Sofia's 5th Birthday Party

Today we hosted Sofia's birthday party at our house. We asked her how she wanted to celebrate and she suggested a pool party, which is perfect since it's easy to pull together and I love making all the food, decorating, etc. She also asked for ladybug cupcakes but after some research I decided to make cake pops and made "frog pops" and "ladybug pops." They were really fun and pretty easy. We also asked Sofia who she wanted to invite and she named off many of her Spanish Schoolhouse friends as well as the friends she's known since we moved to the area. It was a bit bittersweet to see her Spanish Schoolhouse friends and know that she likely won't keep in touch with them in the coming year...but today she had a lot of fun with everyone.

Her friends who attended the party included: Andy, Jackson, Niveah, Mattheus (all from Spanish Schoolhouse), Antonio (our neighbor), Cami (from horse camp), Thomas, Isabella, Gigi, Caylee, and Grady (who have all been her friends since we moved to Texas). The party was great fun, although it really was one of the hottest days of the summer so far....it's been incredibly mild so far, although today it was HOT even at 10am when the party started. Sofia and her friends swam and played and enjoyed the morning together. After a bit, we brought out the cake pops and sang "Happy Birthday" to Sofia and then went inside to open presents. Sofia got a LOT of presents and I could hardly keep up with what she got from everyone since I was busy saying goodbye to people while presents were opened. It was a fun day and a great way to celebrate Sofia's 5th year!

Party favors

Sofia's birthday cake pops

Ladybugs

Frogs

Sofia and her friends

Trying to look cool in this heat

Fun in the pool!

Sofia and her friends cooking up a plan (I love this picture)

Getting ready to sing to the birthday girl

Our birthday girl!

The three of us - Olivia was napping...

Olivia enjoyed a cake pop after she woke up and loved it.

Opening presents - horses were a big theme!

Sofia's new art set from Grady - a big hit!

Celebrating Sofia's big birthday

To celebrate Sofia's birthday today, we asked her what she wanted to do and she wanted to play and then go to Rainforest Cafe for dinner. So, we started off the day eating a Krispy Kreme donut and watching the donuts being made. After, we headed home to play before she went to her last day of camp at Bob Jones Nature Center where she spent the week learning about birds. After CK got home, we headed over to Rainforest Cafe for Sofia's big birthday dinner. Although she loves Rainforest Cafe, we're happy that we only eat there once a year. Aside from the overpriced food, it's loud and rather chaotic with animal activity and noises.

While we waited for our food, we were able to flag down the balloon guy who made Sofia a butterfly, which she loved. We took pictures of the girls and then ate our dinner before heading home to have cake and open presents.

Sofia's cake was a little frog cake and we sang "happy birthday" before having a small piece with ice cream. Finally, Sofia opened her presents! She was so excited to open everything and each new present she opened was better than the last one! We decided to wait until the next morning to have her open her "big" present from us - a balance bike. After she was asleep, we used pink yarn to string throughout the house so she would have to follow it to the bike in our closet. When I was 9-years old I got a bike and my parents had me follow yarn that seemed to snake throughout the entire house. It's still one of my favorite memories. Sofia loved her new bike but also seemed a bit confused as to why it was in our closet! She is super excited to "practice" on her new bike and loved all of her presents!

Enjoying her birthday Krispy Kreme

Waiting for our table at Rainforest Cafe

Me and my girl

Her new butterfly balloon animal

With her Papa

Hanging out with the tigers

Olivia enjoyed all the animals at Rainforest too, although she was pretty finished by the time we were done with dinner

Happy Birthday girl!

Opening presents

A new horse book?!

Horse truck and trailer

She wasn't entirely sure why she had to follow the yarn, but then I don't think she was completely awake either....

Sofia at 5 years old!!

How did our little girl become a 5 year old? Sofia is a tall, beautiful, happy, outgoing girl who is now 46.5 inches tall and weighs 48 lbs! She is growing so quickly and wears size 6/7 clothes, which is to say dresses, since she almost only wears dresses and occasionally skirts and tops. It's a fight to get her into shorts, but when we go to the park or she does something active, she has to wear shorts. She'll have a favorite dress that she falls in love with and wants to wear it non-stop for days, but luckily she rotates between "favorites" so they do get washed.

Over the past few months she has slowly transitioned away from trains and is very much a horse lover, especially since her horse camps. She still plays with her trains, but now they mainly pull her horses around. She has also gotten into playing with her dolls, especially the little Polly Pockets that she can dress and undress (or rather, ask me to dress and undress). Although the Polly Pocket's clothes get used as fly masks for her horses too. She still loves to swim in our pool and meet up with friends for a play date since she's such a social little girl. Lately she's really taken to meeting our 9-year old neighbor Brandon for a morning scooter trip to the lake, followed by exploring on the "island" next to the lake, and then coming home to swim and play together. Luckily, he is an imaginative, easy-going friend to be with for Sofia. She's been busy this summer with horse camp, gymnastics, acting, nature camp and play dates and loves all of it and is always up for fun.

Today I picked her up from her last nature class at Bob Jones Nature Center, and her instructor Miss Monica, who has seen Sofia pretty regularly for the past 11/2 years, told me that Sofia is one of the most empathetic kids she's met. Whenever another kid is sad or doesn't want to say goodbye to their Mom, Sofia is the one who tries to help out, asks what's wrong and tries to distract them. Ms. Monica continued by telling me that Sofia is her "mother hen" who helps her organize the kids. Sofia will tell kids who continue to play after Ms. Monica has told the class to clean up that it's time to stop playing and clean. She also helps organize the little kids for the bathroom and to wash their hands. It was sweet to hear that Sofia is so helpful and especially that she's so empathetic. We'll miss Ms. Monica and the nature classes so much.

