The 100th Day of School

Evan and I made a shirt with 100 gems glued on INDIVIDUALLY for her 100th day of school. I thought we did a pretty good job and were creative. Can you imagine how shocked I was to find out that the class winner just cut 100 holes in his shirt. Seriously?

Honors Assembly

Evan is such a good student! For the past nine weeks, she got perfect attendance, A Honor roll, and she met her Advanced Reading goal. She is such a perfectionist, though, that she gets upset if she misses a problem or question on a test. She's only in the first grade - it might be a long 11 years until graduation!!

Sydney Lou Who

We spend 1 1/2 hours at the girls' gym every Thursday night for gymnastics. There is a ball pit that Sydney plays in while we wait for her class to start. Mike put this ball in her hoodie one night, so Sydney now wants to walk around like this each week.

Frosty the Miniature Snowman

If you look closely, you can see their snowman. Believe it or not, it stood for about 2 days!

Evan and Chloe

You can barely see Chloe, but she so enjoyed the snow, too. Evan used Chloe for snowball target practice. They played so hard, Chloe crashed as soon as she came inside.

A Snow Day

So we didn't get that much snow, but the Department of Homeland Security (no kidding) demanded that schools close for our little dusting of snow. The girls absolutely loved it, though! They played, made a snowman and ate chocolate chip cookies straight from the oven with a side of hot chocolate.

New Year's Eve

SO, you probably can't tell what's going on in this picture. Just before midnight on New Year's we began lighting fireworks. One was a parachute that landed in the backyard. About 10 minutes later we noticed a perfect ring of fire. We now have a spot in the backyard that should be really green this summer!

Tree Climbers

We are so proud of Evan because she plays so well with Sydney. They love to play outside. One day as I looked out the window, I realized how much we take for granted. Of course Sydney is still so young, but she had never climbed a tree. Evan loves to climb trees, Sydney loves to copy Evan, so Sydney loves to climb trees. Of course, she got scared when she tried to get down and got pretty stuck.

Sheriff McConnell

On January 11th, Mike made his decision to run for Bossier Parish Sheriff official. He had quite a showing and made a great speech. He got so carried away that he almost forgot to introduce me and the girls. Sydney started getting restless, so I let her down, and she made her way up on stage with her arms outstretched. It was the perfect segue into the introduction.

We knew that the announcement would start the harrassment from the current Sheriff and his cronies. Like clockwork, a deputy came to our door the very next day. Apparently someone called in a complaint on us because we had Chloe staked out in the front yard. Unbelievable! Several administrators live in our subdivision and pass our house to get home. All we can assume is that one of them called just to be petty. Let the adventure begin!

Viral Pneumonia

Sent from my iPhone
What a rough week Sydney has had. I took her to the doctor after a friend
of hers was diagnosed with Viral Pneumonia. She's had a mild cough and
runny nose off and on for weeks, now. She sucked down the steroid and loves
the breathing treatment. We had to go to the lab to have blood drawn, and she got so upset. We held her down for that. Then it was on to Xray. She tolerated that ok. She hated the swab in her
nose to test for RSV. Then we had to run across town to get her brand new
bear nebulizer! She loves breathing treatments with that thing! It is
pretty cute.
The next day she had to have a TB test and freaked out as soon as she saw
the needle.
She made it through that only to have a flu shot today. Poor thing!
We're off the steroids and breathing treatments as of today, so maybe her
little body can calm down and get some rest.

Merry Christmas!

We had to wake Evan up to check out what Santa left her. Sydney woke up right on time. She was not sure what all the stuff in the living room was, but Evan was quick to show her - when we could pull her away from her new Wii. After we had a little time with their gifts, we headed to Longview for Christmas with the family. As busy as this season was, I can only imagine how much busier it will be next year when Sydney is older and understands more.

Breakfast with Santa and Mrs. Claus

We knew we were taking a chance taking Sydney with us to eat breakfast with Santa at Palmetto Country Club, but we also knew that Evan would enjoy it. We ate breakfast before Santa arrived, and it was very good. They had biscuits, gravy, sausage, pancakes, eggs, etc. As soon as Sydney saw Santa enter the room, she jumped into my lap. She squirmed a little but didn't cry. She played with the sleigh bells on his belt. She was okay sitting in Santa's lap as long as Evan was with her. All in all, I think we achieved success in just one Christmas!

Christmas Parties

The Friday before Christmas both girls had their Christmas parties. Sydney's just consisted of eating snacks. However, they had a visit from Santa just before I got there. Apparently, Sydney completely 'freaked out'! Her nose was still a mess when I walked in. She quickly got over it and started playing with her friend Brody. We went to Evan's party where they received letters from Santa. Evan was so excited that Santa knew little things like her getting Littlest Pet Shop stuff last year and becoming a big sister this past year. She also thought it was cool that Santa entrusted her with the privileged information that he was bringing Sydney a scooter. He asked Evan to be a good sister and not only keep it a secret, but also help her learn to ride it.