Weekend

We had friends visiting from Northern Virginia, Alexandria to be exact, this weekend. Sophia had a terrific time with Ben and Katie. Their little boy, Gavin, is only 8 months old so he was a little young to play with Lilly, but she really enjoyed getting some extra attention from Katie.

We hit the beach on Saturday for a few hours and couldn't have asked for a better day. The weather was beautiful, their was a nice breeze blowing and the water was perfect. The beach was packed with activities including 2 tents with live music, a BMX competition and a surfing competition. The guys enjoyed some body boarding while Courtney and I played it on the safe side. Court got clobbered by a big wave while she was laughing at Ben for getting knocked over by one. It was hysterical. Talk about karma.

That night Sophia and "the kids" as she was calling them tried to have a sleep-over on our air mattress which was in Lilly's room. It didn't work out because Sophia didn't quite understand the concept of going to bed when there were fun kids to play with her. At my suggestion she ended up moving into her own room and was sleeping within minutes.

We had a great time with Courtney and Joe and hope to make it an annual family get together. We even tossed out the idea of going to Great Wolf Lodge with them this winter. We're keeping our fingers crossed for this because we had such a great time when we went there a few months ago.

Allergies

Will was getting ready to take Sophia to the playground yesterday when I asked if they wanted to take Lillian with them. Sophia commented that she didn't want Lilly to go because she was allergic to her. Ha ha ha

Critter

Yesterday morning I took Sophia to the Rec Center for a stuffed animal story hour called "Let's Go to the Beach". She got to bring Kitty and Lamby with her to listen to the story. Then the kids got to make a craft (Critter dressed up as a snorkler) and have a snack.

Lilly was too young to even sign up for the story hour, but she came with us anyway. She toddled around with a little girl that she made friends with.

The craft was pretty difficult for the 3-5 year olds present. First they had to color all the "clothes and accessories" which Sophia tired of after a few minutes. Then each thing had to be cut out with super dull school scissors and pasted onto Critter. Sophia helped with the pasting, but for the most part I was on my own while Sophia ate her snack!

After the Rec Center we went to the library and spent some time looking for books and playing with their toys. We found two books about Critter and 7 other books about cats and dogs. (I think we've checked out every single book they have about cats and dogs.) Sophia sure loves her animals.

It's Christmas all year round

Sophia loves her Mrs. Santa outfit and thinks of it as a costume. She wears it 3 or 4 times per week!

As we were cleaning out Sophia's closet to get ready for some new school clothes (because she's outgrown everything from last year including her shoes) we found the matching hat for the Santa dress.

Sophia thought she struck gold. She immediately put it on and actually asked me to take her picture! She even posed for me. Incredible.

**Note** Notice she's holding Lamby and Kitty. Now they both have to come with us wherever we go.

some cute pictures

She can spell ! ! ! ! ! !

Well, at least she can spell the word CAT. She knows it spells cat too. Yesterday she amazed me by sticking letter stickers on this bowl to spell the word cat. When she showed me I just about fell over. Then she added another letter to the end of it and it happened to be an S. AMAZING!!

This morning she spelled CAT with her blocks. She's also grouping letters together and trying to sound out the words. She doesn't use a lot of vowels so the words are completely impossible to really say, but I try my hardest to help her.

We made a cat mirror craft this morning before Dad and Lilly got up. Sophia is absolutely obsessed with cats and ever since Great Aunt Carole gave her "kitty" she's been extra obsessed.

I just can't resist sharing

Her baby doll

For a few days now Lilly has been carrying around a naked baby doll and a baby bottle. Boy does she love her doll. I'm not quite sure how she caught onto the idea of carrying around a doll other than she's mimicking me with her. Or maybe perhaps it's just instinctual. I've seen Lilly sharing the bottle with her doll, but for the most part Lilly sucks on the tip of the bottle herself.

She's got a particular baby doll that she's taken too and it's not her Bitty Baby, but I'm kind of glad about that because Sophia played with her Bitty doll all the time when she was younger and now Bitty's face is has black marks all over it. Lilly's doll is still in mint condition even though she's naked. For some reason Sophia undresses every baby doll that we have so I've stopped putting the clothes on them.

I love my whole family

There's a lot of love going around in this family. This morning Sophia told us that she loves her whole family. So do I.

