Little Ladybug

Today Sofia has her school Halloween festival so she gets to wear her costume to school. In the afternoon, all the kiddos will do crafts, decorate sugar cookies (and eat them), play games, and trick-or-treat at each of the classrooms. Sofia loves wearing her ladybug costume and has enjoyed it many times around the house since we bought it several weeks ago. Our neighbors gave Olivia a little "Trick or Treat" onsie, so I dressed her in it to take pictures of the girls together. Our little ladybug is so cute and the girls are adorable together!

Sofia and Olivia


A close up of our girls





Giving little sister a kiss


Ladybug girl!


Ready for fun!

Sofia's Fall Festival at School

Today Sofia had her Fall Festival at school, which means she got to wear her Halloween costume. She makes such a cute ladybug. Sofia and Olivia's Grandma is visiting, so she watched Olivia at home while I went to Sofia's Festival. It was great fun! When I arrived, her class was in the middle of doing games in the main room of school. They tossed bean bags through a pumpkin face, played pass the pumpkin (which was not as fast moving as it should have been....), and then returned to their class. Once in class, they colored a witch mask, decorated sugar cookies, and took a class picture. Finally, the class lined up and joined the rest of the school in trick or treating at each classroom. All the kids chanted "Dulces, Dulces, Dulces" (Sweets, sweets, sweets) while going around the room.

Before school started, we ran into Sofia's good friends - Lilly, Maggie, and Matheus


The pumpkins decorated by the different classes


Sofia's class decorated the following two pumpkins...





Sofia tossing the bean bag through the pumpkin


Playing pass the pumpkin


Coloring the witch mask


Sofia's class


Sofia and Maggie


Getting ready to trick or treat


Sofia getting some candy


Sofia, her friends, and my friends (their moms)....


One very tired ladybug....she fell asleep less than five minutes after we left school

Olivia at 8 weeks

Our little Olivia is 8 weeks old and growing so quickly! We weighed her on Saturday and she is an even 13 lbs already! Her two month pediatrician appointment isn't until November 3rd, so we won't know her percentiles until then, and I can't wait to see how much she's grown! She's becoming so alert and is awake during the day a lot more than we remember from Sofia. She loves to watch whatever Sofia is doing, even when Sofia is an inch from her face and talking to her about trains. During the day as long as she's fed, she's awake and happy but once she's getting tired she tends to cry and fight sleep until all at once she's out! She went through a fussy time at night the past two weeks but seems to be out of it now, with the past three nights being calm. Hopefully she's done.

On Sunday night we moved her swing into her room, set up the video monitor, and she slept for the first time in her room. We gave her a bath, I fed her, and laid her down in the swing sleepy but still awake and walked out of her room at 9:30pm. Amazingly she slept until almost 4am! We couldn't believe it and I kept waking up and checking the monitor to be sure she was ok. It was such a treat to get that much sleep in one stretch and after I fed her she went right back to sleep until 7:30am, when we all have to get going to get Sofia to school on time. Hopefully she continues having such great nights of sleep!

Such a pretty 8 week old


She's getting so big next to her stuffed animals


Sweet girl


This is one of my absolute favorite outfits that Sofia wore, but I think Sofia wore it when she was 3 months old and already at 8 weeks, it is barely fitting Olivia in the length! She's really growing long fast!


She's getting bigger in her chair

Fun with Friends

Yesterday we met up with Sofia's good friends Isabella and Milani at the Bob Jones Fall Festival. Bob Jones Nature Center is this great little hidden treasure in Southlake, near the edge of Lake Grapevine. It's a nature preserve that offers nature classes that include crafts, hikes, and lessons on various animals. Sofia has been taking Friday morning classes at Bob Jones since mid-September and has learned about Opossums, Butterflies, Hummingbirds, Raccoons, Owls, etc. She absolutely loves the classes and asks nearly everyday when she gets to go back to Bob Jones. It reminds me a lot of my experiences of science classes and hikes taken when I was growing up in central California. I love that she's getting to learn about nature in such a setting and wish I'd discovered it sooner.

At the Fall Festival they had a petting zoo, story time, a sand lot to dig around in, different crafts, and of course, face painting! Sofia can't pass up the chance to get her face painted and these were no ordinary face painters! They really did beautiful art on these kiddo's faces. So, we stood in line for maybe 30 minutes waiting to get a butterfly on Sofia's face. Finally, she made to one of the face painters and it was amazing to watch the lady work. By the end Sofia had a beautiful butterfly on her face and all three girls ended up getting butterflies!

Sofia and her butterfly


Isabella, Milani and Sofia and their butterflies


Such pretty girls!


Our beautiful butterfly girl!


Clowning around

Olivia at 7 Weeks

Our girl is 7 weeks old and the weeks seem to be flying by! She certainly seems to be growing up so much faster than Sofia did....maybe because we know what to expect now. She's in the middle of being fussy at night, with a lot of crying that lasts maybe an hour or so and nothing seems to calm her down despite our rocking, swaying, bouncing. Sofia went through the same thing so we're hoping it ends soon. She's only been doing it for a few days, so we hope it doesn't last long. Otherwise, she's a pleasant little girl who is content to just hang out on her chair and watch whatever Sofia does.

Look at those cheeks!


Getting bigger





You can see her "stork bite" on her forehead. That little red area really turns red when she's upset and makes a "V" shape until she's calmed down.


With Mommy


Tummy time - she loves to lay on her tummy and really tries to move around. Unlike Sofia, she stays awake on her tummy.

Her First Smile!

Today Olivia gave her Papa her very first smile! I did see it, but wasn't able to get a picture of the huge grin she gave him, but it was great! We're hoping to see many more in the coming days and weeks. Here is a picture of a little smile she gave just after her big one!

Olivia's First Bath

We FINALLY gave Olivia her first full bath after days of little sponge baths. I wanted to be sure that we all were able to wash Olivia, so I didn't want to do it during the week while CK was at work. So, we finally found a Saturday morning and washed our little girl. We were both expecting a repeat of Sofia's first bath experience which included a lot of crying and unhappiness, however, Olivia LOVED it! I think she could have stayed in her bath all day (or until the water cooled down). It was fun to watch her enjoy it so much while we cleaned her up.

Our little girl in the tub


Scrubbing her clean


A close-up of our happy girl


Washing her body


Cleaning her back....


Washing her hair


Drying off with Papa


A very happy, and clean, baby!

Carving Pumpkins

We returned home with our new pumpkins and decided to carve them. Although we generally buy pumpkins prior to Halloween, we've never actually carved them with Sofia. We took the pumpkins outside, set them on newspaper, and started cleaning them out. Meanwhile, Sofia took her markers and started drawing all over the pumpkins to decorate them. I showed her how to separate out the seeds, which we later roasted.

Finally it was time to carve! We have a carving kit that includes different templates to use for carving, so I asked Sofia which eyes, nose, and mouth we should have on our pumpkin. Once she decided, we drew on the pumpkin's face and started to carve. Meanwhile, CK carved his own pumpkin that turned out really cute! It was such a fun day! I roasted the pumpkin seeds, which neither CK nor Sofia had tried before. They turned out to be a good snack.

Sofia decorating the pumpkin with her markers


Hard at work decorating!


Cleaning out our pumpkins


The finished pumpkins


Sofia and my creation (that big space on the side is supposed to be the outline of a cat).


Papa's pumpkin!