Sophie's 2nd Birthday Party

Sophie turned TWO today! I'll do a separate post on her two year stats later, but wanted to share some pictures of her party. It was a small gathering that we had before her actual birthday while Grandmari and Uncle D were visiting. We got her a birthday donut (one of her favorite treats), stuck in candles, sang "Happy Birthday," and then opened some presents.

Oh how she loves presents! She knows what wrapping paper means and her eyes light up when she sees a gift. Thinking it would be better to spread the fun out over a week, we let her open a few presents each day rather than everything all at once. This was maybe not the best idea as she has now become a sweet, yet spoiled little monster who keeps asking for "more presents." We know now that making presents appear day after day for almost a week was the wrong expectation to set. Oops!

She was able to blow the candles out by herself!

Digging in to her donut

The Birthday Gang

Opening presents

We gave her a Minnie Mouse shirt, a stick horse, and fruit cutting set

Video: Sophie's Birthday

Bye Bye Bink

Sophie has always LOVED her binky, but a few months ago she started chewing on it, and by chewing I mean completely mangling the thing. The first time she destroyed her bink was right before our Disney trip (bad timing for a transition), so I replaced it with a fresh one. The second time it happened, however, I knew it was time to say goodbye so two days ago we cut off the whole tip and threw it in the garbage.

For how attached she was, I'm surprised at how well she is adjusting. She has been sad for her lost "friend," but has stopped asking for it and is going down for nap and bed without complaint. One step closer to becoming a big girl!

Video - Sophie Tells About What Happened to Bink

Princess Party Fun

Yesterday Sophie went to a princess birthday part for her friend Peyton. Peyton is the daughter of her babysitter, and Sophie absolutely loves her. She is like a friend, a cousin, and a sister all rolled into one. I went along with her to the party since she was quite a bit younger than the other guests. This morning I asked her if she had fun at the party and she said "oh yes." The highlights for her were meeting Elsa, and wearing a Belle dress - she thought both of those were pretty special!

The party started with some mini-makeovers for the girls. Sophie had her nails painted pink.

The pretty princesses - we don't have any princess dresses so Sophie was thrilled with the Belle dress that Peyton let her borrow

The moment Elsa and Anna arrived - Sophie was a little awestruck

Playing games with Anna and Elsa

At one point Elsa asked her what her favorite animal was and after a lot of thinking, she replied "Cinderella"

Happy Birthday Peyton!

Playtime

Sophie is my helper and buddy on Saturdays. We always make a grocery run on Saturday mornings, and then we go do something fun. Today the plan was a trip to the park, but it was super windy outside so we went up to play in her room instead. I'll admit that sometimes her games can be tedious, but I'm making an effort to "savor the moments" and today we had a lot of fun.

First we cleaned her bathroom to get ready for Grandmari's visit. She LOVES it when I let her help and so I put her to work on the mirror. Maybe in a few years she'll be able to take over some chores for me :)

Anytime we play in her room she asks me to get out her baby seat. She loves to try and do the buckles, but it's getting harder and harder to snap them closed. Stop getting so big baby girl!

Then we played blocks. "Play blocks" is probably one of her favorite things to do. We do it every morning when she wakes up, and after breakfast, and after nap, and after dinner, and during bath, and before bed...

Next we played another favorite game - "go night night" She very lovingly tucked in her animals and made sure they were all cozy. 

Then she decided she needed more friends, so she got up and grabbed every stuffed animal she could find and found some more blankets. I told her that if she was going night-night, then she needed to close her eyes, which she did :)

Oh how I love her

Photo dump

This post is mostly a photo dump with bits of narrative mixed in here and there. Some pictures are from my phone, and some are from my camera. I have decided to devote more time to learning how to take better pictures with my camera, specifically pictures that are really in focus. So many are slightly blurry, and I love them anyway, but I could do better. Sophie is not an easy test subject because she moves around like crazy, but practice makes perfect, right?

My baby will turn two next week. Sometimes I wish I could keep her little.

On Friday it was "Dress Like a Pirate" day at my school - argh!

On Saturday we went to the farm again. Sophie ran back and forth, bringing one blade of grass at a time to feed to this horse. He was very patient and gentle with her. 

My two favorites

Oh Sophie. The other day she told me she loved me "a little much" (normally it's "sooooo much") because I made her go to Costco with me when she wanted to stay home with Dave. Although she was really angry with me, it made me laugh to hear how she expressed it. 

The nice weather has meant lots of time outside. I took her to a nearby playground with a big sandbox and she had so much fun building piles and digging holes. She had sand in every crevice when we got home. I bet she is going to love the beach when we go this summer!

Construction has started on I-15 that is supposed to last until Fall of 2016. Yuck. So far our commute has only been a few minutes longer than normal and I hope it stays that way. Sophie is a pro in the car, but I've started bringing some books to make the trip more enjoyable for her. 

Today was so incredibly nice. Although I'm still mourning our lack of snow this winter, I will never complain about a day like today. After work I took her down to the little play area by our house. We met the neighbor's cat there, who Sophie is always excited to see. It's a very friendly (and tolerant) cat that doesn't mind some Sophie lovin'.

Tonight we had a tub incident (I thought of you Janie). I thought she might need to go, so I asked her over and over again if she needed to get out and use the potty and she always said no, and then she pooped. She immediately scrambled to get out of the tub and said "shower!" and took off running for my room. Even though it had been awhile since the last incident, she knew pooping in the tub equaled a trip to the shower. The little stinker. 

