Mae Days in Missouri

Go Springfield Cardinals!

Most of you out there are likely wondering what the title of this entry means. Mae was Brian's grandmother's name on his mom's side, and so the reunion was named in her honor. Since I took over 100 photos, I decided to post just a few here. I'll try to put an album on my Facebook site.

Meanwhile, we are now back from our week-long trip o' fun, family, sun, family and, well, more family. Sydney met five of her dad's cousins - Deanna, Deb, Denise, Diane (whom she had met a few months ago) and Donna - along with their mom, Georgiana. She met the cousins' eight children - Chloe, Cooper, McKenna, Kellen, Emerson, baby Leighton, Sierra and Maddux - (would that make them second cousins once removed?), four of the husband/significant others - Tony, Matt, Kevin and Mike - and of course, her Auntie Toni and cousin James. Whew! She also remembered and saw Uncle Dennis and cousin Anna who had visited last year.

Sydney's went to her first official baseball game - the Springfield Cardinals. She had fun dancing and eating and clapping. Once she saw Auntie Toni's popcorn, she was gone.


Sydney got to play with more kids than she bargained for. Here she is goofing around with McKenna, Kellen, and Chloe.

We all stayed at a condo called Paradise Point which overlooked Table Rock Lake, which was slightly flooded. Here's Sydney and Brian kickin' back in a paddleboat on the lake. You can see the trees on the shoreline partly under water. (We didn't venture too far.)

The condos had a nice pool in which we spent some good time cooling off. The temperatures were always in the 80's-90's and the humidity was up. It goes without saying that Sydney absolutely loves being in water, whether it's the bathtub, a pool, or the happy little water fountains you see that bloop up from the ground. Here she is bonding with Uncle Dennis and Anna. Diane (one of Sydney's favorite cousins) is in the background holding Cooper.

Sydney and Mom.

Sydney loved hanging with her newfound cousins, especially Chloe and Cooper. Here's two of them at the Butterfly Palace. Chloe was like a new big sister to Sydney. She's had lots of practice with Cooper, it seems.

The Butterfly Palace had a 3D movie about the life of a butterfly and a mantis (which ended abruptly when the mantis sliced up the butterfly and the wings floated down a stream.) It was ironically sponsored by Terminix. Anyway, here's our group in the first two rows.

We went to a cute little theme park called Silver Dollar City (which was dubbed Steal-yer-Dollar City after we got out of there...) Here's Sydney in a nice moment with Emerson, one of the four two-year-olds at the reunion. They had a love-hate relationship due to the sharing issue. Emerson was also feeling a bit under the weather and also very protective of her things due to an older brother and sister. And Sydney is working on sharing and taking turns but NOT grabbing. (I think I said "No grab" and "Share" about 500 times a day when they were together.)

Sydney spent much of her time at the water bloop area.


Another little outing we did was to the local fish hatchery where we got to feed lots of trout. Here's Cooper and Sydney looking cool in their shades, ready to feed more fish.


Sydney's cousin James likes playing his Nintendo DS, which Sydney was very interested in. She had fun tickling him and being chased around the condo.


Here's the stoic Pederson family portrait.


A trip to Missouri wouldn't be complete without a stop at Bass Pro Shop, the most enormous, overwhelming outdoorsmen-related store you have ever seen. Sydney wanted to pet the bear.


After two flights home and only a 20-minute nap, this is Sydney shortly after we got home.

Happy Fourth!

Hello, everyone out there that is still checking this blog! Apologies for the infrequency of posts. I've been a single mom for ten days until a couple of days ago; Brian just returned from his field study trip to central CA for his master's degree in geosciences. We're both extremely happy to have him back! (Although when we asked her repeatedly while he was gone if she missed him, she replied, "No, happy!" We take that to mean that she was happy for him that he got to go on his trip.)

While Brian was gone, Sydney woke up early (5 or 6 am) several days which, combined with my unable to get to sleep, made me even more tired than usual! Gone are the eight-hour sleep nights, huh? Hey, I can dream. (Today we all took naps - mine lasted three hours.)

Sydney has been a little chatterbox parrot the last few weeks. We've noticed a great increase in her word bank and sentence structure. She has just started using "I" to refer to herself, particularly when she says "I did it" or "I got it" or "I'm okay." It's also great to see her recognize relatives - I've been showing her pictures of her Arizona family and she says "Grandma Joe, Grandpa Joe, Unco Mike and Auntie Ray Ray and Maddie." She doesn't have the "L" sound down yet, so when she asks to sit on my wapp I know what she means. (That's LAP, people.)

Here's Sydney sharing lunch with her Dad. She refers to him as Dad now instead of Baba.

Along with her verbal skills improving, Sydney has also moved right along with potty-training. Although she still wears a diaper, she goes pee in the potty about five or six times a day and poops almost daily in there as well. Sometimes when she wakes up from naps or in the morning, her diaper is dry. So we're definitely making progress! Riveting news, I know.

Here's Sydney trying to keep the cheese away from Ellie at a recent BBQ at Grammy and Grandpa's. We told her to hold up the cheese and this is the result.

And finally, here's what happens when a 29-month-old can reach your dresser drawers and get into your socks.