Our Golden Pig

Happy Chinese New Year! one day late

We have the Chinese Branch in our ward at church, and with the large concentration of Chinese in this area where we live, yesterday was a big day. To celebrate Dave looked up each of our animal signs for the year we were born. He showed the kids a picture of "their" animal and why the Chinese use them. We learned that there is a lot of fire in our house, 2 dragons and a fire snake. Some of the fire traits are strength, persistence, warmth, creativity, however an excess of it can bring aggression, impatience and impulsive behavior. That about sums up our house at any given moment.

When all the sweet Chinese ladies at church found out we were expecting a girl in January I heard more than one excited squeal from their usually shy, reserved mouths. "It's year of Golden Pig" they'd say, "very lucky, very lucky!" So when we were looking at each family members signs yesterday I laughed out loud remembering this picture.

It's 2 day-old baby Sydney right after getting out of the photo-therapy for jaundice. From the bridge of her nose and up she is yellow because of the mask protecting her eyes. It was harder to notice it when her whole body was that yellow. We teased that she was a yellow raccoon. Not quite- she really was our cute little Golden Pig.

The ladies from church were right about the lucky part. WE are lucky to have this sweet, healthy baby girl in our family.

Syd's big day

Our little Sydney was the star of the show yesterday. It was her and my first Sunday back at church. We dressed her up in a frilly white dress and Daddy blessed her with most of our local family there. It felt good to sit in church with so many of our extended family there with us.















Dave and I both agree that adding another kid to the family after the third is not as big of a transition as from 2 to 3 kids. As Dave puts it, "it's the same method of crowd control." All the chillies have been so good with the addition of baby Sydney. Jessie rarely complains about the extra chores and errands she has to run for me, usually when I am nursing baby. She can get the kids cereal for breakfast or make toast to tide them over until I can fix lunch. Toby is the least interested in interacting with Sydney. He is my deep-thinker and I know by the questions he asks me that he loves and is thinking about Sydney. He often talks about where Sydney came from and what happened when I pushed her out of my tummy, etc. Logan is the big surprise in the house. He is such a snuggly Momma's boy that I worried he would easily retaliate when baby came. He hasn't though. If anything I have to watch baby closely so Logan doesn't love her too much instead of showing any aggression. He always picks the time she is sleeping soundly on my bed to go smother her with kisses and rub her head as only a 2 year-old can. It's been a great transition so far. We'll see if the kids are this entranced with her when she starts crawling and stealing their toys. ;)