Yankee Swap!

Sophia is becoming so deeply involved with a few of her toys (cars being one of them!). She let a dinosaur get in on this meal, too!
Luckily she helps me with dishes every night!

Car school

The annual Williams "Yankee Swap Christmas Party!" We were there on Sunday the 18th, which was a stunning 50 degree day! Here are some of the girls!

Getting ready for the icecream bar dessert! Aunt Kathy knows how to put on a party!

Sophia unwrapping her Yankee present (a paint activity that she loves and was working on last night!)

Grandma Mary got the adult, leopard-print footie pajamas! Too funny!

Sophia performing with some cousins! Check out the video on the post below this one! Merry Christmas!

Sophia Singing!

All of the cousins were performing at the Yankee swap (Christmas songs and a beautifully choreographed ballet performance! I was SO impressed!). Sophia wanted to get in on the fun, but the only song that came to her was the one that her preschool sings at the beginning of each music class. The song is called "Hello, how are you?" (in case you couldn't tell!). :)

First Snows!

I was kind of waiting for some "real snow" but here we are sitting on Dec 12th and still have not had any real snow! We've had ground dustings twice that quickly melted. Our pumpkin caved in a couple of weeks ago, so I guess the little bit of snow in the above pic will have to do for our 2011 annual "pumpkin-snow pose!"
2010 (when we had a LOT more snow!)

2009

2008!

A Lil Nov-Dec Catch-Up!

We are "go-go-go-CRASH" lately!
Christmas cookies... I was so impressed by Sophia's decorating skills! I didn't lay a finger on these cookies! Pretty meticulous for a 3 year old if you ask me!

Lots of crafting, as usual... I took a pic of this bird craft because Travis made it up all by himself! He's constantly evolving as a daytime stay-at-home dad, and I think he's pretty awesome :)

Thanksgiving! This is our Goddaughter, Ava, with big bro DJ

We had Thanksgiving with Travis' maternal grandparents, Snooki and Cash.

Lindsey and Ava... so sweet! Gotta love those nursing comas!

It was a really nice dinner!

Sophia and DJ at the kids end of the table... they both look so grown up to me!

Sophia with her Great Grandmother, Snookie

Great-Grandpa Cash

Later on we stopped by the paternal grandmother and crew's gathering, and Sophia had a little playtime with her 2nd cousin, Mairie

Waiting for ballet class to begin!

Sophia made "alphabet soup" a couple of weeks ago, using her play kitchen equipment and magnetic letters!

A plate of alphabet soup!

Just goofing off...

Sophia came up with this spelling of "T-rex" (the dinosaur) all by herself!

And her version of how "Sophia" is spelled... she always gets all the letters, but instead of "sounding out" her name like she does with other words she just assembles the letters as she comes across them... she often types her name out similar to this foam letter version.

Christmas tree! Hooray! Cliche to say, but witnessing Sophia's experience of the holiday is truly magical!

MURAL! And I am happy to say it is DONE! (For now)... I would not wish a wall mural on my worst enemy. We all really love it, and DID have fun with it (even Sophia helped paint!) but Travis and I figured that we spent well over 40 hours on it... a massive labor of love! Here are some pics of the progress and the finished product!

Tiny butterflies... I intend to keep adding sweet little details. Sophia loves all the hidden little bugs, flowers, etc.! You can also kind of tell from this close-up how many layers of paint and different brushes/sponges, etc. were used to get different textures and effects. I discovered that acrylic really shows brush-strokes and direction, and it took me a little time to figure out how to use that to my advantage!

The Way Sophia Plays

Ok... so I have been trying for DAYS to get this video of Sophia to upload! It's about 2 minutes long and apparently blogger just can't deal with that much video. I finally decided to upload the video on my Youtube account (which took about 2 minutes!) and post the link here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OptVpnHO2I

And here is a little text about the video... happy viewing!

I've been wanting to record the way Sophia plays for some time, and I was finally able to sneak a recording of her without her noticing! Sophia happily plays by herself quite often. I think it's interesting that she narrates and provides dialogue for characters, like she's telling a story. This also fascinates me because I can remember constantly "narrating" or telling myself stories out loud as a child. I still do this in my mind! I might hear a car alarm, for example, and I reflexively come up with a plot in my mind and find myself narrating the plot (briefly). I don't know how common that is... I don't think I've mentioned this to many people! Whether or not it's common to narrate and make up stories, it's so incredible to watch Sophia do this without having been taught to, in the same way that I used to! How did she learn this? So interesting!

"Sophia-isms"

"When I grow up I'm going to be a kindergartener!"

"I fell in love with that boy" (playground romance!).

"My foot died!" (Sometimes she "gets stuck" in a passe during ballet practice!).

Sophia: "I wish we had a minivan."
Me: "We don't need a minivan; minivans are for huge familes."
Sophia: "But you're huge!"

Sophia: "Are we going to the liquore store?"
Me: "Why would we be going there?"
Sophia: "To get daddy beer. Daddy loves beer!" (Not true; I'm the one who loves beer!)

"I would like some pizza. We can get pizza, right? There's a place called Papa John's that's open, right?" (This is after throwing up several times in the wee hours of the morning).

"I just took a tiny, standard bite."

"I'm doing a good job," "I'm doing it right," and other phrases to confirm that she's little Ms Perfect! She's exhibiting some of her mom's OCD and competitiveness!

More Mural Progress!

Sophia was clipping nails tonight :)
And, more progress on the wall mural! One more mare and a foal to go, and then we'll start painting the landscape in! This is tedious, but it's also really nice to paint again. I haven't been in touch with my "inner painter" since I left VT six years ago! I did use a projector to pencil in the images, but the painting I have to figure out myself from the photos, which is a very fun challenge! We're getting there!

Party time!

Last Saturday was packed! We had the morning ballet lessons, and then Sophia's first classmate birthday party, and then headed up to Grand Forks for Grandma Mary's 90th birthday party! Sophia's classmate, Elly, had her party at a local children's museum, and the kids had LOTS of fun there!

Enjoying the museum's interactive exhibits...

A quick nap in the car, and Sophia was ready for her next party!

The world's best birthday girl!

Cousins performance!

Of course the party continued well into the night back at Carmen and Ralph's!

Ava helping her Grandpa Ralph with his cards! ;)

The next morning Sophia insisted on the usual diva outfit, and then helped her cousins Gunner and DJ make carmel rolls for Grandma's birthday breakfast!

Cuddling on the way to breakfast!

Sophia with her great grandma! So, so special :)

Sophia LOVES babies, especially Ava!

On Veterans Day Sophia's Godfather, Brandon, paid a surprise visit and we roped him into babysitting while Travis and I went to our first parent-teacher conference, which was FUN! We took Brandon out to lunch to thank him and managed to sneak in a few photos of Sophia with her Godfather Brandon!

I know these are hard to see, but this was phase 1 of Sophia's "room redo!" We are doing a wall mural of horses in fields, and started by sketching in the outlines and some shading from projected photographs. Here are the sketches!

We're slowly getting there! Acrylic paint is difficult, but I'm getting the hang of it!

Tummy face! The joys of washable markers! :)