Norfolk Children's Festival

Saturday was the Children's Festival in Norfolk. The four of us met Haley's family (also 4) and Addie and her mom, but they were really late. The weather was fantastic and we didn't have any major meltdowns! Sophia even relaxed a bit around the large costumed characters. Up until now she's been terrified of them. The Cat, from Alice in Wonderland, broke the ice for her. I think it was because he was sitting down. We also saw Clifford the Dog and Curious George walking around the festival. See all the pictures.

Sophia got her face painted like a cat. Haley got a pumpkin on her cheek. They ate ice cream - chocolate and vanilla twists with sprinkles on top. We paid extra so we could ride the train. Sophia LOVED the doll house area. (I think she needs a doll house for Christmas this year). She enjoyed dipping bubble sticks into buckets of suds.

Even Aubrey enjoyed the day spent outside.

Movie from Hop Skip Jump

Hop Skip Jump

A new indoor play area opened up in Virginia Beach called Hop Skip Jump. I took the girls there on Friday with my friend Belinda and her daughter, Rajchel (prounounced: Rachel).

Sophia absolutely loved it. They have every single thing she likes to do. A small, ball-filled bounce house, a wooden puppet theater with tons of hand puppets, a kitchen set with table and chairs, costumes, puzzles, an awesome four sided dollhouse and about 20 dogs just to mention a few. And, get this, they share a parking lot with a Hershey's ice cream shop so, of course, Sophia and I shared an orange dreamsicle cone. Yum. Check out all of the pictures.

The dreaded phone call

Sophia's teacher, Ms. Lisa, called me and asked me to come early to pick Sophia up from school on Thursday. It was only 11AM and Sophia's normally there until 1. She took a book from a little boy and hit him in the face with it. On Tuesday she pushed a little girl off her chair and pushed another boy on the playground. This was an especially bad week for Sophia.

She hasn't pushed for months! It didn't even creep back up when Aubrey was born. But the second day of school brought my little bully out of hiding. Ms. Lisa and Ms. Dawn have been working with Sophia to "keep her hands to herself". Obviously it hasn't worked yet.

When you ask her why - she doesn't answer. She KNOWS she's not supposed to hit, shove or push, but she does it anyway. She says she's sorry and then acts sad about doing it.

My solution: to take away her TV/video privilege and to adjust her bedtime by 1 hour earlier. Thank goodness it's dark at 7:00 now!

Ms. Lisa is going to do a sticker reward chart at school with her.

(Helpful) comments welcome.....

How hard can it be?

I dressed both girls in "Halloween" attire this morning with the intention of taking a picture of them together. I never really did get ONE good one of both of them together. Here are some of my "favorites".

By the time I ended up taking the pictures Sophia had been picked up early from school (read about that ordeal later), and both girls had taken off their pants because I over dressed them this morning. The last one is the best but it's blurry!

Mondays

Here's our Monday routine:

We leave the house at 9:30 and head to the YMCA. We drop Aubrey off in the Childwatch infant room and then head to Sophia's exercise class from 10 - 10:45. When her class is over I drop her off in the Childwatch room and get in my own workout. Then we head across the street to Mt. Trashmore (if you've driven on 264E to come visit us, then you've seen it. It's the big hill on the side of the highway.) There are a few playgrounds at Mt. Trashmore and we usually go and kill a few hours there before heading home.


We were attacked by a few very hungry geese on Monday. They were after our picnic lunch! They were so bold and walked right up to us. I could have pet them if I wanted to. Sophia was terrified of them. She clung to me when they were around us.

Dog Days at the Library

On Saturday afternoon we all went to the Library for Dog Days. Sophia brought Digger with her, but we left Sadie at home this year. There were lots of dogs there and every single time Sophia sees a dog - no matter where we are! - she has to stop and pet the dog and find out his/her name.

Will, Sophia and Digger signed up for the parade and when it was their turn to walk the parade circle of orange cones, the announcer read out loud that Digger likes to do tricks. Sophia, on her own accord, started bouncing Digger high up the in the air on the string. It was hysterical. She wanted everyone to see that HER dog could do tricks. The crowd actually clapped and laughed out loud. It was a missed youtube movie opportunity.

