A new kid in town

Um, can someone please tell me who is this new little toddler is that seems to have overtaken my little baby's body and mind?

Sophia has a mind of her own and over the course of the last few weeks has decided that sitting in her highchair just isn't as cool as it once was. I think she assumes she's a big girl now and needs to sit in a seat at the table instead of at the outskirts. We have a booster seat, but I really think that's more for a 3 year old than for a 15 month old. The booster seat securely attaches to the chair, but doesn't strap in the child.

Yesterday I found the solution...a toddler lock chair that secures itself directly to the table. Check out the pictures below. Sophia loves it!!!!! Lunch was the first meal we used it for yesterday and she dangled her feet and banged on the table in delight. This morning she ate strawberries in her new chair to show off for Dad.

Driving with Dad

Will, AKA, Mr. Spears driving with his little Sophia.



Yep - they stayed in the driveway.

Living it up at 15 months...

Which one is having more fun?




Does she look like a huge kid here or am I imagining it?



My blurry little ballerina angel princess.

Birthday parties....

Sophia has been invited to 2 birthday parties recently and I wanted to share the pictures of her and her friends so you can see how tall she is for her age. She'll be 15 months old tomorrow (August 14).

You may have seen Clara in our 4th of July pictures. She turned 1 at the beginning of August so she's about 2.5 months younger than Sophia and you can see how Sophia towers over her. Sophia really had fun at her birthday party. She loved the castle pinata game they played outside. One of the streamers was a "magical" one that opened up the bottom and released bubbles and fun bouncy balls. Sophie was really excited to play with Clara's new baby doll and we couldn't get her out of the blow-up moon bounce toy that her Grandpa got her as a gift.



The other birthday party Sophia was invited to was yesterday at Chuck E Cheese. Our neighbor, Liana, just turned 3 years old. You can see that Sophia is almost as tall as Lianna. Sophie was terribly afraid of the live, costumed Chuck E Cheese that mingled with all the little kids in the game room and restaurant, but she didn't mind the "band" which appeared to be mechanical costumed animals. She really kept her distance from them....take a look below. The party was a "Dora" party and Liana's mom made her cake. It looked awesome, but tasted even better.

Strange cravings

I'm warning you, all I want for dinner is grape tomatoes and a cup of milk! And that's it!

Sophie and her babies

Sophia fell out of love with her baby dolls for the last two months, but her adoration has returned after our visit to Grandma's house where Sophia acquired a baby doll pack-n-play, matching swing and bouncy seat. She's loves to sit in the pack-n-play with Bitty. Other times she puts all of her babies into the pack-n-play as if it was a crib. She still loves to take her babies for a walk in the stroller, but now putting her babies down for a nap is a new top favorite game to play.

Recovering after vacation

Sophia and I arrived home on Saturday evening and we're still not caught up to "normal life" within the Alexander household. I've been doing laundry and cleaning and Sophia's been napping and sleeping in to catch up on all the zzzzssss she missed at Grandma and Pappy's house.

And I think she's getting a tooth.....

We had a great time in Pennsylvania. Sophie and I went to the National Aviary in Pittsburgh with Nana (which is how Sophia says Grandma) and Aunt Carole. It was a really fun day. A pigeon got pretty friendly with Sophia, but we thought it just wanted to steal some of her pretzels. My camera didn't quite capture glowing pinkish orange color of the flamingos. A real letdown.

We started our trip by stopping overnight at Big Daddy's house and Sophie played with Jinx and Charlie outside before she decided she wanted to go for a spin in Grancy's car.
Sadie must have thought that looked like fun because the next day when we were leaving she picked the drivers seat! Look out Grancy, careful where you put your keys when these two are around!

Sophie enjoyed cooling off in the plastic pool in Grandma's yard almost every day.




There's so much more to discuss, but I wanted to post these few pictures so you could get a taste of our vacation.

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