Swimming class

We've signed the girls up for swimming classes on Saturday mornings at the YMCA. Sophia's making great progress. She was kicking her legs and had her arms extended all the way out in front of her today. I think she's the oldest in the class. She's definitely the tallest by far. Today she was actually singing along with the parents when we "sing" all the songs and move the "babies" around in the water.

As you can tell Aubrey seems to be quite shell shocked and doesn't know what to think about the pool. She's not enjoying the pool the way Sophia did at her age, but she absolutely loves splashing around her Winnie the Pooh bathtub.

Aquarium with Daisy

Sophia, Aubrey and I went to the Aquarium yesterday with Daisy and her mom and baby sister. Sophia and Daisy sure did have a good time. They are like two peas in a pod and Sophia loves to take Daisy by the hand/wrist and pull her around. For the most part Daisy doesn't seem to mind.

While we were there I ran into a few of my ex-coworkers from BCF and had a chance to say hi and catch up on some office gossip. Boy, I DO NOT miss any of that at all.

We also ran into one of Sophia's classmates, Liam. Ironically, on Thursday I just found out that his family only lives 5 minutes from us....and they also have an Aquarium membership. I already told Liam's mom that we would let them know the next time we go to playground and they're going to try to meet us there.

Sophia and Daisy had such a fun morning. The Aquarium is undergoing a renovation right now, but they have opened up their new kids zone which has tons of toys and play stations for the girls to enjoy. Ali, Daisy's mom, and I had to drag two crying girls out of the building (while pushing strollers and toting enormous diaper bags)! ....But we both love it.

And, check out the headline of a news story Will and I heard on the 11:00 news last night. Virginia Aquarium worker bitten by young Komodo dragon! HA!!!

Aubrey's 7 month picture

Here's Happy Aubrey at 7.5 months old. View all of the pictures of Aubrey in the chair.

Preschools

A few years ago I remember my one and only "friend with kids" talking about interviewing preschools for her son. I thought she was a getting a bit psycho-mom on me, but now I totally understand!

For the past week I've been intently researching, frantically placing phone calls, taking tours and..... have finally deciding on a preschool for Sophia for next year. Bellamy Manor School. Actually now that I give it a second thought it might be Broad Bay Manor School. As I'm sitting here writing this post I'm now debating which location I should send her to since there are four of them. We live centrally to three of them so I basically need to decide where Aubrey and I want to spend our time and run our errands next year. Will and I really like the philosophy and the individualized curriculum of the Manor Schools.

Aubrey will be home with me again, but Sophia will turn three in May and will start 3 days a week in the fall. She will not eat lunch at this school so her day will be 1/2 hour shorter than it is this year. (Boo hoo! Poor me!)

They offer extra curricular activities like ballet, Tumblebus (literally a hollowed out bus turned tumble gym), Spanish and karate.

Can't wait until tomorrow morning so I can drop off the application and check. I think I will breathe a bit easier when I know she has a spot at this school. Fingers crossed.

Thanks everyone!

Thanks to my parents and my in-laws I was able to purchase an awesome new camera today and two 4GB memory cards with my Christmas money. It takes high-def video. Take a look at some of the of practice shots I took this afternoon.

Took this of Aubrey after dinner tonight so she's quite messy, but I was trying to get a good one of her bottom teeth while she played with her bottle. I just love this grin.

Below is a shot of Sophia's "beautiful (or cool) new hair cut" as Sophia calls it. To give the new do some credit, I took this picture after she spent 20 minutes jumping on the trampoline this afternoon. She was hot and sweaty and her hair is sticking to her forehead, but this is it. She LOVES it. Will loves it. I wish the girl would have left two more inches on the bottom, but it's hair and it will grow. No bangs this time. She looks so much older to me and to be perfectly honest, I think she's acting a bit older too. She's very grown up these days. Especially when it comes to reprimanding/scolding Aubrey!

I took this one of the two of us and cropped myself out of the photo. She's looking up at the camera.

Must get a camera!

Today was the first chance Will and I had to look for a new camera. I hope to either purchase one tomorrow or make a decision and order one online. I'm dying here without my camera. Here's what you would have seen pictures/videos of this weekend:

1) Aubrey's first trip to the pool...for her very first swimming lesson. We're taking both girls for swimming lessons on Saturday mornings through the end of February. Sophia had a blast taking the class with Will. Aubrey didn't seem to mind clining to me or getting her face wet.

2) Aubrey got her THIRD tooth! I noticed it this morning. This time it's on the top, but it doesn't look like it's one of the top middle ones. It's off to the side.

