She's Syd the kid!

Travis just found his favorite pewter mug outside, the bottom caked with mud.  He came in flabbergasted as he made the mistake of asking Sydney why it was caked with mud. Of course her answer was so shocking and Syd like he couldn't even get mad.

"Because we were keeping worms in it!"

Of course, what else would you do with your fathers favorite pewter mug?

Syd the science kid

I love my daughter and I am glad she loves science, but I am a little tired of her experiments all over the house. I thought we were going to have to declare her room a bio hazard there were so many things growing in there.

I don't often make it to the kitchen anymore, but I would love a few less surprise experiments on the shelves and in the cupboards. The other day it was a vase with vinegar and god knows what and blue food coloring with an egg in it (this eventually dissolves the egg shell and make the egg itself basically a bouncy ball). Then there is the ink pigmentation separation that had layers of coffee filters stacked everywhere.

Tonight's edition of what is Syd the science kid up to involves pulling open my freezer and seeing a carton of eggs, before I could help myself out of my mouth came "Why are there eggs in the freezer?" To which Sydney replied "Oh they aren't really eggs just the shells, by freezing them with......" after that I looked at Travis and shook my head to which he just smiled, apparently he had the same conversation earlier.

You think we would learn! :-)

Last Year - 02/19/2012

There is a determination that runs in our family (mostly on my side - okay mostly from me) that Sydney has inherited. What 10 year old little girl gets it into her head that she is going to help daddy with his bow making work by splitting an over 6 foot long fairly round yew wood stave. She had watched daddy do it enough times she knew what she was supposed to do. To be honest I didn't think she would last very long. What she was doing was hard work and even tires out in shape adults. This would be where that stubborn determination comes in. She was out there for hours, at times it looked like she wasn't going to be able to pick up the hammer her little arms were so tired, but she persevered and split that dumb thing.  Way to go girl!!!!! (Of course I wish she hadn't done it in her school cloths, but oh well.) And for you doubters, here is your photographic evidence.

Last Year - 2/15/12

Growing up living in Joseph, Oregon February meant a few things mostly cold walks to school and alot of snow and all things that come with it. And I am not talking about a skiff of snow here or there but SNOW, the kind you had to take turns being the lead person because they were the trail breaker and therefore got worn out, that snowball fights never ran out of ammunition, you could invent entire families of snowmen, and sledding/snowmobiling was a part of every weekend.

I have adjusted to many things living in Walla Walla, but the lack of snow is the hardest for me. Apparently February here means spring has begun, 50 degree days aren't unheard of, and everything is starting to grow. It might seems silly to those of you who didn't grow up with a love of snow, but I miss it terribly. My kids however think it's awesome, these were taken last year on a very warm February day (those 4 words together still blow my mind) but nevertheless you can see the lack of snow isn't bothering them at all as they race around our back yard playing with Jake (my mother and father-in-laws dog). Hope you enjoy.

Syd the science kid/Realy?

Okay this happened today, and I couldn't pass up sharing.  A few days ago I saw this beautiful geode and saved the picture to show Sydney as she is a geode freak. I find eggshells everywhere as she is experimenting on growing her own. So today I showed her the picture.

Okay in the picture I showed her it still had the label right below the picture that read "Ethiopian opal geode", I even pointed it out to her as I read it aloud. She was in awe, oh my gosh, that is awesome etc. then came the question that made me stop and look at her and say REALLY?!?! I mean she is so smart and very rarely shows her blonde side, but here it came when so excited she asked "Where can you find those?"
Wow, really?

Last Year - April 2, 2012 The treasure hunt

Okay this is one of my favorites from last year. The pictures are not all that great but the story is to good to pass up. Last April my parents went to the coast, in the spirit of the piratitude that my family adores (my daughter has a pirate flag on her wall and several pirate chests she hides things in in her room) they bought some Spanish doubloons (tourist fake ones obviously not that the kids care or know) for them. However, in the dramatic flare that follows our family through life, instead of just giving the kids each their doubloons, dad bought a small treasure chest as well and filled it with the "treasure".

My mom and I distracted the kids when my parents came home and dad made the pass off to Travis who promptly took it out side to our unplanted garden and buried it in what was supposed to be a shallow hole (more on that later) placing to large wooden staves from his bow making supply in a large X on top of the buried treasure. After discovering the X the hunt began.

After they moved the X, they used their hands to clear away the debris that was on top of the dirt.

Next came the shovels, each of the boys took turns using the shovels to dig on their expedition. (Sydney was playing the big sister and letting the boys have fun as she video taped the whole thing.) 

 

Suddenly realizing that something is wrong and this is taking forever Travis decides he better help out in the digging before everyone freezes. (Notice the hole isn't just getting deeper but wider as well.)

