Ellie's visit

We got to pretend we had a dog this weekend. Our friends lets us dog sit their sweet puppy, Ellie. She's a great little dog and the girls were in heaven!





It was totally worth it for me, because my friend is paying me in cheesecake. Yum! Coming up this week, I"ll try to finally post about girls camp...

If you want to see what we did on the fourth of July, check out my friends blog...

www.clanmcpherson.blogspot.com

The Pink Poodle Princess Party

I wish I had more photos, but this is it. Like all the birthday parties before, I run around like a crazy lady and hostess and don't get too many photos taken. But, I must admit, I always have alot of fun. Sydney this year wanted a "Pink Poodle Princess Party." She came up with that one all on her own... I tell ya, that girl.

So, we had one. I did everything in black and hot pink. I made chocolate cherry cream cheese cupcakes (yeah, they were pretty awesome) and we had all things 'girlie.' We kicked off the party by playing beauty shop and getting ready just like poodles do (complete with poodle bows for all the girls hair, made by yours truly.) After that a few boys arrived and we read a cute story called "Poodlena." It's about a poodle who only likes to be cute and never get dirty, but in the end, she realizes that sometimes its fun to play and get dirty. After that we jumped in the bounce house and played a few games. Then came cake and presents. I literally snapped this at the very last second.





To end the party, we read the book "Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy." We are big fans of the Fancy Nancy books and this one is a cutie. In the end Fancy adopts a dog, so we all "adopted" dogs, too! Each child got to pick out their own stuffed animal puppy from an 'adoption center' (i.e-- the TV room) to name and take home with them. The party was a hit. Sydney said it was the best party ever, ever, EVER.

Mission Accomplished.

Sydney's Birthday (The REAL one)

This year, Syd's birthday fell in the middle of the week, so I pushed her party to Saturday. This is very hard for a 4 almost 5 little girl to understand, so she kept asking me if her birthday was on the "real" June 18th. She woke up this morning and came into our room and whispered, "Mom, is today the real June 18th?"

"Yes Sydney, its your birthday"

"The real one, the real June 18th?

"Yes punkin' the real one, Happy Birthday!"


We celebrated by having it be an all Sydney day. Whatever she said went. What did she want? Taco Bell chips and cheese and a trip to the beach for some sand castle building....

I love her.

She spent the morning with me. We went to the toy store to pick out a new toy with her "Grandma Hazel" birthday money, then off to Taco Bell for some 89 cent nachos (she's a pretty cheap date.) In the late afternoon we hit the beach. It was warm but overcast--just perfect. Even Vivie got in on the castle building action.. We played in the surf and (eventually) got a castle made-- sort of. What she REALLY wanted to do was bury Daddy in the sand, but I told her that could be the activity for HIS birthday (I love you, honey!)

It was a good day, we had fun, and most importantly, we were all together. I couldn't ask for anything more. Apparently Sydney couldn't either, she told me late that night that it was "the most perfect birthday ever."

Sydney's Week--Day 2

Some of Sydneys favorite things:

Disney Princesses (in particular, Cinderella)
Disneyland
Giraffes
Max and Ruby (the cartoon)
The County Fair
Chicken Nuggets
Jello
Popcicles
Homemade Lemonade that Daddy makes
Pancakes
Riding her Scooter
Cheerleading
Wearing skirts and dresses (she NEVER wears pants)
The Library
Anything Purple
Anything Sparkely
Any type of Singing Opportunity

and..

Waking up at 6 AM every morning for NO APPARENT REASON!

All about Sydney -- Day One

This week there will something new about Sydney everyday leading up to her big "Pink Poodle Princess Party" on Saturday.

Today we'll talk about one of Sydney's favorite pastimes...singing. She is my singing girl. Jon and I joke about how the whole world is a musical Sydney is starring in and we are just the chorus. This last year I've found an outlet for her. She is a proud member of the Orange County Mormon Choral Organization. They had the final concert of the season last week and here are some highlights. She needed to wear a costume of some world nationality and, naturally, I wasn't going to let a chance like this go by without showing off our Scottish roots. (We're plaid! We're proud! All the Scots shout out loud!!) My mother (who is completely amazing) made this costume for her. It looks just like a highland dancer uniform, tweaked just a bit to make sure everyone knew exactly what country she was representing. She was so proud to wear it! I must say I think she's the cutest little thing I've ever seen.



I had to be a backstage mom for this concert and although it wasn't the best of experiences, the fun part was being with Sydney. She gets SO excited before she goes on stage. When standing in line waiting for her entrance she would just keep saying, "Oh I can't wait to sing" or "when do we get to go on?" I shot a few pictures of her backstage-- not too many as I was dealing with all kinds of craziness. But here's our little backstage documentary.

In the holding room coloring


Walking down the steps to the stage

Waiting backstage for the cue


Lined up and ready to go!

The day after the concert I asked her what her favorite part of it all was. She replied "I love going out on the stage and I love singing and I love when everyone claps!!" What can I say, she's a diva...

Class of '08!!

Congratulations to the graduating class of Little Bugs Preschool!!! Yes, that's right, we are ridiculous enough to praise our daughter about graduating preschool and heading off into the scary unknown we call kindergarten. Here's the highlights of the day:

Sydney was sporting a jaunty yellow dress for the occaison and got to set next to her dear friend, Lily.


Their teacher Miss Paula sang with them their favorite songs and went down the row giving each child a turn to say what they liked best about preschool. Here's Sydney's answer:




What's so funny is that Miss Paula had just (jokingly) finished telling everyone she really wanted some of the kids to say her, but so far none were willing to. Then Syd stood up and made sure to include Miss Paula in the things she loves. Everyone laughed, but I just thought it was too sweet. That's my girl. She saw miss Paula wanted someone to say something nice so she did. She is just that kind of loving sweet girl.

Next they performed a play where in the sparkley ladybug shared her spots with everyone. It was uncannily familiar to Rainbow Fish sharing his scales (all you parents out there know what story I'm talking about.) Syd played the butterfly and got very in character with making sure to 'sniff' all the flowers. So much so that Miss Paula made her stop.



After the play, they finished up with a "diploma" ceremony in which Miss Paula called them up and talked about each child and then gave them their parting gifts. Here's what she had to say about our Sydney:





So, apparently Sydney is the loud, dramatic, diva-like one (hmmm, I wonder where she got THAT from... it must be Jon...)

Everyone was all smiles after it was over. Especially Sydney and Lily who knew they were going to Legoland.



Syd has never been to Legoland before, so this was so fun for her. We had the best time with Lily and DeEtte and it was the perfect treat for after preschool's end. It was a nice day and not too crowded. Here's a few of the favs:

Checking out the maps

Gettin' ready for a plane ride

ANOTHER plane ride (I think there might have been 3)

Mmmmmm.... Ice cream!

So Congrats to Sydney! I can't believe my little girl is going to start kindergarten next year. I know everyone says this and it sounds totally lame (unless you're another parent and you totally know what I'm talking about) but it only seems like a few days or months ago she was my little baby, now she's a smart, sweet, sassy and fun little girl. I know I can't keep her little, but sometimes I wish I could I love her so much!

Tune in next week as the blog will be all Sydney all the time! Next week is Syd's 5th birthday and we'll be celebrating with a Week's worth of Syd blogs!

Wheeeeeee!!!!!

Happy Summertime EveryBody!!!!!!