Loving Our Family

Category: Just Because

  • 2 year well child visit..

    Sophia had her 2yr well child visit yesterday and once again we can say that she did amazing and the doctor continues to say how advanced she is. Right now Sophia knows her ABC’s, can count 1-10, knows all colors even though sometimes she says green is red – every other color she knows, she knows animals and the sounds she makes and her vocabulary very advanced! She also knows shapes and can tell what her name is when we write it. The doctor did tell us we need to make sure we are keeping up with things to continue to advance her learning skills. She is still so/so interested in potty training, she will go poop (i know tmi maybe but its the truth) on the big girl potty but hasn’t yet gone potty. We do put her in big girl undies but she has had one accident with that. We are continuing to let her potty train as she is interested. This weekend we will be taking away her paci- should be interesting!

    Some exciting news is that Lauri her daycare provider informed us that she got Sophia enrolled in her preschool program this fall! She said that normally she waits until kids are 3 but Sophia is smart so she is starting the program with her! We are so happy, excited and proud of our girl!

    24 month stats:

    30lbs and 35″ even for both. For her height she is in the 86th percentile and for her weight she is in the 83rd percentile. If you double her height like they say you can do at the age of two and its “supposed” to be how tall they will be when they are done growing, she will be 5’10”!  They didn’t get a chance to measure her head as she wasn’t to fond of that!

  • HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY BABY!!

    Today is such a bittersweet day. Our little girl is now 2, it was her day today. I took the day off and we spent the day doing what she wanted (under supervision of course)

    We started the morning with some cereal of her choosing for breakfast then she got to enjoy some of her new birthday toys.

    Playing the drums

    We then got ready and stopped at my work to drop off somethings, headed to Mcd’s for lunch- her choosing and stopped at Gpa & Gma M’s to hang out. We then headed home and went for a walk in her new wagon.

    For dinner we decided to take her somewhere fun! We went to Space Aliens with the whole family and let me tell you she did NOT like the alien! I cant blame her though cause the get up was about 6ft high with a huge head and not very pleasant! She did get to play some arcade games for the first time and that was hilarious, but she had fun! There was times throughout the day where she did sort of milk it by saying, “my birthday”! Yes baby girl, it is your birthday!

    One day when she is older I am going to tell her, her birth story and how she made me a mama, how she made me the happiest mama in the whole world. We love you baby!

  • Come and Play.. Where everything’s A-ok

    On our way to Sophia’s SECOND birthday party!!

    I am not normally the “crafty” type, but I loved planning my girls party! I loved putting together all the cupcake toppers, thank you favor tags, putting together the goodie bags and setting up all the decorations! This party was all Sesame Street themed if you haven’t gathered from the heading and the invite, there was Sesame Street everywhere and Sophia loved every last bit of it.

    The Decorations:

    The entire set up
    Dorothy's Goldfish (goldfish crackers)
    Cookie's Monster cookies
    Baby Bear's Graham Crackers (teddy grahams)
    Bert's chips / Ernie's salsa.. Photo frame made by a friends sister
    Big Bird's Pickle Dip (pickle roll up dip)
    Abby's Cupcakes- turned out soo good!
    Elmo Birthday Cake!! Party Favors: Birthday favors that everyone got

    Party Favors:

    Birthday favors that everyone got

    **Funny store about the cake, most everyone knows that Sophia DOES NOT like anything sweet AT ALL! At most she will have is M&M’s – however we thought she would still try the cake since she loves Elmo, we were wrong. She did love the cake, and we sang her Happy Birthday not once but twice per her request- and she still would NOT touch the cake :(**

    Happy 2nd Birthday Baby!
    Sophia's Horsey from Gma & Gpa M.

    We also rented Sophia a bouncy house (because she is fearless and LOVES these things) and you guessed it, it was Sesame Street!

    Bouncing away!

    Cousin Sawyer, "do, do" having fun!
    Enjoying the bounce house

    The best part of the day- the part that grips my heart for a tear-willing second is watching my baby girl smile with happiness when friends/family started arriving and as she had fun playing with each and every one of them. Her birthday was a blast and we thank you to everyone that came out and helped celebrate with us.

    Here is a picture to end the evening- she is recently into dressing up and is loving her new Strawberry Shortcake.

  • Sneak Peak..

    We had Sophia’s birthday bash this weekend and here is a sneak peak of her & the theme of the day!

    She had a BLAST!!

    More to come..

  • Labor Day Firsts..

    Over the Labor Day weekend Sophia experienced TWO firsts! It will never get old watching the expression on your child’s face when they try something for the first time- it is funny, amazing, exciting and sad all in one!

    One of her firsts was eating corn on the cob for the first time. Normally when we eat corn on the cob we cut it off then give it to her, however this time she was insistent on eating my corn on the cob, so i let her try it. Needless to say I did not get it back.