3) Sophia keeps telling us: IF THERE'S EVER A FIRE IN THE HOUSE. DON'T GO BACK INTO THE HOUSE. I'm not sure where she heard this safety tip, but it's a good one!

4) Sophia is a nose picker. This news shouldn't come as a big surprise to anyone that saw her over Christmas break, but it's definitely official because she told me this weekend that the marks on her walls are ALL HER BOOGIES. She told Will the same thing. At this point, I'm pinning this yucky new habit on Uncle Dan.

Aubrey - 41st most popular GIRLS name

Here's an update on Aubrey's name and how it's growing in popularity. 2008 stats just revealed her name at #41.

2008 - Rank 41
2007 - Rank 69
2006 - Rank 92
2005 - Rank 153
2004 - Rank 190
Etc.....

Sophia is still at the top of the list at #2. Emma took over again as the #1 name for 2008.

The Amazing Aubrey

I've got so much to report about Aubrey, I hope I can remember it all.

AUBREY
7 months old
17 lbs 13 oz (almost 18 pounds) - 67% now

1) Yesterday Aubrey got her second tooth - another one on the bottom.

2) She's trying to pull herself up on everything! She often uses random things or toys that don't offer enough support and end up tumbling over on top of her. She doesn't seem to care, if she can reach it she's going to try to use it to stand up on her own.

3) She loves to eat. She eats two or three different things at each meal. I couldn't get the food into her mouth fast enough today. After each bite she sat with her mouth open demanding/waiting the next bite.

4) She was really cranky today and wouldn't take a nap no matter how many times I put her in the crib. Normally she will go into the crib while she's still awake and she'll put herself to sleep within 5-10 minutes. Each time I put her down for a nap today she would try a different technique to make me come back in and rescue her from her. During one of my particularly memorable attempts she was "pretending" she would take a nap, and then as soon as she heard the door click closed she would flip herself onto her belly and scream. This went on for only 6 times before I gave up.

5) Aubrey is a huge Sadie fan. After Will gets home each night and she gets her daily dose of Dad she then likes to have her Sadie fix. She cracks up when Sadie runs around. Will Aubrey's first word also be Sadie?

6) She can wave, well, almost.

7) She still doesn't like peas.

8) And the cutest thing ever....!.....she sleeps and cuddles up with Little Lamby every night. Seriously, it's the exact same thing that Sophia has except it's the 12 inch version instead of Sophia's 24 inch Lamby. Can you believe that?

Inquiring minds want to know...

We're entering new territory with Sophia. It's the infamous WHY? stage. I thought this was an age 3 thing, but she seems to be in full swing right now. She wants to know everything.

It's kind of gross, but at the moment she also wants to know if she can eat everything, including her pee pee and Sadie's food. She always asks with a coy grin. She knows the answer, of course, but she likes it when I play along.

I actually think I've figured out why toddlers ask the never ending WHY question

Here's my "Stay at home mom" perspective:
They are asked WHY questions so many times throughout each day that they must think it's the most important thing to know! Here's a handful of why questions that Sophia may hear in any typical day...
Sophia, why did you spill your crackers/cereal/carrots/etc?
Sophia, why are you crying?
Why are you sad?
Why did you break that?
Why did you push Aubrey/Sadie/her/him/that?
Why don't you want to eat your lunch/dinner?
Why did you write on that?
Why are you frustrated?
Why are you disappointed? (This is one of her favorite new words)

And the answers to those questions are probably really, really hard for a 2 1/2 year old to answer.

Her inquisitiveness is so cool. She's discovering so many things right now and the very best part about it is that she wants to share each and every single discovery with me! LUCKY ME!!!

My very favorite Christmas photos

Sophia and Aubrey with our friends, Tricia and Jon, in their new house. Sophia loved dressing up in Tricia's hats (and boots) and liked playing with Jon's prized Redskins paraphernalia.

Aubrey got her very on Bitty Baby from Aunt Misty and Uncle Mike.

She loves her new playmate. Especially her hands.

Doesn't Aubrey look like she's surprised that Bitty has plastic eyes? I really wonder what she's so shocked about.

First Cousins on the Alexander side: (Aubrey, Madeline, Terra, Jack, Minnie, and Sophia). As you can tell, Jack is a bit outnumbered right now.

Here's a great photo of our two red girls. They have a bond that none of the other cousins can share. I think that's sweet.





Grancy took the girls to see a movie - Sophia's first! Grancy said that Sophia lasted 1/2 way through the movie before the two of them snuck out into the hallway to play while waiting for Sophia's "BROTHERS". I know she was thrilled to be included in the big girl day. She took Minnie and Lamby with her.

