18 Month Birthday

We had a great day on Sophie's 1/2 birthday; we typically don't recognize half birthdays, but when it falls on grandma's real birthday, we always seem to remember it's Sophie's 1/2 birthday.  The weather was wonderful and hot and we enjoyed lots of time outside.

One thing Sophie LOVES to do and does for hours a day is stand at the back window and watch the birds. We have our feeders up and the birds have finally made it back.  It is so fun to watch all of our visitors because we get lots of little birds on the feeders and then lots of bigger birds are always hopping through the yard catching worms.  Sophie stands with her face plastered on the glass and I constantly hear, "MOM, tweet tweet"

We filled up Sophie's pool that morning.  I had put Sophie's swim suit on earlier and she was not interested in getting in.  Later on, she jumped in with clothes on and all and had such a fun time splashing around in the water

Having fun in the pool; I'm going to have to watch her close this summer because she just kept diving in with no fear once she figured out how much fun her little pool was



Happy 18 month Birthday Sophie.....we love you so much!!!

Sophie These Days-18 months

It's amazing the love you can have for each of your children individually.  Sophie has pushed my patience as a mother, drained me of energy as a mother but turned around to fill me back up,  made me laugh more than I thought I ever could and brought so much joy into our home.  I can't believe how difficult our first 6 months of life were and how much she has changed and grown into a happy, lively 18 month old.  Here are some things she is into and just loves to do

Eating food with her fork.  She has loved learning how to be a big girl and insists she eats at the "bar" with Allie.  This girl knows EXACTLY what she wants and tells me, and if I can't get it right or understand, boy does she let me know as well.  We have started throwing fits and falling on the floor when we don't get our way; this did not start with Allie till she was 3.

Along with using her fork, she loves to be independent and "ME" do it.  Rice and beans are one of her favorites and since they are hard to use with a fork, we just end up with a very messy baby when we are done

Sophie is way into "Net-Net's" as she calls her necklaces and bracelets.  She is constantly getting into Allie's room and scaling the furniture to get on top of Allie's dresser to get her jewelry

She always amazes me with the amount she will have on.

Sophie is such a BUSY body.  She is constantly moving and getting into things, pulling things out, getting on top of things, etc.  Everyone is worn out when the watch her and I don't think we have ever left a place without someone making a comment, "Boy, she is busy", or "Wow she is LOUD!"  One day I put up Easter while she was napping and when she came down she spotted my container of eggs.  I turned my back on her and the next thing I knew she was on the table loading her arms up with eggs

Another liking of Sophie's is the toilet and everything to do with it; the toilet itself, brushes to clean the toilet with, potty seats, toilet paper, you name it.  Since she has shown a liking to the toilet we have started to work with her on going "pee pee on the potty."  She has done great the times I have worked with her, but I just don't have it in me to put all my energy into training this kid.  One day she came walking down with her potty seat stuck around her head, one arm out and one arm stuck down.

Apparently she was hungry in the process and brought up a few snacks to munch on.  The leftovers where on the potty seat. 

Sophie loves her "Oinky" and shows everyone she meets her pig and generously shares the pig with them. She absolutely LOVES people and will say hi to everyone and go to anyone.  I am amazed at the love/hate she has relationship she has with little people her age.  One moment she will share things with them and the next second she is hitting, pushing, and tackling them to the ground.  The sad thing is no one expects that type of  reaction from her, so they are caught off guard and immediately start to cry. We will see if we get booted out of nursery. 

Sophie's vocabulary is crazy....I can't even count the number of words this kid says. I tried to use sign language with her from an early age and when she started to repeat words right back I gave up.  She is speaking well over 100 words, can tell you what handfuls of animals say and we are working on learning colors and shapes.  What a fun age this is; they are absorbing everything and I love to see them remember and learn new things and the excitement they have about life.  We love you Sophie!!!  

Cinco De Mayo

We got together with some friends and made some traditional Mexican food to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. We had fish tacos, homemade tamales, 7 layer dip, some authentic drinks and the only thing that was missing was the fried ice cream, but ice cream sandwiches worked just fine.  We got a pinata for the kids and  rented 3 Amigos to celebrate.

My friend Emily went to the Mexican Store to buy the pinata and filled it with Mexican candy.  The kids were checking it out before it got destroyed.  It ended up being the best pinata ever; they made it with like 20 layers of paper mache and it was so difficult for the kids to break it.

Traditional batting style we went youngest to oldest.  Sophie was first up taking a swing at it:)

The babies sat down right by the pinata after their turn to watch Carter; then when the swinging got ugly we moved them away

Allie taking a few swings on her turn

All the kids getting ready for the pinata to break 

The kids collecting their candy.  While the kids were eating and spitting out the "spicy" Mexican candy, we discovered that they put Chili Powder as the main ingredient in their candy.  Also, don't ever try the grape flavor Mexican gum; it tasted like perfume.  I guess lesson learned, don't buy the Mexican candy, just stick with their pinatas and buy your own selection of candy:)

Sophie checking out her loot.  She learned quickly she didn't want anyone touching her brown bag because it was her candy

All the kids wanted to keep and wear the cones off the pinata.                                                            Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Baby #3 Due October 30th

We feel so blessed to have this little miracle come so easy.  With both Allie and Sophie we tried for long periods of time to get them here when we wanted them here.  After having Sophie, it dawned on me that Heavenly Father is in control and has a plan for each of us.  I never realized, listened, or received any big "wow" answers when we were trying to conceive our girls.  It was more of the process of we would make a choice and feel right about it or vice versa. I received strong promptings before we knew we were expecting there was a baby that needed to come and join our family NOW.  You never know on Heavenly Father's time plan, but all you can do is be obedient and find quiet times in life to listen.  I am so blessed for this tender mercy and sweet bundle of joy we get to meet on October 30th.

