Bad Bloggers

October 13th - Cute pigtails.















October 11th - Watching the snow fly















September 21st - getting ready for bed...sure
looks tired doesn't she :)















October 14th - Alycia and Sydney















October 12th - Chillin' on the couch















August 29th - Pretty in pink



We (Tina) have been bad about posting anything lately. We (Donny) are also very behind with adding some new pictures of Sydney. Here's what's been happening lately:

Our oldest cat (Fluffy) has once again shown his maternal side by running to Sydney whenever she gets mad and cries. This only makes Sydney cry harder because she wants to be left alone when she is mad, which includes being looked at by any humans or cats!! Temper, temper, temper! It's a difficult adjustment for Sydney to give up her reign as queen of her universe but she is slowly making progress. The additional language skills that she is gaining have helped immensely but unfortunately for Sydney, "no" in English doesn't translate into anything that she likes!

Sydney is spending a lot more time running around town shopping and visiting family and friends. She loves to hear the words, "do you want to go....." it doesn't really matter where! She has attended several of her big sister's volleyball games and is turning into a great little Lakers Cheerleader. Alycia is playing on the JV and Varsity teams this year. She gets lots of playing time on JV and got into her first varsity game this week against Moorhead. We can already see improvements in Alycia's skills from last season and we're looking forward to watching her games again this year. She also has a tough academic schedule and is doing a great job of juggling everything.....including spending some time with her little sister.

We are finally getting some of our pictures developed from China but have not begun the process of sorting through the video footage yet. Sydney had a couple of negative reactions to things from her time in China, so we're being cautious about what we expose her to at this point. One incident involved her viewing of some video footage taken by another family when she was with the orphanage staff. She woke up screaming from her nap for the next two days. The second interesting but less intense reaction from her was her first trip to a Chinese Restaurant in town. When some of the waitresses came up to talk to her in Chinese, she froze and refused to look at them or take food from them. She didn't eat much of her meal either, which is not like her at all! It would be nice in these moments for her to be able to talk to us but for now, we're just trying to read her behaviors.

Daycare is going great and Sydney seems to enjoy the preschool curriculum, especially the songs and the artwork. She can't wait to show everyone her pictures at the end of the day! She helps her daycare provider (a.k.a. Patty the Saint) and her friend Abby with diaper changes and seems to be doing better in the "plays well with others" category. It was a tough adjustment for Sydney when the school age kids left and a few new little bodies appeared in their place. Taking turns and waiting for what you want are difficult tasks for adults, so we think that she is doing remarkably well considering her developmental age!

Sydney's current favorite things to do at home are:

1. ANYTHING with her big sister
2. Anything with her cousins
3. Launching her little body through the air (both feet leave the floor!) to body slam her dad
4. Watching "Finding Nemo" or "Dora"
5. Playing in the water with her kitchen toys
6. Putting stuffed animals, her parents, her sister, her cousins, any visitors, dolls, etc. "night - night".


Her new favorite saying: "hey, hey, hey" from the scene with the crabs in "Finding Nemo". She knows what's funny!

We (Donny) will try to get some new pictures posted soon, so you can see how much she has changed since we brought her home.