Sofia at 8 Years Old!

Our big girl is 8 years old today and has grown up so much in the past year. She is now 67 pounds and measures 53 inches and generally wears a kid's large or size 10/12 since she's so tall. Thankfully, as much as she's grown and matured, she still has a very active imagination that she uses all the time. She still loves acting like a horse or pegasus (from reading the "Pegasus" series of books) or that she's a dragon (thanks to watching How to Train Your Dragon), or pretends like she's riding on a horse. She's always making up a story and enacting it at home or when we are out and about. She and Olivia also love to pretend to be dinosaurs and play "Firie and Grapie" which is a made-up game they created a few months ago and play pretty regularly.

She also just lost her 6th tooth (her top right tooth next to the front tooth) while swimming yesterday with Olivia and CK and her front two teeth are taking their sweet time coming in. They have been out for nearly 3 months now and her adult teeth are only about halfway in so far. I'm surprised they don't come in more quickly. Tomorrow she gets her expander which will be put on her top teeth to spread out her palate and allow for her adult teeth to have more room and hopefully will significantly cut down on her time in braces. Although she no longer sucks her thumb, she is still attached to Green Beup Beup and sleeps with him every night. She doesn't cuddle with him or seem to take him around during the day at all, but he has to be there at night with her.

She's really loving summer break although she only sleeps until 7:30 or 8am at the latest. She loves just hanging around the house, reading, swimming first thing in the morning and watching a show or two in the afternoon when it's too hot to do anything else. She and Olivia have gone to a Fairy Fun class at Hurst, as well as a Salt Dough class and a Ceramics class. They are all short classes, mainly 45 minutes, but they enjoy them and it's a good change of pace. Sofia keeps saying that she isn't ready to go back to school, but I think when the time comes in another four weeks, she'll be ready to get back to the routine, friends and learning.

She continues devouring books and has loved reading the "Pegasus" series, Guardians of Ga'hoole, Wings of Fire, Harry Potter and other similar books. She generally will finish one that she likes and then immediately start reading it again. At bedtime, she gets ready for bed and then I come upstairs with my book and we have a "reading party" while we both lay on her bed and read our respective books. After I head back downstairs, she will often stay up another hour or two reading, even though I try to get her to promise me to go to bed at a reasonable time.

Sofia has also really started loving playing the piano. She took around 9 months off and then we started with Mr. James, who has been the best instructor for her! She not only has learned a lot in the past four months she's been playing with him, but she sounds really great and loves it! She will often wake up in the morning and go straight to the piano to play, practice and goof around. She also does the same on her way up to bed or throughout the day. James has told us that she really picks each song up very quickly and does a great job, and she loves it, which is great. She's still not interested in learning a particular sport, playing soccer or riding her bike much. She does love her new Razor scooter that she got about a week after school ended for the summer and she can really zip around on it like a pro. If it's not too hot, we will usually sit out front while the girls and some of the neighbor kids ride around on their scooters and have fun. We are mainly out front to keep a close eye on cars and to socialize. She still loves to swim and has spent over 6 hours in the pool or at the splash park on several occasions. She makes up stories and usually has Olivia or others doing whatever it is that she has in her head at the time.

Our girl is growing up so quickly and maturing into a silly, imaginative young lady who really throws her heart into the things she loves. We still can't believe she's 8 years old!

Her first breakfast as an 8 year old!

She hardly fits in her chair anymore!