Standing Alone!

Sydney started standing alone over the weekend for longer periods of time. She does it best when she's focused on something, like her favorite show - Dora the Explorer. She dances and claps whenever the theme song comes on. I caught her on video tonight. If I kneel in front of her with my hands out hoping she'll take a step, she drops to the floor and crawls to me. We're getting closer to walking anyway!

Summer Fun!

Just about every weekend we've been staying up at camp. For those of you that don't know, camp is on Panther Lake, about 10 miles north of Oneida Lake. It's just under an hour from our house. Weather hasn't been great this summer, but we have gotten a few nice days. On those good days Sydney likes to wade in her baby pool. She plays with her toys in there and dips her face right in the water. Sometimes it's followed by a gasp of air, as if she's surprised by what happens when she dips her face in.

Sydney's getting closer to walking, but still gets nervous about standing without holding onto something or someone. Instead of falling to land on her butt she's starting to lean forward to catch herself with her hands, which I think is another step closer to standing alone.

I'll have a 4th of July update soon.

Sydney making her goofy smile face

In her 'big girl' Adirondack chair at camp. Oh, and she's playing Grandma's Tetris. She's thrown it so many times that the annoying Tetris song is barely audible.

Loving watermelon

Mmmmm....

Trip to the Big Apple

Sorry, I've been on summer hours and have a lot of catching up to do. We went to NYC in the beginning of June to go to the Belmont Stakes horse race and a Yankee game. Below are some pictures from our trip.

Sydney is still cracking us up and doing something new everyday. This morning she climbed a flight of stairs on her own (with supervision), but is still being very cautious about walking. If I stand her up and let go of her, she immediately buckles her knees once she realizes no one is hanging on to her. If she's not paying attention I have been able to get her to stand on her own for about 7 seconds. Then she realizes she's solo, looks at me with wide eyes, like, "Mom! What the heck?!" and buckles or reaches out for me.

My first Yankee game!

Already making faces when Mom wants a nice picture

The new stadium is beautiful

Yea!!! Go Team!

That was really tiring...

My first horse race - The Belmont Stakes

Posing with Mom and Dad

Hanging with Uncle James and Aunt Kristin

Watching the horse race with Uncle Mike, Grandma and Grandpa Kent

Photo Day

Our nice neighbor took these wonderful pictures of Sydney. I hope to get some done a few times a year since she is changing so quickly. She is making progress daily in the walking department. Sydney pushes around anything she can including her walker, her little rocking chair, her doll's baby stroller and sometimes even our kitchen chairs. Her favorite thing to play with is books. She can have a thousand toys surrounding her and she still crawls over to her box of books, tips it over, pulls several out and starts turning the pages. Sometimes she'll babble as she 'reads' the pages. She'll be 10 months next week. So hard to believe!

Never fail, you hand her a stuffed toy and she squeals as she squeezes and hugs it. It doesn't matter if she's seen it a hundred times.Pushing her baby stroller

Eating the flower at her photo shoot outside. We figured out the hard way that maybe this wasn't the right flower to hand her. She bit the top and had a whole bunch of tiny petals in her mouth. I finger scooped them out as she clenched her jaw and bit my finger. It ended with a few gags from the petals I apparently didn't get and a screaming baby. I think she may have been a little hungry... what's new.

9 months old

very serious...

Sydney and her 2nd cousin, Jordan

Sydney had a successful 9 month visit at the pediatrician and didn't need to get any shots because she was all caught up on them. She is still in the 95th percentile for length and weight for her age, weighing 23 lbs and 29" long. She had all kinds of little tests like banging two blocks together and turning toward sounds. The doctor said she did excellent.

Sydney is getting into everything. I just put up the baby gates today. I could have done it sooner, but have been putting it off since they are a pain to step over. She likes to get into Tyra's toys and food, so it has to be done. Sydney now pulls herself up to a standing position and can say 'dada.' Maybe for Mother's day she'll say 'mama,' yeh right...

On the move!

This is her signature face when she sees something she likes. For example, if you hand her a stuffed animal she sqinches up her nose, squints her eyes and sort of breathes through her nose like she is excited about it. It's hilarious. We're not sure where that came from.

Uncle James got a new Harley and Sydney cried when he started it. It was a little too loud for her. I swear, she can scream louder than a motorcycle though.

But she liked it and got to sit on it.

Sydney's friend, Kylyn, came over to play. Kylyn's big brother, Greyson, was there too along with her parents, Karrie (Walker) and Matt. Unfortunately, they live in North Carolina, so we don't get to see them often.

Last Sunday, April 19th, Sydney officially started crawling. She'd been going backwards and one crawl forward before dropping down to her belly before. Aunt Kristin came over and she crawled right over to her. It was great and I was happy that I wasn't the only one that got to see it. She's been crawling for a week now and is already pulling herself up on things. Geoff saw her kneeling in her crib peeking over the edge this morning. We're in trouble! Get the baby gates ready! We have her 9 month pediatrician visit Wed., so we'll have an update again soon. She's already slimming down from crawling. I weighed her at home the other day and she was 22 lbs.

Happy Easter!

Sydney LOVED the Easter Bunny and squealed when she saw him. She sat on his lap, played with his fur, and stuck her finger in his mouth. I thought she might freak out, but was pleasantly surprised! She loves stuffed animals and I think she thought he was just a really big one that could move!

Seth, Grandma Haslauer, Sydney and Connor

Connor, Sydney and Seth (cousins)

Sydney in her Easter dress.

Geoff and Sydney Easter morning

Sydney wasn't crazy about her bunny ears. She would immediately rip them off as soon as they were on her head.

The Easter Bunny brought Sydney a Dora the Explorer Egg Hunt video, an Easter book, a stuffed puppy (that looks like Tyra) with bunny ears, and a Little People Easter toy.

Sydney picked out her bunny Easter basket herself.

Sydney's cold is just about over. She's still coughing here and there, but that is all that remains. I ended up taking her to the pediatrician a second time, after a week had gone by with her cold, and they put her on antibiotics. When they looked in her throat with the little flashlight I could see that her top two teeth were coming in. They are just poked through the gums. That is part of the reason why her nose has been running so much, I'm sure.

She's still using the army manuver as her main form of transportation. She's excellent at going backwards :) Last week she did progress to getting up on all fours and rocking. In addition to her normal babbling and squeals she is also saying bababa, but doesn't know what she's saying. She's not saying it to get a bottle or anything. She raises her arms to "so big," and squinches her nose and eyes with a smile at things she thinks are funny. She has also been shaking her head 'no' for a few weeks, but also doesn't seem to know what that means either since she responds with a no head shake for any question you ask.

For Easter we went to Grandma and Grandpa Kent's house on Saturday and to Grandma and Grandpa Halstead's house on Sunday. Uncle Mike came home from Connecticut and Sydney had a great time playing with everyone. Uncle Adam, Aunt Tammy and Uncle Evan all came home from Buffalo and Aunt Megan, Uncle Matt, Connor and Seth all came home too. Sydney had a great first Easter!