Lilly loves to cuddle. She gives great kisses (even though they are open-mouthed (smile)) and she's still an awesome hugger.

Her own URL

www.LillianConstanceAlexander.com now works and goes straight to the Alexander blog. Speaking of Lillian. Check out this adorable video of her new dance moves. She's also singing, but I'm not sure if it's audible in the video.

Yucky Princess Sophia

This is no way for a princess to act, but yesterday when I asked Sophia to smile for a photo she stuck her finger in her nose and posed. After we both laughed about it I asked her again to smile for me. She grabbed her brush and put it over her face and smiled away for me.

Princess Sophia

Sophia's been wearing costumes all summer and she just raided a box under her bed and found two new favorites. She also found all of my old crowns and acts like royalty when she wears them. Take a look at the game that we've been playing for days now.

Even mom can make a mistake

I erased some really cute pictures and a great movie of Sophia and Lillian opening presents from Aunt Carole. She sent each of us a Boyd Bear: mine was holding a heart that read Moms are Angels, Sophia's was holding a frilly purple "Princess" pillow, and Lillian's bear was wearing a tutu because our little Lilly loves to dance. Sophia was thrilled that all three bears could be pals, as she put it.

Aunt Carole also sent a black and white cat which Sophia hasn't put down since his arrival. At first she named him Cookie, but now she's changed his name to Baby Jaguar (from Diego). She's been pretending to be Diego and rescue Baby Jaguar in different scenarios. She'll wrap her jump rope around the cat a few times and each time she gets so lucky it doesn't fall off the cat. Other times she just refers to the cat as Kitty. She sleeps with Kitty. She holds him sometimes with Lamby and sometimes chooses Kitty over Lamby. Kitty has also accompanied us on a few car trips already.

I'll preface this next part with this: Sophia always calls people by the wrong name. She gets so excited that she calls me Daddy and vice versa all the time. After Grancy left she called Ms. Sue, her swimming teacher, Grancy.

This was on the video that I erased: Sophia had opened all the boxes and she looked up at the camera and said: THANKS, AUNT CLAROLE. (This is a combination of Aunt Carole who has the perfect knack for giving Sophia stuffed animals that become her favorites and Aunt Claire who had just visited a few days earlier!) It still cracks me up when I think about it.

Sprinkler Garden...again

It's a good thing we have a membership to the Botanical Garden because Sophia really enjoys going there to cool off and run around in the sprinklers. She overheard me on the phone talking to a neighbor about going to the sprinkler garden and then begged me to take her. Since we didn't have anything planned I decided to pack up and take the girls. I should mention that it was going to be 100 degrees.

It was so sweet when I asked Sophia to hold Lillian's hand while they were walking to the spitting frogs. Sophia was going a bit too fast for Lillian and she took a nose dive. After I picked her up and dusted her off Sophia took her hand again and this time went at a much slower pace. It was a beautiful sight.

There were actually times when Sophia and Lillian were the only two kids in the whole sprinkler garden. I think most people stayed away because of the heat, but it was so refreshing I couldn't figure out why more people didn't take advantage of it. We all had fun and at the end of our two hours we ran into some friends...and so we stayed for almost an hour. The girls were both exhausted when we left and so was I. I treated Sophia to a Dairy Queen cone and then she fell asleep for a about ten minutes in the car before we got home.

I too a lot of uninspired photos.

Hegg Bake

This is a funny story.

We were invited to a brunch today. I signed up to bring an egg and sausage casserole which I was calling an egg bake when Sophia was helping me make it this morning. She helped me stir the egg/cheese/milk/oregano mixture. She repeatedly told me she didn't like hegg bake - even though I was calling it egg bake. (You say tomato, I say tomato. You say hegg bake, I say egg bake.)

We went along with our morning, got ready to go and hopped into the car. About half way to the Shepard's house Sophia shouted out from the back seat: "!!Mommy!! Did we bring the hegg bake?"

All week

We stayed home all week and played in the house all day long. It's been fun, but exhausting. The girls really crack me up - Sophia with her wild imagination and Lilly with her obsessive compulsive behavior.

