Art Class

This afternoon Sofia went to her first art class! Unfortunately I had to wake her up about 11/2 hours into her nap to go (it starts at 430 and is about 20 minutes away) and her lack of sleep showed itself at class. Luckily Sofia doesn't get grouchy when she's woken up (unlike her Mother!!) but she wanted to run around more than she did paint at times. At class she painted a watermelon on a paper plate half and we made a little sun magnet. The sun magnet turned a little more into a "Mommy" project, but I tried to get her to glue the pieces wherever she wanted to, so the sun looks pretty different! It was interesting to switch away from crayons for a change and will be fun to see what projects she works on next.

The red of the watermelon


I love the look of concentration on her face as she paints!


Looking over her project


Apparently it needs a little more green


She got a little carried away with black (check out the smear under her nose)


Mommy and Sofia


The sun magnet

The "Corn Phone"

On Friday night I made on of our favorite meals - salmon, corn on the cob and baked sweet potato! It was sort of like date night except my 'date' was with Sofia while CK is fishing in Canada. Toward the end of the meal Sofia discovered the 'corn phone' and kept talking on it, which was very funny. She tends to use various objects as phones, especially rocks while I'm working or watering out in the yard. Anyway, after she called on the 'corn phone' she then discovered the great thing about corn kernels - they pop! I love this video because it really captures Sofia being goofy and really giving some great belly laughs! When you hear me say "Woooh" that is when she pops the first kernel! Enjoy!

Hi Cow!

It was absolutely beautiful today (88 instead of the usual 98 degrees), so I loaded Sofia up in the jogging stroller and headed for the playground. First we visited the cows across the street, which was a lot of fun but I was really hoping the calf would approach her. Anyway, here she is and this is a pretty cute video. I realize now that when she pointed out the cow's "horns" I think she meant her ears. Also, she has piggy on the brain due to a book that we have from the library called "Don't Be So Nosy, Posy," which is about a little pig. Anyway, I love the very end! Enjoy!

Our little songstress

Tonight I was FINALLY able to capture our little songstress singing! Please ignore the unfortunate hair - she did have a four-plus hour nap this afternoon and then played pretty hard at the playground. Anyway, if you play this over and over about 1,000 times you'll get a sense of my day! She LOVES to sing and has quite a number of songs up her sleeve, with Wheels on the Bus being her absolute favorite.

She also enjoys singing "Down by the Station," "Hush Little Baby," "Baa, Baa Black Sheep,"Old MacDonald Had a Farm,"No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed,"Farmer in the Dell,"Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," "Itsy, Bitsy Spider," and "Frere Jacques." She actually sings "Where is Jacques" but otherwise it sounds pretty decent! As you may have guessed, we listen to a lot of kids tunes, and can be found listening to all of the above every time we drive anywhere. Usually once we pull into the garage she wants to stay in her car seat and continue to listen to music!

Super Water Baby!

This evening was Sofia's first Super Water Babies swim class! She "graduated" last Wednesday from her Water Babies swim class, which included me holding onto her while she swam to songs and did different swim exercises. The class was in the mid-morning, but is now at 5pm! I actually had to wake Sofia up from a three-plus hour nap in order to get her to class on time, and once there she did a great job! I not only got to stay out of the water and enjoy her progress, but I also was able to take pictures of our little fish! Here she is in all her glory!

All set to go to 'swim class' - She had to bring along all of her buddies, but they stayed in the car during her class (except for Green Beup Beup who watched from my bag)


Miss Laura puts flippers on Sofia and Isabella. I know Thelma and Isabella from my Mom's group and it's fun to be doing the class together. The hardest part of the entire class is that the girls have to sit on their turtle and wait their turn.


There she goes! Sofia swam out to Miss Laura then swam back to her turtle.


Practicing her 'pillow' for swimming on her back


Swimming on her back (with a lot of help from Miss Laura)


Waiting her turn while Isabella swims. M&Ms (Sofia knows them as 'treats') are huge incentive to convince little girls to stay on turtles. Miss Laura hands each girl one M&M after each swim - great incentive!


Leaving swim class with Green Beup Beup in hand


A new use for a ballon - a pillow for a sleepy gal. We went to Central Market to pick up a few groceries and she ended up using the ballon as a pillow after she played with it.


Cute girl!

The Park

I know I've already blogged about our visits to Bicentennial Park but I took some really great pictures and wanted to share. Sofia and I visited the park on Tuesday afternoon and she enjoyed playing in the sand, as usual.

Off to the park - Sofia loves wearing my sunglasses, so I bought a $10 pair that look similar to mine, however she knows the difference between "Mommy's new glasses" and "Mommy's old glasses" and she of course prefers the "old pair." Here she is with the new ones though. They are so big that they fall off her face if she doesn't keep her face tilted up.


Shoveling sand onto the bench...


....then wiping it off! Fun!


Playing with the scrapper - Grandpa Fulton would be so proud!


She's a little too small to really use it, but she tries!


Close up of the girl


Snacking before the park - peanut butter and banana on graham cracker


Yum!

The Dallas Aquarium

On Saturday we visited the Dallas Aquarium (along with the rest of the city!) It was different than we imagined in that it is part aviary as well as aquarium and had a really nice feel to it. Sofia didn't stay in her stroller for long (it's hard to see all the animals and we don't plan on bringing it next time). Sofia would take off like a linebacker threading through visitors walking down the narrow walkway, CK would try to follow with a flurry of "excuse me"s and I would follow far behind pushing the empty stroller.....somehow we didn't lose each other! She loved seeing all the animals and the stingrays and turtles left quite an impression - she was talking about them all day today!

