Sweetness

Sophia has bravely entered the "terrible twos" and we have been forced to follow right along with her. My sweet, precious little daughter has become this occassional beast with attitude that would rival any 16 year old. I have no idea where she gets that from. We go from sweet, to attitude ("You can't tell me no, Momma"), to screaming fits in under a minute. But my sweet, sweet Sophia is always there when I need it the most. I am now 27 weeks along and already getting really tired. I didn't think that was supposed to happen this early?!? Maybe it is the running around after a 2 year old thing. I have also been fighting off a cold for about a week so energy is really low. Just when I had reached my endpoint with Little Miss 'Tude tonight, she put her arm around me and said, "Momma, you're the best". I thought I was going to cry. She is such a wonderful little girl and I thank God every day for her. I know that this determination, stubbornness, and attitude is all going to work out to make her a strong and independent woman and I wouldn't have her any other way. Except maybe at 10:00 pm when she still hasn't gone to sleep.....

One Year Ago...

I was looking through some old pictures and found these. One year ago, this was our little girl. What a difference one year makes. She went from babyish to big girl. Why is it going by so fast??? Can someone please slow this time with her down?

Smore time

Tonight Cory made us a fire. It was so lovely and warm and really got me into the winter/holiday spirit. While we enjoyed the fire, we watched Sleeping Beauty. I just love that movie. Sophia tried her first smore and was not impressed. I think it was the graham crackers that she didn't like. She loved the chocolate but her favorite was the gooey marshmellows. I think I made her about 6 marshmellows. A little overkill I know, but it is so hard to say no to that face.

Notice the big cheek on Sophia. She's working on the first marshmellow while I work on the second.

Poor Eva didn't get to have any. Maybe next year sweets. I wonder if marshmellow goodness is transferred through breast milk???? The world may never know.

What a smile!

Does life get any better than this???

We've been stickered!!

Thanks Cory for such a fun night.

Julia Child

My sister is quite the cook. It has been nice sharing meal prep responsibilities with her. We have had more home cooked meals than ever before since she moved in. I think this picture says it all though.

It is truly a great, professional look.

Chuck E. Cheese

On Sunday evening Cory had the great idea to take Sophia to Chuck E. Cheese. I wasn't sure how she was going to react, but she loved it. Over the last few months she has really become a lot more outgoing and a lot more willing to try new things. I am so proud of her. There wasn't a whole lot of pizza eating going on (although she did eat all the sausage off my piece) but when you're a kid....you don't need to eat. You just need to play. After seeing all the cool stuff to do, she was ready to give up the baby doll and get to playing. She enjoyed the rides..... and the games. (For those of you that don't know, Cory and I have had an extremely competitive air hockey relationship that goes back to the begining of our dating days. It is nice to see Sophia playing with her Daddy. She needs a couple pointers from me though. I have to make sure she beats him with as wide a margin as I do!!) Now the gerbil tubes (what do you call these things anyway?)... As soon as she saw these, she wanted to go in. I wasn't sure about it. There is a slide at SIGS that is covered and took her about 8 weeks to get up the courage to go down it. (remember that, Angie?) She kept saying (about the slide) , "It's dark in there". So, with a whole contraption that is covered aka. dark, I wasn't so sure. What if she got up there and wouldn't get down? I surely could not go and get her. Not with this preggo belly. But, I didn't want to hold her back either. So, I took a deep breath, and said OK. She was too short to climb the stairs that get you up in this thing so Cory and I took turns helping her climb the stairs. Once she was up those, she was off. There were moments of panic when she had been up there a while and you couldn't see her, but she was fine. She loved it. I think she must have gone up into that thing and down the slide 50 times. If only we could figure out how to install one in the basement. And yes, my preggo self got into that hole, helped her up the blue stairs, and then managed to get back out again. It was an engineering marvel. At the top jumping up and down in the cage. She would roar like a tiger. These two pictures are probably my favorite. Cory is trying to play the toddler game to get some tickets for his little pumpkin, but is having some problems.

Stickers

Sophia loves stickers. She goes through a sheet at a time. You better watch out when she's got a hold of some. You may be her next sticker victim.

Sophie-isms

Sophia says the most grown up stuff lately. We were all in the car a couple days ago and she was "talking" to Mimi on her princess phone. Cory didn't realize what she was doing and tried talking to her. She finished her sentence, told Mimi she had to go, and then hung up the phone. She said to Cory, "Okay Daddy. I can talk to you now. What's the matter? What do you need?" We were going to pick up our stolen-for-2-days-car-but-now-we-have-it-back (Thank you God!) but forgot the keys so we had to turn back around and get them. Cory ran inside really quick, got the keys, and we started back on our way. Sophia decided to make up a song for the occassion. It went something like this: "Daddy saved the day, Daddy saved the day, Daddy saved the day, ect. ect.". Of course, Cory hated that song. It was too cute. I just love the little person she is becoming. We are so lucky to have her in our lives.

Bouncer

Today I decided to bring out Sophia's bouncer. I have been wanting to set it up outside but since the windstorm I have been very nervous about it. Our next door neighbor had about 30% of their roof blown off and a lot of it ended up in our backyard. That mess included shingles and nails. So, I have been very concerned that we haven't found all the nails yet. Don't want to puncture the bouncer! That would be a major party foul. So, I had the idea to set it up in the basement. Sophia was in heaven. That girl could bounce for days. Cory got in there with her and she loved it. She has some amazing wrestling moves. I have no idea where she comes up with them, but she can certainly put a hurting on her Daddy.

Having fun with Daddy

One of her many wrestling moves. That's gotta hurt.

They are so cute together.

Poor Daddy was worn out.