Sofia at 31 months....

So, Sofia's no longer "21/2" technically and is getting that much closer to being three! I just can't believe it! She's growing up so fast and is really involved in 'make believe' whenever she plays. She still loves her music and books and often spends literally hours in her room with her Hello Kitty boom box playing Silly Songs or some other kid's song CD while thumbing through her stack of books. While going through books she either recites parts of the book if she knows it well enough, or she'll just make up whatever crazy story she wants, which she mainly does whenever we get new library books that we haven't read to her enough. Her other big love remains Thomas the train and all of his buddies and she spends much of her morning at our coffee table playing with the train station and track she got from her Grandma and Grandpa. We've since bought rubber trains for the bath, but she carries them around with her, plays with them, and even takes naps with them! Strangely enough, she's also big buddies with our space heater! We lost heat for a while in January, so we added our space heater from our movie room to her room so she wouldn't freeze in the night. Now, the space heater (no longer plugged in, of course) has become her 'baby' and is often 'crying' for her and 'needs to be held' or 'needs a nap.' It's all very elaborate and it's gone on now for weeks! When the space heater was still in her room she would put toys in front of it to 'play with' and even give it diapers and pjs! Of course, the other space heater we have is the "mommy" space heater.....Her other buddies are "Peter the Cow" and "Mickey Mouse" - two stuffed animals Mimi and Grandpa Joe gave her for Christmas. Somehow in the past two weeks she's really gotten attached - especially to "Peter the Cow."

Our girl is also very orderly, even though you would never guess from looking into her room. Her room always has books covering most of the floor, toys tossed around, stuffed animals in a pile on her bed, and shoes, socks, leggings and maybe shirts she's trying to put on herself. She's great with getting shoes on and off now, but the rest is still a little tricky and after a few minutes she usually says "too big" and tosses the clothing item aside. With her trains, toys and other things she usually puts things into a row or feels they belong in a certain place. Luckily it doesn't seem like an obsessive thing (we hope) but just her sense of order in the world.

Sofia LOVES standing on her stool step while we are in the kitchen. She likes to watch me prepare meals, or stir food, or help out - although she's a much better helper when cookies are being made than any other dish! If she wants something on the counter, she will simply pull the stool step to the right spot, climb up and help herself.

Lately she's gone from calling me "Mommy" to "Mama" but I think it's due to the various books we read to her. I've noticed that a lot of them say "Mama" rather than "Mommy" so I assume that's where it's from. She still gets put to sleep by the "sleep angel" (Papa) every night and still absolutely loves her sleep (thankfully!). Since she sleeps with a night light, we often find that her toys and books are in different locations than the night before and that many of her books are in bed with her. She's incredibly quiet once she goes to bed, but we know she often gets up and plays on the sly. Recently we've also started "potty training" which basically translates into Papa setting her on the toilet and having her go EVERY TIME, while I try to get her even on the potty and she pitches a fit. I can convince her to get on the potty, and she's very happy once she's sitting on the toilet, but she has NEVER gone for me!

With her "baby" the heater - her bangs are extra long right now because we're attempting to grow them out.


Sofia's sense of order.....


Posing for her 31 month pictures with a cookie


Such a big girl!


Playing with her monkeys


A recent park outing - she's loves climbing on things and went up this thing at least a dozen times!

Bathing Beauty

The other day I finally remembered to take pictures of Sofia while she played in the bath. She absolutely loves water, and especially taking a bath and would play in that warm water for hours, if we'd let her. She's at the point now where she has a very vivid imagination, so she'll grab hold of a toy and have an entire story line going on about something. This time, she played with a plastic funnel and called it her 'ice cream' which she would 'eat' and then have to get more and give it to a 'friend.' She also loves to run a dribble of water - she's fine if it's completely cold - and play in that as well. We normally give her a bath in our bath tub, which has foam letters and lots of toys, but these pictures are from her bath in her room. Enjoy!

Sofia "eating" her ice cream...


Telling me about her friend who wants ice cream


Big blue eyes


More 'ice cream'


Such a cute smile

Videos...

So, I finally figured out how to post videos in a much user-friendly way from photobucket to blogger. However, I've been unable to add any commentary to the videos. So, I figured I'd post one.