It finally snowed!

Today it snowed, which was pretty exciting because we've had almost no snow this year. It was clear and dry when we got up, but after breakfast we noticed some flurries that soon turned into a storm. Sophie desperately wanted to go outside and build a snowman, and against my better nature I got her all bundled up and took her out to play even though I was still in pajamas and hadn't done anything to get ready for work.

Our funny little snowman - his head was so small I had to stick the carrot in pointy-end first so it would fit

After about 10 minutes I cut our playtime short because we really had to get ready to leave, especially since I knew the roads would be bad. It was not a fun drive into work, but we made it without incident and were only 15 minutes late. 

The sun came out later in the day and melted all the snow. Roads that were completely covered hours before were now bone dry, and we cruised all the way home. Luckily there was still a small patch of snow left in front of our house for Sophie to play in when we got back. She happily tramped around until I made her come inside because I was cold. I'm glad we got to have some fun in this short-lived storm!

Daddy and Sophie having a "snowball fight". It was a pretty one sided fight because she never really figured out how to throw back. Dave would throw snow at her and as soon as he was out, she would walk up and hand him some more. 

February Roundup

This month went by so fast! Probably because we working hard and playing hard:

Dave finished a paper for school that he has been working on for the better part of two years. It was approved this week and we are both happy to have it behind us. He is now preparing to take comps - his comprehensive exams where he has to know everything. No pressure!

I have really been enjoying work. It's been a great year at the school - the kids are happy, the parents are happy, and the staff is happy, including me! I really love my job. I also am having a hard time believing that Sophie will turn two in just a few weeks.

Sophie has been her usual, happy self. Some memorable Sophie moments from this month are (in words and pictures):

• At Disneyland my sister and I were waiting with the kids by the Mark Twain riverboat while the others rode Thunder Mountain Railroad. At one point I turned around and found her down on her hands and knees drinking from a puddle on the sidewalk like a dog. So, so gross. 
• She has learned to say "yes!" It's amazing how kids learn to say "no" as one of their first words, and then months, even a year later they finally learn yes. 
• One morning we were watching the Today show and Sophie was very intrigued by Al Roker's "naked head."
• She has started sucking on her fingers. They are always in her mouth and it drives me nuts. Her hands are always wet now and everything she touches gets covered in slobber. Ugh. I hope this is short-lived phase. 

We've been doing lots, and lots of reading. She has started making the transition from board books to real books. Her favorites are Little Critter, Clifford, Curious George and anything Disney related. 

It's snowing as I write this (hooray!), but for the most part this February has been warm and dry. We've enjoyed lots of playtime outside. One day we spend an hour gathering little airsoft bbs that were all over the ground.

Since it feels like spring has come (the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the tulips are blooming), I have started cleaning out our house. I am going through every corner, drawer, closet, and shelf and deciding what to keep, relocate, donate or throw away.  It's going really well and I love how much we have gotten rid of. Sophie put this outfit together when I was going through our hats and scarves. 

I have been enjoying my Thanksgiving Point membership and the last two Fridays Sophie and I have made trips to the Curiosity Museum and the Dinosaur Museum. 

At the dinosaur museum I asked her how many teeth this shark had and she said "two, two, two, two, TWO" which I guess her way of saying a lot!

I have still not cut her hair and it is starting to get so long! 

Sophie is obsessed with any thing that can be turned into a "house." I'm thinking it's probably a good thing our couch cushions don't come off or we would have a fort set up in our front room all day long.

One morning I told Sophie she was so cute, and she said right back to me, "no momma, I naked!"

Dave took Sophie to the free zoo day again this month

Farm Country

This week is parent conferences at my school so I get off work a little earlier than normal. I decided to use the extra time (and my new membership!) to meet up with my friend Heather and her kids at the Thanksgiving Point farm. What a fun place! We saw lots of animals, milked a cow, went on a tractor ride, and Sophie rode a pony. And it was so nice outside! No coats needed today, which is so abnormal for February in Utah.

We pass by Thanksgiving Point on our drive home to and from work every day so we will probably be spending a lot of time here in the near future. I am planning to meet Heather again on Friday to visit the new Curiosity Museum, and we heard today that several baby animals are on their way to the farm so we will be checking back often to see if there are any new arrivals.

Checking out the cows

This cow decided to give Sophie a hello kiss on the hand

Riding a pony, or as she says "a neigh." During the pony ride she leaned over and told me "I love it."

For some reason these two thought it was fun to stick their fingers through the fence and get pecked by chickens. Crazy kids. 

Valentine's Day 2015

We had a low key Valentine's day this year, like we do pretty much every year. We said we wouldn't do anything special for this day, but I decided that it was a good excuse to get each other something we were intending to buy anyway so I got a membership to Thanksgiving Point and Dave got an Xbox live account. We also met my grandma for dinner at Chuck-A-Rama. It was fun to eat with her, and it's always a treat to not have to cook or clean!

My cute girl with the flowers we got to give my grandma. Sophie helped me pick these out at the store and of course chose a bouquet with purple flowers. 

At dinner with my grandma -  thank you  grandma for the delicious cinnamon cake you gave us!

And, just for fun, my baby then and now. She has grown so much in just one year!!

2014

2015