Sophia had her very own room in Pa and in Northern Va. Lucky girl! Of course we still put a monitor in her room, but it's mostly to become alerted that she's awake in the morning. She doesn't get out of bed in the mornings, instead she sits up and calls out MOMMY or GRANCY or NANA.

Either way, I'm really proud of her for sleeping while we were out of town. It was easy to jump right back into our schedule when we got home.

Aubrey cut her first tooth while we were at Nana and Poppy's house. Looking back I think maybe that's why her cheeks were so flushed.

Uncle Dan fed Aubrey a bottle. His very first one. Way to go.

Sophia is dying to play the new game, Please Don't Break the Ice, that Uncle Dan got her. I keep telling her that only Daddy knows how to play because I simply don't want to have to put it together 1,000 times so she can smash out the pieces. That sounds like a really fun activity for Will and Sophia.

Here's our annual Second Cousin picture: Rylee, Morgan, Sophia, Aubrey and Cole. I think it's so adorable that Sophia is holding Aubrey's hand. I didn't notice it until I saw the picture. Sophia is usually really uncomfortable in situations like these. I wonder if holding Aubrey's hand made her a bit more comfortable?



Aunt Carole knocked it out of the park for Sophia with her Lamby blanket gift. Sophia immediately ran to Lamby to tell him that he got a Lamby blanket. She keeps it on the couch and every morning when she wakes us she snuggles into the Lamby blanket with Lamby and watches her favorite cartoons.

Without a doubt we had a wonderful time away from home and we already miss everyone! Come visit us at the beach......

Good bye December, Good Riddance 2008

I wasn't a very big fan of 2008 for no particular reason at all. In fact, lots of wonderful things happened in 2008.

-Aubrey was born
-We went on a beach vacation
-We got a new car
-Obama was elected

Here's the final kicker of 2008: On Tuesday (over night) my car was burglarized and my wallet and camera were stolen - from the front passenger seat. I literally spent all day Wednesday combing the house, the car and the garage only to come up empty-handed. I can fully admit it's my fault. The car was unlocked so it was an easy target! I often leave my wallet, keys and other important things in the car overnight - simply because I can't carry everything into the house in a single trip and I usually forget to go back out to the car by the time I get the girls settled and entertained enough for me to leave them unattended. Fortunately, the last thing I did with my wallet was deposit our Christmas money! Thank goodness. There were too many things in my wallet to list out here without breaking down in tears...including my engagement ring! (I took it off while we were out of town because my finger was getting a dry rash and put it in the change purse of my wallet!), my favorite lipstick and several pictures of the girls.

I'm furious about the camera. The camera is replaceable, but earlier in the day I took Sophia and Aubrey to the Aquarium for Toddler Tuesday. I took some really good pictures including Sophia petting a baby alligator. She had an absolute blast and we'll probably go back quite a bit over the next few months. So look for more pictures soon.

Will gave me $200 to tide me over until my replacement ATM cards arrive. He made the comment last night that he enjoyed having me ask him for money! He was joking, of course, but there's a little bit of truth in every joke.

SIDE NOTE: Sophia had her very first hair cut today. She looks so adorable in her bob (it actually looks alot like mine). She looks so mature now. It's as if she's 5. The girl cut it about 2 inches shorter than I would have liked, but it will grow. I can tell Sophia feels beautiful. She been looking in the mirror and admiring herself. You might be sad that you won't see any pictures of this momentous occasion, but never fear. Of course I took pictures! We stopped on the way to buy one of those throw away cameras...you know the ancient kind where you actually have to have the film developed. Give me a few days...

Family Photos

December artwork

Sophia did some especially cute art projects at school during the month of December.

Each class made a different type of ornament for the school Christmas tree. The Twos made various colored glittery bulbs. Sophia pointed her red one out to me. It was hanging off to the left side of the tree and she knew exactly where it was.

Sophia told me she drew the smile on the Gingerbread man's face. Cute smile! She has a special fondness for Gingerbread people this season. The ornament I bought her for her Christmas tree was a cute Gingerbread girl holding a spoon since Sophia is constantly raiding my kitchen utensil drawer and stealing my spoons, basters, measuring cups, etc....

S O P H I A is written on the stocking in silver glitter. I'm sure that was a mess for the teachers to clean up! And the cute little elf has an actual jingle bell on his hat. Sophia has told me at least 20 times that she put the bell on the elf with Ms. Dawn.