The first video is from about a week ago when we visited the park after story time. She loves walking on that balance rope (not sure of it's official name) and has been able to do it for many months. We spent most of the time with her going back and forth.

The second video is from Valentine's Day when she opened her chocolate frog. You'll notice she likes to point out the frog's butt.....The frog contained a gummy bug inside and Sofia learns that the bug is no longer soft.

Enjoy!

Valentine's Day 2010!

For Valentine's Day we decided to host a dinner party on Saturday night and invited five couples thinking that at least one or two wouldn't be able to make it. However, everyone RSVPed "Yes" so we hosted dinner for 12 adults and six kids!! We hired our baby sitter, Megan, and her friend to hang out with the kids and made them macaroni mickey mousse with sweet potatoes and edamame on the side. After their dinner we had a bunch of Valentine's projects for them. Meanwhile, the adults enjoyed (I hope) roasted butternut squash soup followed by roast lamb with mashed celery root and lentils, salad and sweet peas with carrots. Finally, we finished it off with a chocolate mousse cake with caramel sauce from Emeril Lagasse. Aside from the caramel sauce, CK and I made everything and it turned out to be a very fun night!

On Saturday morning I made the chocolate mousse cake and had lots of help from Sofia! It was fairly easy and required a lot of beating of egg whites and cream. Needless to say, she enjoyed licking off the beaters! Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures during the party, but Sofia had a great time using stickers to make valentine's and drew on a few of them as well with crayons. She did a great job 'hosting' all the kids and was very ready for bed finally at 10pm! She was a great trooper! I ended up putting her to bed since one of CK's flying buddies and his wife were still over. As we put her to bed each night, we ask her what her favorite part of the day was. This night, when I asked her, she thought about it and then said "Um, I got to see Mr. Chester." Chester is CK's other flying buddy who was at the dinner party with his wife and seven month old son. Sofia has gone several times with her Papa and Chester on short flying trips and she's always been drawn to Chester's bubbly personality. I thought it was so cute that this was her favorite part of her day!

On Valentine's Day, I awoke to CK making pink pancakes! As we enjoyed them together, Sofia looked over her Valentine's gifts - a basked with a little tiger and some candy and a chocolate frog! She had fun playing with them and used the box as the frog's home and bed for awhile before she opened him later that day. The tiger went around with her everywhere for a few days. After Meeting, we went to a nearby Mexican restaurant and they gave us sopapillas to celebrate Valentine's Day! Sofia wasn't so sure about them at first, but after her first bite she was hooked! It was a fun Valentine's Weekend!

Yum! Chocolate Mousse cake....


All set for the dinner party


Valentine's morning (check out those pink pancakes!!). Sofia is looking over her gifts


Playing with the chocolate frog's home while the tiger enjoys some water


Yum, sopapillas!


Mommy and Sofia


The three of us (and tiger)

Our little snow angel....

On the morning after our big snow storm, Sofia and I explored the snow and she ended up finding that falling down in the snow was much more fun than even eating it! Here she is sitting down in it, with one glove on and one off. She then has to get up by herself "Sofie do it" and falls down again. I have several videos of this, but this is the only one that I could load easily on the blog. Try to ignore my annoying laugh......Enjoy!

Snow....again!

Last year at this time it was in the low 60s, but this year we got over a foot of snow! It started snowing very early Thursday morning and continued to snow harder throughout the day, until it stopped sometime around 8pm. By that time there was probably near a foot of snow at our house and all of our backyard trees were bent over with the heavy snow. On the morning the snow started, CK took Sofia outside when she first woke up and she had fun trying to catch snowflakes and eating handfuls of snow off the lawn (I can't imagine how tasty that was!). After she got out of her pjs, Sofia and her Papa took a trip in the wagon and built a snowman. The next morning we couldn't believe the amount of snow! Sofia had the greatest time walking through it (it was over her rain boots!) and eating fresh snow from all over our yard. I tried to show her the fun of throwing snowballs, but she didn't really grasp that concept. She did love throwing or pushing the snow into the pool and watching it melt. She also soon found how fun it is to fall down in the snow and preferred falling flat onto her tummy! She also ended up taking her mittens off and somehow never complained about the cold - crazy girl! Sadly, the snow was almost completely gone by Sunday afternoon, but it sure was fun while it lasted!

