Weekend

We had friends visiting from Northern Virginia, Alexandria to be exact, this weekend. Sophia had a terrific time with Ben and Katie. Their little boy, Gavin, is only 8 months old so he was a little young to play with Lilly, but she really enjoyed getting some extra attention from Katie.

We hit the beach on Saturday for a few hours and couldn't have asked for a better day. The weather was beautiful, their was a nice breeze blowing and the water was perfect. The beach was packed with activities including 2 tents with live music, a BMX competition and a surfing competition. The guys enjoyed some body boarding while Courtney and I played it on the safe side. Court got clobbered by a big wave while she was laughing at Ben for getting knocked over by one. It was hysterical. Talk about karma.

That night Sophia and "the kids" as she was calling them tried to have a sleep-over on our air mattress which was in Lilly's room. It didn't work out because Sophia didn't quite understand the concept of going to bed when there were fun kids to play with her. At my suggestion she ended up moving into her own room and was sleeping within minutes.

We had a great time with Courtney and Joe and hope to make it an annual family get together. We even tossed out the idea of going to Great Wolf Lodge with them this winter. We're keeping our fingers crossed for this because we had such a great time when we went there a few months ago.

Allergies

Will was getting ready to take Sophia to the playground yesterday when I asked if they wanted to take Lillian with them. Sophia commented that she didn't want Lilly to go because she was allergic to her. Ha ha ha

Critter

Yesterday morning I took Sophia to the Rec Center for a stuffed animal story hour called "Let's Go to the Beach". She got to bring Kitty and Lamby with her to listen to the story. Then the kids got to make a craft (Critter dressed up as a snorkler) and have a snack.

Lilly was too young to even sign up for the story hour, but she came with us anyway. She toddled around with a little girl that she made friends with.

The craft was pretty difficult for the 3-5 year olds present. First they had to color all the "clothes and accessories" which Sophia tired of after a few minutes. Then each thing had to be cut out with super dull school scissors and pasted onto Critter. Sophia helped with the pasting, but for the most part I was on my own while Sophia ate her snack!

After the Rec Center we went to the library and spent some time looking for books and playing with their toys. We found two books about Critter and 7 other books about cats and dogs. (I think we've checked out every single book they have about cats and dogs.) Sophia sure loves her animals.

It's Christmas all year round

Sophia loves her Mrs. Santa outfit and thinks of it as a costume. She wears it 3 or 4 times per week!

As we were cleaning out Sophia's closet to get ready for some new school clothes (because she's outgrown everything from last year including her shoes) we found the matching hat for the Santa dress.

Sophia thought she struck gold. She immediately put it on and actually asked me to take her picture! She even posed for me. Incredible.

**Note** Notice she's holding Lamby and Kitty. Now they both have to come with us wherever we go.

some cute pictures

She can spell ! ! ! ! ! !

Well, at least she can spell the word CAT. She knows it spells cat too. Yesterday she amazed me by sticking letter stickers on this bowl to spell the word cat. When she showed me I just about fell over. Then she added another letter to the end of it and it happened to be an S. AMAZING!!

This morning she spelled CAT with her blocks. She's also grouping letters together and trying to sound out the words. She doesn't use a lot of vowels so the words are completely impossible to really say, but I try my hardest to help her.

We made a cat mirror craft this morning before Dad and Lilly got up. Sophia is absolutely obsessed with cats and ever since Great Aunt Carole gave her "kitty" she's been extra obsessed.

I just can't resist sharing

Her baby doll

For a few days now Lilly has been carrying around a naked baby doll and a baby bottle. Boy does she love her doll. I'm not quite sure how she caught onto the idea of carrying around a doll other than she's mimicking me with her. Or maybe perhaps it's just instinctual. I've seen Lilly sharing the bottle with her doll, but for the most part Lilly sucks on the tip of the bottle herself.

She's got a particular baby doll that she's taken too and it's not her Bitty Baby, but I'm kind of glad about that because Sophia played with her Bitty doll all the time when she was younger and now Bitty's face is has black marks all over it. Lilly's doll is still in mint condition even though she's naked. For some reason Sophia undresses every baby doll that we have so I've stopped putting the clothes on them.

I love my whole family

There's a lot of love going around in this family. This morning Sophia told us that she loves her whole family. So do I.

Lilly loves to cuddle. She gives great kisses (even though they are open-mouthed (smile)) and she's still an awesome hugger.

Her own URL

www.LillianConstanceAlexander.com now works and goes straight to the Alexander blog. Speaking of Lillian. Check out this adorable video of her new dance moves. She's also singing, but I'm not sure if it's audible in the video.

Yucky Princess Sophia

This is no way for a princess to act, but yesterday when I asked Sophia to smile for a photo she stuck her finger in her nose and posed. After we both laughed about it I asked her again to smile for me. She grabbed her brush and put it over her face and smiled away for me.

