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

Best friends

Sadie was just minding her business on the couch when Sophia toddled over to say hello. I thought it was cute how Sadie gave me a look as if to say:

PLEASE MAKE HER GO AWAY. I'M TRYING TO TAKE A NAP!

Molars

Take a look at the molar in the back of her mouth - on the left side of the picture. (You can click on the picture and it will open up into a huge size for easier viewing.) She's getting a second one right now and going through a terrible phase. She's in pain. She doesn't want to eat, she can't fall asleep and she's extremely clingy. In fact, I don't think I've really seen her smile in a few days.

I took the paci out of her mouth just for a minute - and this was her reaction - crying, screaming, pouting!
Poor Baby!

Poor Mom and Dad!

Toilet Paper

Sophie found the toilet paper in her bathroom this morning and for the second time now has decided that "playing with it" (also known as unrolling it) is super fun!

WOW at Norfolk Botanical Gardens

Sophia and I went to Norfolk Botanical Gardens today to check out their new permanent exhibit called WOW (World of Wonder) for kids. It was so much fun! They have an amazing park set up complete with "swings" and sprinklers. Check out the pictures.

Will and I got married at the Botanical Garden and it's just beautiful this time of year. We started in the rose garden where we saw ducks and Sophia simply had to get out of her stroller and chase them. She LOVES ducks right now. She signs and says the word now, but I seriously thought these ducks were going to attack her after a while so we had to move on...

On the way to WOW we passed some Garden employees. They stopped us to inform us of 2 snakes up ahead on the path and warned us to go the 'long' way around. So I was able to get in a workout this morning while we checked out some of the other flowers and trees along the way.

Sophia was a little timid to go into the sprinklers when we finally got to WOW, but that didn't last long. She was soaking wet in no time. She literally ran from sprinker to sprinkler and couldn't get enough of the water. Did got clobbered when the sprinkler stream switched from "small and gentle" to "big and mean", but kept on going!

I could tell she was exhausted when the only thing she wanted to do was "relax on the swing". We had a such a good time that we became members of the garden so we can go back every week, but next time she's wearing a bathing suit!

Q: Who's afraid of an enormous cow?

A: SOPHIA AMBER ALEXANDER

We went to the 10th anniversary "cow"ebration at Chic-fil-A on Saturday because they has lots of fun activities for little kids. Sophia enjoyed her free ice cream from the sundae bar. However, she DID NOT want to meet the cow! She didn't even want to be around the cow. She was wimpering and trying to get out of her booster seat and into my lap. Granted, I guess if I were her size I also might be paranoid of a cow taller than Daddy walking on 2 hind legs.



She really had a fun time playing in the children's room.

13 Months Old

Can you believe that Sophia is 13 months old already? I can't!!

Here's your monthly update on Sophia's new tricks...

She's been signing 'duck' for weeks, but today she said 'duck' for the first time. It sounded alot like DOH. Her bathroom has been decked out in ducks and one of her new favorite books has fluffy duck fur on the cover.

Have a mentioned that she's calling me Mama yet? YEA!!! This is my favorite milestone of them all.

Favorite Fun Activity: Neck Kisses. She loves to be tickled with neck kissed from Daddy and Mommy. She prefers it if you "surprise" her with the neck kiss. Take a look here...she'll slowly move her face/neck toward one of our faces and sit there and wait for us to "surprise" her. Then she laughs her head off. We've even seen her trying to get Sadie to give her neck kisses, but poor Sadie only knows how to kiss on the lips...(see picture below).




A new favorite food: a toasted peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich...but only if it flies into her mouth stuck to a spoon (and the airplane noise must accompany the Spoon Plane.

She's trying to walk up the stairs on her own now, but her little legs are not long enough to reach. This is a constant source of frustration for Sophia.

I love this picture

The playground

Sophia LOVES to go to the playground! We've been spending lots of time at the playground lately and it's only a 20 minute walk so we can usually take Sadie too. It's a nice way for us to spend some fun time out of the house since Sophie is really into taking everything off of the shelves and out of the closets in our house.

