"I'm two and a half!"

One day, when Sydney woke up last week, Wendy asked Sydney if she was still a tired little baby. Sydney responded with, "Not a baby. I'm two and a half!" We were floored! So now, when asked, she proudly states that she is this specific age.

We just got some new carpet installed, and we had to dismantle the crib (which had been recalled a few months ago, but for reasons that affected infants, so we weren't too terribly concerned - sign us up for Parents of the Year!), so this seemed like as good a time as any to transition into a big girl bed! Here is our two and a half-year-old, laying down on her new bed!

She only got up three times last night, right after she was put down to bed. She has newfound freedom now to get up and move about, and she likes to have her door open. For today's nap, she got up once (legitimately, to go potty). We explained to her that we have higher expectations, now that she is two and a half and has a big-girl bed. She seems thrilled with the new changes in her young life.

Sydney has been rooting for Team USA! Here she is cheering on the American team. As we watched the women's gymnastics, we were wondering if Sydney could have been on the Chinese team this year - she looks just as much like a 16-year-old as three of the Chinese team members...but I digress. Notice the shirt that her parents got for her in Beijing - we've waited a year and a half to bust it out!

Finally, we finally found Wii Fit, so here is Sydney and Mommy trying out some yoga poses.

Festivals, Fairs and Fun

C'mon! Let's go go go! Gong wo lai!

Summertime and the livin' is easy, so they say. Sydney attended a couple of Clark County affairs - the Hawaiian Festival at Esther Short Park and the Clark County Fair. She had a blast eating, dancing, eating, seeing farm animals, eating, and walking around observing all kinds of new things.

Here's our silly island girl with a lei on her head.



Sydney's first Shave Ice! Grandpa Joe would be proud.

In two trips to the Fair, Sydney ate two corn dogs, some curly fries, french fries, two bags of kettlecorn, corn on the cob, the best ice cream, more shave ice, and even sampled some beef jerky. She also got a taste of the "forbidden" water - Pepsi.

Here she is making Grammy laugh while moving Grammy's arm to give her a drink of soda.


Sydney's new favorite vegetable, served two ways.


Dancing with strangers is the best kind of fun!


And finally, here's Sydney in motion - her first pony ride! Turn up the sound and hear the sheer glee in her laugh.

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.

Seaside a Second Time

Happy Father's Day, Baba!

Last weekend we got to use Aunt Marlys's cabin again. We are always so grateful for this little getaway. Sydney was excited for a day and a half. She travels well, and we think she likes the beach more than Ellie (gasp). This time she was more mobile (stable) and pretty much ran to the beach every time we headed there. Any time we wanted to head back to the cabin, she would stop, put her head down, shake it and say "no." She wouldn't (couldn't?) go to sleep the first night we arrived until almost 11pm. She had her first corndog at Pronto Pup and her first taste of Dooger's clam chowder, loving them both. She took after her dad by going into the Oregon coast water with no hesitation or complaint. She showed her love for the beach by saying "more" after face-planting in the water fully clothed. And when she finally fell asleep, she slept hard.

For those of you interested, I have now joined a new online organization called Facebook. It's like MySpace. I found it easier, for the time being, to upload a bunch of photos as an album. You can check it out if you become my friend there.

Here are a few pictures of Sydney outside the cabin as we were packing up. She allowed a little fuzzy caterpillar to crawl up on her.

A bit out of focus, but still cute.

Here's Sydney in the car shortly after we pulled out from the cabin. She slept the whole way back to Vancouver. She woke up several times, and we thought her nap was finished and then she just nodded back off. Tired little puppy.

May Days

I don't want to come inside!

May has just about come and gone - Mother's Day seems like months ago and Memorial Day is tomorrow. We endured temperature swings of 90s-100 for a few days (while Mama was fighting a gastrointestinal thing, coincidentally) followed by a drop of 30-40 degrees with temps in the 60s. Ahh, weather in the Northwest. Could be worse, I suppose. Sydney doesn't seem to care if it is hot, cold or warm, wet or dry. She just plugs right along, facing each day with all the energy you'd expect of an almost-28-month-old. Pants optional, of course.

These days she is testing both her limits and our patience! We have realized that her reach is greater than ever and she now uses her climbing ability to get to places and things she shouldn't. We are having to keep more doors closed and pry things from her little mitts frequently. "No nap" is a term she often uses. She has also gotten into trouble several times for telling us to STOP talking while we are trying to have a conversation, either with each other or with other adults.

On the positive side, Sydney is using her potty seat every day at least once or twice! Her new motivation is a bite of chocolate. She is also ready to go for a walk when it's time to take Ellie out - she would rather walk than ride!

Sydney received a nice tea set from Grandma and Grandpa Joe last Christmas, and she has only broken one piece so far. We haven't put any real liquid in yet, just O's cereal. Here she is playing tea set with her duck and her elephant.

Pouring the O's.

Here you go, Elephant.

I'll help you with your trunk.

Brian planted some tomatoes and peppers yesterday, and Sydney was there to oversee the operation. She helped remove some rocks and spotted bees for us ("bees" being an all-encompassing term for any bug except for ladybugs).

Sydney using her gloves and visor from Aunt Marlys.

Moving the dirt for Baba.

Excavation and rock removal. (And is that a great squat or what?)

Don't forget to mark what you planted.

And finally, here's Mama using a hand massage roller thingy on Sydney. It's the simple things in life that make us happy, yeah?

My Fu Sister Zanna

The Fu's Duet!

Sydney got to visit Zanna last Sunday for brunch and play. It is always great to see another Fu family, and we inevitably compare how the girls are doing. Sydney and Zanna are only two days apart in age, and it was humbling to see how much Zanna is talking. Her parents tell us that she has a lot to say. For instance, Zanna said something like "I make room on my plate for eggs," while Sydney points to the eggs and says "Eggs." They are both going through the selfish stage, but the sharing got better as the morning went on. They are also both going through potty-training, with some successes here and there. And they both hurt themselves on the tire swing at the local school playground.

Hanging out in Zanna's room. Sydney felt comfortable enough to take off her pants.

Nothing happened here, but they tried!

Heading to the playground.



Here Zanna and Sydney go down the slide. This was Sydney's first time going down by herself, with no help from us, and we credit peer pressure for taking over here. She just marched up after Zanna and then went for it!


The dreaded tire swing. Zanna got a bit dizzy and stopped it herself, which was a little scary and caused a bit of pain. Sydney decided midway through swinging that she was all done and let go, flipping over and falling on her back and head. Both girls displayed the toughness and moxie that we have come to expect from the Fu girls, barely shedding any tears.


Here's Ama taking the girls on a bumpy ride down the stairs. (Photo courtesy Vivian, Zanna's exchange student from Taiwan.)


And finally, you might remember how I love to see little kids squatting. Here's Sydney, our 27-month-old, watching the soapy carwash water going towards the drain.