Princess Sophia

Sophia's been wearing costumes all summer and she just raided a box under her bed and found two new favorites. She also found all of my old crowns and acts like royalty when she wears them. Take a look at the game that we've been playing for days now.

Even mom can make a mistake

I erased some really cute pictures and a great movie of Sophia and Lillian opening presents from Aunt Carole. She sent each of us a Boyd Bear: mine was holding a heart that read Moms are Angels, Sophia's was holding a frilly purple "Princess" pillow, and Lillian's bear was wearing a tutu because our little Lilly loves to dance. Sophia was thrilled that all three bears could be pals, as she put it.

Aunt Carole also sent a black and white cat which Sophia hasn't put down since his arrival. At first she named him Cookie, but now she's changed his name to Baby Jaguar (from Diego). She's been pretending to be Diego and rescue Baby Jaguar in different scenarios. She'll wrap her jump rope around the cat a few times and each time she gets so lucky it doesn't fall off the cat. Other times she just refers to the cat as Kitty. She sleeps with Kitty. She holds him sometimes with Lamby and sometimes chooses Kitty over Lamby. Kitty has also accompanied us on a few car trips already.

I'll preface this next part with this: Sophia always calls people by the wrong name. She gets so excited that she calls me Daddy and vice versa all the time. After Grancy left she called Ms. Sue, her swimming teacher, Grancy.

This was on the video that I erased: Sophia had opened all the boxes and she looked up at the camera and said: THANKS, AUNT CLAROLE. (This is a combination of Aunt Carole who has the perfect knack for giving Sophia stuffed animals that become her favorites and Aunt Claire who had just visited a few days earlier!) It still cracks me up when I think about it.

Sprinkler Garden...again

It's a good thing we have a membership to the Botanical Garden because Sophia really enjoys going there to cool off and run around in the sprinklers. She overheard me on the phone talking to a neighbor about going to the sprinkler garden and then begged me to take her. Since we didn't have anything planned I decided to pack up and take the girls. I should mention that it was going to be 100 degrees.

It was so sweet when I asked Sophia to hold Lillian's hand while they were walking to the spitting frogs. Sophia was going a bit too fast for Lillian and she took a nose dive. After I picked her up and dusted her off Sophia took her hand again and this time went at a much slower pace. It was a beautiful sight.

There were actually times when Sophia and Lillian were the only two kids in the whole sprinkler garden. I think most people stayed away because of the heat, but it was so refreshing I couldn't figure out why more people didn't take advantage of it. We all had fun and at the end of our two hours we ran into some friends...and so we stayed for almost an hour. The girls were both exhausted when we left and so was I. I treated Sophia to a Dairy Queen cone and then she fell asleep for a about ten minutes in the car before we got home.

I too a lot of uninspired photos.

Hegg Bake

This is a funny story.

We were invited to a brunch today. I signed up to bring an egg and sausage casserole which I was calling an egg bake when Sophia was helping me make it this morning. She helped me stir the egg/cheese/milk/oregano mixture. She repeatedly told me she didn't like hegg bake - even though I was calling it egg bake. (You say tomato, I say tomato. You say hegg bake, I say egg bake.)

We went along with our morning, got ready to go and hopped into the car. About half way to the Shepard's house Sophia shouted out from the back seat: "!!Mommy!! Did we bring the hegg bake?"

All week

We stayed home all week and played in the house all day long. It's been fun, but exhausting. The girls really crack me up - Sophia with her wild imagination and Lilly with her obsessive compulsive behavior.

Let me explain. Lilly is constantly taking things and putting them in random places. Just in the last week she's put a book in the kitchen garbage can and her shoe in the garage garbage can. She put a small Dora doll in the container of dish washing tabs under the sink, a kitchen cup in the laundry hamper, and a pair of Sophia's underwear in the toilet. A few months ago she put tons of toilet paper in the toilet causing it to get clogged. I actually blamed Sophia for a long time until I figured out that Lilly was the culprit. I wonder how many times this will happen? I definitely don't want to wrongly accuse either of them!

Some things Sophia did this week:

• Sophia just sang the ABCs out loud and at the very end of the song she sang, "Won't You Sing with Me, darn it.


• When we got home from the grocery store yesterday Sophia ran upstairs as soon as she got into the house. She didn't even look back. It was the first time that she's gone off by herself to play! And she's doing it today too. The FROG is her play retreat room. Mission Accomplished...Now if we could only move Lilly's toys into the FROG.
  
  Sophia made all the dolls and stuffed animals in the room take a nap. She gave each one a blanket and a pillow. How cute.


• Sophia's been climbing into Lilly's crib in the mornings when she hears Lilly babbling. I give them their private time together as I mentally prepare for the day. They both jump up and down for a while. I hear Sophia singing a lullaby and can tell by Lilly's intermitent cries that Sophia is trying to push her down so she'll take a nap and play along with the lullaby. I usually go in to intervene when Lilly's cries get louder and louder. It's really cute to see Sophia being nice to Lilly even if it is only for 2 minutes.


