Loving Our Family

Category: Play Time

  • Alive…

    Alive…

    Winter can be so gloomy, boring and leaving you left feeling tired and blah. In March the weather typically in MN is still cold, some what slushy from snow melting and dreary. However, this March has been incredibly awesome and mother nature is delivering some spectacular weather! SO much so that last weekend we came alive and broke free from the doors of our house and went outside and had some fun!

    We headed to the park and even though it was still drowning in water, Sophia got to play on some of the slides and swings and she laughed the entire time.

    When we got home from the park no one was ready to go inside, so we stayed outside. Sophia rode her bike as we helped teach her how to pedal and steer at the same time. She is getting better and better!

    The fresh air was much needed for all of us!

  • Weird Weather in MN..

    Weird Weather in MN..

    The weather this year in MN has been uncharacteristically odd. We have had next to no snow, which i am NOT complaining about and have had mild temperatures. The one big snow storm we did have was at the end of February, like winters last hoo-rah! The kids at Lauri’s were able to play outside in the snow and build a pretty awesome snow man.

    Some of the Sophia’s daycare friends
    Cole & Soph

    I think they all had a great time being able to play in the snow, hopefully one last time! Here is keeping our fingers crossed the snow stays away!

  • Girls Day..

    Today was a much needed girls day! My good friend E and her daughters came over and spent time with Soph and I. Its not to often in the daily chaos of life that either of us moms get an entire day to relax, enjoy each others company and spend time with our girls.

    To start the day off we headed to Rainbow to do some couponing! E is my coupon partner in crime!! After this E headed home to unpack her groceries, pick up some Starbucks and lunch and then they headed back over. In the meantime Soph and I went home unpacked our groceries, at lunch and Soph went down for what was supposed to be her nap- however it never happened! Instead we just hung out playing with baby T and soon to be Miss teenager T. Soph just had an absolute blast playing with big T! She would follow her everywhere wanting to do everything she did. It was so fun to watch them interact with each other.

    One of my favorite pictures EVER!

    ** This picture really captures the day. Sophia’s laugh and T laughing as well. I truly love this picture!!**

    playing with dolls

    Cute baby T!

    I love that Soph gets to play and spend time with E’s kids, it warms my heart! I know we all had so much fun this day! I cant wait for another girls day!!

  • Sophia’s Best Friend..

    I have always been an animal lover! I grew up with animals – cats specifically and when Nate moved out I surprised him with cats of his own. Needless to say I always believed that when I had kids I would have animals for them as well.

    When Sophia was born, we had two cats and a dog. The cats are quite timid, as they were always alone with just Nate when he lived on his own, however our dog Meeka is another story. Sophia LOVES her and the feeling is mutual from Meeka. Meeka has from day 1 always been gentle with Meeka, knowing just when to play or leave her be. Nate and I will often find Sophia throwing toys for Meeka, chasing her and other times Meeka will be cuddled up to Sophia on the couch- its precious! Meeka and Sophia can also be sneaky, where we find/catch Sophia sneaking Meeka food from dinner or her snacks, haha!

    Here are some pictures of Sophia’s best friend Meeka.

    This is one of my favorite! Soph giving Meeka a hug.

    They share a love that I have always believed was important and I am so happy Sophia has animals in her life.

  • Elmo makes music..

    Sophia is such a huge fan of Sesame Street and Elmo, we decided to surprise her and take her to see Sesame Street Live, Elmo makes music! I was excited, yet nervous at how she was going to react to seeing Elmo and his Sesame Street friends live in person. This is because Sophia is not a fan of balloons, people dressed up in costume or anything else to that affect. However I was still optimistic, since last year we went and she loved every minute of it.

    This is how our day went… We told Sophia about seeing Elmo the morning of and she was so excited, however the closer it came to the time she was more hesitant. We drove to Gma & Gpa M and when we picked them up she was excited again. That is until we arrived at the target center. She was so nervous, wanted me to carry her and wouldn’t let me out of her sight! Before the show if you paid extra you got to have extra time with Elmo and his friends, I decided to show Soph Elmo through the glass and girl lost it! Screaming & crying as all the other little kids were watching her (insert me feeling like a bad mom for doing that!). Needless to say, that was a bad decision and Sophia kept telling me she wanted to leave and didn’t like Elmo any longer. We decided to stay and show her they were nice, but she wanted nothing to do with any of the Sesame Street friends, she wanted to stay far away, yet still be able to see them so they wouldn’t get close.

    We finally did get her to warm up to the characters that were her size and didnt move. She would take pictures with those, still keeping a close eye on all the other singing and dancing characters before the actual show began.

    We found our seats, sat down and it was then that Soph decided that she still did in fact like Elmo and was excited to see him and all his Sesame Street friends. The show started and Soph sang and danced with all the songs= success! She had a great time and we were glad we stuck through it.

  • Decorating..

    I LOVE decorating the house for Christmas! I LOVE Christmas lights, tree up early kind of love! We normally put our tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving, but due to our hectic schedule we were a little later then normal to put up our tree.

    Let me tell you, Soph loves decorations like her mamma! She wanted to put up everything with me! It was so much fun having mommy/daughter bonding time with her as we put on Christmas bulbs and misc ornaments, put up the Nutcracker (which was her favorite), put up the reindeer and many more decorations.

    Helping sort out Christmas Ornaments

    Turning on the flashing Snow man

    We also had her cousins over to put together out first gingerbread house. They all had so much fun putting up every sort of candy on the house, it was a bit messy but so worth the memories.

    Soph putting candies on the gingerbread house
    Cole & Soph decorating away
    The kids decorating..
    The Finished product

    I have to admit, its pretty good for our first Gingerbread house!

  • Friday Quicky..

    The next few weekends are going to be busy, crazy busy- all good. I will be back to talk about our good busy weekends filled with fun. But for now I will leave you with four things we are currently enjoying.

    1. Sweets!!As many know, Sophia does NOT like sweets at all. We have tried: ice cream, chocolate chip cookies-well many different kinds of cookies, cheesecake, brownies, cake, cupcakes, you get the idea. The only sweets that she would eat is M&M’s and we save those for when she goes potty on the big girl chair. Recently she has taken a liking to Reese’s Peanut Butter cups and she LOVES them!

    Enjoying a Reeses

    2. Goofiness. The other night we were eating dinner and all being a little goofy, I turned to Soph and she was making this goofy face- girl had us laughing.

    3. Spending time with cousins. Family time is important to us and we have been making many deposits of love into our bank. Soph loves her cousins.

    Cole, James & Soph
    Sawyer & Soph

    4. This Smile. Enough said

    Happy weekend!

  • 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.

  • 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!