More Purple

Sophie's world pretty much revolves around four things these days: daddy, food, outside, and Purple. Daddy is a given - he is pretty awesome and my world revolves around him too :) Outside is also understandable - the weather has been amazing these past few days and we've been going on lots of walks (2-3 a day) and having fun at various playgrounds. And who doesn't love food? Especially goldfish crackers- they are sooo delicious.

I'm still trying to figure out why her Purple attachment is so strong though.  She carries Purple wrapped around her body, over her shoulder, or out in front of her with both hands like a matador. Purple is the first thing she grabs when she wakes up, and what she wants to cuddle if she's sad or tired. Sometimes she will see Purple on the ground and just fall down on top of it and snuggle it for awhile. She LOVES that blanket. And it's getting harder and harder to sneak Purple away to get cleaned every now and then. The other day I threw Purple in the washer while she was eating snack, but 10 minutes later I found her in the laundry room in distress:

Video - Purple in the Wash

More from April

I'm realizing that I haven't done a very good job posting in April. We've haven't been crazy busy, so I guess it's just me being lazy. Time to get caught up! Here are some things that happened this month:

Post-nap crazy girl - her hair is starting to get to the point where it has to be combed or it looks like a disaster

Watching some Top Gear with Uncle Derek, who stayed the night at our house over Easter weekend. My mom (Grandmari), also came into town a few days later, but it was a quick trip and she left before we took any pictures

Helping herself to the dishwasher - mischievous little thing

After church with daddy, wearing a dress that was mine as a baby

Video: Super Slide!

The Egg Hunt

We do not have a well manicured lawn. Our backyard is so little we decided it wasn't worth it to buy or store a lawnmower, so Dave does his best to keep it under control with a weed whacker. And there's a big dead spot in the back where there were a bunch of leaves that got snowed on before we could rake them up. Oh well. It served it's purpose for Sophie's egg hunt, and she did pretty good job navigating the jungle. 

When we first put her out there with all the eggs, she wasn't sure what to do. After some coaching from Dave though, she seemed to catch on and ended up picking up all the eggs. She loved it so much that now, when I need a few minutes to tidy up or work on dinner, I throw some things around the yard and send her out with a basket to do some gathering :)

I had a hard time choosing a few favorites, so I'm posting all the pictures (& a video) - enjoy!

Sophie's Easter Basket - bunny ears, bubbles, slinky, tights and a light-up ball (thank you Target dollar aisle!)

Showing off her eggs

Adding some eggs to her basket

Losing some eggs from her basket

Hey look! More eggs to find!

Happy Easter baby girl!

First Egg Hunt

Easter 2014

We had a great Easter this year. It was so fun to celebrate with Sophie and one of my favorite days we've had as a family so far this year. Today I am so grateful for the blessings of family, this beautiful world, and the Savior and his Atonement. 

This morning we did a small egg hunt with Sophie, which I'll write more about in a separate post. Then we attended church, and Dave sang with the choir for the ward Easter program. They did a wonderful job and really made it a special meeting. After church we drove up to Salt Lake for a family dinner at my grandma's house. My grandma set an amazing table and we enjoyed a great meal with Derek, Natalie & Brodie, Nate & Veronica, and David & Cynthia. 

Sophie was using an antique high chair so we covered it with plastic wrap :)

For Easter Sunday, Sophie wore a dress Grandmari (my mom) made using one of my sister Amy's patterns

Saying "hi" to a bunny

Admiring Grandma Mimi's beautiful flowers

Sophie was only 12 days old last Easter. It's amazing how much things change in a year!

Easter 2013 - Sophie was so tiny, and we were so tired

Easter 2014 - My cute little bunny

Sophie at 12 Months

This is really late - Sophie had her birthday almost 3 weeks ago - but I didn't want to miss posting the final monthly update of her first year. And what a year it was! She has grown from a sweet little baby, into an adventurous, spunky toddler. Last week she was feeling a little off, which made her a bit cranky and clingy, and it really made me appreciate how silly and happy she normally is. She makes us, and herself, laugh all day long. We love her to pieces and are so happy to have her in our family!