Check out all the pictures.

My new trick

Twice today I've employed this new and wonderful trick.

I strap Aubrey into the car seat, place her on top of the dryer in the laundry room and simply turn on the dryer.

Presto! She's out in under a minute.

Dannit

Um....excuse me, Sophia, did you just say dannit?

I laughed my head off. She obviously meant damnit.

She repeated it over and over as if she was mad at something.

I asked her where she heard that word - since it's not one of my usual choices - and she will not reveal her source. hmmm......

My favorite fall outfit

Friday is my favorite day. The weather always seems awesome on Friday. The weekend is here...and Will will be around for two whole days. Both girls usually nap on Friday too. At the same time! Like now.

We took Sadie for a walk this morning and had a great time. Sophia ran ahead of me alot. She brought a plastic carrot to feed the rabbit on the swing. I think this could be my favorite fall outfit so far...(with a different pair of socks).

A Sophia video

Here's a video of Sophia dropping rocks into the waterfall at the Botanical Garden.

Storytime at WOW today

This morning we went to storytime at the Botanical Garden. Sophia couldn't sit through more than 1 book before she began fidgeting so Aubrey and I tried to entertain her through 3 more stories. The storyteller led an "adventure" through the garden after the books. Sophia loved this part!

Sophia was so into the adventure that she wanted to lead the pack and when that wasn't such a fabulous idea she grabbed the "teacher's" hand and kept trying to steal her attention. Will thinks it's because she likes adults better than kids. Who knows! I thought it was Type A personality.

Before we headed home we found this waterfall. What fun we had dropping/throwing rocks into the water. I didn't think we would ever leave....

This is my absolute favorite picture of the day. Sophia was up ahead of me running toward the water. I was begging her to turn around for a picture. Don't you just love this look? To me it screams HURRY UP, MOM! TAKE THE PICTURE ALREADY.

Take a listen to Aubrey squawking in her car seat in the movie below.

Aubrey @ 4 months

I've mentioned this before, but my guess is that she'll be a thumb sucker. Right now everything that she can get her hands on goes straight into her mouth - including her own clothes if they will stretch that far. Mostly she's got 3 or 4 fingers in her mouth at any given time. (We have a case of the Copy Cat Finger Sucker going on - Sophia's been walking around with all of her fingers stuffed into her mouth too! And she's always touching EVERYTHING which makes it absolutely disgusting!)

But back to Aubrey.

She has also found her feet and toes. When she's on her back her legs are straight up in the air and she's playing with her feet.


When she's on tummy time (or belly time as Sophia calls it) she's really pushing up high on her arms and proudly looks around the room. She's squirming so much these days we think she'll roll over from belly to back pretty soon.
She really enjoys the Bumbo seat now. Doesn't really like her doorway jumper yet because she's just a bit small just yet. She a HUGE fan of the exersaucer. When she's a little stronger she'll get a kick of out of the toys on top. For now she enjoys just sitting in it!

September is over

September's over and Sophia had quite a successful month at school. She was there a total of 6 times. She's getting better at eating her lunch each time. If I don't literally "catch her" after we drop off her backpack and lunch sack each day she'd be inside the classroom without so much as a glance back at me. The good-byes are definitely harder for me....until I get into the car and, finally, it's quiet!

Sophia brings home 2 art projects every day. That's a LOT of artwork to hang on the side of the frig! After I picked her up on the second day and looked at all of her artwork at home I thought: Hmmm, I wonder shy she only picks the yellow crayon/paint? Then I realized there was a pattern. September was all about yellow. I have a calendar that shows the theme of each day - school bus, lemon, sun, moon, yellow collage (a dead giveaway). So I think September will forever be Yellow month for me! Guess what October is...?

Mom, come see.

That's what Sophia says all day long. It can be any variation from "Come see, Mommy" to "MOMMAYYYYYYYYY, I need you!"

