Last Post as a Family of 3 {The Final Countdown}

And we're down to single digits - no more than 8 days until we're a family of 4! Brian and I are ready. Sydney, well, she is in for a big surprise. I'm most nervous about her and how she'll adjust to being a big sister, and more importantly, how she'll adjust to sharing her Mama and Dada. We talk about it all the time but I don't think she has any idea what she is in for.

family shot

We've been fully enjoying her last weeks as an only child. She is so much fun, She is eating well, sleeping well and her cute little personality is developing daily. She is now adding new words to her vocabulary all the time and is starting to string together more and more words. She is obsessed with pockets and will put on a hoodie and immediately put her hands in the pockets ("pocks"). She also back into books in a big way. Her two favorites during the day are Hop on Pop (which she has commentary/knows some words on nearly all the pages), and Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb (has always been one of her favorites), She wants someone to read one book, as she "reads" the other. At night, there are a few more books that are in regular rotation. She is also really into cleaning and is almost OCD tidy. If she drops food on the ground, she literally has to pick it up before she will continue eating. She is into sweeping ("sweep, sweep Mama" - not my idea of a fun game), she'll get a paper towel and spray cleaner from the cabinet if there are any crumbs or water marks on the table. She also loves throwing things away and is starting to learn what goes in the "black bin" vs "blue bin".

Her school closed for "spring break" - seriously, spring break for 1 year olds....so my parents came down to help out during the week off. It happened to fall over Easter, and also over the weekend that my sister-in-law & mother-in-law planned a Baby Brunch to celebrate our little guy as well as my other sister-in-laws pending arrival, so my mom was able to join that as well. It was a busy but fun week.

Our weekends have been pretty low key - catching up with friends, park dates, play dates, coffee dates, and a few real dates for me and Brian.

Just last weekend, we had the whole Lederman family over to celebrate Mike's birthday. It's so fun to see all the kids playing together. And also surprising at how quickly 5 kids can get out so many toys.

Here are some (ok, a lot) of my favorite photos:

Helping me decorate some St. Paddy's Day cookies. She also helped make the dough and roll & cut the dough.
Her favorite part was rolling/cutting - it was like clay.
And, she was also a fan of eating the cookies.

Reading with Dada - we're finally making progress on pulling her hair out of her face

bouncing on Dada. aka Hop on Pop

The first day I caught her with her hands in pockets ("pocks)"

Here we are sweeping - she loves it
I'm not so excited about this game

Silly Dada put bracelets on her ears

Another sweeping session - but I think it's just a cute photo of her

Ladies in green for St Paddy's Day

Story time with Grandpa

Too cool

Last year, she wouldn't touch the grass
Now she is laying in it

Sydney actually had a blast dying eggs.
She mixed every bowl a million times

Then got to decorate the eggs with stickers. It was a big hit.
We were a little more concerned about the eggs during this step
but most made it out without too many cracks

Billy came over for an Egg Hunt on Easter morning
With no instruction, both kids knew exactly what to do and were shocking really good at it.

Billy had a small spill and Sydney took advantage of the fallen eggs.
Their eggs were full of cheerios, wheat chex, teddy grahams and a few with
jelly beans and yogurt covered raisins
I'm sure you can guess which ones were the crowd favorite