Christmas

Christmas always means new pajamas from Grandma! We had so much fun in Utah visiting with family and playing games.

Sophie loved her presents, okay she just loved the boxes, but whatever. She got a new soft blanket, an outfit and bath toys. She also got to play in the piles of wrapping paper.
Brandon loves tearing into presents and I love the pile of wrapping paper left behind! Grandma got the award for best present by getting the 7-in-1 Maxus Draganoid for Brandon. Sara loved her new watch I made for her and her DS games.
Ben got really excited about his presents! We got Ticket to Ride and some Star Trek movies that we can't wait to use. Overall it was a fabulous Christmas; now I can't wait for the kids to go back to school.

Naked and eggnog

I love pictures of naked babies, I mean just look at the dimples! When we lay Sophie down and reach over to grab a diaper she rolls over and starts crawling away. Too cute!
We found out that Sophie loves eggnog. Whenever Ben would get a cup she would reach for it, so we got her a straw and she would drink until Ben took it away from her.

Food!

We are expanding Sophie's eating options to include chocolate chip pancakes! She loves them and I can cut them up small enough so she can feed herself. Messy, but fun!

Ballet Show

Sara has been wanting to take ballet for a while now, and luckily there is a lady in our ward who teaches and her studio is 2 seconds from our house. Today they had a little show in the studio for family to come watch what they have been doing.

We got to see what they do in class each week and they even had a dance they had been practicing from the Nutcracker. Her teacher Miss Kristin used to dance professionally with Ballet West, so she has amazing talent and is great with kids!

Exploring!

As soon as kids start crawling they really start exploring their surroundings. Sophia is no different and has gotten into the kitchen and started opening drawers and cupboards. Yes- she has already gotten her fingers squished.

She found the movies a while ago, but recently found the vcr/dvd player and started opening the door and pushing buttons. I can't baby proof the house fast enough! She hates it when we have to pull her out of whatever she's into and will cry for at least 5 minutes.
At least now I don't have to keep the house really clean because people understand why it's messy! One day Sara picked up all the movies and put them all away, then when she came home from school the next day Sophia had pulled them all off again. She said "Sophie! I just picked those up!" I told her that's why I don't pick them up everyday. At least she's having fun!

The Nutcracker

I decided to have a girl's weekend in Salt Lake with Sara. I LOVE the Festival of Trees there, so we had to go. I almost cried when we walked in. I love the atmosphere and the Christmas spirit I feel there. I love looking at all the trees, wreaths and gingerbread masterpieces. A lot of the trees are made to honor people who have died, so it's kind of sad to see the pictures; especially if they are kids and babies.

After the Festival I surprised Sara with tickets to see Ballet West perform the Nutcracker at the Capitol Theatre. It was so awesome! It's so different to see professional dancers as opposed to the local dance school here in Idaho Falls. She loved it and loved the theatre- it is beautiful!
I did not want to drive home late at night, so I had booked a hotel room at the Shilo Inn. Sara loves jumping on the beds in hotels and riding the elevator. We enjoyed a wonderful breakfast in the morning then got on the road to head home! Overall a wonderful weekend. I love having a daughter who enjoys doing stuff like this with me- when Sophie gets a little bigger I'll have two!

I'm there!

When the kids start crawling they start exploring the world around them and getting into everything! Sophia discovered the movies this morning and started pulling them off the shelf.

Love the mess Sophia thanks a lot! One more thing to clean up everyday, multiple times a day.......yeah. I remember when Brandon used to pull all the cd cases off the shelf everyday and make a big pile on the floor- every chance he got. Fun stuff!
I love it when they smile like they know they're not supposed to be doing whatever it is they're doing, but are doing it anyway. Cute!

Christmas tree

There was no way I was going to spend my days keeping Sophie away from our Christmas tree all month, so I told Ben he has the year off and bought this 3 foot one that sits on our table. We chose our favorite ornaments and it came pre-lit, so it's perfect for us this year.

We can put presents around it and not have to worry about Sophie getting into them or messing up the tree.

Baby gate

Since Sophie is crawling we had to install a baby gate at the top of our stairs. It took a long time to find one that would work since we don't have a wall to use on either side of the stairs, but I love this one and it blends right in with the woodwork.

