with our healthy report from the Doc!

Happy Tuesday!

All About Sydney...

Lets be honest with ourselves...everything is all about Sydney in some way, shape, or form. But now this blog is really all about Sydney. I am just amazed everyday at how much love she brings into my heart. You almost can't even stand it, ha ha.

Our little smarty pants is learning so much these days. It has made me sooooooo happy and reassured that we moved her from our in-home daycare to Great Bridge Kids Academy. I love that we had that experience though and we do feel that the nurturing that she got there was amazing for her development. Babies need something different at every age and she needed the in-home care. I would not change for a second the way that we did things. We were a bit concerned after we experienced a repeated biting offender in our first few weeks at GBKA. But after the third bite, the child was expelled from the center. Expelled from daycare at the age of 1?! I know...horrifying. I will not say anything about the little boy or his family because I have no idea the situation so I cannot comment on a single thing. We have all moved past.

The important and exciting thing is that our little bug is blossoming into a full fledged toddler. We are in FULL walking mode. Some attempts at running and MANY attempts at climbing. We are even successfully climbing sometimes. Our favorite toys are books.... I remember there was a time when I was so frustrated that Sydney would not even remotely sit still to read a book. Now she is constantly playing with them and saying "boo! boo!" which is her form of "book" right now. We are having fun with lots of different words right now. "boo" (book), "bye" (which is accompanied by a wave and a shake of the baby gate after dragging her Little Gym bag to it), "daw" (dog), "ma-ma", "da-da", "caaaaaa" (cat). She will try more words as well so we are also working on "lellow" (yellow) and "pur-pa" (purple) and many other words that I can't think of right now. We are also signing "more" "gym" (for little gym) "all done" and now "eat". She learned "eat" from one of the wonderful teachers at GBKA. Sydney started to do the sign for it yesterday at the house and we were trying to figure out what she meant by it. Then today we were talking about it and the teacher said well I said it to her a few times last week and there it was...she just learns so quick! It is amazing. We work on animal sounds too so Sydney barks, roars, hoos (like an owl), moos, and even quacks!

I have mentioned Little Gym a couple of times up there and if you haven't heard of it you are MISSING OUT! It is amazing. They start parent and child classes at 4 months and we have been going since Sydney was 10 months. They work on a lot of the benchmark development classes and it is a ton of fun. They get to play on a bunch of gymnastics equipment and it helps with all of their development. Once the children are older they have dance, gymnastics, karate, and sports classes. I am sure that, if we are still in the area, we will take advantage of them for the beginning of Sydney's extracurriculars. If we are out of this area, we will try to find a Little Gym in our new area or we will find something just like it. They also have the smallest and cutest little leotards...aren't they cute? ha ha

Oh and the eating habits of a toddler...drive me crazy. I have read that the more active the toddler, the less calories they will take in. Although it doesn't make any sense to me, it would prove to be right if my daughter is "normal". She just has such sporadic eating habits. Last night she ate the chicken that I made for dinner. I was AMAZED. Tonight, she didn't want anything to do with it. There was a time period where she would eat green beans with no problem. Now she wont touch them. But I offer them every night. But I waste a lot of food due to the indecisive nature of my sunshine. It will work itself out though, I just have to have patience and keep offering the good stuff. She will eat when she is hungry. Hopefully I can get her to be hungry for the healthy :)

And I leave you tonight with her "no more pictures mommy" pose. It was rainy this day and she was not in a really great mood...can you tell??? Have a great week!!