I must confess that I have very mixed emotions about this particular birthday since it signifies our sweet, playful girl going from being my near-constrant companion to heading off into the big world of school, friends, projects and learning. I know she'll love it and make good friends, love her teacher and be a quick study who enjoys learning, but I'll miss her so much. Not just being with her most of the day, but miss her sweet made-up stories about her trains and horses and watching her learn and create. I just hope school and schedules don't change our girl too much.

Our 5 year old (wearing her favorite dress and first candy necklace)

Such a sweet, pretty girl.

She fills up her chair pretty well now

and nearly touches the ground!

Sisters!

At the lake

Her other "favorite" outfit which was a present from her Aunt Cynthia and Uncle Jay this year.

Olivia at 11 Months!

Our little baby is just one month shy of being one! She's now 28.5 inches and 20.6 lbs. and has four top teeth and three bottom teeth - the third on her right side just came in about a week ago. She still wears most of her 9 month clothes and sleepers (they are snug) although we are slowly transitioning to 12 month size. I'm interested to see what percentile she is at next month's pediatrician appointment since she's smaller than Sofia was at her age. She had her first real illness this past week with high temperatures at night of 103.5, but it only lasted three days and two bad nights, when her fever was the worst, and her doctor said it was a virus. Now she's back to her happy, healthy self. She still loves literally any food we put in front of her and she eats as much, if not more, than Sofia does. I still get told that she looks like a cabbage patch doll all the time! She loves people and getting attention, so I think she may be a social butterfly like her big sister.

She finally started to crawl about two weeks ago, although she really hasn't "taken off" with it. She'll crawl to get around, but for the most part she's perfectly content to sit and hang out or she may crawl to something so she can pull herself up to stand. She has an unusual crawl that involves knees and feet at various times and we think it's because she watches Sofia run around like a horse using her feet and hands. I love that she's now mobile though, since she can get over to toys if she wants to and her favorite is to play with Sofia's horses when she isn't around. She doesn't seem to put a whole lot of toys or things in her mouth, which is different than we remember from Sofia at this age.

Olivia loves watching Sofia do just about anything and I think she is convinced that Sofia exists purely to entertain her. Even when Sofia is doing something questionable to her, Olivia loves it! She loves dogs and animals and laughs, smiles and squeals whenever she's around one. She's also pretty gentle with them.

We lowered the crib to the lowest setting in the past two weeks and added the crib bumper since she is now all over the place when she sleeps. It's great having the video monitor since we can watch her and she really does use every corner of her crib every night! She also stands up when she doesn't want to sleep, which mainly happens at her afternoon nap time. Her 10am nap is like clockwork, but her afternoon nap is a bit tougher to get her to relax and fall asleep and she often naps in her car seat as we are off to pick up Sofia from something.

She's such a delightful and happy girl and although the past 11 months have flown by, we've loved watching her grow and change and look forward to all that is to come.

Who is 11 month old today?

Our little cabbage patch doll

She's getting so big and moving so much - I had to take this picture then grab her as she wanted to crawl and nearly fell off the chair

Coming from her bathroom

Crawling

Standing up - her favorite thing to do now!

She can stand without holding onto something for quite a long time already, so we think she'll be walking soon.

Our two beautiful girls!

Once Upon a Time....

This week Sofia spent three hours every afternoon at Oh Look Theater in the "Once Upon a Time" class which was described as a "story telling class" and I thought it would be fun for her to experience something a little different. She enjoyed it and each afternoon when I picked her up she explained a little of what they did in the class. They played dress up and learned how to sing "When You Wish Upon a Star." On the final day of class, CK, Olivia and I showed up 30 minutes before her class was over to enjoy the show that the kids put on. They really did a great job and it seemed they all had fun. Sofia played the Momma Bear in the retelling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears and remembered her lines well, although their young instructor queued them pretty well too. Then the kids did a story about a lonely woman who makes a gingerbread boy who came alive and tried to run away only to be eaten by a fox in the end. For the finale, the kids sang "When you wish upon a star." It was really adorable and Sofia seemed to really enjoy it. After, we headed to Christina's for a post-production Mexican meal.

Kids waiting to get started

Sofia the Momma Bear

Smiling girl

Momma Bear and baby bear heading off stage

When you wish upon a star....

Singing...

Our Little Buckaroo

We got back from Ft. Collins on Sunday and Sofia started her second Buckaroo horse camp on Monday. The class is for kids over 5, but the director told me that Sofia is mature enough to ride in the next level. She was SO excited to get back to horse camp and I was looking forward to hearing about what she did for four hours. When I picked her up and asked if she had fun she said "Yeah, except for cleaning out the horse stalls." Apparently, the kids learn all aspects of how to take care of a horse, including cleaning out the stalls. Every day she cleaned out the stalls, but she also learned all the parts of the horse, the saddle and bridle and learned to ride on her own and she loved it all.

In the evening of her final day of class, she had a Buckaroo rodeo that her Papa went to watch while I stayed home with a sleeping Olivia. CK hadn't been to the stables before and I was happy he was able to watch Sofia and her fellow Buckaroos ride. Each child took a turn at riding their horse into the arena and around three barrels by themselves while being timed. Sofia ended up being third out of her entire class! After, the kids and parents had watermelon and walked around the stables and visited the horses, so CK got to meet Bandit and Dolly, Sofia's favorite horses. They had such a fun time at the rodeo and Sofia came home asking when she can ride again....

Showing her Papa around the stable

Visiting Bandit

Riding Dolly in the rodeo

There she goes...

Waving to her Papa

All the kids run through the arena after the rodeo

Post-rodeo smile

Enjoying some juicy watermelon

With her Papa

Receiving her award for "Ranch Hand Award"

Up on the podium for third place

With her award and her rodeo mates

All the Buckaroos