Let me explain. Lilly is constantly taking things and putting them in random places. Just in the last week she's put a book in the kitchen garbage can and her shoe in the garage garbage can. She put a small Dora doll in the container of dish washing tabs under the sink, a kitchen cup in the laundry hamper, and a pair of Sophia's underwear in the toilet. A few months ago she put tons of toilet paper in the toilet causing it to get clogged. I actually blamed Sophia for a long time until I figured out that Lilly was the culprit. I wonder how many times this will happen? I definitely don't want to wrongly accuse either of them!

Some things Sophia did this week:

• Sophia just sang the ABCs out loud and at the very end of the song she sang, "Won't You Sing with Me, darn it.


• When we got home from the grocery store yesterday Sophia ran upstairs as soon as she got into the house. She didn't even look back. It was the first time that she's gone off by herself to play! And she's doing it today too. The FROG is her play retreat room. Mission Accomplished...Now if we could only move Lilly's toys into the FROG.
  
  Sophia made all the dolls and stuffed animals in the room take a nap. She gave each one a blanket and a pillow. How cute.


• Sophia's been climbing into Lilly's crib in the mornings when she hears Lilly babbling. I give them their private time together as I mentally prepare for the day. They both jump up and down for a while. I hear Sophia singing a lullaby and can tell by Lilly's intermitent cries that Sophia is trying to push her down so she'll take a nap and play along with the lullaby. I usually go in to intervene when Lilly's cries get louder and louder. It's really cute to see Sophia being nice to Lilly even if it is only for 2 minutes.


• Sophia's been getting out of bed in the mornings and coming into our room to my side of the bed. She loudly whispers, "Mommy, can I get up?" and Will always says NO. That doesn't fly at all so I get up with her and if I'm lucky she'll let me sleep on the couch with her while she watches a "program".

5 years today

Happy Anni-vizza-versary-shizzo, honey!

We couldn't get a sitter for tonight, but Will's going to come home from work early so all four of us can do something fun.

We have an electric piano now!

Wow. What a hit. Grancy gave us her electric piano so Sophia could play it. I am going to teach Sophia how to play because I played for many years and it would be a terrible shame if I didn't pass on my musical expertise (HA HA HA..HA)

Sophia absolutely loves to play it and sing. I love hearing her. She really becomes agitated when Will interrupts her while she's playing too.

I completely rearranged the furniture in the house to make the piano fit properly. I like the updated configuration, but we need to hang some things on the walls in the new lounge...or at least that's what I'm calling it for the time being.

I moved most of the fancy furniture into the tv room and I moved the leather couches, the piano and my little desk into the formal living room thus turning it into a lounge. Will didn't seem to mind or at least he didn't say anything negative about it.

Here's a video I took of her on the first day.

Aunt Claire came to visit too

Aunt Claire came for a few days last week and we had a great time. I got some really good photos of Lilly while we were staging a photo shoot.

The outfit: A Bob Marley onesie that Aunt Claire gave to Lilly (back when she was Aubrey)
The background/scene: Shirley's college tapestry. Yes, I'm keeping this to pass on to one of my daughters some day. (ha ha ha)
The photographers: Claire and Shirley
The subject: Lilly Marley

We got some really good close ups of Lilly's various smiles.

Grancy's visit

I think we all agree that Grancy's visit was a huge success. I loved having the free time to run errands and putz around the house. Sophia was beside herself getting undivided attention from Grancy and Lilly had a blast showing off for Grancy too.

Although I know there were more laughable moments, but here's a few that were memorable:

GRANCY: Can I play with your hair?
SOPHIA: No. Because it's not talking.

Lilly talked an awful lot (just for Grancy's ears, I think). Grancy swears she was singing Row Row Row Your Boat. I wish I could get Lilly to do things like that! (smile)

Grancy brought Sophia a Princess Magnet Board. The magnetic board is decorated to look like a royal princess ball. Princesses and princes magnets are placed on the board and then you can dress them up in pretty dresses, etc. Sophia loves to play dress up and wears fancy dresses on a daily basis. She happened to have one on while she was playing with Grancy and the Magnet Board and:
GRANCY: Oh look, you have a fancy dress on, you can go to the ball with these princesses.
SOPHIA: No I can't, Grancy. I'm not a magnet!