• Sophia's been getting out of bed in the mornings and coming into our room to my side of the bed. She loudly whispers, "Mommy, can I get up?" and Will always says NO. That doesn't fly at all so I get up with her and if I'm lucky she'll let me sleep on the couch with her while she watches a "program".

5 years today

Happy Anni-vizza-versary-shizzo, honey!

We couldn't get a sitter for tonight, but Will's going to come home from work early so all four of us can do something fun.

We have an electric piano now!

Wow. What a hit. Grancy gave us her electric piano so Sophia could play it. I am going to teach Sophia how to play because I played for many years and it would be a terrible shame if I didn't pass on my musical expertise (HA HA HA..HA)

Sophia absolutely loves to play it and sing. I love hearing her. She really becomes agitated when Will interrupts her while she's playing too.

I completely rearranged the furniture in the house to make the piano fit properly. I like the updated configuration, but we need to hang some things on the walls in the new lounge...or at least that's what I'm calling it for the time being.

I moved most of the fancy furniture into the tv room and I moved the leather couches, the piano and my little desk into the formal living room thus turning it into a lounge. Will didn't seem to mind or at least he didn't say anything negative about it.

Here's a video I took of her on the first day.

Aunt Claire came to visit too

Aunt Claire came for a few days last week and we had a great time. I got some really good photos of Lilly while we were staging a photo shoot.

The outfit: A Bob Marley onesie that Aunt Claire gave to Lilly (back when she was Aubrey)
The background/scene: Shirley's college tapestry. Yes, I'm keeping this to pass on to one of my daughters some day. (ha ha ha)
The photographers: Claire and Shirley
The subject: Lilly Marley

We got some really good close ups of Lilly's various smiles.

Grancy's visit

I think we all agree that Grancy's visit was a huge success. I loved having the free time to run errands and putz around the house. Sophia was beside herself getting undivided attention from Grancy and Lilly had a blast showing off for Grancy too.

Although I know there were more laughable moments, but here's a few that were memorable:

GRANCY: Can I play with your hair?
SOPHIA: No. Because it's not talking.

Lilly talked an awful lot (just for Grancy's ears, I think). Grancy swears she was singing Row Row Row Your Boat. I wish I could get Lilly to do things like that! (smile)

Grancy brought Sophia a Princess Magnet Board. The magnetic board is decorated to look like a royal princess ball. Princesses and princes magnets are placed on the board and then you can dress them up in pretty dresses, etc. Sophia loves to play dress up and wears fancy dresses on a daily basis. She happened to have one on while she was playing with Grancy and the Magnet Board and:
GRANCY: Oh look, you have a fancy dress on, you can go to the ball with these princesses.
SOPHIA: No I can't, Grancy. I'm not a magnet!

We went to Red Robin for dinner on Thursday night. Sophia was incredibly well behaved while Lilly was a bit anxious to get out of her chair. Each time we go to Red Robin Sophia picks out a balloon to bring home. This time she chose a blue balloon and was still playing with it today even though it's now a shriveled up rubbery little ball that actually bounces. While we were eating, Red - as in Red Robin himself - was walking around the restaurant waving to all the kids. Sophia gave him a high five AND a hug.

Yesterday at swimming class Sophia called her teacher Grancy instead of Ms. Sue who looked at me as if to ask "what?"...I just smiled.

The pictures are here

Here are the pictures from Sophia's princess camp dance recital. After the show Grancy took us to McDonald's for lunch. Sophia played in the play area with Grancy and thus began the Grancy obsession/attachment for the next three days. In fact when Grancy was leaving Sophia immediately started to throw a temper tantrum which lasted only until the tears began to flow. Sophia had an amazing time with Grancy and I think Lilly did too, but more on Grancy's visit to come.... Click here for the recital pictures.

Oh my gosh, oh my gosh oh my gosh....

It was adorable. I'm so glad Grancy (and Will) got to see Sophia's princess camp recital. It was simply precious. The three year old girls - of which Sophia was the tallest one - first performed a tap dance then a ballet number and finally a tumbling session. WOW! You'll have to see for yourself. I took a few videos and a bunch of photos. You may recognize Sophia's friends in a few: Haley, Addie, & Cameron.

Here's a video of the girls walking for the first time as tap dancers. You can see Sophia's face light up when she spotted Grancy and Daddy, but mostly Grancy I think because this morning when we were looking at the videos she asked me where Grancy was in the video. So cute. If you want to see more videos click on the links underneath this one. I know I'm biased, but they are all worth watching. The photos will be posted soon.



Tap Dancers

Ballerinas

Walking in as tumblers.

Sophia doing the tumbling routine

Sophia looks like Shirley

That's what 60% of you think. That's not a very big majority (but if you subtract out my vote and Will's vote too (both for Will) then 80% of you think Sophia looks like me). I'll take it.

Just for the record, Will and I both think the girls look like him!