Layout from This Weekend

Here is a two page layout that I did of Sydney this past weekend. I loved these pictures. Sheylon took this this past summer while in Oklahoma visiting. I enlarged one of them. They were picking corn at Mom and Dad's. Since I was feeling sickly at my retreat this is one of the few two page layouts that I actually completely finished. I love this paper packet and color combo.

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Fall is Upon Us

In order to enjoy fall in Alaska- you have to act quickly. Winter and snow will be here before you know it. So last night, we enjoyed the leaves in our yard.

Last night I decided to rake the leaves. I had Mike bring Sydney outside as soon as she woke up from her cat nap. She was so excited to see the big pile of leaves. She knew exactly what to do and ran to them and fell into them.

Helping her Daddy rake leaves around her little house.

Her throwing leaves at me. She really got into this. We had such a good time rolling in the leaves and throwing them at each other.

I'm Scrap Happy

Yep, I am. I am leaving work today at 3 to go to Wasilla to go to a Scrap retreat. It starts at 3 on Friday and goes until 3 on Sunday. It is held at a B&B. So that is 48 hrs of Scrapbooking. Although, probably take off about 3 hrs for me to get off work and get out there and get set up. This seems to be the only times that I get much Scrapbooking done lately. But of course we are just now getting into our house (still not completley settled) and spent pretty much the last year living with Mike's mother. So you can see why I am excited to get back to scrapbooking. It didn't help things that I mixed my dates up last spring and missed the retreat, because I was home getting ready for the next weekend, when I thought it was. So I should have the scrapping bug out of my system come Sunday. I am just hoping to get lots of pages and pictures scrapped.

Two stops on my way out of town. For Gas and to pick up pictures at Costco.

Getting Ready to Party!

Sydney picked out this Party Hat on Saturday when we were shopping at Freds for her party. Pretty fitting- it had butterflies and kitty cats both on it. She insisted that we wear them around the house, while I was baking her cake. If she came back and I didn't have it on, she would tell me to put it back on. That kid, she likes her parties. Everything about them, kids, presents, hats and cake! Now I remember what was so much fun about birthdays as a kid.

This is a quick picture that we set the timer for. Both of us with our party hats on!

More B-day Pictures

Sydney's Cake. Do you see the tiny little bitty lady bugs and bumblebees?

They are cute, but a pain in the butt.

Blowing the candles out "all by herself"
Look how excited she is!

She said "Is it mine to keep"?

With her new camera. She wants to be just like me!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SYDNEY!

Today is my darling daughter Sydney's Birthday! She is three! Can you believe it? I can't. Anyway this is a picture of her with her new kitty kat -- Sammy.

Short for Uncle Samuel Nelson Lewis. He was born on the 4th of July and so there is the where the Uncle Sam comes from. Then of course Mike has always liked the name Sam and wanted to name Sydney - Sam- if she was a boy, but of course we already had a Sam in the family, then my grandpa's name is Samuel Nelson. But this isn't suppose to be about Mike and I now is it! Anyway his name is Sammy!

Sydney called it boy for one day. But hopefully she will adapt to Sammy. I will post more pics later. As you may have seen my pattern is to post a bunch for awhile and then stop for a week or so. I am trying. Hopefully, I will get the hang of it.

Today we are going to go over to Mike's mom's house after work and have Pizza and a Small cake and open the presents from Great Aunt Jerri Rae & Sheylon.

This will be her 3rd birthday party this year. She has got it down.

Lots of love to everyone!

A Long Hard Day

Today has been one of the most terrifying days in my life. Something that I have always been scared about. That I would get a phone call telling me that something had happened to one of my family members. Late yesterday I got an awful call from my brother. He then went on to tell me my dad had some chest pain while they were out building fence. At that time they didn't think that it was serious, but they wanted Dad to stay for monitoring at the Coalgate hospital. I called Dad at the hospital. He said he felt fine and was just trying to take a nap. Then he said he had indigestion from a Jalepeneo burger from sonic. He said he would be fine in a couple days. A few hours later I got a call from my Mom. She was in route to OK city to the Heart Hospital. They were taking my Dad there on the helicopter. My brother was a few minutes behind her. Later we found out that Dad had several heart attacks that day. One building fence, one while on the phone with me and some on the way to OK City on the helicopter. That was late last night.

