Nana, Poppy & Aunt Carole visit Va Beach

Nana, Poppy and Aunt Carole came for a visit. They arrived on a Thursday and stayed through Sunday afternoon. It was a great visit. Sophia skipped school on Friday, the girls celebrated their birthdays on Saturday, and Lilly got baptized on Sunday.

The "juice bags" arrived in time to go to Sophia's swim lesson on Thursday evening. Sophia behaved as expected and wouldn't get her face and head wet at the same time, but pretended to. I think she was really proud to show off for Nanna, Poppy and Aunt Carole.

Nana and Poppy got Sophia a motorized motorcycle for her birthday. She gets a kick out of riding it on the road around our block. In our neighborhood the road tends to be more smooth than the sidewalk. She knows what to do when a car comes down the road and steers the motorcycle into the sidewalk to the point of almost wrecking.

On Friday we went to the Botanical Garden and spent some time in the sprinklers.

On Saturday we had the big birthday party. It was so much fun. Grancy arrived from Northern Va before the party began, nobody cancelled at the last minute, and we even had time for some outside fun. What a perfect beginning to a fairy princess party. First on the agenda was a door hanger craft followed by "costume distribution". Sophia got to select her princess costume from the 15 dresses available. She picked Snow White and them she got to distribute the costumes among the guests. It was fun to watch each girl get dressed up like a princess. After that Sophia crowned each princess with her own crown. Immediately following there was a glamour session where each girl got to have eye shadow and lip gloss applied. Then they had a mini etiquette lesson and tea/lunch. Then cake and a few games outside.

At the end of the day we decided to head to the beach. Will and Lilly stayed home. Only 5 minutes into our beach outing was Sophia soaking wet from the waist down. I ended up removing her shorts all together and letting her play in her underwear.

The next day was an early morning because Lilly was baptized at 8:30 AM. Aunt Carole was her sponsor and mine too when I was baptized. Sophia was baptized without any god parents, but Uncle Dan has previously claimed the spot so we're good.

Back to normal on Monday. It's funny how a normal weekend takes forever to pass, but when you have guests it goes by so quickly.

Sophia opening her birthday presents

Neglecting the blog

I haven't meant to neglect the blog for such a long time, but I have so much to write about it's kind of daunting to get started.

As a sneak peek of what's to come, I'll share this link. Birthday Party. Last weekend we had a joint birthday "gala" for the girls. The date fell smack in the middle of their birthdays and since they're both into Princess stuff that's just the type of party they had. It was, in fact, a Princess Tea Party. The link is a slide show of the photos taken by the Princess Party Hostess.

The party was an incredible success and I really have to thank my mom, dad, aunt and mom-in-law for all their help with the cake, food, set up and clean up. Between all that help and having a birthday party Hostess run the show, I really got to enjoy myself (and hold Lilly!). . . and she was not into it at all. There was a point when Sophia wasn't into it either, but she eventually snapped out of it. I've heard great feedback about the party from almost all of the moms.

I still have to publish all of my photos and write about the party and the long weekend that my parents had here. Hopefully I can get that done before I go to Hilton Head with the girls tomorrow for a week. Will and Sadie are staying home. (insert sad face here)

Happy Birthday, Lilly

Today is Lilly's birthday. She's now officially 2. For the last two weeks Sophia has enjoyed telling everyone that she was 4 and that Lilly was only 1.

Now they are 4 and 2. Quite a pair they are. Lilly simply adores Sophia and immediately repeats, follows, or mimics everything she does.

Here are some cool things about Lilly:

* She's learning to "walk" down the stairs. She takes her time and holds onto the railing and goes step by step. She's a big girl now and doesn't want help.

* Her favorite foods are flavored pretzels, any type of dried fruit, hamburgers, watermelon and, still holding strong, pineapple. She's not into bananas, but she'll eat any other fruit. Doesn't like mashed potatoes.


* Favorite toys: The Toddle Coupe car, her new baby doll, shopping cart, and the bubble blower lawn mower (although you have to be pushing the stupid thing in the grass to get it to actually blow the bubbles).

* Favorite activities: reading books on her own, singing, dumping water from one cup to another.

* When I put her to bed at night she asks for PAPI (paci), LAMBY, BANKET (blanket), and BANKET. She's got two blankets. And she likes them put on in a certain order too.

