Even More Sydney Pictures

Here are some more pictures of Syd for Nate and everyone else. As you can tell by some of them she has already begun practicing good oral hygiene. I have a feeling she is going to hate Mommy when she gets bigger because I will be the toothbrush Nazi.

I couldn't resist taking this picture of her first thing in the morning. She does not look happy that I have the camera in her face already.

The new dental poster child (future hygienist)

Trying to save time and brush and floss together

Sydney and Aiden's lunch date

Pictures of the Week

I thought I would give everyone an update on how Syd is doing. She is still the most wonderful baby girl ever (to me of course), but I think she has Daddy's temper. She has started trying to throw tantrums when she doesn't get what she wants. She will literally throw herself down and squeal. I just let her have it out and try not to give in to her. That is the only negative thing so far.

Other then that she has been walking a lot more by herself, but is still not fully walking. She will stand, squat down to pick things up, then stand up and take a few steps. She is blowing kisses, giving kisses (especially to Aiden), talking a lot, climbing on everything, and as sweet and cuddly as can be.

Here are more pictures of Sydney from the week...

This picture is just for you Miss. April (she bought her this cute outfit)

Trying to brush her own hair

Daddy said she hasn't been smiling in any pics so I hope this is OK

Still learning things from the dogs

Nathan Got His Orders!!!!

We finally got Nate's orders saying they are going to let him out of the Army. It seems like it has been a long process and for a while I thought they might try and screw us into staying, but now they are here. It is the Army and they can always screw you over later, but Nate seems to think this should be a done deal. The official date is June 19, 2009, but he has terminal leave saved and should be able to leave Fort Polk a few months before that. YEY!!!

Now that I have a copy of them in my possession the hard work begins of trying to get the house ready to sell and then actually finding a buyer. Please send us your good thoughts because the sooner the house sells the sooner we will move home. If it sells before Nate gets home Sydney and I will move back by ourselves. It is going to be stressful without Nate, but well worth it to leave Louisiana. (No offense to anyone still stuck here or from here)

We will miss the house and of course the friends we have made but we will not miss the weather or the damn hurricanes. For anyone interested there is a ticker at the bottom of the page showing how long until we are free from Active Duty.

Louisiana Car Repair

Our Friend Crystal accidentally backed her car into a tree the other day. She can not afford to fix the bumper at this time so we came up with an ingenious way to fix it, Duck Tape! April had the idea of getting red tape to match the car so that is exactly what we did. I thought I would share the Louisiana car repair tips with everyone.

After hitting the tree

Sydney watching in suspense

After Picture. It doesn't look bad at all, much better then without the tape.

Happy Birthday Maya and Makinley

Well Since I forgot to post a big Happy Birthday to Maya and Makinley here it is. Makinley turned one on September 13 and Maya turned two on September 20. We got together this afternoon to celebrate and let the kids play. We had lots of fun. Happy Late Birthday girls.

Sydney putting the moves on Aiden, I guess she is a take charge kind of gal.

Sydney Going down the slide. It is a little blurry because this is when she decided to fling herself down it all by herself. She is fearless and like to scare Mommy.

More Pictures for Daddy

Here are a few more pictures for Nathan.

Taking a snack break from helping Mommy fold laundry

Eating out of a bowl like a big girl

Can you tell she is Nate's daughter???
(This picture is just for you sweetie)

Thanks Shana

Well most of you know that Shana always has interesting things on her blog, but this is great and pretty easy too. Thank you very much for showing us how to do these things and please keep sharing with us. We miss you guys.

Old picture of Sydney but it is neat being able to recolor it like this

Pictures for Daddy

OK Nate, please quit giving me a hard time here are your new pictures. I keep getting nasty messages from him because I haven't posted any new pics in a few days. These are just for you Daddy.

She climbed up in the chair all by herself. She is getting to be such a big girl!

Every time we are in the office she finds this glue stick and makes a mess of the floor as you can see. I had to take a picture before I took it away from her

Talking to Daddy on the phone with a silly ponytail. Mommy needs to leave my hair alone. Right after this she muted him and he couldn't hear us so he hung up. Silly Sydney.

I think I interrupted her, the face says...Geez Mom what do you want now??

NFL Teams

Well I think we made a breakthrough in the discussion we have been having in the comment box. If the place a person is born dictates the football team you root for then it should go like this...

Sydney and Aiden for the Saints

Landon for the Falcons

Shana for the Cowboys

Nate and Gina for the Seahawks

And last but not least Micah and Krystin for the Broncos

Now that we have this straight please no more bickering in my comment box. :)
For anyone wondering this is all in good spirits. Since the Shockley's moved away
I think Nate has missed arguing with them over football. :)

Sydney Says Video

Sydney has been saying a lot of words lately and I thought I would get some of it on video. Her favorite words lately is Puppy and Cracker. At the end of the video you can see how she is a little stubborn and laughs at me when I tell her NO. Enjoy...

New Camera

I finally got our new camera in the mail the other day and boy is it wonderful. It is pretty fancy so it will take me a while to figure everything out. We ended up getting a Cannon Rebel.

I don't know if Sydney likes it very much because I have been in her face a lot testing it out. :) Here are some new pictures, especially for the Daddy who keeps bugging me about posting new ones.