Grabbing handfuls of snow in the morning


Papa and Sofia out for a wagon ride in the snow


Giving their snowman a carrot nose


A Texas snowman


Taking off his hat and giving it back to Papa


Sofia and her snowman


Walking in the snow - look at how much there is already!


The next morning - enjoying chocolate milk while checking out the snow fall


Clearing the walkway


Snowy tree - the heavy snow broke a lot of our tree branches in the backyard


In the backyard


A new favorite - falling down in the snow!

Meeting Baby Gavin

On Tuesday afternoons, Mimi and Grandpa Joe babysit baby Gavin for Rebecca and Ben. The Tuesday we were at their house, Sofia enjoyed playing with Gavin on his play mat and read him a story while we tried to take a picture of them together. It was cute to watch Gavin look at the book, look at Sofia and then look around - all the time Sofia kept reading her Duffy Driver book! She really loves babies and always wants to touch them and look at them, so Gavin was a special treat!

On Gavin's play mat


I can't believe she was ever Gavin's size!


Sofia starts reading Duffy Driver to Gavin....


and keeps reading...


I think he liked the story!

Tea Parties and Big Dogs.....

While in California, Sofia was completely fine with all 200 pounds of Max! Somehow while we were in DC, she completely lost her fear of dogs thankfully and is now comfortable around them once again! I think she felt safe being strapped in her stroller while they stayed on their leashes and now she's not afraid anymore. However, Maggie is a little different story. Sofia wasn't quite sure what to think of Maggie, but they did play well together sometimes. Mostly, Sofia was afraid of her play barking or just wanted her to go away. Big Max would lay in the middle of the floor and Sofia would pet him and play with his ears all by herself. She even rode him like a horse - Max wasn't a big fan but Sofia LOVED it! She kept saying "Do it again...."

Sofia also had a tea party with Aunt Becky, who she hasn't seen in about a year I think. They played tea party (with water) while we caught up with Becky and all the goings-on of her family. Sofia had such a fun time and it was sad to see her have to return home.

Petting Max


Touching his ears....Sofia would always say "He has soft ears, doesn't he?!"


Riding Max - she didn't stay on for the necessary 8 seconds - guess she isn't going to be a bull rider!


A tea party with Aunt Becky


Saying goodbye to Aunt Becky

Visiting Planes and Parks

Over the weekend in California, we visited Uncle Roger, which means we met for lunch at an airport cafe then visited a plane museum. It rained on and off while we walked through the hangers of the Chino Air Museum, but we virtually had the entire place to ourselves and saw a lot of interested planes. It was great to catch up with Uncle Roger a bit and I was reminding him of the first time he met Sofia, which was in DC when Sofia was eight month old. She loved his goatee and kept staring and playing with it.

On Sunday we enjoyed donuts and later went to Irvine Park where Sofia played on the swings and jungle gym. We also road the train, which we do each time we visit. Sofia loves when the train blows it's whistle and likes to wave to everyone in the park as we go by.

Sunday evening, while the rest of the house watched the Super Bowl, my college friend Sian came over with her girls Danielle and Holland. Sofia loves playing with Sian's girls and Holland is a great sport about it. They ended up chasing each other around the kitchen island since it was too cold to run around outside.

Monday morning before we left, I found Mimi and Sofia outside near the fish pond with Sofia in her diaper splashing around in the little river that feeds the fish pond! The water must have been 50 degrees, but she stayed in it for nearly an hour, until I had to dress her and head to the airport. She was singing all of her songs and having a great time!

Posing with Uncle Roger. Uncle Roger got down on one knee and asked Sofia to join him, thinking she would sit on his knee - instead she copied him!


Playing with the flight simulator. This only lasted a minute before I realized a museum volunteer was obviously too nervous that Sofia would break it!


Looking at planes with Papa


Splashing in the puddles! There were a lot of them because of the two days of rain.


Saying goodbye to Uncle Roger


Sunday morning donuts - Yum!!


She likes to eat the sprinkles off and leave the majority of the donut.


At Irvine Park - "flying" on the swings


On the train


With Mommy (she's calling me Mama lately....) on the train


Checking out the engine


Playing with Holland and Danielle