We went to Red Robin for dinner on Thursday night. Sophia was incredibly well behaved while Lilly was a bit anxious to get out of her chair. Each time we go to Red Robin Sophia picks out a balloon to bring home. This time she chose a blue balloon and was still playing with it today even though it's now a shriveled up rubbery little ball that actually bounces. While we were eating, Red - as in Red Robin himself - was walking around the restaurant waving to all the kids. Sophia gave him a high five AND a hug.

Yesterday at swimming class Sophia called her teacher Grancy instead of Ms. Sue who looked at me as if to ask "what?"...I just smiled.

The pictures are here

Here are the pictures from Sophia's princess camp dance recital. After the show Grancy took us to McDonald's for lunch. Sophia played in the play area with Grancy and thus began the Grancy obsession/attachment for the next three days. In fact when Grancy was leaving Sophia immediately started to throw a temper tantrum which lasted only until the tears began to flow. Sophia had an amazing time with Grancy and I think Lilly did too, but more on Grancy's visit to come.... Click here for the recital pictures.

Oh my gosh, oh my gosh oh my gosh....

It was adorable. I'm so glad Grancy (and Will) got to see Sophia's princess camp recital. It was simply precious. The three year old girls - of which Sophia was the tallest one - first performed a tap dance then a ballet number and finally a tumbling session. WOW! You'll have to see for yourself. I took a few videos and a bunch of photos. You may recognize Sophia's friends in a few: Haley, Addie, & Cameron.

Here's a video of the girls walking for the first time as tap dancers. You can see Sophia's face light up when she spotted Grancy and Daddy, but mostly Grancy I think because this morning when we were looking at the videos she asked me where Grancy was in the video. So cute. If you want to see more videos click on the links underneath this one. I know I'm biased, but they are all worth watching. The photos will be posted soon.



Tap Dancers

Ballerinas

Walking in as tumblers.

Sophia doing the tumbling routine

Sophia looks like Shirley

That's what 60% of you think. That's not a very big majority (but if you subtract out my vote and Will's vote too (both for Will) then 80% of you think Sophia looks like me). I'll take it.

Just for the record, Will and I both think the girls look like him!

Taken this morning

I just had to post these pictures since I rarely get the two of them in the same frame at the same time. Sophia got a real peacock feather at church today and she was holding it up in the air, but it didn't make it into any of the photos.

Lillian dances and claps

Lilly in the chair

The outfit that Lilly is wearing in the photo below is one of my favorites. Take a look at all the pictures I took of her sitting in the chair. She climbed right up the other day and since she doesn't know how to get down yet she yelled for some help.

She can also climb up the stairs now which keeps me pretty busy.

The Lilly poll

77% of you think that Lilly looks like Will and only 22% of you think that she looks like me. Let's see what you think about Sophia. Don't forget to take the poll.

Another Botanical Garden photo

I took this picture on my cell phone today while Sophia was in her art class.

Lilly and I enjoyed walking around together again, but this time I actually let her walk instead of just pushing her in the stroller. Look how cute she was as she looked up at me.

Daddy and his girl

Can you guess which kid...?

One is easy going and the other inflexible.

One smiles all the time and the other is always very serious.

One enjoys being part of the crowd and the other demands to be the center of attention!

One seems fearless and the other constantly scared.

One eats anything offered to her and the other refuses to eat.

One is a Gemini and the other a Taurus. (Both are frighteningly accurate!) So one is brimming with energy and clever and the other is stubborn and tenacious.

One really really wanted to get into the swimming pool today and even helped the other kids by handing them water discs and the other screamed/cried/wanted to sit on my lap for her entire swimming class! ! ! !

Can you guess? Can you?

Don't you just want to pet her?

Just chillin' with Dad

A bird's nest

Usually when I'm on the phone Sophia interrupts me and makes all kinds of noise because I'm not paying attention to her!

"Mommy, go talk to someone!" That's what Sophia told me to do this afternoon when she was building a bird's nest in the fancy room. She was literally layering paper, leaves that she plucked from one of my plants, and soap that she stole from the bathroom into a new decorative bowl of mine. In a hurry I replaced the bowl with a skillet from the kitchen and let her have at it.

I did go talk to someone - my brother and then my mom. It sure was nice to have some peace and quiet on the phone for a change.

The second photo was taken after the soap bubbles had dissolved.