The dentist

Sophia had her second dentist appointment this morning. She was excited to go. Well, at least I should say she was not reluctant to go, but when we sat down in the chair it was a completely different story.

She refused to open her mouth. She refused to even turn her head toward Crystal, the hygienist. Eventually she was in tears and they basically kicked us out and told us to try again soon.

I felt bad for Sophia because she was obviously frightened, but she wouldn't even try it just once to see what the paste tasted like. I wasn't frustrated with her, just her extreme shyness and strong will (seems a bit like an oxymoron). She just simply refused to participate.

On the way to the car I told her that Will would take her next time and she burst into tears. Poor kid, huh?

Ariel

Will and I bought Sophia an Ariel costume, a crown and shoes for her birthday. Oh yeah, we also got her an shimmery Ariel bathing suit which she insists on wearing every time she goes to the pool now.

She wanted to open her presents the moment she woke up on that Friday morning. I went downstairs to grab the presents and we woke up Will so he could see her open her gifts. She beamed when she realized what it was and she told me it was what she always wanted.

Doesn't she look cute? Here are a few more photos.

I added a search feature to the blog

Check it out. On the right side of the page you will see a search box. I dare you to try it. Everything I've tested has been spot on. Very cool!

Happy 4th Birthday, Sophia!

I woke up at 5AM this morning with a jolt. I fogot to wrap Sophia's birthday presents and I promised her she could open them when she wakes up. So, I've been up for a while and I have to say, it's been a great early morning without anyone else in the house awake. I made muffins, checked all my email, paid bills, unloaded the dishwasher and folded some laundry! Normally those 4 tasks alone take me ALL DAY.

I wrapped her presents and I bought donuts for her this morning. They are her absolute favorite breakfast food.

All week Sophia has been sad about growing older. She woke up crying on Tuesday night because she wants to stay 3 forever. I think she's afraid that she has to move out of the house when she's "older". She told me that if anybody comes to the door to marry her to tell them to GO AWAY! We keep telling her all the things that she'll be able to do now that she's 4: ride a bike, swing all by herself, learn to tie her shoes, swim, etc... All fun things, but she's not buying into the fact that 4 might be better than 3!

Believe me, I'd love to have her stay 3 forever and ever and ever and ever.

Balloon Birthday Party

We went to a birthday party for one of Lilly's friends yesterday. Summer, one of Lilly's friends turned 2. She and Lilly are about 3 weeks apart in age. We're actually friends with the entire family because they live on our street, but I can already tell that Summer and Lilly will be good friends regardless.

Sue, Summer's mom, hired "the balloon guy" for the party entertainment. All the kids got to choose what they wanted him to make. Sophia asked for a princess. He turned around and asked her which one. She picked Snow White - and he seriously produced a Snow White complete with a small apple (which broke by the time I took the picture).

Lilly got a lamby. It looks so realistic and she loves it. It's also a bracelet so she can wear it on her wrist. Look at him standing in a bed of grass.

So cute

I got some really cute pictures of the girls today while they were dressed up for church. Will was really working hard behind me to make the girls smile/laugh so I could capture a "candid" moment. Take a look.

Boo berries

BOO BERRIES: What Lilly calls black berries. She is addicted to them right now!

HOLD ME MAMA: (smile)

Spring program @ Beach Manor

Sophia's spring program for school was on Friday. Will "worked from home" that day so he was able to come with me and Lilly to see Little Miss Spunky performing all the songs as loud as she possibly could. You'll see what I'm talking about in these videos below.

The two kids to Sophia's right (Conor and Addie) are in her class. Adrianna was sick and actually had to cancel coming over for a play date after school. Addie still came and the girls had a fun time dressing up like princesses. Lilly followed them around. Addie is very small. She actually seems closer to Lilly's size and I got the impression that Addie was a bit more comfortable around Lilly.

Without further delay. Here are the videos.

B-U-N-N-Y


Have You Ever Seen a Bunny


Bunny Pokey


And this is what she looked like as she paraded down the hall back to her classroom. She was so proud and so were we.

She's progressing nicely in school.

