The Life of a Monkey

Ahhh, to be a monkey.  Specifically, a brown, stuffed one that answers to the name "Monkey", but is commonly known as Curious George.  Even more specifically, one owned by Sydney K.  This monkey sure does have the life!  He is loved on almost all day, every day.  He is Sydney's "chosen one".   He gets to go to daycare... for free!  He gets to go on errands and trips.  He's even been on a plane. 

Looking through my pictures of the last year, it struck me how big a part of our lives monkey really is!  Check out some of his adventures:

Introducing... Monkey!

Eating breakfast with Sydney...

Monkey loves the great outdoors...

Cooling off in the summertime.

At the park!

Monkey's first birthday party... at Chuck E. Cheese's.

Slide time!

Monkey's first wedding.

 Monkey goes to Sydney's birthday party!

Monkey rides the train at the mall.

Another birthday party!

Monkey attends his first Georgia Tech game.

 Monkey got to meet Santa!

Monkey loves to sled in the snow!

Making cookies...

Monkey's first Halloween, dressed up as... you guessed it... a monkey!

Monkey has traveled to a few other states...

In the mountains of South Carolina. 

Partying it up in Daytona Beach, FL 

Taking a dip in Tampa, FL

Hanging with the cousins in Nashville, TN.

Oh, what a life to have.  To be loved, have a loyal best friend, and to be able to see so many places and do so many things... that's what life is all about!

 Sydney + Monkey = BFF 4-ever

PS- As a parent, you may ask... how do you keep up with the monkey?  What if you lose it?  Won't Sydney be devastated?  What if it gets terribly dirty?  Well, I hate to admit it, but we're not miracle workers.  Want to know our trick? ..............................................

Thanks to our sweet neighbor, Alison, Sydney has 4 monkeys to rotate between!  Does she know about these four?... NO!  Has she come close to seeing more than one at a time?... YES!  (Hopefully she won't be reading this blog anytime soon... ;) 

Baby, it's cold outside...

Gotta love snow days!!  In Loganville, we had between 3-1/2 and 5 inches of snow blanket our yard.  It all began last night around 8 PM, and continued to fall while we slept. 

A picture of the snow falling last night.

The snow was so fluffy looking when we woke up...

This is where out driveway normally is. :)

Sydney was SO excited and she and Stephen went outside to play for about an hour.

Meanwhile, Taylor and I stayed inside in the warmth.  Check out her leg warmers (and her drooled-on onesie). ;)



Our neighbors invited us up to their house to hang out with the neighborhood crew.  We waited until Sydney woke up from her nap to head up there.  They live part-way up this really steep hill, so we drove to the base of the hill and made the trek up.  (A great thigh workout in the snow and ice, let me tell you). 

So, our neighbors had been sledding down the steep hill on sleds... it was such a blast!  The first time I went down I totally busted and slid halfway down the hill on my back!  It didn't hurt too badly... but I guess I'll be a better judge of that tomorrow. :)  Sydney even went down it three times with Stephen! (thank goodness they didn't bust!)  A friendly neighbor-friend would drive you back up to the top of the hill on his 4-wheeler.  There was no way anyone could make it all the way up that hill... it was way too slippery!

Here comes Stephen!

Riding up on the 4-wheeler.

Go Sydney!

Here I come!



We ended up staying at our friends' house until after 10.  Sydney was sleepy but didn't want to go home.  She had too much fun playing with her neighbor-BFF, who is only 6 weeks younger than her. 

 

Plus, everyone had a blast holding Taylor.  And I'm not kidding when I say everyone.  Usually it's the ladies that want to hold the babies... most of the hubbies tonight held her, too. :)  Here are a few shots.

Mommy-to-be, in training!

 

Anyways, it was a great night of friends, poker (I won 2nd place!), chicken and dumplings, conversation, football, snow, laughter, children, and fun.  And the good news is... we get to do it all again tomorrow!

Taylor pics

Here are some recent pics of my sweet almost-6 week old!

Sydney's matching big sister shirt.



Sydney-rella

Meet Sydney-rella, the princess ballerina...

She's Crafty!

