Sydney Cate is 3!!!

Well, I never thought it would happen, but it did.  God brought sweet Sydney Cate into our lives.  I had never experienced love like that before and I am so grateful for it.  She has brought so much happiness into our lives.  We merged both girls parties just to make it easier on family and some friends.  But hopefully, Sydney Cate still felt special.  Looked like she did anyway!

Cali is 1!!

It is so hard to believe that 1 year has passed since precious Cali came into our lives.  I will not forget the day she was born.  She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.  And she still is!  She is our sweet thing!  She loved the feel of the cake but wasn't really sure about taking a big bite.  Although she did try!  There were so many people there and she might have had a little stage fright.  She still had so much fun!  How I love my special girl!

Dancing Machine!

Sydney Cate's first experience with dance lessons.  Most of the time was spend watching and observing but several times she did rock along!  She looked like she was having fun!  Her friend Kennedy is in the black.  Oh...and mommy came late with her dance outfit.  Thank goodness other kids were there in regular clothes too!

Vasoline!?!?

On Saturday, I was trying to do normal every day house stuff...especially since I had to work the last Saturday.  Sydney Cate was down for a nap and Cali was playing.  Or so I thought.  I hear nothing so I go to the living room to check on her and she had opened the Vasoline tub.  We had it out because she had not been feeling well and had checked her temperature earlier.  She had vasoline all over her.  Her clothes and hands were covered.  I couldn't figure out how she had opened the lid!  When she saw me coming toward her, she started shaking and crying because she knew I was coming to take away her fun.  Sure enough, she was screaming as I was trying to take away the container and clean her up.  Fortunately, it didn't get in the hair!  I guess it was a small cost for her to have a little fun.  Could have been much worse!

"Christmas" morning at the Townsends

Well, while Christmas actually fell on Saturday this year, our Christmas was on Thursday.  We were trying to leave town to visit family and Santa decided that his items would not be able to fit on our sleigh.  We were hoping that Syd though she'd be celebrating Jesus' birthday 3 times instead of one.  Cali wouldn't know any different.  Needless to say, seemed to work!  Smiles for Syd all around.  Especially when she realized Santa had brought her the big girl panties and a puppy Pillow Pet she had asked for!  Afterward, Daddy wanted to take all for a nice Christmas breakfast and mommy and Syd fell down in the icy parking lot at Sunshine House.  She busted her head pretty good and mommy felt awful.  Fortunately she was fine and still happy about seeing family and what Santa had brought her!

SNOW!

Well this is actually not the first or the second snow of the year for us.  But it's the second since fall of 2010 started!  Syd was about to go bonkers in the house so dad took her out to play in the snow.  Cali was still sick so I stayed with her.  Temperatures were really supposed to start dropping so we figured we would get her out before they did.  Syd and daddy built snowmen.  One was supposed to be Cali and she was the other.  She calls them her friends on the video.  It was a great time for her!

Croup

So Cal has the dreaded croup.  Syd had it at about the same age but I don't remember it being this bad.  We took her to the ER on Saturday night at around 12:30 am (actually Sunday morning).   She woke up and she couldn't even catch her breath to cry which scared me so I took her on to the hospital.  I am so glad I did.  The doctors and nurses there said I did the right thing.  They were all so kind and helpful.  She had to have 1 breathing treatment and a shot of steriods.  Then they wanted to monitor her for a little while.  We couldn't stay too long because snow and sleet were moving in and we didn't want to be on the road.  After a while, they gave her another treatment (epinephrine) and let us go home.  She also had to be on an oral dose of steroids.  She seems to be better but we took her to her regular doctor today in the blizzard just to be sure.  He thinks she's doing great and we will continue to do the steroids at home.  Not a fun time to be out on the roads though.