The last photo shows the beautiful snowflake tile that Sophia made at school for us. What a nice idea.

Christmas

Christmas is over just as fast as it crept up on us. We had a wonderful time in Pa visiting my family and then spent some fun days in Northern Va with Will's family. Of course we took lots of photos and that's all I have time to post right now. Enjoy...


Our Christmas in Va Beach

Christmas in PA

Christmas in Northern VA

The helping song.

The leaves are finally falling off the trees and Sophia wanted to help rake them yesterday afternoon. Please note: She only wanted to help rake them off the street curb - NOT the yard! Stubborn! I raked a pretty big pile of leaves for her. She was amused for the first 5 jumps and then she thought spreading the leaves out all over the yard was way more fun.


Today when I picked her up from school I noticed her shoe were on the wrong feet. It didn't seem to bother her when she walked, but it really looked strange. She told me she took them off and put them on all by herself. She was so proud. So cute.

Aubrey enjoyed hanging out in the back of the minivan while we raked.

HOLY S**T

Will left to go out of town this morning until late Wednesday night and it didn't start off so hot. Before he had even left the house Sophia had stumbled on a black permanent marker in our kitchen junk drawer! I was upstairs and when I came down to check on her (because I found her complete silence a little suspicious) I discovered that she'd been drawing on everything. Not just the 8 different wall spots, but also the top and front of the garbage can, both red throw pillows on the leather couch, the couch itself, the table my brother just made us, another table (much less nice), the marble fireplace, my Boppy pillow, the Pack-n-Play, her own face (as a cat), AND Lamby's face (she told me he was now a YAK!). Didn't you hear, yaks are making a comeback!?!

Oh man!!!!! What a mess. Here are the pictures to prove it. Poor Lamby will never be the same. He's scarred for good. I have wall and trim paint so I can take care of those messes. I also found a way to remove all the marker from the table and marble, but it's going to take a long time. Not sure about the leather couch yet. I think the throw pillows are gonners! Sophia's face and arms are looking much cleaner after a 45 minute bath tonight.

Don't take my picture

Anticipation gripped Sophia all day while she waiting patiently for to build our gingerbread house. Who knew they were so complicated? Will was 100% into building a well formed/framed home able to withstand an attack from the Little Friendly Wolf AKA the Big Bad Wolf.

Neither Sophia nor I had the patience to build a masterpiece and we began throwing mini Spree like candy on the roof to help along the decorating. It was fun watching the roof slide off and trying to save it for just ONE picture.

Our plan is to save it and eat it on Christmas day. That's going to be this coming Saturday in our house. Kind of crazy, I know, but Sophia understands that on a certain night Santa comes into the house and fills up her stocking and leaves her the doctor kit and new doggy that she's asked him for. For those of you wondering if she knows anything beyond the Santa Christmas theme. The answer is yes. Thanks to the Wiggles Sophia knows about the woman named Mary who has a baby boy. I think she knows Christmas is his birthday.

Anyway, I'm flying to Pittsburgh with the girls on the 17th. Will is driving up with Sadie on the 20th and we'll be celebrating Christmas with the Tereks. We're all leaving PA on the 23rd and driving to Northern VA for celebrate Christmas with the Alexanders. It's going to be jam packed and really fun.

Daddy and Aubrey

Just chilling out with his other little princess.

Holidaze Craze

We went to an outdoor festival today called Holidaze Craze with three of Sophia's friends: Haley, Addie and Cameron. We met for lunch first at a gourmet hot dog joint. It was a really fun day. Sophia made and decorated a gingerbread house with pastel marshmallows and fruit loops, played some games, sat in a real ambulance and played nurse with a Paramedic, wore herself out on the playground, got a super cute snowflake painted on her cheek and then screamed her head off when I wanted to take her photo with Santa. I might have screamed at the sight of this particular Santa too!

Here's Sophia playing some sort of bean toss game.


Aubrey sat in her car seat the entire time. She stayed completely warm all bundled up under jackets, hats and blankets.

Sadie licked the snowflake off Sophia's cheek when we got home. Boy was she sad/mad about it. She turned to Will and pouted, "We need to get a new dog!"

Imagine how she felt when we arrived home later that day only to find that Sadie had actually eaten the entire gingerbread house! Well, she left the milk carton frame behind as evidence. BAD, FAT DOG!

Take a look at all of the pictures.

Cat Face

She's at it again. Sophia painted her face like a "cat" again yesterday when Mom was upstairs with Aubrey. It was only water color paint so there really wasn't any mess at all.As you can tell by all the photos in the series Sophia wasn't in the mood to have her picture taken so she gave me lots of "yucky" faces.