I have totally been taking advantage this year of all the after-Christmas sales.  After seeing Stephen's cousin's beautiful home all gorgeously decorated for Christmas, it motivated me to update our Christmas decorations.  I was thinking about it, and this was our 7th Christmas of being homeowners and actually decorating for Christmas, and all of my decorations were cheap, awesomely-discounted things I picked up here and there.  For next year, I thought... out with the old, in with the new!

So, I've been hitting up a lot of stores to pick up some cute decorations... Kohl's, Michael's, Walmart, Target.  I've gotten some ribbon, mailbox bows, cute little statue-type things, stocking holders (I needed one more for this year!), cute decorative accents to go on a shelf, ornaments, etc.  Everything I've gotten has been at least 75% off, so I'm not spending a fortune. :)

Anyways, while I've been doing this shopping, I've realized how many arts and crafts activities are marked down, too!  Most of them are Christmas-related, but many I've come across could be done anytime during the year.  Sydney's getting to the age where she really enjoys doing creative activities besides just coloring on a piece of paper.  So, I've gotten all kinds of things like playdough makers, fingerpaints (washable, of course!), velvety coloring pages, picture frames you can color, and more.  Most of these I've gotten for about $.25 to $.50 each!  (Well, not the playdough maker, but that was 50% off!)  I have also stocked up on stocking stuffers for next year.

So, I thought I'd display a couple of the activities my little artist has done.  Do you see a future in her art career?

Making our gingerbread house.

The finished product.

A masterpiece!

One Month!

I can't believe Taylor is one month old today! 

Her one month accomplishments include:

*getting her days and nights straight (most of the time!).
*sleeping in 4-5 hour spurts during the night.
*drinking 4 ounces of milk per feeding.
*grabbing things- the girl has a grip!
*celebrating her first Christmas.
*sitting in Santa's lap.
*seeing her first snowfall.
*smiling little grins.
*gaining strength in her neck.
*taking her first roadtrip.
*attempting to suck her thumb.
*meeting all of our neighbor friends.
*meeting most of mommy & daddy's good friends.
*looking in the direction of noise.
*staring at the lights.
*being adorable.

Things she doesn't like to do:

*lay in her pack n' play.  She'd much rather be held.
*get out of the bath tub.  She seems pretty content while she's in it.
*be hungry.  She lets us know when she's ready to eat!

Here are some pictures taken on her one month birthday:

 Ahhhh... bath time....

 Sisters...

 Can't... quite...hold... my head up....

I'm so happy I'm one month old!

Look how far she's come!

Happy 2011!

Happy New Year!!

We rang the new year in at a wedding of a dear friend and former co-worker of mine.  Grandmom and D-Dad came down to stay with the girls, while Stephen and I ventured out on our first official date night since we had Taylor! 

Sydney wanted to go with us... but ended up having a blast with her grandparents.



Of course, knowing my luck... Thursday evening, my eye started swelling and turning red.  At the 4 AM feeding of Taylor's, I couldn't even open it.  Friday morning it was horrible looking.  Luckily, my eye doctor was open for a half-day on Friday, so I went in as soon as I could.  Turns out I have a staph infection in my eye, and possibly strep throat again (he couldn't diagnose, but said most likely I have some infection in my throat which led to the eye being infected).  Huh???  So, he put some gel stuff in my eye, gave me a z-pack, and gave me some eye drops.  Thankfully, the gel stuff really helped my eye out... it was still smaller than my other eye and red for the wedding, but not as swollen.  Of all the days...

Anyways, we left a little early and visited good friends of ours that live in Roswell.  We watched some football and had some appetizers.  Then, around 8 PM, we headed to the wedding, which was in the Roswell Mill area, not too far from my old stomping grounds.  Everything was gorgeous... the bride and groom (of course), the ceremony, reception, the food was delicious... it was a great time!  I got to catch up with old co-workers, we danced, and rang in the new year wearing beads, hats, glasses, glow sticks... it was fun!

 Good ol' friends from CMS.

 Jena and J.W.!

Oh, and some VERY exciting news... I got a call from my BFF from Mexico, where her boyfriend took her on a surprise trip and... proposed!!!!!  I'm so happy for her!! 

When we got home, we discovered how Taylor rang in the new year...

I have a feeling 2011 is going to be a pretty great year...!  Happy New Year, everybody!