First picture with the new camera!

Playing with our big girl footy PJ's

More Piggy Tails (Mommy needs to keep practicing)

Basking in the morning sun

Very Handsome Puppy!!!

IKE Update

I have a few new things to share about the hurricane. First of all our good friends Mike and Michelle have made it home and now have power. She posted some pictures of Ike's destruction of her hometown on the Nesrsta Family Blog.

The other thing I wanted to share is a little silly. If you watched our video you saw the light poll that had come down on our street. Well it made the DeRidder newspaper. Click here to see the tiny article and a picture of the poll on Mayhaw St.

Hurricane Ike

Hurricane Ike made landfall around 2:00 AM in Galveston, Texas. We are about 200 miles away and still felt the effects. We did not get a lot of rain but it sure was windy. The video is our footage from Mayhaw St. It is better then my pictures from Rita for all of you who laughed at those. Some of the clips are hard to see because it is dark but you can hear just how windy it was. Some of it is silly so don't laugh too much.

We are all just happy that the damage we sustained was minimal. I have a gutter section that needs fixing, April had a downspout that came off, one of the light polls on the street is leaning, and sorry to inform you Shana and Micah but your gate on the fence fell off (I don't think they had it completely latched). Very minimal considering what could have happened. Enjoy...

Sorry the video is a little long...

Our thoughts and prayers are with those people who sustained major damage and endured Ike at it's worst. Mike and Michelle we are thinking of you and remember if you need anything just call me. Take care.

Dancing Sydney

Sydney was passing the time dancing while waiting for IKE to hit. I think she is going to take after her Aunt Becca and be a dancer, she can dance and play soccer to make Daddy happy. This video is very cute. At the end she takes a few steps to April so you can see her progress on walking too. Enjoy...

Hurricane Ike

Well there is another storm that is heading in our direction. So far it is not supposed to make landfall in Louisiana, but we will feel some hurricane or tropical storm effects depending on where it does land.

We will be staying here this time because going to Houston would be silly considering it will be effecting both area's. I guess we are ready, but I am just personally sick of all of it. Who knows if we will loose power or what will happen but we will be in contact with everyone when we can. If you would like to track Ike click here. Wish us all good luck again.

I just want to tell everyone in his path to stay safe and be prepared. Check out the bottom of the page to see a countdown clock to the end of hurricane season.

Sydney Went Potty!!!

I had to share with everyone that Sydney went potty in her little potty this morning. I was so excited and proud that I may have scared her a little. We both were clapping and she was dancing because it was singing to her. So far we are off to a decent start and will just keep chugging along. If anyone has any advice or tips please let me know, we would love to hear it.

Stupid Camera

I complained about the camera with the last posts, but I thought I would share the freaky things it is doing. These are pictures from this afternoon. Sydney fell asleep in her walker while I was pressure washing the house. I really wanted them to turn out because it was just so cute. I am amazed she could sleep with all that noise. The camera made them blurry and funny colors. We are looking at camera's online and will be getting a new one very soon.

Creepy picture

Very cute sleeping baby(even if it is kinda purple)

Pictures of the Week

Here are just a few pictures. If you would like to see some of us while we were in Houston you can read the Nesrsta Family blog. Hopefully we will get the camera working soon and I can keep overloading everyone with our adorable baby.

I just love that smile and little laugh

More Sewing Fun

I got the sewing machine out again and have been making hooded towels for Sydney and Bryant. I just had to share with you how cute they turned out. Sydney's is not completely done because I can't find ribbon that I like to put on the edge.

During my adventure of making these I broke two needles on the machine and I was getting so frustrated. I guess I never realized that there were different sizes. A big Thank You to April for helping me not throw my machine out the window. She came down and showed me the different needles and helped me get things back on track.

Now that I have this down some of you with little ones may be getting one in the future. **Wink Wink**

It is very big but he will be able to use it until he is five or older :)

The ring from the embroidery machine will go away after I was it

Sydney's Potty

Well I thought we would get a jump start on the whole potty training thing, so today we bought Syd her very own potty. She likes to sit on it and dance but so far no potty. It is kinda neat because it has a sensor and when she does eventually go it sings and praises her. It also has a handle that you can flush and a fake roll of toilet paper on the side. We will see how this goes. I know it won't happen over night or maybe not for a year or so but it doesn't hurt to start trying early.

Sydney's very own potty

Practicing sitting on the potty

The potty is not Horton the Hippo. Silly Sydney

YEY! I love my potty

**Sorry about the coloring of some of these pictures I think our camera is about to die. It keeps going blurry and blinking strange colors. This was the best I could do. If the pictures slow down for a while then you know why. **

We are Home

Just a quick note to let everyone know we made it home yesterday around noon. We left early in the morning so we could beat the traffic. Our drive was very uneventful and Sydney was great.

Gustav seemed to miss our area for the most part. From what I hear there was just a lot of wind and rain. Our power never even went out which is wonderful.

With this being the middle of hurricane season I sure hope this is the only event in the Gulf this year.

Thanks again Mike and Michelle for letting Sydney and I evacuate to your house. We appreciated it. I hope I don't have to be your Refugina again. (that is what she was calling me all weekend) :)