Happy Thanksgiving a little late....due to technical difficulties

I had to get a new laptop a month or so ago because my old laptop could no longer receive a battery charge. We can still get it fixed and plan to, but in the meantime I had to get a new one. I hadn't gotten around to connecting the printer/scanner up to it yet and literally it took Will and I 4 or 5 days of pure frustration at the idiocy of Lexmark and Windows AWFUL Vista to finally get it working! Pair them together and you have a major pain in the butt, but my computer genius husband can fix anything and he got me up and running last night.

So, long story short:

I took the girls to have their photos taken in Nov because they hit milestone birthdays. Aubrey turned 6 months and Sophia turned 2 and a half going. It's a good thing we wore the pink/purple outfits first because by the time I changed them into their Santa suits Aubrey was screaming so much and Sophia had reached her threshold on listening to someone tell her to smile. (Side note: Sophia does not smile when asked! Instead she repeats the command and says it right back - SMILE). Or she'll make a goofy face or put her fingers in her mouth or pull on her clothes or look away ... well you're getting the drift by now. It ended up that I literally had to jump into the picture with them to get Sophia to sit still and Aubrey to stop crying. (Forgot to scan that photo last night so will have to do that later today).

Intended to post these two pictures on Thanksgiving, but wasn't able to. So Happy Belated Thanksgiving to all. And...moving on to Christmas. We went to see the holiday light show at the beach on Thanksgiving evening. Sophia absolutely loved it and was simply speechless which we all know is quite difficult for her. Tonight we're going to ride the tram through the light show at the Botanical Garden with Haley and Addie. Can't wait.

Where does the time go?

Aubrey turned 6 months old on Thanksgiving day. She's really sleeping much better than she was just two weeks ago. She's still not making it all the way through the night, but we're getting closer. At this point she's going to sleep between 7 and 7:30pm, I wake her up for a dream feed at 11:30pm and then she's usually OK until 5am. I'm hoping to eliminate the 11:30 and then push the 5am forward to 7/7:30am. That would be 12 solid hours of sleep and 12 solid kid-free hours for mom! (and dad).

Aubrey had her 6 week appointment last week and she's exactly in the 50th percentile for kids her age. It's amazing how different she and Sophia are -- not only do they look nothing alike, they are definitely not following the same growth path.

AT 6 MONTHS

Aubrey - 16lb 3oz and 25.5 inches and no teeth in sight

Sophia - 17lb 1oz and 27.5 inches and got first tooth 4 days before 6 months

Aubrey is trying to get up on all fours now when she's on her belly. She's working really hard to communicate these days. She just started leaning as far as she can towards what she wants when I'm carrying her around in my arms. I remember Sophia doing this too.

I've added peaches and bananas to her solid food menu and she loves loves loves the bananas. I think she still likes thawed real peaches to the baby food version. I think next up will be green beans. Hopefully she'll take to those better than the peas.

Aubrey doesn't like the exersaucer. Her legs are so short that they just barely touch the bottom so she can't really bounce in it yet. Her favorite activity at this point is to sit and play with Sophia and me on the floor. As long as she's included in our picnic or our book or our Little People games she's happy. She's started to coo and squeal out loud a lot while playing too.

November Artwork

Sophia did some really fun artwork for fall in the last few weeks at school. They made a raccoon which we've named Rocky and she knows that he likes to eat food straight out of the garbage can.

Then she made Indian corn. I think it's one of my favorite "pieces" so far.

I also really like the Indian guy because when I picked her up from school that day she told me she drew his smile. It's it a fantastic smile?

I'm assuming she also put his eyes on all by herself as well. I looked around at the Indians her classmates had made and I have to admit that hers was one of the better looking ones.

She made the little turkey at school. We call him Fat Turkey. The larger potato looking turkey was created by yours truly at a play date at Haley's house two weeks ago. The brown potato looking body is Sophia's feet - outline traced, cut and glued together. The "feathers" are her hands - outlined traced, cut and glued on. Imagine tracing and cutting all those pieces while holding a squirming 6 month old! It's no wonder I glued the hands onto the bottom of the turkey body instead of the top! Oh well.

Funny

We've all heard of a "rabbit in the hat", right? Well how about a "carrot in the shoe"?

I gave Sophia 2 mini carrots to hold her over before dinner on Friday. She really wanted chips, but I said no. She protested that she didn't want the carrots! I told her to eat them! She screamed NO! I guess she meant it because later that evening I found both mini carrots shoved into her shoe!