Sydney Grace is 5 today!!!!!

My baby girl is 5 today! She was up early, of course, and opened all her presents before her brothers were even awake! She's been coloring her new Tinkerbell posters and is already wearing her new Hello Kitty shirt and sunglasses. :)

I'm so glad to have my one girl, and I'm grateful more every day that I only have one...she's a little firecracker! She has enough attitude for several girls! Since she was a baby, though, she has been (at least in my opinion) STUNNING and she keeps getting more beautiful all the time. I'm so not looking forward to the time when boys start noticing her, as I'm sure they will...

She has such a sweet spirit when she wants to. She loves to help with the baby and in the kitchen, and her favorite time of the day is when I crawl in bed with her and we read her bedtime story. She really is a joy, and I'm so glad to have her in our family. She definitely keeps life interesting. I think I'll really miss her when she starts kindergarten next month. Love you, Syd!!!!!

Sydney's Brithday Party

Well, today Sydney had her very first birthday party. We don't let our kids have a lot of parties. Mostly we're just lazy--it's a lot of work. Plus, we don't want them getting too spoiled. But this year Sydney has been to a lot of her friends' parties, so she really wanted one. She wanted to invite a few boys, so we couldn't do anything super-girly. We came up with a water theme. We had a slip-n-slide, water balloons, water games, and we put the sprinkler under the trampoline. Good thing, too, because it was over 100 degrees today!

Her actual birthday isn't until Monday, so she only got one present from us today since it went with the water theme. Here she is with her new flower sprinkler. It sprays in all different directions.

I let Sydney plan all the details--she colored and wrote on the invitations, she picked the lunch menu (chicken nuggets, watermelon, carrots, and chips), and she picked the theme. I'm usually not good at letting go of control like that, so I was proud of myself!

She just keeps on getting darker and darker. It's so not fair! I told Tim it's really pathetic, but I'm so jealous of her tan! Something I never have had and never will have... How cute is that face though?!?

She really wanted cupcakes instead of a cake. Easy enough!Present time! She got so many fun things. Thanks, everyone!
We played a game where the kids were on teams and they had to soak a sponge with water, hold it over their head, then run across the lawn and squeeze it into a bucket. The boys won that game, but the girls won the next one. She had a really fun time and I'm glad it's over. :)

Unbelieveable!!

Last night Tim's dad called and said he needed some help with the horses. He wanted to move ours (Lady) to another pasture with their Shetland pony. So we went over there and they got them moved O.K. We all were sitting in the yard talking when Tim saw Lady run through a hot wire fence in the pasture that was blocking a ditch full of water. She then tripped really badly (at running speed) and pretty much did a somersault and landed on her head/neck. She ended up in the ditch.

Tim had started running to her when she ran through the fence, but by the time he got to her and I caught up with him, I heard him say, "She's gone." I couldn't believe it! One minute she was running through the pasture and the next minute she was dead...it was crazy! The poor kids were all with us and Sydney was so sad. It was a rough visit to Grandma's...

Apparently, Tim is pretty sure Lady must have broken her neck and died instantly when she fell--nothing we could do. It all happened SO fast. The only good thing is that she died so quickly and painlessly. I guess that would be the best way to go, with no suffering.

So now I'm sure we'll be in the market for a new horse for hunting. CRAZY DAY!!! It still seems like a wild dream today, but I know it really happened. Sad.

We'll miss you, Miss Lady.