Loyal Lillian

If there's one thing that Lillian is loyal to it's FOOD! She absolutely loves food. She's gobbles up everything I give her or don't give her. In this case she helped herself to Sophia's chocolate pudding. She even knows how to use the spoon (a task that Sophia still likes me to help her with).

I literally turned around for a split second and when I turned back I found Lilly covered in pudding. When I tried to tear the spoon out of her hands she wouldn't let go. I quickly cleaned her up, but she was insistent on finishing the pudding.

I think someone has a sweet tooth. (She loves donuts too!)

Sophia and Haley at the mall

Haley's got her arm around Sophia. So cute.

Pictures of Lilly

While Sophia was in her art class on Tuesday Lillian and I took another walk around the Botanical Garden and this time we stopped a few times to take some pictures.

She always gives me the best smiles. There are only a few pictures to see, but here they are.

Peek-a-boo

One of Lillian's favorite games is peek-a-boo. She plays it during diaper changes, while walking around the house, and even in the car. She doesn't play by covering her face with her hands. She always uses clothes or her Lamby.

Yesterday she found these beads in the toy box and literally put them around her neck. She also tries to put sunglasses on her face whenever she's lucky enough to find a pair. Monkey see. Monkey do. Or in this case: Lillian see. Lillian do.

Here's a video of her playing peek-a-boo.

Another trip to the Botanical Garden

We took some of our neighbors to the WoW kids sprinkler area at the Botanical Garden on Thursday. Taylor (8) and Riley (2) were so excited to play in the water with Sophia. Check out all of the pictures.

Sophia made a new friend, Lily and the two of them were holding hands and running around together. Lily is going to turn 4 next month. I'm sure we'll never see her again, but we have a few photos of her to memorialize their friendship.

Lilly had a fun time toddling around in the water, but mostly she enjoyed staying dry and walking around the park on the concrete.

(Check out those thick thighs. So adorable.)

Water Water Everywhere

Yesterday evening Sophia was outside playing with the garden hose, a bucket and her imagination. She was literally dumping buckets of water on head and enjoying every minute of it. Her new Dora nightgown was soaking wet when she was finished. Check out the video below to see her in action.

Lilly, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with the water and actually flinched every time she got wet.

Dora

Sophia started her 4-week long art class today at the Botanical Garden. The program is offered through the national art education program, Abrakadoodle. The theme is "Butterflies" in honor of the new exhibit, Flutter Fantasy. (We checked it out about 2 weeks ago and I think some of my photos rival those on the Flutter Fantasy page.)

Sophia seemed to enjoy herself in the class and although her painting didn't really resemble a butterfly at all she was smiling when I arrived to pick her up at 4:30. While she was in class Lilly and I went on a walk through the Garden. It was so nice just to spend time alone with her. I finally stumbled upon Baker's Overlook, where Will and I got married. I've been trying to remember how to get back to the overlook for almost 5 years (yep, we'll be married 5 years next month).

Anyway, when I picked her up the teacher was handing out the completed artwork and she addressed Sophia as Dora. I cracked up and told Ms. Sharlene that her name is Sophia. All the moms that stayed in the classroom during class were laughing so hard at "Dora" because that's seriously what they thought her name was.

She's been playing Dora and Boots with Will for a few weeks. Sophia is Dora and Will is Boots and they pretend to explore and overcome obstacles! She's funny. Today while we were at Target, Sophia's favorite store, I bought her a Dora nightgown. She wore it to bed tonight and told me that she was beautiful. Of course, she was!

Man, give us a break...

About three weeks ago our air conditioner unit basically exploded so we had to replace it - for a pretty penny. Ironically, the same exact night our dishwasher and the overhead light in the kitchen also quit working. Coincidence? Seems like it, right? The A/C guy said the three were not related, but at this point I was still convinced all three things were related and I was blaming the air conditioner.

Sidenote: I've been hand washing the dishes and even though we've switched to throw away plates and cups, there's still a ton of dishes every day. Boy do I pity the people who don't have a dishwasher!