I wanted to do something fun for the family to announce it, but Blake was just too excited that after our first appointment at 8 weeks, he sat Allie down and broke the news to her.  Anyone knows that after you tell a 5 year old the news of a new baby coming, everyone will know.  I grabbed a big shirt of Allie's and threw it on Sophie and whipped up a sign for Allie to hold and snapped some pictures.  We quickly texted our family before our buzzing  5 year old spread the news. 

At our  12 week appointment we decided to take the girls; Allie was really wanting to come and listen to the babies heart beat.  They were unable to find the heart beat with the doppler so they took us back to do an ultrasound.  The sweet baby was waving with their hand and Allie just ate up every moment we got to see the baby.  I am currently 14 weeks and still feel like CRAP, but we'll take it knowing it will all end with a sweet bundle of joy.  With both of my girls I felt different, had different cravings, different side effects but the one thing is my "puckishness" wore off at 12 weeks.  Not sure what to predict on this one, but my yucky stage is still looming. On June 11th we will be finding out if this little one is a girl or  boy, which Dad and Allie are hoping for.  

Zoo Days

We have enjoyed some sunny days around our rainy spring weather and have tried to hit up the zoo when we can.  Grandma Barb gave our family a zoo pass for Christmas, so we have tried to make it down at least once a month

The girls enjoying the straw hut

The carousel finally opened up in March and for $1 you can't beat the happiness it brings to your kids 

Sophie's 1st ride....although she doesn't look to thrilled, she shouted "MOR" when the ride stopped

We headed down to the zoo another time with some friends and the lions were right up by the windows.  The lions have a large grazing area, so you don't get to see them up close much, so this was a treat

Another fun thing we got to watch was a Wallaby carrying around it's 6 month old baby.  The baby had never been out of the mother's pouch and on the morning we were there, it kept poking it's feet out and putting them onto the ground.  The workers thought for sure it was going to climb out for the first time that day.

Sophie was more than excited to be riding the carousal again

Allie enjoying her ride on the elephant

Since it was the month of April, they had some HUGE rabbits out of their exhibit to pet.  They were by far the biggest I've ever seen.  So glad for all the fun things we have at our small town Boise zoo.

Easter

I'm beginning to LOVE this holiday more and more every year.  Along with the "fun" stuff there is to do I started pulling activities from a book I bought a couple of years ago, A Christ Centered Easter  and have had so much fun with the family learning so many new things about Christ and his life the week before Easter hits.  I'm so grateful for my Savior, for the Atonement, and for the many blessing I have been given

Our neighborhood did an egg hunt the weekend before Easter, which I actually LOVED because it got all the "fun" hype out of the way

Sophie was up first 

She wanted to start the race as soon as she saw all the eggs on the grass.  We have been having our own egg hunts in the back yard and we have no rules at that one, so she didn't think she had to wait around for some bell to tell her to go

As soon as the bell rang there was no stopping her, she was off filling her basket up with eggs.  

The funny thing is she just loved the eggs

Then, she discovered the chocolate inside and took a new liking to her eggs and wanted "cady" from every single one

She was content sitting and eating her chocolate while Allie hunted away

Next up was Allie's age group

Allie was more than ready; when the bell rang she sprinted off the line

Each kid was able to collect a dozen eggs which ended up being plenty

During the week we got together with some of my work friends to dye eggs and decorate sugar cookies. It's always a hit with all the kids, although we had 4 extra kids this time and it was a little crazy trying to help 12 kids dye eggs; don't know what we were thinking

Sophie was ready to be strapped up to the table to start eating some lunch

Kendall, Sophie, and Tenley; Sophie's little buddies  Kendall and Sophie share the same birthday and Tenley beats them both by just a few weeks.  

So fun having such good little buddies to hang out with

Allie ended up decorating every kind of sugar cookie shape that was possible

Another excitement during our weak was Allie having "egg-tails" again this year.  She requested them and I wasn't quite sure if she was going to have enough hair to get eggs in.  To both of our surprise, she got one egg in each piggy.  She was excited to wear them to her pre-school Easter party

Easter morning hit and during the night the bunny arrived as well as Max our cat.  The bunny leaves a trail of string to the baskets and Max discovered the string during the night and Allie quickly found her basket before I even had a chance to get out of bed; that was a first.

Sophie was most excited about her chocolate bunny.  She figured a way to get the bunny out of the package and ran around all morning with the ears in her mouth.  She almost downed the whole bunny that morning before I had to intervene and give her some real food

    Grandma Barb got the girls matching Easter dresses; we are so grateful she always thinks of the girls.  She received a new dress from her grandma every Easter growing up and says everyone should have a new dress for Easter Sunday.  The bunny brought dad a new hot pink tie which he willingly wore for Allie:)

Trying to snap some shots of my cute Easter girls.  I was so excited that Sophie's hair was long enough for me to take the curling iron to it and I gave her ringlets

We ended up with a beautiful sunny day.  Happy Easter!!!