Sofia at 61/2!

Sofia is growing up fast, and is now 54 lbs and is 50 1/2 inches tall! She still loves and prefers wearing dresses or skirts to pants and really loves wearing pjs around the house. She loves staying home and playing and is still great at coming up with stories while she plays. Her favorite toys to play with are her toy horses and the new knock-off American Doll horse that we bought at Target (Olivia has her "Papa Neigh" which is an older model American Girl horse and they are continually fighting over it). She'll set up the horses' barn and jumps and make up all sorts of stories about what they are doing. She just recently started playing once again with her Thomas Trains after her friend Ansley's little brother was playing with them during piano lessons on Tuesday. I left the box of trains out and she's now spending all of her time setting up track, telling stories of Thomas, Edward and James and her newest fun is to play with the Thomas Train set Tidmouth Shed with turntable, which I've actually had in Olivia's closet for the past year after buying it for $30 at TJ Maxx. I bought it originally thinking of giving it to Sofia at her birthday, but after it was clear that she wasn't interested in trains anymore, I thought we could give it as a gift. Now, I'm glad I forgot about it and she can play with it. It's so great that she's interested in trains again!

Sofia recently had her friend Emma over for a play date and after playing horses, Sofia went over to her train track and immediately started moving her trains around and telling some sort of complex story. Her friend just sat there looking at her, not entirely sure what to do. We love that she's got such a great imagination and hope she keeps it forever!

Sofia loves First grade and adores her teacher, Mrs. Schultz. She's a great student and routinely gets 10/10 on her spelling tests, even though I've only gone over the list with her once. I actually didn't even know they had spelling tests on Fridays until months into school. She is a fantastic reader and still loves her Magic Tree House books as well as Amelia Badelia. She really loves reading and usually after we read her a few books before bed, she'll stay up and read a few extra chapters in her Magic Tree House book. During recess, she likes to play "fairies" with her friend Kelly or Emma and she said that they make little fairy homes and then clear away all the other kids' footprints because fairies won't come to the house if they see people footprints. Sometimes she plays horses with her friends too.

She finally is getting used to riding her bike and will ride it to our favorite place, Hidden Lakes which is probably a 2 mile round trip. Her bike still has training wheels on, but I think they could likely be removed soon. She has said she wants to ride her bike to school with Olivia and me, but I'm not sure we want to welcome that option since she's never biked and had to deal with streets and cars. Sofia has piano lessons on Tuesdays and we have been taking them with her friend Ainsley and her instructor Sven comes either to our house or theirs for the lesson. On Wednesdays after school, Sofia has tennis lessons which she doesn't ever want to go to, but once she's there, she loves it. Usually after her lesson with Coach Brian, she tells me that she wants to start playing three times a week! By the next week, I have to bribe her to go to tennis. Soon, her soccer will start again and she'll have tennis on Mondays, piano lessons on Tuesday and soccer on Wednesday.

Ultimately, Sofia prefers to stay at home and play over just about everything offered, but she loves play dates and we've been meeting her school friend Kelly at our local park on Saturday or Sunday afternoons, which is really fun. We've also been going to the gym's indoor pool, which she often doesn't want to do, but once we are there she loves it. She pretends she's a dolphin and swims back and forth the length of the pool telling some sort of story to no one in particular. She also loves going down the slides.

Our big girl!

Can't believe how big she is!

Our sweet girl!

Sisters

Playing with her trains

Olivia at (almost) 21/2!

Olivia is a month before being 21/2 and seems to be changing daily. She is 37 inches tall and weighs 33.5 lbs. She wears 3T clothes because she's so tall. She is really starting to talk a lot and loves to repeat anything you say to her. So, if I say "Are you ready to get dressed?" she'll usually say "Ready to get dressed..." She is pretty good at annunciating her words, although there are times when I have no idea what she's trying to say to me. She absolutely loves princesses and fairies and knows all of her Disney princesses from her books. She always wants to wear a "princess dress" and princess shoes and then tells people "I a princess" which is really cute. She almost exclusively wears a "princess dress" and tights, although at times I can convince her that a non-fancy dress is actually a "princess dress." She basically wears five dresses out of the entire closet full of Sofia's former dresses as well as her new dresses. She certainly has her mind made up when it comes to what she wants to wear! She is amazingly good at clomping around in her princess shoes too and spends most of her time in the house walking around in them. Unlike Sofia at this age, she could care less about trains and cars and only has interest in princesses, fairies and horses. She plays for hours with her "Papa Neigh" which we bought at a yard sale for $5. She absolutely loves him and uses a paper towel as a blanket and rides him all over the house. She loves brushing his hair, although at this point it's pretty well tangled in a big mess.