We had friends over this weekend and the guys decided to take matters into their own hands and literally changed the light bulbs in the kitchen and presto that light came back on. I find it rather strange that both bulbs burned out at the same exact time, but OK, I can buy it, I guess. What I can't buy, however, is the fact that both bulbs were CFL bulbs that should have lasted for SIX more years. Sounds pretty fishy to me! (That stupid air conditioner.) The guys also removed the dishwasher and tested the outlet for an electrical current and they definitely found one. OK..that means the three year old dishwasher has to be replaced. And this part is really weird: the kitchen lights came on when the bulbs were changed, but the lights in the dining room, formal living room and the hallway went OUT! (Thankfully the electrician will be here in the morning).

This highly referred electrician, Keith, came today and fixed our faulty light switch plate in the kitchen and presto the light was totally fixed. Keith told me blah blah blah and the wiring company blah blah blah didn't push in the back wire or blah blah something like that. I didn't really know what he was talking about, but I definitely understood when he said NO CHARGE! (Thanks, Keith! Boy it pays to be friends with a builder.) Keith weighed in on my theory that all three things were related and he agreed with the A/C guy. He even told me that bad things come in threes!

Another sidenote: Bah humbug, I'm pretty sure that bad things come in sixes because Sophia's bed broke when I rearranged her room, Sophia broke one of the automatic doors on the minivan, and there was a severe pink paint accident in the play room. I hear new carpet calling. Ugg...

So my new and final theory for the latest series of bad luck is that our house must have been struck by lightening three weeks ago when the air conditioner exploded.

9 teeth

Yep, she's got 9 teeth. She first got four on the top and two on the bottom. Then she got 2 molars (1 top, 1 bottom) on her right side and just 2 days ago another tooth broke through on the right side. What's up with that?

Lillian Walks

In the first video she can only take a few steps, but in the second one you can see that she's mastered the walk (and she has the hiccups).

Messy Room

Every single day Sophia has to go into her room for quiet time even though she doesn't nap anymore. After she's done ripping all her clothes off the hangers and putting 4 or 5 additional shirts/dresses on she then empties her bookshelf and throws all the books on the floor!

She called me into her room last week and I didn't see her immediately, but there she was . . . on the bookshelf!

Update on Lilly

She can:
- Walk
- Wave Hello
- Say Hi
- Dance
- Color with a crayon
- Give a high five

A random Sunday...

Duck, North Carolina

Our trip to the Outer Banks was phenomenal. And I won't mince words...if either Bonnie&Dan or Cynthia&Don want to invest in a beach house in the Outer Banks, I will personally take care of all the decorating, maintenance, winterizing and dewinterizing, etc...

I arrived on Thursday afternoon around 3:30 with the girls and we immediately unloaded the car and hit the swimming pool. Sophia was timid in the pool, as to be expected. She hung out on the stairs most of the time. She was in heaven when we finally got back to the house and she realized she could hang out with her buddies, Addie and Haley, for hours. Lilly played with her friend, Carlie, and Carlie basically showed her the ropes of walking all weekend. As soon as we got home Lillian started walking about 90% of the time.

The next day we hit the beach for a few hours in the AM before the day got too hot. Lillian didn't care for the sand at first, but warmed up to it and learned not to eat it by the end of our trip. Will finally arrived in time for dinner after a long day at work. Everyone was glad he had arrived. Will's always the life of the party.

Saturday was a lot like Friday except we went out for dinner. We went to a pizzaria called The Tomato Patch and had a great casual meal followed by yummy ice cream cones at one of the local shops.

On Sunday morning we hit a t-shirt shop were the girls were able to pick out their favorite decal design and have it heat pressed onto a t-shit of their choice. Sophia chose cats....go figure. She loves cats! I chose a light blue shirt for Lilly and her decal was a little girl listening to a seashell. When we got home we decided to hit the pool instead of going to the beach. Actually Lilly and I joined the crew late because she was taking a nap when they left. Later in the afternoon we took a pair of kites to the beach for some afternoon fun.

Will left on Sunday night to return to the other Ladie in his life, Sadie. (smile) We all missed him dearly.

We packed up the house and left on Monday. We didn't want to leave and I may have even shed a small tear. There's something about the Outer Banks that can't compare to anywhere else in the world. The ocean salt water smells amazing, the sand feels hot and smooth under your feet, and the cool breeze counters the blazing hot sun. Ahhhh.....

So cute....

She's a walker now. Lilly turned the corner this past weekend. She went from a crawler to a walker! My baby is growing up.