All I have been doing today is calling and waiting. Dad had surgery at noon OK time. They ended up finding 3 blockages and putting in stents into 2 of them. The main doctor will come by in the morning and they will discuss the best thing to do for the remaining blockage. Dad says he doesn't feel that bad. Just very tired.

Ever since last night, I have felt like my heart has stopped beating or that I am holding my breath. I love my Daddy so much. Always have. We just have a special bond. I miss all of my family and times like these make it almost unbearable. Now that I Am married and have a child, I know my home is where my husband daughter are. But it is still very hard to to be so far away from all those people that I love.

Since I have became a mother, some thing are so much clearer to me. Like how your parents can love you so much. Even when you are a little shit. I love my daughter so much. She loves her mom and dad and grandparents so much as well. It scares the crap out of me to even think of anything bad happening to her. Right now she is sitting beside me in my chair watching cartoons and just being near me. She knows when I am upset and tries to make me feel better.

Today she said that Papa didn't feel good, and needed medicine to feel better. She said she wanted to go see Papa, house & Grandma's too! She sure loves them both. Mom said Sydney would be the best medicine of all. I have never seen a room light up, like it does when my Dad sees Sydney. The same for her.

I will write more tommorow. If you believe in God, please please say a prayer for my Dad, our family and Dad's doctors. I know that God was watching out for Dad. It could have been so much worse, as Dad could have been home alone when all of this happened. So God, Thanks for what you have done so far and please continue to heal my Daddy's heart. If you are my family or friend, please go to bed knowing that I love you and am so blessed to have each of you in my life.

First Trip to the Library

Yesterday after work, I needed to stop by the Library to drop off a book for Jere, that I had borrowed for our upcoming bookclub. So I told Sydney we were going to the Library. She was excited! I told her she had to be quite. That lasted all of about 1 minute. Then she seen the kids that were playing with the puzzles. The became her new best friends for the next 30 mins or so. I ended up picking out the books for her. Her only request was that we get a Curious George book. Which of course I got two of those for her. We also checked out a book titled "Duck for President". It was cute. I picked up a couple more for her and one for myself.

This morning, she told me we had to take the books back. I am pretty sure she just wanted to play with the puzzles again. This was the first time she has been to the Library, but she sure knew what it was about. Or at least I think it was. Later on at work I got a phone call from my friend Deb, who wanted to know if Sydney would like to go to Story time at the Big Library today at 11. So as far as I know she went. I will have to catch up with her tonight about Story time. I am sure she loved it. I was hoping there was a story time on Saturday's at the Library by our house. But I don't think there is. So Sydney has now hit the Library two times In two days. Pretty good start I guess.

Deb has recently been taking her along with her son Jace to the Museum where Kerri works. Josie is normally already there. On tuesday's they have preschool day. Sydney has been loving it. They get a story, time to make a craft and some play time in the Pit. Which I am told is where Sydney digs tunnels. Actually it is a sand pit where they can dig for stuff. She comes home with her craft of the week. I am glad she can get out and learn stuff and socialize with other kids. So thanks to my friend Deb who takes her to places. She took her a couple weeks ago to the Imiginarium. I was able to sneak away from work for part of my lunch to see her while she was down there.

My Little Political Statement

Here is the picture of Sydney that appeared on the front page of the Daily news the Sunday before last. This was a taken the day after McCain announced Palin was going to be his running mate.

Sydney had wanted her face painted. After transforming into a Tiger, we saw this shirt and got it. She was getting really sleepy about the time this picture was taken. As you can tell, it isn't one of her best pictures. But it is the only one that has made it onto the front page of the Anchorage Daily News.