She still calls horses "neighs," sheep are "baahs" and cows are "boos" but has very recently started saying "horsie" and "cow" and I know we'll miss her cute words when they are gone. Her favorite books right now are Cinderella (a tattered coloring book version that was originally given to Sofia from her Aunt Cynthia and Uncle Jay when she was around two, is her favorite, although she loves the "real" book that Grandma and Grandpa gave her at Christmas). She has very recently discovered the four Fancy Nancy books we own ("Fanciest Doll in The Universe" was given to Sofia for Christmas by Aunt Cynthia and family) and wants to "read them" before each nap and before bed. While we read Fancy Nancy, Olivia loves to pinch at Nancy's crown and say "I wear it now" and then pretend to put the crown on her head. She also likes to pretend eat cookies and grab at things from books. By "read them" she wants to hold the book and turn the pages while I read to her. She has a series of fairy books and princess books that are very simplistic and are her favorites. We also read "Time for Bed" to her before going to sleep too and she will often read it and actually has memorized most of it. CK started singing to her before bed and so before bed and naps, one of us sings "Send Thee" and "Old MacDonald" to her.

Olivia loves to chew gum and still loves the taste of mint over other flavors, although she isn't wanting Altoids much anymore (not a bad thing). She loves mac and cheese and yogurt, cheese sticks and Cheerios as well as most fruit. She isn't quite as interested in food as she used to be and usually likes to snack, especially around 4/430pm which is just before dinner.

She adores Sofia and loves playing with her usually. Sometimes, she'd prefer to stand off to the side and watch Sofia make up her stories and play instead of joining in with her sister. Throughout the day she usually asks "Where's Sissy?" and "Where's Papa?" which is cute. One of her favorites things is to watch for Sissy's bus to arrive after school. While Sofia loves to stay at home and play and would rather do that over doing just about anything, Olivia is our "lets go" girl! She is always ready to head out and wants to be included in anything that we might be doing. If I ask "Do you want to go....?" Sofia will almost always answer "no" while Olivia will say "I wanna go."

We recently joined the story time at the Colleyville Library and she enjoys it, although she's a lot more shy than Sofia was at this age. It usually takes her 20 of the 30 minutes to warm up enough to participate in the song singing. In the car she loves listening to toddler music and sings along to most of the songs, which she's gotten pretty good at! It's so cute to hear her little sing-songy voice behind me.

Olivia's princess shoes all lined up in her room

Our big girl in her princess dress and outfit.

Wearing her tiara

Our sweet girl...not ready to smile

A close up of our big girl and her sweet smile

Olivia and "Papa Neigh"

Painting

With her big sister, Sofia!

Going through her fairy books

Stacking up her favorite books so she can "read" them.

Olivia's First Hair Cut

This morning I finally loaded up the girls for a much-needed hair cut. Sofia last had her hair cut over a year ago and I did it in the backyard using my fabric scissors. Olivia has never had her hair cut and she has one long section in the back that is easily two inches longer than the rest of her hair. Plus, Sofia has her class pictures on Monday so I wanted to get a few inches off the bottom to make it look less stringy and to make it easier to brush after baths and before school. We headed over to Pigtails and Crewcuts and put their names down. The girls played on the play room while we waited and Sofia put on a pretty decent puppet show and played with the Thomas train table. Olivia sat next to me, ate pretzels and watched some movie that was on the tv. Finally, it was time for their haircuts and both girls wanted to be in the toy seats - Sofia in the fire truck and Olivia in the airplane.

