Christmas Day

Sunday December 25, 2011

I have attempted to post this blog a couple of times over the last week but apparently I haven't had the correct approach to the posting of the pictures so I am trying for the last night and taking it slow and steady to win this race...I still have a whole bunch of blogging to do to get my New Year's Resolutions out there. But I digress....

So the first things that Santa left on Christmas Eve was our stockings. I loved Sydney's little bunny in her stocking and I will BRAG that all of our Stocking Stuffers came from Dollar Tree and total I spent about $15-$18 for all 3 stockings. She got some board books and Daddy got some wax melters. Very little known fact is that Cory LOVES anything candle related. I hope he is ok that I shared that fact about him.

Then Santa's helpers put together the Easel that he left for Sydney. We had no idea how much Santa's gifts really were going to be such hits with our little angel!

Santa's left this for Sydney as well. She had "asked" for a slide on her wish list, but somehow it got expanded. Such a treat for someone who was so good this year!

All put together with a little message from Santa himself. 

Then Santa ate his goodies and went on to the next house to share the spirit of giving with another special family. I am sure that Santa loved his 7 layer bars and white chocolate macadamia cranberry cookies from the Mitchell household!

So then on Christmas morning we got to see the first real eye-sparkling-excitement from Sydney. The first place that we went (guided her) was to where we had left Santa's goodies. I have to admit that we prepped the Santa thing very thoroughly. Between the phone calls to Santa and all of our talks about the "big guy". So when we said "let's go see if Santa ate our treats" she ran right over and this is how we captured her reaction...

No way Mommy...

See the smile on her face? Mommy he really ate them! and he drank the milk!

Daddy, I am so embarrassed! He really left me presents! She didn't know what to think!

Oh man! Now we can get down to business, there are stuffed animals involved!

And back to the Easel...we came back to what was already set up and ready to play with! Which actually happened a lot... ha ha

Soft blocks from Uncle Colton

And Sesame Street foam play mat!!! She LOVES this.

 Uncle Colton also spoiled Daddy and he was very pleased. These were the only gifts that Daddy had to open on Christmas Day because Mommy got Daddy money for Christmas. He had asked for this as his gift so that he could buy himself more military collectible goodies. And let me tell you... this habit has been growing like wildfire and our bedroom is turning into a military museum. Our future house will need a nice sized "man-cave" so that I can claim our rooms back. But I digress again...

Another great gift from Uncle Colton

Mommy got some FANTASTIC gifts from Daddy. I had provided a great list of options with the theme that the gifts should allow me to "spoil and pamper" myself. So he did a great job with a gift card to Lane Bryant, a Spa package (massage, mani/pedi), and 2 jugs of GNC's Lean Shake meal replacement system with a blender bottle. (More on the latter in my New Year's blog)

Uncle Colton did so good, this was Daddy's reaction to the penguin hat that he got. He has one JUST LIKE this one that has certain been worn out so this was perfect.

Then we pulled up the curtains for the big reveal!

What's going on? These kids are pretty much programmed to know when Christmas Day is and what time to wake up...this girl woke up at 630AM! So this explains the sleepy face! 

Now we are getting excited! 

So cool!

My very own slide!!!

Then after breakfast (strawberry pancakes) we all got ready and went to Nana's for Christmas Day festivities. She had a BIG gift waiting there for her so we all wanted to see her reaction to it!

Peaking around the corner....

Our BIG kitchen!!! She was a little taken back by it so not the explosive reaction that we will see in future years but Uncle Billy did a great job showing her how it works. Now we love to cook meals for all of our stuffed animal friends.

Didn't I say that Daddy got spoiled? He got this throwback Crosby jersey from Uncle Billy. Not to mention the ROCKING golf shoes that Daddy got from Papa. I mean...this kid is SPOILED. 

Tickles from Uncle Billy

Nana got some GREAT digs from her guys for Christmas.

What do you buy a redneck for Christmas??? ha ha

So as you can see, we were all very blessed for Christmas. We also had an early Christmas with my Dad. Sydney got the Leaptop (yay!), a really cool Nursery for all of her babies and a Christmas bear. My Dad always got me a bear for Christmas and this year was Sydney's first year. She LOVES the bear and sleeps with him every night. We can't wait to have many more blessed Christmases to come!

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!