We just got back from spending an hour there. We tried to go after lunch today, but 1/2 way there the sky opened up and started raining on us so we had to turn around and come home. I put the plastic cover on the jogging stroller so Sophie wouldn't get wet, but Little Miss Outdoors didn't want to be underneath the plastic cover. She preferred getting drizzled on and feeling the elements hit her straight in the face.

Here are some more pics from our afternoon.

Happy Father's Day

We had a great time on Father's Day. Now that Sophia can walk everything is more fun!

Before church we grabbed some breakfast at McDonald's. Guess what Sophia and I shared? Yep, pancakes - the closest thing they have to a waffle because she simply will not eat eggs. It didn't really matter anyway because she was way more interested in the pretty blue chairs! We had to stop at the grocery store on the way to church to get her a banana.


After lunch and a nap we went to the beach to walk on the boardwalk. This weekend was the annual Boardwalk Art Show where hundreds of vendors sell their artwork, sculptures, jewelry, pottery, etc. It's always a really fun day. We didn't get anything this year, but we did see a really cute photograph of tons of rubber duckies which would have been perfect for Sophia's bathroom, but I didn't have an extra $150 to spend yesterday (and I can probably take a replica picture myself).

Before we came home we wanted to let Sophia get her feet wet in the ocean. First let me say - she wasn't so sure about all that chilly, blue water and when she lost her balance and fell on her bottom into the wet sand we knew it was time to go. She didn't cry at all. She wasn't scared she was just a bit unsure. We were her about the "waves coming into the shore" and she stared "waving" at them. It was adorable. We can't wait to go back again.

Take a look at all the Father's Day pictures.

Do you agree?

What the heck do you think Sophia is saying to Sadie in this video? Is it: "Good dog, sit"?

A new friend

Yesterday we had to mail a DVD for Dad so we went to the Pac Mail store down the street from our house. Sophia made a friend while we were there. This little boy, Cameron, is her age - 13 months. As soon as she saw him she toddled over to him and gave wrapped her arms around him to give him a hug.

It was the cutest thing I've ever seen!

I have no idea how she even knew to give him a hug. She's never given anyone her own size a hug before.

She did it again at the mall today during out play date. There was a little girl who was exactly her height and she walked right up to her and gave her a hug.

A new camera and a new tv

Hip Hip Hooray! We got a new digital camera this week and I'm back in action snapping pictures of Sophia. We ended up getting the Canon SD800 IS which is one of Canon's fastest compact digital cameras, but I still don't think it's as fast as I want my camera to be. I stopped by Ritz Camera at the mall today and now I've got my eye on a different one.

Oh yeah! We also got a new giant tv. Doesn't Will look absolutely stunned - maybe even a little GONZO - standing next to this monster? Happy Father's Day!


Sophie and I were at the mall this morning for a playdate. Sophia had a blast!

She was a little shy at first and hid behind the stroller for a little while when we first got there, but she really warmed up to all the kids and was literally "running" at the end of the hour. She spent some time climbing all over the whales and "slapping" them. Slapping: one of her newly aquired habits...she likes to slap/pat things. I haven't quite yet figured out what it means. It sometimes means this is what I want, but other times it doesn't! Hmmmm......


Sophia didn't like being trapped in the boat.

The older blonde girl in the last picture was really miffed that Sophia was trying to climb on her turtle. Mom had to intervene a bit and remove Sophia from the scene before she was beaten up by the little girl. That's when I knew it was getting a little crowded for us and we packed up and headed for Chic-fil-a for some chicken fingers!

Sophia, my little walker

Sophia is officially a walker now. She crossed over this past week while Uncle Rob was here visiting. She walks everywhere....and she usually picks something up along the way to shake or carry along with her. For the most part she still really moves slow, but at least she's doing it. It's so amusing to be standing in a room and see her walk by on her way into another room.

She's been talking a lot too. There aren't any new words to speak of yet, but she's been very vocal this week.

Her sleeping schedule has shifted a bit and now she's waking with the early birds -usually just before 6AM. I suspect she's anxious to "get her walk on". I'd say that 4 out of 5 days we're able to get out and take a walk in the early morning before the sun gets too hot.

Keep your fingers crossed that we find a camera this weekend.

Can't Say Cheese

I'm in the middle of a major crisis. Our digital camera broke and I haven't been able to take any pictures for almost a week. If you have any recommendations, please send them my way. Thanks!!!