Lessons I learned this weekend

• Sydney gets very jealous when I pay attention to any other kids now. (Charles says that this means we need to have another baby now...he's been outvoted.)
  
• Sydney cannot fall asleep on her own without her blanket and her own bed. (we are currently in the market for a playpen now)
  
• Novelty dates (such as 8/8/08) are very popular days to get married...so sealings run very late. (There were 45 sealings in Manti and it is rumored that there were over 200 in Salt Lake City...Yikes!)
• Having your wedding and reception in two different towns almost two hours away from each other makes a long day twice as long.
  
• Being a wedding planner is not a relaxing career.
• Nobody really believes you when you say "take as much cake as you want".

Elisha's wedding was very nice. She and Greg looked amazing and there are at least a few usable pictures that they should like. I wanted to take more than I did, but with so many weddings, we had to wait forever just to take group and family pictures and by the time that was done, we were all hot and just ready to be done. And, thankfully, between their sealing and their reception there was a huge thunderstorm (really huge...we had to pull of the highway for a few minutes because we couldn't see the road) that cooled the day off and made it the perfect temperature for her outdoor reception.

Wedding prep

This week is Charles' sister's wedding. So, all of his family is either here or coming in the next few days. We will be quite busy with temple sessions, bridal pictures, trips to Mapleton and Manti, a sealing, wedding pictures, and other such events, not to mention just trying to get everything else done. But, I promise you will get to see all the pictures I take for the wedding...eventually.

Called to Serve

Sunday, Charles and I were released from our calling as Sunday School teachers at the last minute before sacrament meeting started. Apparently, you can't be Elder's Quorum president and teach Sunday School at the same time. Go figure. So, while Charles is dutifully serving the Lord, I am quite free from obligations...at least until we get a call from the bishopric here in a few weeks. (they claim that there is something in the works...that phrase frightens me a bit.)

Milestones and Stats

So, I realized that I never blogged about some of Sydney's recent milestones.

Teeth
Sydney now has four teeth coming in...all on the top gum. They all broke within a couple days of each other and for now she has a stepping stone kind of look to her top gum. It's really cute, but I'm not too excited about her using them on us.

Milk
With Sydney turning a year old, her doctor gave us the go ahead to give her whole milk. Charles was pretty excited about this until I told him that in no uncertain terms was he to drink the whole milk. Sydney seems to like it, but she much prefers it warm than right out of the refrigerator cold.

Words
Sydney has been saying "hi" for a few months now. She says it all the time, especially when she is around people. However, she won't preform on cue. Usually, if we tell her to say hi, she does so...about ten seconds after the person we want her to say hi to has left. She has also started saying and understanding the word "no". She now says no right back to us when we tell her no...like the other day when she kept pulling her shirt up in Ross and I would put it down and say no, she would pull it right back up and say no right back.

Walking
Sydney can walk when she is holding our hands or pushing anything: shopping carts, strollers, her push toy. And yesterday she took three steps between chairs, but only when she thought no one was watching. She doesn't even think she can stand on her own. If you distract her enough, she will stand on her own...but as soon as she realizes that she is standing without support, she sits right down.

Stats
At her one year well baby check up, Sydney weighed in at 16 lbs 8 oz and is now 27 inches tall. She has gained nine pounds and grown nine inches since she was born. She's super tiny, most people who don't know how old she is guess that she is about eight months old. Plus, since she isn't over twenty two (maybe just twenty) pounds, she has to say in a rear-facing car seat for a few more months.

Random pictures accruing in my Flickr account.

"This is the best way to ride in a shopping cart."



"This is a bagel, you say?"



"This walking thing is so overrated."

One Year Old!...continued

Here is our "big" one year old! At her one year well baby check up, she weighed 16 lbs and 8 oz and is 27 inches tall. She has gained 9 lbs and grown 9 inches since she was born.



Being sung to on the phone. She would kick her legs and move her head to the beat while she was being sung to. It was adorable!



Testing out her cake...



...it must be good....



...and this was her reaction when we told her she was done. All she really did was run her fingers through the frosting and smear it all over her face.



Happy Birthday, Sydney Renee!

One Year Old

Pictures are coming, but just a little FYI, today is Sydney's First Brithday!

Flying in an Airplane

Sydney, Chelsea and I left Utah today and flew out to Nebraska. Sydney was so good on the plane. She only cried when she was getting tired and then I nursed her and she went to sleep. That's really about all we did today...travel.

One year older

I'm twenty four today. It's been a pretty nice birthday, especially compared to last year when I was huge and uncomfortable and pretty depressed about having our camera stolen. We went to Ikea this morning and Charles bought me my birthday present from him and Sydney...two new nightstands for our room and some serving dishes. And then this evening, he threw me a little party with some of our friends: the Phairs, the Wiggintons, and the Boyces. And...he got me a Coldstone ice cream cake to top it all off.

**For Olympus...there are links for all of the gifts, so you can see them. Been there the whole time.**

Slacking

Sorry about the lag in blogging. I've been busy getting us all used to Charles' new work schedule and getting stuff ready for Chelsea to come out here and now getting ready to visit my family in Nebraska for a week. I can't believe that Trevor comes home one week from today! So, right now I'm cleaning and making sure that Charles will have enough to eat and do while he is still here (he can't use time off until he has worked with Provo for six months) all alone over the Fourth of July and I'll spend my whole trip praying that he doesn't blow himself up.

There are a few updates below this, as well as one way down the page, if you are interested.

Actively Engaged

Charles' sister, Elisha, is getting married on August 8th and to save money she asked me to take her engagement pictures. We went to Tahitian Noni's Gardens (her fiance, Greg, works for them and could get us in for free after hours) and spent about two hours taking pictures. They must have turned out okay, because she is considering having me take her wedding pictures (Yikes! Lots of pressure). It was a lot of fun, though, and I got some cute pictures of Sydney and Charles while we waited for them to change clothes halfway through.

A few more from that day...

Camping

We went camping as a family for the first time, with the Phairs up Hobble Creek Canyon. It was a lot of fun and Sydney did MUCH better than I thought that she would. She slept in between us and only woke up twice (which is what she usually does) and wanted to nurse to go back to sleep. I didn't sleep well, but I never do when I'm not in my bed in my house. Charles was the biggest wimp out of all of us, spending about ten minutes in the car with the heater turned up because he was cold at about three in the morning. Still, it was fun and we are planning on going camping again over Pioneer Day weekend in a few weeks.

Talented Baby

I was rearranging the furniture in the living room and pulled out Brooke's keyboard to try and find a space for it. While it was sitting on the floor, Sydney crawled up to it and started "playing" and I got this awesome shot.

Duran Family Reunion

This past weekend was my Dad's family reunion up at my Aunt Becky's house in Provo Canyon. We had a lot of fun spending time with family and especially getting to see my Dad and Talia.



This first collage is from the first day of the reunion, when Raquel set up an obstacle course for the kids to run and we spent time playing games and doing scavenger hunts.



The second collage is pictures from the hike up to Timpanogos Caves on Saturday. I'd have more pictures of people, but we all got separated on the hike up and Charles and I kept trading off carrying the baby.



This last set is from inside the caves. Charles and I ended up going in a tour before everyone else, so the only other people we knew in our tour was Yolanda's family.

Tricks