Lilly's new words

Lilly has two new words/phrases.

BA = bone. Lilly constantly feed Sadie. She knows where bones are kept and several times per day she'll grab a bone, start yelling BA and run off to find Sadie.

GOO GIR = good girl. Lilly sleeps with her lamby and a paci. Neither one is allowed to leave the crib in the mornings, but I let her have them while I change her diaper. When I'm done we walk over to her crib and she drops her paci and then says a quick good-bye to lamby and drops him too. I always say Good Girl to her and now she's repeating me.

Other things that Lilly can do:
- Go down a slide by herself. She also likes to follow Sophia's lead and tries to climb up the slide the wrong way.
- Chew gum. Whenever she finds it in my purse she unwraps it and then shoves in the whole piece. I always take it from her and she knows that I'm not happy about her chewing gum because she takes off running away from me.
- Put her shoes on. Well, ok, maybe she can't actually put her shoes on by herself yet, but she gets an A+ for effort. She sits down, holds the shoe to her foot and literally looks like she's going to get it on her foot. She doesn't discriminate though, she loves all shoes...mine, Will's and of course, Sophia's.

Bragging rights.

So I'll just say it. I think Sophia is super intelligent. She's a sponge for information and learning how to do things.

At school the teacher works with each kid individually every day. So far Sophia has known everything that the teacher has asked her to do. She comes home with Supers and Wow and Excellent written on her pages.

First she had to identify shapes and colors. That's a piece of cake for her so the teacher moved on to bigger and better things. Each day the Mrs. Harden has her draw a line to the matching letters. She does this with ease. Now, she's tracing letters. She did the "S" for Sophia on Monday and yesterday she came home with her page of "A"s and "B"s. WOW! I think this must be impressive for her age, but I'm not sure. Maybe Grancy can weigh in on this amazing kid of mine!

Bathtub babes

The girls love to take a bath together. Sophia enjoys the company and Lilly wants to copy everything Sophia does. It's cute. Together they make quite a pair. Lilly thinks it's hysterical to stand up even though she gets in trouble. Sophia loves to take everything Lilly is playing with and call it her own.

Mommy, how did Lilly get in your belly?

Um......think think, Mom. Come up with something quick!

Well, Sophia, the stork bird put Lilly in my belly through my belly button when I was sleeping one night. She also put you into my belly. Nobody ever sees the stork. She's just like Santa Claus. (pathetic answer, I know)

Sophia then asked if the stork bird hurt Lilly with it's beak or did it just pick her up by her hair and put her in that way.

Yes, Sophia, that's exactly what happened!

Please, can I have some more?

My Pirate Piggie

The games we play

Sophia is obsessed with playing the following games and nobody knows how to play them except her. She tells us what to say and what to do.

Pirate Piggies: Mostly she pretends she's sleeping and we have to find clever ways of waking her up, but she never actually gets up! ARrrrr. I just got her a pirate costume today at one of my favorite consignment store. They were having a huge Halloween costume extravaganza. I also got her a few new princess dress-up costumes.

Diego: He's Dora's cousin. She's moved on from constantly needing to be called Dora to constantly needing to be Diego. The cat that Aunt Carole got her is Baby Jaguar (Diego's pet). In this game we have to rescue Baby Jaguar. This involves me pulling on Sophia's waist and her pulling on the cat. Sometimes we free the cat and other times we don't. We play this over and over and over and over to the point of exhaustion.

Adorable Photos..

I thought about not sharing these pictures until I had a chance to mail out copies, but they are just so darn cute I can't keep them to myself and I have no idea how long it's going to take me to accomplish the goal. Click here to view all of them. Enjoy.

Fundraisers!!

Okay, so Sophia has a fundraiser for school and another for dance class, if you can believe that! I've decided not to participate in the dance class one for more reasons than one. First of all the fundraiser proceeds will go toward a new dance floor for a completely different dance studio. And secondly they are selling Party Lite candles which go for $20 a pop. I've already coughed up enough money for dance class and don't feel the need to participate in supporting another dance studio. Enough said.

I am going to participate in the fundraiser for her preschool because 50% of the proceeds go directly to the school and I would like to extend the invitation to out-of-town family and friends. You can help earn prize credits and support the school by shopping the Innisbrook Online Store by clicking here. If you're part of our closest inner circle you will be receiving an email from Sophia about the fundraiser and how you can help. Act quickly because the sale ends on October 8th. Thanks in advance for your generous purchase.

Just FYI: Innisbrook Wraps has beautifully designed gift wrap printed on quality recycled paper, coordinating gift wrap accessories, gourmet foods and fine Helen Grace Chocolates that make great gifts, Time Inc. magazine subscriptions, and more.

Hide and Seek

Sophia and I were playing hide and seek before school today. Mostly I hide and she tries to find me. She hides in the kitchen pantry every single time and then gets mad at me if I come find her too quickly. She threw me a curve ball today when she hid inside the toy box.

Lilly playing with sidewalk chalk

I took these pictures

First Dance Class

Sophia's dance class started today at Art of Dance Academy. She and Haley are the only two kids in the class. How special for the two of them! They truly are best friends and thoroughly enjoy each other's company and silly jokes.

There is a one way window that I could peek through and I saw the girls playing a version of "Simon Says" with Ms. Monique while she taught them some ballet moves. They were giggling and jumping around a bit, but Ms. Monique does not tolerate any horseplay so she kept trying to get them to focus. And they did. WOW! I need Ms. Monique at our house. She doesn't call it discipline she calls it structure.

