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Thursday, June 24, 2010

Summer Fun!

We celebrated the arrival of Sophia's pre-birth month (that would be the 4 weeks before her birthday, of course!) by buying a little cheesecake and lighting candles and singing her "Happy Birth-Month." She loved it! In fact, she loved it so much that we did it every day for a week...no more cheesecake, but we'd stick a candle in her hotdog, in a roll, a chunk of watermelon, etc. She is now well-practiced and ready for the real thing! She can totally blow out candles!
Perhaps she's nervous about turning 2? Sometimes Sophia uses her doll toys for herself, and crawls around saying goo-goo ga-ga. Too funny!

A couple weeks ago the twins came over for some play-time! Sophia was sooo good with them! She and Amelia played with her pop-up toy forever, and Sophia acted like a perfect big sister. She would say, "Amelia, where's the elephant?" and then pop it up and say, "there it is!" Or she would pop up an animal and say, "Amelia, what's that? A monkey!"



Sophia and William played some hard-core peek-a-boo!


She was pretty exhausted after all that fun! I love sleeping kids...little angels!

Father's Day fun! I started the day by making Travis such a big breakfast he made me take a picture of it: homefries, eggs, toast and blueberry pancakes...yum! After a short post-breakfast food coma we went to a family movie...Sophia's first theater experience! We saw Toystory 3 in 3D! Sophia wore her glasses almost the whole time...she was so cute! And she was good through the WHOLE movie!!! We finished up the day with a long, sunset game of frolf at the frisbee-golf course near our house. It was a lovely family day...what mother's and father's days are all about!

More peek-a-boo!
Ok, I know it's weird...but one of Sophia's favorite games is to pretend she's a puppy! I have to lead her around and say "come on puppy! Good puppy!" It thrills her to death!

On Tuesday we went to the Wild West Jamboree with the twins! We smushed them all in the Blazer!
Carriage rides! Sophia begged to ride on top of the clydesdales! The drivers let us pet them instead :)
There was a cute little country band called "the Roosters."
Sophia waiting for the pony rides! The line was so long, and it was hard for her to be patient, but...

We finally made it! This was her first pony ride on her own...I didn't walk next to her! It was SO scary! (For me...she loved it!)


They had little games there, too. In this game they had lariats and the kids were supposed to rope the cow-head... Of course, as an animal-lover's daughter, Sophia preferred to pet the cow head! Haha!

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Some Random-ness...

Twin torture! We saw the twins last week...I think children who grow up as an only child or as twins have very different ideas about personal space! Haha. They had fun anyway! (Does William look like he's in love in the top photo or what??)

A few notes:
*Sophia's latest Sophia-ism:
1. We say "aspirator" she says "asser-bator." Go ahead. Say it out loud; it's more funny that way!
*Sophia now says "please, "thank you," and "bless you" very regularly. Hooray for manners!
*Sophia loves anything having to do with reading! She will listen to stories without pictures, and even adult magazine articles (like National Geographic--one of her faves!). She can also identify most upper and lower case letters, and can give a word or two for the letter (like "T for Turtle" and "Travis."). We're not freak-parents...she likes this stuff!
* Sophia is wild, independent, and pushing boundaries! And has AMAZING tantrums! She climbs on everything, loves to wrestle and get tossed around, has started hitting a bit (boo), and does things that are against the rules when we aren't looking (like climbing on the table or putting her foot in the dog's water bowl). Just in case anyone thought she was an angel!
*Sometimes she IS an angel. She plays by herself very well, loves giving kisses and hugs, and says "I love you" and "I love you so much" with wild abandon! One of my favorites? She constantly requests a "family hug," when Travis and I pick her up and squish her between us and cover her in kisses. It's the sweetest! :)

Monday, June 7, 2010

Summer days!

I know I waited too long to take the pics, but Sophia is modeling a shirt that I wore as a baby!
One of her favorites; feeding the squirrels

As soon as we get home from the library Sophia pulls out all her books!

On Friday we went to the Zoo...Sophia had a BLAST! It was so much fun!


A midwest zoo must have prairie dogs!

Sophia adored the little "petting zoo" part...although we had a little tiff over whether or not she could ride the Clydesdale!


Eye to eye with a Skink!

On Saturday we went to "Breakfast on the Farm." It's a big breakfast made with local foods, put on by the lion's club. There's lots of kid stuff and it's on the Steam Thresher grounds...lots of tractors and historical buildings. It was wet, but we had fun!







On the wagon ride!
Inside one of the historical buildings

This was her farmgirl shirt, but she had to wear her raincoat the whole time, so I took this pic when we got home!

And yesterday we joined some new friends at the classical music fest...it was amazing!


We hit the park between the men's quartet and the Fargo-Moorhead symphony orchestra. :)

The orchestra. Sophia loved them best; she even marched and danced and waved her hand like a baton...the people around us were in hysterics! It was so cute!




Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Memorial Weekend!

We arrived at Lake Bemidji Saturday afternoon--beautiful day! We had a long boat ride and, of course, Grandpa Ralph shared Captain duties with Sophia!
We docked at the Green Mill restaurant, and Travis took Sophia in the water for a little bit...she was obsessed with the water! She was having tantrums on the boat because she wanted to be in the water so badly.

Nothing like a bag of Cheetos after a day on the lake!

Check out the orange mouth and hands!

Hanging out on the dock at the house

I'm loving the summer look!

And the pigtails!
Sunday was a little more chilly, but not enough to keep us out of the park!
And nothing keeps Sophia out of the water! Lucky her dad is such a good sport!
The dogs came with us to the park/beach! They like the water almost as much as Sophia!




New outfit!
Later on Saturday got to be beautiful, and we headed off to the country property...it was beautiful and we spent so much time running around in the field...and I'm STILL finding ticks! on us/ the dogs!!! EEEWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!



It really was beautiful...I'm glad I didn't start finding ticks until after we'd left because we just enjoyed a lovely time out in the fields! (Although, forewarning would have been nice so I could have gotten some bug spray! Oh, well...)
Her Grandpa Ralph and daddy are already corrupting her with their golfing madness...



With her "cousin," Joey...a Doberman with an incredibly high tolerance for toddler antics!

Monday morning snack!

Monday was beautiful, and we decided we'd better hit the beach! Sophia is holding a big stuffed bunny that Grandma Carmen introduced her too...she called it "Bunny Foo-Foo!"

It was a beautiful day!



Sophia played with kids she didn't know! I was so proud!


We had so much fun...in fact, Sophia wants to go back! On Monday night she was so happy to be back home, until suddenly she wanted to be back at her grandparents': She was naked after her bath and threw a tantrum because she wanted shoes on. I humored her and helped her put on a pair of shoes (she had to have her "shiny shoes"). Then she ran for the door saying, "open door! Car! Ride in the car!" And she had another tantrum. I told her it was time for bed and she melted into a screaming heap; yelling "Grammy's house! Grandpa Ralph!" Today she's well adjusted to being back home, but did say "kick the water" and "ride in boat" and talked about her grandparents a lot. :) It's wonderful to see her falling in love with family members beyond us! Happy summer!