On Saturday morning she wanted me to "see" that she sat Lamby beside Mr. Scarecrow. How sweet, Sophia! Thank you for showing me for the 4th time! WOW!!!

Not as tall as I thought

We all went to Aubrey's 4-month well baby checkup this morning. Sophia and Dad left the room before Aubrey got her shots. She did extremely well with this round and barely even cried. I gave her some Tylenol before so I think that really helped.

Here are her stats:

Weight = 14 lbs 12.5 oz (80th percentile)
Length = 24.5 inches (70th percentile)
Head was in the 50th percentile

(confession: this was her 3-month old picture)

Uneventful weekend

We needed a weekend of nothing and we certainly had it. Will spent the day outside on Saturday cleaning up the yard and putting away Sophia's summer toys. I spent most of the day in Aubrey's bedroom trying to actually turn it into her nursery. I'm almost done putting all of her clothes away into my latest and "greatest" organization method.

Sophia got this giant mosquito bite (and 3 others) yesterday afternoon when she was at our neighbor's house with Dad watching the Redskins game. I'm hoping this one goes away quickly. She's just getting over the one she had on her forehead last week.

Sophia picked up her first runny nose cold from all the new exposure to germs at preschool. It's cute to hear her talk all stuffed up. I'm loading her with liquids, vitamin C and hand washings. Believe me, it hasn't slowed her down one iota.

She did allow me to snap a few photos of her with Aubrey this afternoon. So cute.

Smiley Aubrey / Serious Sophia

Pictures from our vacation

Here's the link. Photos

Seems like it was a while ago now and it's less than a week since we've been home.

Daniel and Andy

Thanks to Daniel and his buddy, Andy, for watching Sadie for a few days while we were at the beach!

Vacation in Corolla Beach

WOW! We had a fantastic time. As you can see we had a big group - including 5 kids (Aubrey and 1-yr old Morgan are missing from the big group picture above), 12 adults and 1 absolutely gorgeous almost 16-yr old!

Most days were spent like this:
Wake up at 7:30 AM
Breakfast around 8ish
Beach in the AM
Back to the house for lunch
Pool in the afternoon
Nap (Sophia)
Wine/beer (Will and Shirley)
Dinner (eat in or go out)
Bed time (Sophia)
Watch TV or play games while drinking my new favorite drink - Parrot Bay Rum(coconut flavor) and pineapple juice!! YUM

From Left to Right: Sophia(2), Aubrey(3.5 months), Riley(2 next week) Cole(4), Morgan(1). Riley and Cole are brother and sister. Morgan's mom, my cousin Lindsey, announced that she's pregnant again and due in April. That was fun news to get!

Sophia literally asked everyone in the house WHAT'S YOUR NAME all week long. She got a kick out of everyone repeating their own name over and over again. Just today Sophia named one of her princess dolls Aunt Shirley Curly after my Aunt Shirley.

I'm having a hard time uploading all 100+ photos, but as soon as I can get them uploaded I will share with all.

Aubrey - tummy time

Aubrey really enjoys tummy time these days! I can tell she's getting frustrated about not being able to move. She wants to get up and go. She enjoys "standing" and shows her gummy grin when she's up on her feet.

She loves to participate in whatever is going on with the "big people" - she'll sit on a lap and just stare at whomever is talking.

She's also still really into sucking on her fingers. She'll take a paci too, but will spit it out or pull it out trying to get her fingers into her mouth.

First Day of Preschool

Today was Sophia's first day of preschool and she absolutely loved it! We've been talking about going to school a lot lately so she was fully prepared this morning. She proudly put on her new backpack and carried her lunch box out to the car. In the car I told her what I had packed in her lunch (a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, a cheese stick, carrots, a small pack of cookies and juice) and reviewed what her day would entail.

When we arrived at school (in the pouring rain) she got a little shy for just a moment and asked me if she could have a sip of her juice. After that she walked right into her classroom and didn't look back. Her two teachers knew we were at the beach last weekend and I could hear them immediately ask her about her vacation. I peeked in just to see if she was OK and she was so I left. I circled the parking lot a few times to get a glimpse inside the window, but couldn't see anything.