Ben didn't want to drill into the banister, so we just zip-tied some 2x4's to the banister and drilled into them. It's not perfect, but it's easy enough for the kids to handle and that's what counts! Thanks honey for taking two hours to put it up!

Grandma = toys

Whenever Grandma comes she brings toys- that's part of the reason the kids get so excited. Grandma has been waiting to bring this to Sophia and it's perfect! We have to watch her when she's sitting on it because she will fall off, but she loves playing with all to little things on it.

Good job Grandma!

Thanksgiving is for family

My family came up on Friday after Thanksgiving to spend the weekend. It was so much fun and the kids loved playing with their cousins. Tristan loves Sophia and asked to hold her.

While the kids love playing with each other they also love playing games on the DS or laptop. When one starts they all have to play. Funny!
Brandon loves sliding down the stairs in his sleeping bag, so whenever people come over he shows them and they all have fun sliding down over and over. Tristan didn't like the idea of the sleeping bag, so he just went down without it.
Tristan and Sara watching a movie and sitting on the little couch. Good thing he is getting one of his own for Christmas! Thanks guys it was fun!

New toy

Sophie has been standing up, so I got her this new toy today. She LOVES it! It's nice that she has something her size to practice standing up on. She still fell over a couple of times, but she doesn't really cry because she's hurt, she cries because she wants to get back to her toy.

Almost crawling

Sophie can get up on her hands and knees now and gets around by doing the army crawl. I have been getting everything up off the floor and baby proofing like mad!

She's on the move!

Binkie, eating and tongue?

Sophie loves her binkie and can play with it and put it in her mouth whenever she wants. So funny!
For some reason this is how we feed Sophie now. Most of the time she will sit up and eat, but when she doesn't always understand the difference between meal time and play time. Really?? I mean really?? It is not easy to get the spoon in her mouth this way.
Daddy, Sara and now Sophie all have this LONG tongue. Sophie just loves playing with Daddy's tongue. She stares at it, tries to touch it and even tries to eat it. Good times!

Fun with Sophie

Here are some pictures of Sophie playing her most favorite games. She loves to play peek-a-boo with anything she can get her hands on. She plays at home, in the van and in the store. It is very distracting because I love playing with her and hearing her laugh, but she usually likes to play when I am shopping or trying to get things done.

Sophie is rolling all over the place and usually has a fun time playing on the floor- until she gets stuck under a chair or table. When she gets stuck she will try to get out by herself and if she can't she will cry until someone saves her.
Her newest love is daddy's ties. When daddy comes home from work he loves holding her, but she just wants to pull and slobber on his ties. This picture is while we were eating dinner one night and daddy was trying to keep her entertained.
She is an expert at "so big", unless she is in front of lots of people and being asked to perform her trick. She does it a lot at home even while she is eating so she gets lots of food in her hair and all over her face. She is learning "hi" and "bye", but doesn't do it on command. She likes to practice on her own time and opens and closes her fist one finger at a time.

Halloween fun

Here are some halloween pictures. We had a lot of fun and thankfully it wasn't too cold. Since it was month end Ben had to work and he got stuck with the 3pm to midnight shift, so I got to take the kids to the trunk-or-treat by myself. It was still light outside so we got some good pictures. Sophia was a black cat and she stayed pretty warm.

Brandon was a storm trooper and even though he was kind of sick he didn't want to stay home.
Sara was a 50's girl and her costume turned out so cute! Thanks Nicole for lending us the skirt! After the trunk-or-treat we got some quick dinner and then Sara wanted to go trick-or-treating with a friend of hers. Brandon wanted to go too, but he still had a bad cough so I told him he should stay home and I would just buy him some candy.
He still really wanted to go, so since Sara had Ben's cell phone I told him to call me whenever he wanted to come home and I would come and get him. Sara's friend picked her up at our house with her older sister and a couple of her sister's friends. They were gone for about 2 hours before Sara calls to tell me that Brandon wants to come home. I went to get him, but Sara wanted to keep going. About an hour later she called and told me she was at her friends house having hot chocolate and they would drive her home when they were done. I was impressed at how often she called me and I had a great Halloween because I got to stay home in my warm house.