 

Alright now Sydney, the expert in piratitude, is called in and the little hole has grown substantially. It has now become a full scale operation.

 

Last come my favorite picture, it's the moment when Travis realizes he has no freaking idea where he buried the treasure that was supposed to have been found in a matter of minutes and is now running on an hour. Some time later the boys got bored and cold and soon Travis and my dad were digging large wholes all over our garden looking for the stupid thing. It took sometime and a few beers, but eventually it was found. Of course by then it had become a mission for fun, but it did help get a huge section of my garden tilled up and makes for a good laugh now.

The last year

So I haven't been here in a while because I have been crocheting my fingers off (okay I still have my fingers but I have been crocheting alot!!!) and that has left little to know time for anything else. I have been looking through pictures from the last year in my spare time.  Since we have been leading a pretty solitary life I thought as I go through them I would post some of the pictures of the kids up here so you can watch them play there way through the year.

Last January we went on an adventure up Mill Creek with our kids and my nephew Ezra, had a fire, roasted hot dogs and marshmellows over a fire, threw rocks in the river, and in general just had fun as we froze our butts off.

Hope you all enjoyed these, and could see how much fun the kids had, even though all of their noses are red.

She's Syd the kid

Today we are expecting Stormy as company. He is more family than company, you know the kind that you don't scrub everything before they show up, but just kind of pick up a bit.

After the kids got home from school I told Sydney I wanted her to pick up the front room, that included the table, the floor, the couch, the coffee tables, the piano bench etc etc and ended the long list with "So that when daddy gets home he doesn't go nuts."

Sydney replied, "He's already nuts." I said I was going to tell on her to which she replied, "I'm just stating a fact. Mr. Coffey (her teacher) says it is important to tell the facts, and even you have to admit he's a bit nutty."

I can't wait to tell Travis, she will receive the biggest "getting" in her life.

One big SISTER and two little BROTHERS

Do you know the problem with having a girl first? Besides the obvious of just not having any idea what to do with a boy when he comes as everything about the tiny little thing is different. While a girl knows that tip toeing while you spin makes you a ballerina, a boy instantly know the noise a car makes, that mud is a boys best friend, and if you can point it it must be a gun that goes bang. That adjustment takes many moms want to pull their hair out, but somehow you think it will get easier. Well let me tell you it doesn't/ 
I'm a little surprised that I wish that my boys were a little more boy like a times, but with an older sister that they worship everything she loves the love. Yup she has put them in dresses, painted their toe nails, put clips in their hair, etc... (all without permission and with a stern talking to after) but the boys don't care because Sydney loves them.  She wants to play baby dolls, or barbies, oh course if sissy wants to do it then it must be to cool to pass up.
Why am I ranting about this? Well it could be because I am laying down with my two boys for a bit of movie time so that Sydney can have some daddy time. What movie did my two little boys pick out?????

 

That's right I'm laying here watching a Tinkerbell movie with a 6 year old and a 3 year old BOY. Sometimes I think a little Dirty Harry might not hurt them at all. ;-)

I knew she was my daughter.

So Sydney and I finished the Hunger Games book.  There was a lot of tears and laughs, but we got through it.  The next day we went ahead and watched the movie.  We got through it without as many tears, although (SPOILER -if you haven't read or watched the movie skip to next paragraph) when Rue died there was quite a bit of sobbing.

At the end of it I had to ask if she liked to book (although edited as it was) or the movie better.  She instantly said the book. She said she liked the movie, but you got so much more of the story, understood so much more of the emotions and what the characters were going through in the book.

I knew she was my daughter!!!!

She's Syd the Kid

While reading to Sydney last night we were going through a pretty tough patch about someone we cared about dieing.   Well she is sitting on the edge of my bed hugging her pillow trying not to sob as she hugs her pillow and rocks back and forth. As the roughest patch ends she goes to wipe her eyes and suddenly all I see is her feet sticking straight up off the floor and no Sydney.  She was a little closer to the edge than she thought and when she went to wipe her eyes she lost her balance and over she went. It happened so fast I didn't have time to see anything other than her legs and feet sticking straight up from the floor. Naturally as a concerned and caring mother I burst out laughing. It's okay eventually I was able to ask if she was okay, and it turns out that she was fine. Just so in shook at what had happened when I peeked over the edge of the bed and looked down at her, her little confused face only sent me into harder laughter. Ah my Sydney, there are days I wonder who's daughter she is, then at moments like this I can proudly say, she is definitely mine.