Sophia is impressing us with new talents and skills each week. This week she brought home a school paper where she filled in the beginning and ending letters for some three letter words. She and I have been verbally working on it for a while, but now she can determine what each letter is and then translate it into writing. Mrs. Harden draws an item on the left side of the page and fills in the vowel and Sophia completes the rest of the word.

Dresses, dresses and more dresses

Sophia is obsessed with dresses lately. She seriously wears one every day. She looks adorable in dresses so I don't mind - even if she's wearing one of her fancier ones and she gets it dirty. They can be washed, but she's only a little kid once and deserves to have fun pretending to be whatever she wants to be. Actually, I have a feeling she prefers to wear dresses because they make it easier for her to use the bathroom.

This week she wore this to school and I thought she was so cute I just had to take her picture. She was acting like a ham so I got some really cute ones.

Ironically the day she wears a pure white dress to school, she gets a bloody nose. It dripped all the way down her dress. I'm 90% sure I've one more wash will get out the last of the stains.

Take a look at my big girl. She'll be 4 in six days. WOW.

First trip to the Botanical Garden this year.

We went to the WoW sprinkler garden at the Botanical Gardens on Tuesday with Haley and Carlie. Michelle and I took a class at the gym together early in the AM then we packed up the girls and headed to the Gardens. We brought a picnic lunch, but the girls never eat when they're excited and boy were they ever.

Lilly was a little hesitant at first, but once she got used to the water she was running through the sprinklers and squealing in delight. It was really cute. The big girls didn't really want to play in the water, they much preferred exploring the rest of the garden and getting muddy in the dirt. They were enjoying the little buildings placed strategically throughout. One building was a play house and the other was a "schoolhouse" building with a table, books and stools in it.

I have a feeling we'll be going there a lot this summer. I took a few pictures.

Cooling off in the water

After soccer and quiet time Sophia wanted to play outside on the roller coaster. And since she had her bathing suit on she also wanted to play on her princess slip and slide. We ran out to the garage to find it, but little did she knew that it was gone. I threw it out last year thinking it was a piece of junk and that she wasn't interested in it. A mistake on my part. Luckily we have a giant ball that rolls around and sprays water. She chose that instead.

I blew up the ball and Will hooked up the hose. At first she didn't want to get wet and only rode on the roller coaster, but soon Will created a sort of sprinkler system and forced her to pass through it at the bottom. She was opposed to getting wet at first, but by the time it was time to come into the house for dinner she was completely wet and using the hose to squirt herself directly in the face.

When Lilly woke up from her nap, I changed her into a bathing suit and sent her outside for some water fun. She really didn't like getting wet and chose to play on the deck or the roller coaster. This was her first time riding the coaster and we could tell she had a blast zooming down the hills on the car. In this picture she's running back to the top of the coaster to ride down again.

AGAY DA - Again Dad. (Lilly says this anytime Will does something fun like throw her up in the air, turn her upside down or toss a pillow in her face. She cracks up and begs for more. Today when she was upside down she kept looking at me saying I SEE YOU MAMA.)

Here's a video of Lilly.

Last soccer game

Today was Sophia's last soccer game and guess what? She scored a goal and she ran her butt off after the ball! She made contact a few times. We're so proud of her. Earlier this week when I told her that her last game was on Saturday she told me that she didn't want to stop playing soccer. I think we may have found something that she actually enjoys. By the way, she's also doing AMAZING in swimming lessons.

Tomorrow is the team soccer party where she will get her trophy. She won't be getting a team photo because she was sick the day of the picture and we didn't take her. I've taken a lot of photos of her during the games so she can at least see herself in action.

Haley also played today (a big accomplishment for her) and the two of them held hands for a lot of the game and they gave each other a lot of hugs.

It's funny because Lilly thinks she's part of them team too. At least she does when it comes to "hanging out" on the sidelines, snack time, and participating all the practices. She's right in there having her fair share of the fun. I can't wait until she can actually do all the things that Sophia can do. Lilly looks on like a sad puppy dog sometimes because she can't participate.

At the end of every game the parents all make a tunnel for the kids to run through. Sophia led the "parade" today. On the way home we told her how proud of her we were for her effort and I could tell her self confidence was soaring, but in all seriousness she was a pro out there today! Really really good... like her cousins.

Take a look at the pictures .