Halloween (almost)

Here is Sophie sitting up in her Halloween shirt. She has been waking up every two hours at night and she can't put herself back to sleep. I have been very tired and cranky, so I decided to stop rocking her to sleep. For some reason I was scared and thought she was too young to cry it out (it's been a long time since I had a baby okay?). She has been doing great and now she only cries for five minutes before falling asleep and she sleeps all night long!
The IT Department decided on a pirate theme this year, so this is Ben on his way to work this morning. He says I'm his wench and I guess I'm okay with that for the next couple of days. Too bad there weren't any decent wench costumes out there or I would have bought one. Anyways, I don't think I'm going to dress up this year unless I pull out one of my old costumes for tomorrow night.

Our busy days

Sara has been studying Medieval times at school and had to make a castle. Of course Ben and I had to do a lot of work on it too, but we finally got it done. Both 4th grade classes are putting on a Medieval fair tomorrow and I am excited to see how other kids built their castles.

Sophie has started sitting up really well on the floor and she wants to sit up in the bath tub too. It is slippery, so she always falls down. Thankfully Nicole gave me this little bathtub and I love it! The bottom is soft and it gets blown up a little bit, so she can easily sit up and not fall down.
Since her tooth has come in whenever she smiles she sticks out her tongue like in this picture. It is so cute!

Sophia at play

Sophie has started sitting up well enough on her own so we brought out this toy. She LOVES it and sits up longer so she can keep playing with it. She has been cutting a tooth in the front and not sleeping well at night. She had a high fever for a few days, but she is feeling better now. She eats about 4 ounces of formula and one container of baby food for each meal. Her favorite foods are sweet potatoes and bananas. She takes three naps a day for 1 to 2 hours each. She still wakes up once at night and I usually nurse her and she goes right back to sleep. We all love her so much and have so much fun with her. Brandon loves making her laugh and he will do anything!

Lagoon

We went to Lagoon for Brandon's birthday and he had so much fun! Sophie was great, but we scared Sara on her first ride. She just wanted to go on the kiddie rides, but she is too tall, so the only rides she went on were the Carousel and the bumper cars. Ben got her on the Dumbo ride after two supervisors came over and approved it. She loved Pioneer land and shopping. We should have known how this would go after Disneyworld.
The weather was perfect and I'm so happy it didn't rain. Brandon's favorite ride was Jetstar II and Ben and I both went on it with him once; it was so rough we couldn't do it again. He wouldn't go on the white roller coaster, the spider or the wild mouse no matter how often we asked him. We had fun with our friends and their kids- thanks for coming guys! I don't think we'll do Lagoon again until Sara is older and likes the rides more, so who knows what Brandon will want to do next year...........

Brandon's Birthday

Brandon turned 7 on the 22nd and these are the presents Grandma sent him: a garbage can for his room, a water bottle for his bike, pokemon cards and a bakugan.
He choose to go to Denny's for dinner and his birthday was on Tuesday, so the kids ate free- BONUS! Ben found Lego Batman (used) for the xbox 360 and that's all he's been playing. We are also going to Lagoon this weekend for his birthday.
This is what he wanted me to bring to his class for treats, it's an Indiana Jones cupcake cake. He is such a great boy and I enjoy him everyday! He gives me a nice break from all the drama of two girls.

What can Sophia do now?

Sophia is doing so much these days! She loves playing with her toes whenever she is laying on her back- even when I am trying to change her diaper. At her six month doctor appointment this week she weighed in at 17 pounds and got three shots.
The kids love playing with her and Sophie loves playing with things that are not really toys. Her new favorite toy is an empty m&m's bag. It was laying on the floor, so Ben picked it up to throw it away (amazing- I know) and I think I scared him a little when I yelled "Nooooooooo!" I don't really need to buy toys; we just save our garbage and let her play with it.
Sophia is rolling over and sitting up and LOVES the exersaucer! Sara runs to get her out of bed the second she hears any sound and that has become the newest thing to fight over. I try to remember who got her up last, but it's not a big deal if I forget because the kids know. She is crying now, so I've got to go put her down for a nap.