Sophie at 12 Months

• 30.3 inches tall (88%), 20.5 pounds (60%), and head size of 17.4 in (40%) - she's a tall, little pin head :)
• Has 12 teeth, which I think is plenty for now and wouldn't mind if any new ones didn't come for awhile.
• Continues to be a good eater, although she has started saving her veggies for last and will only eat them once everything else is gone. Her favorites right now are mango, crackers, cheese, yogurt, rice, milk and water. I am still nursing twice a day, but think we will probably down to just one feeding pretty soon, and done completely in about a month. 
• Jabbers all day long, but her only real words are still "mama" and "dada". 
• Is overall a great sleeper. She goes to bed at 8:00 pm and gets up around 7:30-8:00 am, and takes two naps of varying length each day. I have given up hope that she will be a two-hour napper. We celebrate reaching the 60 minute mark, and count our blessings for anything beyond that. 
• Runs away when you are trying to get her dressed, but once you catch her she is good about helping put her arms into the sleeves. 
• Does not enjoy having her teeth brushed, being left out (which includes hearing someone downstairs when she is upstairs, or vice versa), sitting still, when binky or Purple fall out of the crib, or getting in and out of her car seat more than two or three times. 
• Loves to be outside, read books, go on walks, be tickled, look at animals, play hide-and-go-seek or peek-a-boo, and cause mischief. 

And some other pictures from the past couple weeks:

Blackberries are one of her new favorite foods - too bad they stain like crazy!

At the aquarium - she was more interested in the penguins on the wall than the real ones in the exhibit

Enjoying a snack in the back yard

The time Purple took a bath

A couple months ago Sophie suddenly became very attached to one of her baby blankets. We very creatively named the blanket "Purple," and have loved watching how excited she gets when she sees it. For the most part she's fine if Purple stays in her bed during the day, but if she ever sees it and can't have it, then she gets really upset. Which is what happened this weekend.

I was taking Sophie upstairs for her bath, and on the way to the tub I decided to transfer the laundry from the washer to the dryer. Sophie saw Purple, and grabbed it out of the dryer and took it to her room. I let her play with damp Purple for a few minutes, but then took it back and started the dryer.

This made her really sad and she just stood by the dryer door crying. Thinking the bath would distract her, I started the water and put her the tub. It didn't fix anything. She went from sad to hysterical. She was crying so hard she couldn't breathe, and was frantically trying to climb out of the tub. So against my better nature, I did the only thing I could think of to calm her down and got Purple back out of the dryer and put it in the tub:

A Chair for Sophie

Sophie loves books! We have stashes of books all over the house - the family room, her room, our room, the diaper bag - and she spends about an hour a day reading to herself. She especially loves any books that have flaps, pull tabs, or things to touch and feel.

One day I found her sitting on a pillow and thought it must have just been coincidence, but then she did the same thing the next day, and any other time I got the pillow out. Thinking she might like having her own place to sit, I started searching the classifieds and found the perfect little chair on KSL. It's from Pottery Barn, and had the name "Grace" embroidered across the top, but I was able to pick out all the stitching and it looks as good as new. She LOVES it and so do I!

Sophie's favorite things - books, binky, purple, and her new chair

My Brave Girl

It was so beautiful today - low 70s - so as soon as I got home from work we took a walk over to the park before dinner. We've been to this park before and Sophie has had fun exploring, swinging, and riding the slides on our laps. She is an adventurous little girl, though, so today we decided to let her try the slide by herself. Dave put her down on the edge and I wasn't sure if she would go for it, but she did - go girl!

After her first solo slide she liked it!

First visit to the new aquarium

We have been watching the new aquarium be built across the interstate from our house for months and are excited that it is finally ready to open! We got memberships for Christmas from Dave's sister (thanks Liz!), and it's only a 5 minute drive so I'm sure we will be visiting often. Today we attended a special preview for members, and although a lot of exhibits were not quite ready, we still had a good time looking at what was open and reading about what will hopefully be there next time we visit.

First ride in her new car seat!

We were a little disappointed that 90% of the exhibits still looked like this

But at least the popular ones were open, like the penguins...

Otters...

 and tropical fish!

It's her birthday and she'll cry if she wants to

Today was Sophie's first birthday. Holy cow - my baby is one! I wanted to do something fun for her birthday so I poked around online and got overwhelmed. There were so many cute, but elaborate ideas out there and I am not much of a cake baker, party decorator, or picture taker, so I decided that it would be best to just keep it simple. And it's good I did, because as it turns out, Sophie is not a big fan of birthdays.

On Sunday we had my siblings over for a small family party. Sophie had no afternoon nap this day and the big event ended in tears

Today I decided to try again and it ended the same way. Looking back though, the tears don't come until after the cake has been smashed. She's fine until it ends up in pieces. Silly girl.

A post-cupcake bath in the sink seemed to cheer her up a bit

And although she didn't really like cake, she loved present time. She got birthday cards from her great grandmas, a cute swimsuit that my sister Amy made, a play cell phone from my coworker, and a trip to the park from her babysitter. This girl sure is loved!!

Cute summer clothes and a fun book from her Howe grandparents and Aunt Liz

Grandmari and Paco got her a puzzle, play food, and a fun ball & ramp wooden toy

And we got her a big girl car seat!