I asked the lady cutting Sofia's hair to cut off at least 2 inches, since it's been so long since she's had it cut and it's become difficult to comb out after her bath. Sofia only wanted a little bit cut off, since she wants her hair as long as possible, so I had to show the stylist what to do rather than tell her. Meanwhile, for Olivia, I asked that her hair be evened out with no bangs and as little cut off as possible. Plus, I'd brought a little bag to put her hair in so I can add it to her baby book. Olivia's stylist tried to put a cape on her before she started to cut, but Olivia wanted nothing to do with it, so it stayed off and the woman cut her hair without it. I mainly took pictures of Olivia since it was her first haircut, but also got a few of Sofia. Both girls' hair looks so good and it was definitely time for a cut!

All set for her first haircut - she would only sit in the airplane for the haircut.

A cartoon was on, so Olivia was glued to it while the stylist cut her hair

Sofia getting her hair cut

Trimming Olivia's long section of hair

Love how cooperative she is!

Getting a few inches off her hair

Evening out Olivia's hair

So focused on looking down for the stylist

Sofia in her fire truck

Rodeo!

We headed to the rodeo once again with our friend Harvey and Thelma and their 6-year old, Isabella. CK was given absolutely amazing box seats from one of his clients and it's one of my very favorite things that we get to do all year! We ended up leaving Olivia at home with a sitter since we had six tickets and we wouldn't be able to take her along. Plus, as much as I'm sure Olivia would absolutely love the rodeo, I'm pretty sure her interest would wane after a short time which would mean that I'd be busy dealing with her rather than enjoying the rodeo. We picked up our friends and headed to Ft Worth to eat at a new restaurant, AF+B. It was delicious and their desserts were amazing!! After we were done, we headed to the Ft Worth Stock Show and Rodeo!

It was such a luxury to park right next to the rodeo arena and sitting right on the arena edge! The rodeo started and Isabella and Sofia loved giving high fives to all the riders going by. The announcer is the best part of the entire experience and I think the first 15 minutes are the most moving and amazing part of the whole experience. In his big voice, the announcer explains how lucky we are to live in such an amazing country and how important faith is and should be in each of our lives. It's very refreshing to hear in a age when no one seems to be able to say what's on their mind for fear of controversy. Then, we all stood for the national anthem while the American flag was held by a woman on horseback. After that, the rodeo started and it was fantastic!

The rodeo was the 'ranch competition' which meant that there for seven or eight teams from different ranches in Texas and New Mexico that competed in calf roping, cutting, bronc riding, steer wrestling, and wild cow milking. That was a bit odd, but very interesting. It was really fun to watch the competition and although we missed the bull riding, there was the mutton busting, which was crazy and funny! Kids from 7-9 years old were put on top of sheep and let out to run free, much like bull riding but the sheep just took off instead. Some kids fell off immediately but a few held on for the length of the arena! As the announcer said "In some states this might be considered child abuse, but here in Texas, we call it fun!" It was very fun to watch and the kids obviously were kids of real ranch hands and were tough as nails. The rodeo ended after the crazy cow milking competition in which one of the cowboys would rope the cow, then two others would jump off their horses and try to contain her enough to get a little milk into a container. Once milk was in the container, that cowboy would run to the judge and the first cowboy would take the rope off the cow. It was pretty intense as some of the cows were huge and the cowboys were roughed up a bit.

The rodeo ended around 10pm and Sofia was totally mesmerized the entire time! She stayed in her seat and other than splitting a bag of cotton candy with Isabella early on in the rodeo, she didn't move. She rested her chin in her hands on the wire and took in everything! It was great to watch her enjoy it so much and also to be able to sit back and enjoy the entire evening without juggling her or Olivia! The next morning she came downstairs and the first thing she said was "when are we going to go to the rodeo again?"

Waiting for the show to begin

Our awesome seats!

Isabella and Sofia

Harvey, Thelma and me

CK and me

The rodeo begins!

The American flag

Giving high-fives to all the riders

The cowboys and sponsors in the opening segment

Excellent view of the calf roping!

Sofia and her Papa

Mutton Bustin, not a great photo unfortunately!