    Her next first was an early Birthday present from Nate & I. Sophia had been asking for a bike since her cousins have one, so we took her to the store and let her pick it out. She also got to pick out her helmet (Abbi, pink & purple of course). She was a pro, already knowing how to pedal and turn it. Here is our girl on her new bike!

  • Park Playdate- Take 2

    As many parents out there know, our kids LOVE to play outdoors and Sophia is no exception to this. She will beg, cry, scream and nearly scratch her way out of anywhere she is just to go play outside. We do our best to make sure everyday she gets outside to play. This past weekend we decided we would try out a new park, so we packed up the car and headed to Elm Creek Park. We have heard many good things about this park and what fun it is, and let me tell you this park delivered! Sophia had a blast!
    Playing on the Ladybug
    Favorite thing to do, going down the slide!
    She was so cautious of this, she did not like this at all!
    FAVORITE picture of all time!! <3 our girl!

     Some friends of ours met us at the park so Sophia could play with her friend Lizzy. We love watching her grow & blossom in friendships.

    Lizzy & Sophia playing
    She wanted me to ride the Bumble Bee with her

    My favorite picture of the night, was a family shot. My family is everything to me!

    Daddy & Sophia leaving the park

    Park time is one of our favorite past times- something that we love to do and is money deposited into our love bank!

  • Enjoying the Small things..

    Life is too short to not enjoy the small, simple things in life- the things that you may overlook some days. Since having Sophia we have learned to enjoy every moment of her life; the good-the bad, the happy-the crabby, every little cry and laugh in between. Watching her personality grow and nourish is such a fun thing! The older she gets the more goofiness comes out and that is something that we cherish, as those that know us really well, know that we can be VERY goofy!

    Over the weekend, we went to one of our good friends, sister’s son’s first birthday party. (wow, mouthful!) She did such a great job decorating this party, and the theme was that of a carnival. She had games, prizes, photo booth and a lemonade stand. You name it, it was there! Nate, Sophia and I had such a fun time expressing our goofiness with the props in the photo booth, that we just had to share!

    Sophia & I.. I originally had the moustache but Sophia wanted it 🙂
    LOVE this picture, our goofy girl!
    Daddy & Sophia..

    Our goofy family, and I wouldnt change it for the world!!

  • Mid week mini vacation..

    Grandpa Russ & Carly are in town for the week to spend some much needed time with family and friends. We were lucky enough to take a few days off of work and head up North to Cross Lake to hang out at the cabin they rented. What a nice break from the day to day grind of things and have some relaxation on the lake, and let me tell you it was beautiful! The added bonus was Sophia spending some quality time with Gpa R, Carly and Great Gpa Jake! 
    View from our cabin 🙂

    Sophia had a great time with staying up late gazing at the stars, swinging in the fun chairs that hang from the ceiling to riding in a speed boat! She even got to swim in the lake 🙂

    Swinging in the fun chair that hangs from the ceiling
    Mommy & Sophia on the speed boat
    Gpa Russ, Carly & Sophia having fun on the boat
    Sophia helping Gpa drive the boat, she LOVED honking the horn!
    Gpa, Daddy & Sophia swimming in the lake

    Spending time with family is like adding money to your bank account; more money deposited-bigger bank account. The more time spent with family-more love deposited into. We love teaching our girl the importance of family.

  • Play date at the park..

    Sophia, Nate and I recently went on a much needed play date to the park. If we havent told you before, Sophia LOVES the outdoors!! We try and do as much as we can outdoors with her as she enjoys it so much. One evening after dinner we took her to the park, and we had such a good time enjoying each other’s company and playing with our girl..

    Getting ready to go down the slide.
    Look at those baby blues, baby you are beautiful!
    Sophia & Mommy
    She LOVES pictures too! Such a ham..
    Daddy caught this precious moment- my heart overflows with love for her!

    We are making so many deposits of love into our bank account!

  • Strawberry Pickin..

    Summer bring many, many beautiful and fun things with it. One of those things is fresh fruit, and our girl LOVES fruit. We recently got a postcard in the mail advertising a local grown strawberry patch, so we decided to take Sophia there last night to pick our own strawberries. We drove through winding roads to finally reach a vast field of strawberries! We made our way to the fields and started picking in what felt like 100 degree heat! We searched under leafy greens and little blossoms to find as many plump juicy berries as we could. Mommy and Daddy searched hard, (as strawberry season is nearing its end ) while Sophia held the bucket for us putting each berry we found in it individually. We filled an entire ice cream bucket full of strawberries, then we decided it was time to head out as we were all getting very hot and crabby.

    Mommy picking Strawberries
    Making sure its a good ripe berry
    Putting our berries in the bucket
    Checking out her berries
    Showing Daddy a ripe strawberry
    Leaving with a bucket o'berries

    The heat and humidity was well worth our family time! And Sophia LOVED her fresh strawberries. She even wanted to bring some to share at Lauri’s today.