Aubrey and I spent the morning shopping for clothes for both girls. I think we're fully stocked for fall now.

I arrived back at the school with Aubrey and Lamby ten minutes early to pick her up. I ran into Ms. Lisa, her teacher, in the hallway and she told me that Sophia had a great day. She went on to say that Sophia seemed to really enjoy herself and told her all about her little dog. (Sophia tells EVERYONE we run into that we have a dog. In fact, she thinks Sadie and Scratch, Tony's dog, are both ours!)

When I got to her classroom door Ms. Dawn, her other teacher, sent her right out to me. She ran into my arms and said SO GOOD TO SEE YOU MOMMY! COME SEE! and she grabbed my hand and pulled me into the room so that I could see the flower toy she was playing with all morning.

The theme of the day was Good Night Moon. I'm guessing they read the book and then did some "moon" projects. I gathered her art projects and headed out to the car. As we were walking out she said BYE to a lady in the hallway that I'm assuming was her computer teacher. How adorable!! Outside she loudly proclaimed I HAVE LEARNING!

I hung her artwork on the frig when we got home and looked in her lunch box. She must have been too excited to eat at school because the only thing missing was the cheese stick. She gobbled the rest of her lunch down while watching some tv and then she told me she really wants to go back to BIBLE SCHOOL. Ha ha ha.

.....our little girl is growing up....

Block tower...

Sophia loves stacking blocks now. She's quite good at it too. I think she enjoys knocking them over and making a big mess a bit more than building them up, but who can blame her?

Back from vacation

WOW! We had a wonderful time on vacation in Corolla, NC (Outer Banks) last week - and there will be a long blog post about it, but I have some catching up to do on a few other posts prior to vacation...

The night before we left for our trip our family was invited to Addie's house for dinner. Haley's family was there and so was another Mom/daughter combo.

Addie's mom is a wonderful cook. Sophia barely ate any of her chicken fingers, mashed potatoes, or corn, but she wolfed down the delicious chocolate chip cake - and so did I! Sophia had a fantastic time playing with her best friends. Here's a picture of the three girls at the end of the night.

Playdate with Haley

Last week we had a play date with Haley at the McArther Center Mall in Norfolk. It's such a great mall and has a wonderful play area next to the food court. The play area has lots of fun, soft rubber things to climb on including an enormous plate with a hot dog, chips and cupcake on it, a "spilled" soda complete with ice cubes scattered on the floor around it, and a big piece of watermelon.

The girls had a wonderful time playing for a while. We treated them to a Hershey's ice cream cone before we headed home. I love getting Sophia a cone because not only do I get to help her eat the ice cream, but I always get to eat the cone, which I think it the best part.

Computer on the fritzzzzzzzzzzz

Forgive me for not posting updates to the blog. The power supply port is not working properly on my laptop and most of the time I can't even get it to make a connection at all! It's been really annoying.

Next week we'll be on vacation at the beach in North Carolina. Can't wait. I hope the hurricanes stay far away for another week.

This week has been packed full with errands to get ready for our trip and the flat tire I got on Tuesday in Chesapeake didn't help matters. Today we had to take Sadie to the vet to get a shot so she can stay at Petsmart for a few days before Uncle Dan picks her up on Wednesday. He and a friend are taking a vacation while we're at the beach and they're staying at our house. Sadie is soooo happy about it because it cuts her stay in half and I'm happy because it cuts the bill in half too!

Like sister, like sister

Ok, so maybe Sophia and Aubrey look alike. In fact, they couldn't be more alike....or more different and I find it fascinating!

How ironic that they both absolutely HATED this cute little hat!?!?!

The top photo is Sophia at 3 months.
The bottom photo is Aubrey at 3 months.

Aubrey is following in Sophia's footsteps -- er -- Will's footsteps. She's grown an impressive 3 inches in the last month. Last week I measured her at 26 inches...which puts her off the chart for her age (see below). She weighs 14 pounds (90-95%). She's now wearing 6-9 months clothes - just for the length.

I bet I can confidently say that I'm going to be the shrimp of our family.