The Dallas Train Show

Today was a big day! We started the morning going to the annual Dallas Train Show and ended it with a very fun evening spent at the Ft Worth rodeo (more on that later)! We didn't make it to the train show last year, but have gone a few times and really loved it. Of course, we started going because Sofia was such a train nut, and although she's not really into trains anymore, it's still a fun day out. We've usually gone on Sunday afternoon, but decided to go on Saturday morning instead since Marco and Stacy wanted to go with their boys. It ended up being very busy and also seemed to be a lot more active with more displays set up. We started off in the main hall where all the trains are set up and it was great when we realized that Sofia is now tall enough to see the model trains and environment without being picked up! Olivia obviously needed to be held to see the trains and she seemed to enjoy it, but wasn't too terribly interested in it. Once I pulled out pretzels she was a lot more interested in those over the trains. Sofia walked around with CK while Olivia (in her stroller and gobbling pretzels) and I stuck with Marco and Antonio. Stacy was off feeding Luca. After we saw most of the trains, we headed over to the room with all the larger "garden" trains that the kids could sit and watch.

THe three kids sat on the ground and were mesmerized! Even Olivia really was fascinated. Sofia held her unicorn with it's saddle and rider, but didn't play with it. After a while, we headed outside to the courtyard where the kids were able to ride the train around. They ended up going three times and would have stayed there the rest of the day to ride it! We were getting hungry so we headed back to Marco and Stacy's car and loaded up. We drove back to Southlake and tried a new pizza place which ended up being really good. The kids had a great time and we headed home for a very late nap for Olivia. We convinced Sofia to take a nap too since we planned a full night ahead at the rodeo! What a fun day!

CK and the girls at the train show

Marco, Antonio and Sofia watching the trains

One of the scenes

Dinosaurs!

Cows

Watching the big trains

They all loved the garden trains

Olivia watching...

One of the trains - one of my favorites

All set to ride the train!

There they go!

Having fun!

Happy New Year

Last night, CK and I left the girls with a sitter while we walked next door to help celebrate Marco's 50th birthday and the arrival of 2014! We've been at Marco and Stacy's the past few years with another couple and it's been a relaxed and fun evening, but we also haven't been able to stay up past 11:30 the past few years either! This year, Marco and Stacy planned a catered party with about 40 friends, co-workers and neighbors. We were really looking forward to the evening together and ended up having a great time. The food was great and it was a fun, low-key night. We actually ended up staying awake and made it home around 12:30am! A new record for us. The girls were great for the sitter and went to bed on time for her. Of course, we had Sofia visit us around 5am just to be sure we'd made it home.

Although the girls have been sleeping in until 8:30/9am the past week, Olivia woke up at 7:30 and Sofia was awake shortly after, so it was a bit of an early morning. I made orange cinnamon rolls yesterday afternoon and stuck them in the fridge after they were done rising. I put them in the oven and we enjoyed orange cinnamon rolls and scrambled eggs after everyone was fully awake! After breakfast, we decided to go for a long walk with Buddy and Sofia actually rode her bike the entire time and was way ahead of us on the path for most of the time. Olivia was in the stroller "walking" Buddy the entire time while singing and chattering away to no one in particular. We took CK to "hidden lakes" which is one of Sofia's favorite places and is a bit of a hidden area among another neighborhood. Buddy decided to go into the water and was very wet and muddy. We headed home and gave Buddy a much-needed bath before Olivia took a nap and the three of us hung out and watched football.

Around 2pm, CK and I got back into the kitchen and made hoppin john from a recipe I used last year and was happy with. It turned out great and is so easy to make. CK also made cornbread. After all was ready, we ate and enjoyed our traditional New Year's meal!

No resolutions yet, but I'm sure I'll come up with some. This past year flew by so quickly that I feel like I'm still wrapping up from the final days. I'll start focusing on 2014 soon....

The two of us at Marco's birthday party/New Year's Eve Party! What a fun night!

Our traditional breakfast of orange cinnamon rolls and scrambled eggs

Ready to eat!

The four of us. Happy New Year!