She adores her Daddy!

One this is for certain, Mom is chopped liver whenever Dad is home! Sophia absolutely adores her Dad and can't get enough of him. When she gets up in the morning she races to find Daddy for a snuggle in the big bed. She loves to ride on Daddys shoulders in public - can you just imagine her view from up there?

Daddy is especially fun at all the playgrounds because he's just a big kid at heart and loves to ride the swings and the slides and bouncy things, etc... He's even showing her how to jump off the swing already.

Yesterday Sophia found one of Daddy's hats. She actually wore it for a while and had a blast walking around "not being able to see". After she took it off she decided to carry it around in a basket which was later turned into a "crib" for Bitty and the girls. Take a look at how funny she is.

WOW again.....

Well - another hot day calls for another trip to the WOW Sprinkler Garden. So we packed up our bags on Thursday and headed off for some late morning fun in the sun. Again, Sophie had a blast.

Sophia was actually yawning and acting really tired on the drive to get there so I knew our visit was going to be short-lived. She actually was more interested in "relaxing" on the swing instead of running through the water. She definitely gave it her best shot and lasted for about an hour. (She was literally sleeping before our car pulled out of the entrance on the way out.)


The sun was behind the clouds for a while so I took Sophia's hat off for a while. As soon as she realized that it was missing, she immediately started searching our stroller for her hat. She found it and then tried to put it on.

I wish she would be so diligent about leaving her barretts and bows in her hair. The minute that I try to put them in she starts shaking her head so that all of her hair falls into her eyes. And on the rare occassion that I am able to get the bow into her hair she plucks it out and tries to eat it - almost every time!

Here's a really cute video of her in the sprinklers.

Some old toys become favorites again

For a few weeks Sophie gave up her babydolls, but she's discovered them again and she's feeding them her chicken fingers and plastic toy bottles of milk. She gives them kisses and hugs and will take them for walks in the stroller around the house.

She also has a newfound interest in the interactive ride on toy that Uncle Daniel gave her for Christmas. Not only can she get on and off of if all by herself, but she can also rock it back and forth!

Here's a video of Sophia taking her Mary had a Little Lamb doll for a ride on the car.

There's a first time for everything....

Sophie experienced her first fright on Saturday.

We were in line to check-out at one of our local "everything" stores that will rename nameless. Will was returning something we didn't need to the proper aisle in the store. I was standing in front of the cart unloading our items onto the checkout belt. Sophie was sitting nicely into the child's seat in the back of the cart.

A pretty unsightly older man with a scruff McGruff grey/white beard and only 2 top teeth got in line behind us and walked right up to the cart as if he was going to start pushing it. He got right in her face and said, "BOO". She immediately started shrieking and crying. She was trying to jump into my arms as fast as she could, but couldn't get out of the seat. She was terrified. It all happened so suddenly I didn't know what to do. I quickly saved her from her close proximity to this "freak" but I couldn't calm her down at all. She was hysterical even when I had the cart between us and the man.

Will said he could hear her from the middle of the store. When he appeared she did lower the volume of her screams by one notch, but he had to take her out to the car while I finished up inside.

What a jerk this guy was. You know the type - the kind of creepy guy that invades your personal space and doesn't even realize he's doing it. I did kind of think he felt bad about scaring her, but he certainly didn't say he was sorry! Hrmph.......

How could anyone mean to scare this little peanut?

There's nothing better.....

than eating watermelon with Dad wearing an authentic Africa dress. Aunt Claire brought this dress back to the states for Sophia and it's finally a perfect fit! I love it.

My new favorite photos of Sophia

We've been taking tons of pictures lately because we returned our new 3-week old camera and got a different new camera. We love the new camera. Take a look at some of the great new shots of Sophia. These are my favorites, but I want to point out that even though these pictures were all taken within an hour of each other - she has three completely different looks in all of them!

What a fun 4th of July

Our day was packed full of endless fun for Sophia. My only goal for the day was take Sophie to see fireworks. We began the day with a walk to the playground so Sophia could ride on the swings and go down the slide. She's finally at the point where she enjoys going down the slide.

Why is it that little kids think they should turn around after sliding down the slide and crawl/climb back up the same way they came down? She simply does not want to go back up the stairs. She really had a blast running around with Dad.

We headed off to an early afternoon picnic and Sophia played with her 11-month old friend, Clara (who has a "bigger" face than Sophia)! There were 2 sets of boy/girl twins there, but they were too young to play. One set was only 3 weeks old and the other was 3 months. Sophia had a huge appetite and scarfed down three different plates of food and topped it off with 1/2 a Klondike ice cream sandwich.

Sophia and Daddy were enjoying the "hot-tub swimming pool" and Sophie got a little excited and jumped in to catch the electronic shark swimming by her. Her little dress got soaked, but I actually think it kept her cool for most of the day. :-)

When we got home she was only able to wind down and sleep for about an hour before she was up and ready to go again. We ate dinner and then headed off to Mt. Trashmore to watch the fireworks display at 9:30 PM --- waaaaaaaay past Sophia's bedtime. The show was awesome and from the top of the hill we could see 5 other fireworks displays being set off at different places around the city all leading up to ours. Sophia loved the "twinkles" in the sky. I really don't think she understood the difference between the stars and the fireworks, but she wasn't scared at all. She ran around eating toasted coconut marshmallows and drinking milk for a while and then she planted it in Dad's lap to watch the show.

Don't you just love the pictures from that day? Click here to see all of them.

Sophia at the playground