Both Haley and Sophia went to Ms. Monique's Princess Camp earlier this summer and remember there that the class was much longer and that there was a snack time. On the way home Sophia kept asking me why it was so short and why there are only 2 kids in the class and why they didn't have a snack.

Ms. Monique requires all the dancers to wear buns in their hair and it must be tied back with bobby pins and a hair net. Talk about strict (and unreasonable if you ask me). I'll have to practice that one before the next class. It's literally a battle every day just to brush Sophia's hair. I have no idea how I'm going to put it into a bun!

All the work they are doing in class will culminate into a Nutcracker performance on December 19th. I can't wait. They were measured for their costumes today before class started. (A side note: Sophia grew so much this summer that the ballet shoes she wore in July for Princess Camp are too small!)

I was a little bit nervous that Sophia wouldn't get a lot out of the class at this age, but after seeing her today I feel confident that she's going to love it and learn alot. If nothing else she'll learn proper posture.

First Day of School

Sophia started school today. She was so excited to go and play with the Potato Heads. When we went to the open house last week she was obsessed with them.

This year she's going in the afternoons (12:15 - 3:00). There are three other kids in her class and hopefully it means she'll get extra special attention. Her friend, Addie, is one of the kids. There is also a boy named Christopher and another girl named Adrianna. We met Adrianna at the open house and, guess what, I think she's taller than Sophia! I can't wait to see them side by side.

Mrs. Harden is Sophia's teacher this year. She was very welcoming this afternoon when I dropped Sophia off. Sophia made her a book this morning before we left. Mrs. Harden really liked it.

I got Sophia a new backpack with her name painted on it and she was very excited to put it on and get in the car and go to school. In fact, she was ready this morning and thought it was a bit odd that she wouldn't be eating lunch at school.

We arrived a bit early because I wasn't sure how much traffic we would hit in the middle of the day. We didn't hit any and it only took us 8 minutes to get there. A blessing for sure!

There is a small bench (toddler size) at the entrance to the school. Sophia sat down and I placed Lilly beside her. Don't they look adorable? There are a few more pictures to look at here.
Sophia came home with an apple picture that she colored and an Shrinky Dink apple necklace.

Happy Labor Day

My brother and his girlfriend, Ali, came to visit over the long Labor Day weekend. We hit the beach Saturday and Sunday, but Saturday was the nicer of the two days. We took the girls with us on Saturday when we went to Sandbridge Beach. Sophia and Lilly had a blast at the beach. Sophia was busy making sandcastles with a few buddies she met that day and splashing in the waves with Will. Lilly was eating every thing in sight including the sand. A great time was had by all and we all got some nice color from the sun too.

On Sunday morning Will and Daniel hit the tennis courts while Ali and I took the girls to the playground.

Take a look at all the pictures.

She's finally signing

Yesterday Lillian performed three signs for me. I've been trying to get her to do a few for the last few months and I think my persistence is finally paying off. I'm so proud of her. She did the signs for EAT, MORE and FLOWER. She can also do the sign for DUCK.

Cucumbers

Both of my kids love cucumbers. I peeled and sliced some up for them tonight for dinner. Lilly loves to dip hers in ranch dressing. She loves to dip dip dip.

When I presented the cucumbers at the table Sophia started to cry and told me she wanted the crust on hers! Ha ha ha

Princess Sophia and Princess Haley

I pooped my pants

I totally forgot about this story until Sophia reminded me earlier today. On Saturday when we were at the beach Sophia told me that she pooped her pants. I was dumbfounded. Since she's been potty trained she's never had an accident let alone a poop accident! When she told me about her poop we were in the process of moving to a new spot on the beach and all of our hands were full of beach gear. As Sophia ran ahead of everyone we could see the big lump in her swimming suit and I plotted how I was going to take care of this fiasco. When we finally arrived at our new spot I immediately pulled out Lilly's wipes and planned to put the poo into one of Lilly's extra diapers so I could toss it out. Sophia was smiling and grinning from ear to ear as I braced myself to peek in her swimming suit. Guess what? It was a huge pile of sand! It wasn't a poop! She totally tricked me (and everyone else). Later in the day I caught her shoveling more sand into her suit. Crazy girl.

Growing like a weed

Sophia is growing like a weed. I had her weighed at the doctor's office on Monday and she was 43 pounds! Yep, 43 pounds! That puts her into a size 6 clothes. To be honest I'm not sure if she needs a size 6 or a 6X yet.

I didn't have the nurse measure her height, but according to my chart she's over 42 inches. My little baby is almost as tall as me! Well, not really, but I think she'll pass me up pretty soon.

Little Miss Toothy

Lillian just got 2 more teeth for a total of 13 and you'd never even know it. She handles each one like a pro. I took her for her 15 month checkup on Monday. She's completely healthy, but we already knew that!

Here are her stats: (She's the ideal model child according to her height and weight. She's smack dab in the 50th percentile in both.)

Length: 30.5 inches (50%)

Weight: 22 pounds 11 ounces (50%)

Side note: She's really slimmed down from her 1 year appointment. In May she weighed 22 pounds 3 ounces and was an inch shorter. All that walking must be paying off. It does make me a bit sad that her chubby little legs are getting slimmer and slimmer.

A couple of smiles