Arriving at the Aquarium


Pointing out the toucan


Looking for the river otter (we decided he must have escaped because we never saw him)


Papa pointing out the tamarins


Cool starfish!


The huge aquarium - Sofia loved watching the fish and learned how to identify a catfish


Pointing out the fish to Papa


Papa and Sofia join the fish (sort of...)

Dealey Plaza

After the aquarium visit we drove to Dealy Plaza (it's about 1 mile away) and walked around. It was remarkable to see the actual location of where President Kennedy was assassinated and hard to imagine the chaos of the time. It's really a much smaller space than expected and we hope to visit the Sixth Floor Museum when we have a little more energy in our girl.

The former Texas School Book Depository and location of the Sixth Floor Museum


Dealy Plaza


From the other side - The final shot hit President Kennedy where those people are crossing the street


All tuckered out - Sofia passed out about two minutes after we got back into the car.

The Park

On Friday we went to the Bicentennial Park in Southlake to play in the sand and run around. The play structure at this park is made of wood railroad ties, so it doesn't become unbearably hot in the high-90 degree weather we have here in Texas. We brought along the sand pail and shovel that we recently bought at Target (gotta love the $1 bins) for our upcoming pool play date with my Mom's group. She loved scooping the sand into the bucket and then pouring it out after it was full - which did take a while!

A few of her favorite things.......

I decided to show a few of Sofia's favorite things.... She still absolutely loves her Green Beup Beup, but he has been joined by two other friends - "Stripped Green Beup Beup" and "Melmo." She loves to sleep with all three of her buddies (and they must be covered over with the blanket too) and she also carries them around and plays with them throughout the day. She loves swimming and is great at holding her breath for 10 seconds and kicks pretty well. She still loves to "color" and wants to at least once during the day, as well as play with her chalk outside (there are chalk circles pretty much everywhere, but they do wash off easily). Luckily, she's still a sleeper, so we usually get at least 11 hours at night as well as a 2-3 hour nap every day, which is great! She adores her books, as well as 'new' books we get from the library and wants to read them over and over. When we drive she wants to listen to music, with "Wheels on the Bus," "Sing a Song of Six Pence," "Down by the Station," "Happy Birthday," "If you're Happy and you Know it," and "ABC Song" as her absolute favorites!

She's a pretty decent eater and loves salmon, sushi (including raw tuna), miso soup, pretty much all fruit (although grapes don't really make it down), raisins, she LOVES broccoli, peas, squash, potatoes, eggs, toast, cheese, pizza, peanut butter, hummus and pita chips, and "milk shakes" which are plain yogurt with honey and all sorts of fruit. She's also started eating chicken sometimes - she hasn't been much of a meat eater to date.

Swimming and looking for her underwater toys


She loves watching Thomas Train on the computer and listening to the song "Emily." We also watch clips on animals, especially frogs, owls, dogs/puppies, etc.


Yes, she still loves to suck her thumb and rub her belly button with her other hand, and we are trying to get her to be a little less reliant on such activities.


Her very favorite buddy, Green Beup Beup - he gets to share breakfast with Sofia


Her three buddies - Melmo, Stripped Green Beup Beup, and Green Beup Beup


Playing with chalk after her swim

Frequent Flyer

Today, during Sofia's nap I reserved airline tickets for upcoming trip to California and registered for her very first American Airlines Aadvantage card! Now that's she's two she'll be flying in her own seat from now on so I figured she should have her own frequent flier card to collect miles. After CK got home from work, he set up her first email account - sofiaylee@gmail.com. Obviously she won't be pecking out any emails anytime soon (hopefully), but it is a great way to keep track of all of her upcoming online events, such as airline tickets, etc!

Ready, Go!!

Sofia new favorite, although she first started doing it some time ago, is to jump off the curb. She is really trying to jump and loves to step up onto something and then say "Ready, Go" and jump to the ground. When we go out to get the mail she will spend all afternoon jumping off the curb if I let her. She gets the "Ready, Go" from swim class where that is the sign for Sofia to hold her breath and go under.

Dallas Farmer's Market

Today Sofia and I headed into downtown Dallas to visit the Farmer's Market, which is quite a bit larger than I expected. It was a great first visit since Mondays are the slowest days according to all the vendors I talked to and it was easy to see everything and plan our next visit. One entire barn was dedicated to local farmers and we ended up walking through that and buying yummy produce, after sampling most of it! One of the coolest things we bought was a basket of "Eight Ball Squash" which are perfectly round zucchinis! I'm planning on stuffing and baking them tomorrow for dinner. We look forward to our next visit to the Farmer's Market and can't wait to dig into our fresh produce from today!


Before the Farmer's Market visit we returned our books to the library and checked out new ones - here is our glamour girl walking to the library


Her very favorite thing - jumping off the curb. She says "Ready, Go" then jumps off, turns around and steps back up while saying "Do it again." She'll do this all day long if she could!


At the Dallas Farmer's Market


Yum! Sofia snacks on some samples


Orange slice in one hand, peach in the other


All shopped out. The round zucchini are right behind her on the table.


Sofia wanted to ride the "horse" but we went for a picture instead.