Sorry this is such a short (boring) clip... my camera ran out of memory! I am so proud of what a little horsewoman Sophia is... she is now riding Margie on her own! Of course mom and/or dad stay close, but she can neckrein, stop, and get Margie to go all on her own. She also goes in the big arena now (the above video is in a small training pen, where we started letting Sophia ride by herself first). I will try to get a video of her asking Margie to walk... she clucks and kicks and it's just hilarious because her legs are so short they just flap against the saddle... she can't really touch Margie with her feet yet! BUT... Margie DOES respond to the little kicks! She'll walk forward when Sophia asks her to! Sophia also loves trotting on Margie, but I haven't let her do that by herself yet. The girls are coming along nicely!

Our latest adventures!

 One last pic from Sophia's swimming lessons... they wrapped up last week!

 "The ways she plays!" Sophia tucks in her bath toys at the end of her bath. I wish I had photos/video of her latest bath game: the penguin is dead (run over by a car) and all the other sea critters are doctors that bring him back to life. Hmmm....

 Still in a very princessy phase.

 Sophia has been rapidly progressing with her horse skills! See the video post for more details... I'm a pretty proud mama :) Of course, it's in her blood! On both sides!

 On the 20th Sophia and I had a "mommy/daughter" day at the annual Fargo Street Fair. I spoiled her rotten! We went back to the blow up games 3 times. I loved spending 3 hours at the fair with her and just letting her lead the way.

 Huge waterslide... a much bigger, older boy in front of Sophia was too scared and had to climb back down the ladder. I was afraid Sophia would pick up on that and chicken out, but she went for it!

 I let her have tons of junk :) At least this was an Italian Ice instead of icecream!

 Waiting at a booth for cheese curds. I know that sounds gross to my East coast peeps, but they are sooo yummy!

 A slushie...

 Standing in front of the action!

 After the street fair we were SO excited for baby Ava's arrival! We got to have her for a whole night!

 Travis and I took the girls to the local wading pool

 We all went out to eat at Johnny Carino's.

 Ava loved hauling toys out of the toybox. She's such a good baby! And Sophia was GREAT with her, which makes me extra excited for our baby :)

 More dress-up!

 A princess photo shoot :)

 This last weekend was the first weekend we've had in about a month and a half that was UNPLANNED! We took lots of naps... watched movies... hung out with the horse... went for lots of walks... went shopping... and capped it off with a Sunday night family bike ride to Tutti Frutti, about a mile down the road.

 Tutti Frutti is one of those frozen yogurt places where you fill a bucket with your own yogurt flavor pick and then choose from a zillion toppings and they charge by the bucket's weight. Travis and I both got fruity yogurts and topped with strawberries, kiwis, rasperries, cherries. Sophia chose chocolate yogurt and topped it with sprinkles. :) It was yummy and fun! There is a new yogurt shop, Cherry Berry, going up 3 blocks closer to our house (and on our side of the busy street)... Sophia's already super excited for their grand opening!

Unplanned, family weekends are just a little slice of heaven! :)

Art in the Park! Fair! Birthday! And More!

Last week Sophia and I went to our community's monthly "Art in the Park" event, which features local artists and craftsmen, a live band, wagon rides, games, etc.

Sophia enjoyed dancing to the band.... they were playing Salsa!

The requisite mini donut purchase (and notice that her doll, Ella, still joins us for EVERY event!)

Travis took these pictures... for the last 1.5 weeks he's been taking Sophia to swimming lessons at our municipal pool every day. I watched a swimming lesson yesterday... she's so much braver this year!

There are a couple wading pools near the big pool, and the kids always end their lesson with games in the wading pools.

Going to Disney really ramped up the Princess obsession... this is a good representation of her regular, daily attire...

Birthday preparation! On Saturday the 14th we started baking strawberry cupcakes from scratch first thing in the morning!

A little artwork...

The cupcakes were done by noon, and then we headed to the Red River Valley fair! Unfortunately, this year the county fair (two towns over in our county) and the RRV fair (a really big fair in West Fargo) were scheduled during the same week. Ridiculous! We had to choose... I just couldn't handle 2 fairs in one week. Summer is just nuts around here! Oh, and the big Fargo street fair is this weekend... so stay tuned!

Sophia's first ride pick? Motorcycles!

Waiting for the ferris wheel with daddy... there was a sign banning pregnant women from the ferris wheel! Really?!

Sophia was very attracted to the vehicle-type rides

We took a break from the midway and headed over to the ag buildings. First stop was a big indoor arena to watch barrel racing! (with ice cream!)

I didn't let Sophoia bring Ella to the fair (too dirty! She sleeps with her every night!) but I let her choose two "car friends" to bring along. I think they really enjoyed watching the horses ;)

Yup, it's blurry... the racers were FAST!

We loved the 4-H barn... nothing better than spooning pigs :) (Plus all the animals had huge fans, which we really enjoyed since it was a 95 degree, humid day! Ick!)

Piglets!!!

Duckies going up and down their water slide!

The chicks had the best displays... and this year we weren't allowed to handle them, which was disappointing for Sophia but probably a very good thing for the chicks!

"Petting zoo."

Yes, we forked out $5 for the pony ride. Seems kind of silly when she has her own horse, right?

After the fair Sophia and Travis had a nap while I continued the birthday preparations! These are the goody bags, which I was excited about only because I came up with the "design" myself (I usually steal all my ideas from the internet/parenting magazines!).

My favorite... the CUPCAKES!!! The decorating was actually pretty easy... it took less than an hour to decorate 24! Aren't they cute??? Pool party theme, of course, since Sophia had a pool party!

Sophia was pretty pumped about the cupcakes!

On Sunday morning we headed to Riverview Estates Park at the south end of our neighborhood, and I began decorating the shelter we had rented along with the pool!

We brought a pile of pool toys for the kids to play with, including squirt guns, which they seemed to really enjoy!

My sis in law, Lindsey, was a rock star and drove all the way down from Grand Forks to join us with her 3 kids. Ava is sooo cute!

Sophia only invited a few of her friends (not her whole class!), and we ended up with 10 kids total, which seemed to be just right!
This year I found the perfect balance: instead of planning a whole meal I prepped a few fun and easy sides, brought a cooler of drinks and ordered pizza! Everyone seemed to enjoy it and it was all finger food... score! :)

Sophia really seemed to enjoy her party, start to finish :)

Cousin Jaylin feeding baby sister Ava a cupcake... messy!

Sophia ripping into her presents! We didn't do a single return, and her presents have provided hours of entertainment since the party. I think we've played "Hi-Ho Cherry-O" 100 times since Sunday??

The pinata! The kids really loved beating the pinata to death! We did have one little mishap when one of the kids took a particularly wide swing and nicked Sophia's forehead with the stick... yikes! Sophia was pretty upset for a few minutes, but recovered quickly and didn't even have a mark on her when we checked later.

The stick was too long for the kids to wield with any control... learning experience...

Pinatas are always a highlight, in spite of mishaps!

Brady's dad commented that Brady was truly "beating a dead horse"

After the party Lindsey and the cousins came back to our place for some nice, mellow bonding time.

DJ had a great time with our cat! Their dad is allergic, so cats are a bit of a novelty...

Sophia enjoying her birthday loot... new beach chair and goody bag treats!

Love the swimsuit tan... I SWEAR I'm obsessive with sunblock!