Jan 7th at the kingdom Hall = PROUD PARENTS

Two stories to report from our morning at the meeting. Well not mine, Carla stayed at home with me as I was not doing well at all, but Travis and the kids were there.  Travis said the boys were being absolutely golden.  So he leaned down and started to tell Taylor how proud he was of him and Taylor turned and with a stern look said "SHUSH DADDY"!  How adorable is that. 

Then after meeting Sydney got sighed up for the ministry school. 

We are so proud of are spiritual little ones.

She's Syd the Kid

Nov 17, 2011

Taylor was strumming on Sydney’s Hannah Montana guitar.  It needs new batteries so it doesn't play music anymore, but it kind of twangs from the strings moving. Sydney says to him “Your song sounds like when a bird tries to sing, but has a bad cough.”

Reading

Sydney and I have been trudging our way through series.  I am a firm believer in reading a book BEFORE watching the movies made from it. We read (much to the displeasure of some of our family) the entire Harry Potter Series, reading each book then watching the movie, moving onto the next book and so on.  After 7 incredible books finding another series to sink our teeth into has been difficult, but this is our special mom and Sydney time and having struggled to find a series has meant that we haven't been having that time together. We started and stopped a few series as we just had a hard time getting into a new one, some were not exciting enough after the Harry Potter series, some were to grown up and therefore to boring (sigh) some she wanted to read but I think she is to young for (huge sigh from her lol) but I have finally giving in and we have started the Hunger games series. So many of her classmates have seen the movie and she wants to watch it so bad, (refer to earlier comment about book before movie) but I haven't let her. I think the movie was very well done considering how violent the book really is in parts, but I also thought you lost a lot of the story in just the movie. In the end I have agreed to read her the book, but I am, shall we say editing some of the more graphic parts as I read. That has been a challenge but I am loving watching her get involved in the characters and guessing on how it will end or what will happen to Katniss. I love story-time with Sydney. I hope to God that when she is 18 she will still throw herself into my bed while we read through yet another series together. Reading is a passion of mine, and I love sharing that with her regardless of who approves of the books we are reading.

Saying of the day

I shouldn't even tell you who said this one. Anybody to have spent five minutes in conversation with her knows exactly you it was.

"Trust me, you don't want to see a snail cry, it's UGGGLLLLLYYY!"

I'm Taylor and I am TWO!

So at two years old you don't always understand things. They don't have to be highly intelligent or complicated things and most of the time they aren't. Like the other day the kids were all running around in the back yard playing Marco Polo. Taylor didn't get the game explained to him other than Sydney would yell Marco and try to find them, so when they had all run away as Sydney turned in circles he turned in circles with her. When she was done and cried out MARCO he said "I'm right here!"

Saying of the day

Today's saying of the day is brought to you by Sydney.

"I left the milk cow in charge!"

She's Syd the kid

"Rats are ugly, except the black and white ones. You know the ones that look like cows, but then I always expect them to say moo."

Spring Fever, Cabin Fever, or just Fun In The Sun?

Nothing brings out the crazy like a nice warm sunny day after months of the winter blues. I love that first day of reasonably warm weather that you can run around and have fun. Maybe its because it's the first day you don't have to do jumping jacks to stay warm outside, or be huddled around a fire, or maybe it's just the need to let loose, but either way ENJOY EVERY MOMENT OF IT as it only happens once a year.

As you can see from the pictures below, the kids took that command seriously as they let out their winter crazies. Even Jake the dog wasn't to be left out of the craziness as is seen by the fascinating face he is making as Aric and him run for joy.

Mathleats!

Yesterday we got a form sent home asking permission for Sydney to attend a Math Team Audition. It is on Wednesday after school from 1:40-2:40. This just makes it normal hours on Wednesday's as it is the only day of the week that we weren't picking her up at 2:40. So, Daddy and I talked and went a head and singed the form, but did all the work about she's only in 4th grade, (Math Team is open for 4 and 5 graders) so if she didn't make it this time she could try out again next year if it was something that she wanted to do. The audition (side point here I just think that is the weirdest thing to call a test) was this afternoon. The very nice teacher addressed the fourth graders that were there and said that it is very rare for a 4th grader to make the team, and that isn't being mean it's just what they must know to compete against other schools, the average 4th grade is just being taught and can't be expected to know it at the level of perfection they want with their competitors. So little Miss Syd sits down to her audition test (All multiplication and division of varying degrees of hardness) and takes it up to the teacher in such a timely manner that the teacher that she  was giving up on the test do to a typical 4th  graders skill. She found out instead that Sydney had not only completed the test in a timely manner but also with 100% and she was told on the spot that she made it onto the math team.

I wish I had pictures of her, Grandma Carl, and I doing a "she got into mathleats" song and damce. It was awesome.