72 degrees in December

Anyone jealous? It was 72 degrees in Virginia Beach yesterday! Almost everyone I saw wore shorts and short-sleeved shirts.

We just got back from running a few errands and it's only 54 degrees today, but still nice enough that we didn't need a coat.

Sophia, Sadie and I took advantage of the weather yesterday and raked leaves outside in the morning. After Sophia's early afternoon nap, we walked to the playground and spent some more time outside.

It's only been about 2 months since we were going to the playground on a regular basis and I couldn't help but notice how much more stable and confident Sophia was on the swings and the other equipment. It was almost as if she had no fear. (Her mother is the one that harbors all the fear and sees every single accident waiting to happen!).

Sophia, what big shoes you have

Sophia thought it was funny to run around the room naked tonight before going to bed. She saw Will's shoes and decided she had to put them on. She managed a few shuffles in those size 13s and then proceed to pee all over the floor !!




When I finally did get her jammies on for the night she wanted me to take more pictures of her.

She finally doesn't mind getting her picture taken. She now likes to run up to the camera to see her picture. Sometimes she runs up so fast I haven't even taken a picture yet!

Tired before we even got there.

We attended Will's holiday work party on Friday night. Our babysitter took this picture of us before we left. Don't you think we both look tired ~ before we even left the house?

It was a fun night. Will won a gift certificate to The Gap which he spent today on a pair of jeans.

A completely random person touched my belly after she found out I was pregnant and then she leaned down to listen for, I don't know what, crying??? This came as quite a shock to me. Even when I was pregnant with Sophia no touched my belly unsolicited like that. Oh well.....

I felt some movement

For the past few days when I'm sitting down in the evenings I swear I've felt some movement from the underbelly. It's taken me about 3 days to convince myself that I AM feeling something. Tonight's little wormy movement sealed the deal. I'm 15 weeks along now. With Sophia I was 18 weeks pregnant before I felt anything.

I go to visit the doctor on Tuesday morning. This will be another boring visit when I only get to hear the heartbeat. Next month's appointment will be the exciting one. We'll have an ultrasound and find out if it's a boy or a girl. Will is definite on finding out and I'm on the fence (just like last time). However, I haven't been able to even think about names yet! I keep telling myself that after I know the sex I'll be more psyched about spending hours searching through name books and online for that single elusive name that jumps out from the rest.

Wearing her pink robe

Each night after Sophia has her bath she wears her bath robe into my bathroom and I blow dry her hair. Then we always put her pajamas on and either she goes to bed or she gets to come downstairs for a little longer.

Tonight her pajamas were downstairs so she stayed in her robe for a while. Take a look at how cute she looked.

Playing with her baby doll & mommy's stuff

Sophia was alternating pushing and pulling one of her baby dolls around in the stoller earlier this week. She paused long enough for me to take this picture. This is her waving and saying "HI"!

Later the same day she decided to play with my coasters and threw them all over the floor.

Sophia's first homemade ornament

Since we don't have our tree up yet I've decided to temporarily hang Sophia's first homemade "spiral snowflake ornament" from the fireplace. Isn't it a beauty??

Sophia says "hot" each time she gets near the fireplace and knows not to touch it. In fact, she refused to even stand next to her ornament to appear in the picture.

Sit (or Stand) and Spin

Sophia and I were on our way to the Contemporary Art Center today for a Family Fest afternoon of holiday craft projects and she simply wouldn't get off the sit and spin to come with me. She was wearing her coat and she was probably really warm, but that certainly didn't deter her one bit.

By the way, Sophia fell forward off of her rocking horse this morning and got what looks like a rug burn on her nose. Ouch!


Sophia's instructions/ways to use the Sit and Spin:

1) Sit on it the regular way, hold the wheel, use your left heel to propel your body around.

2) Stand on the rotating base, hold the wheel, and try not to fall.

3) Sit on the wheel and try to hold it at the same time, fall off backwards and giggle a lot.

Sophia's craft is resting beside her on the bench. As soon as we get our tree and I have a place to hang it up then I will post a picture of her 3rd art project: "Ringing Colorful spiral snowflakes". Might be worth millions someday....

Play date on Thursday

We went to a play date yesterday morning and nothing seemed to hold Sophia's attention for very long. She tried playing with puzzles, snacking on pretzels and even dancing (hopping) with Zoe. Sophia had a hard time getting along with the other kids and was back to her old tricks ~ hitting, but once we went outside she seemed to mellow quite a bit. She enjoyed riding in the "truck" and driving it to work. She kept waving and saying BYE to everyone. She even found a lunch box and put it in the back of the truck.

Ironically enough when we were back inside she wandered off for a minute into Zoe's bedroom and came running out seconds later with Barney! She was smiling from ear to ear and hugging Barney with all her might! I am the luckiest mom in the whole world! Lori, Zoe's mom, gave the Barney doll to Sophia. She told me that Zoe only wanted the Barney doll when she was obsessed with the color purple, and now that the phase is over she never plays with Barney anymore.
Barney talks and sings when you press his belly or hand and Sophia can't seem to get enough of him. She slept for 3 full hours when we got home - with Barney in the crib with her. I can only imagine what a magical place she must have gone to in her dreams.

Do the Baby Bop Hop Hop Hop

Sophia learned how to hop! In one of her Barney DVDs she saw the song "Do the Baby Bop Hop Hop Hop" and has been hopping non-stop for 2 days now. What great exercise for her!!! Of course, each time she hops she has to say the word and often needs to wind up for the big move by swinging her arms back and forth. It's so cute. Take a look at the video below:

Playing with her new crib

Sophia has really been enjoying putting her baby dolls down for a nap. She even knows how to cover them up with a blanket.

NT Scan

We got the results back from our ultrasound and NT scan and all of my numbers came back in the "normal" range. That's great news, but it's not like we expected to hear anything different. It's still very comforting to hear that your baby is very unlikely to have chromosomal abnormalities. 1 in 250 is considered risky. Our numbers were 1 in 2700 for down syndrome and 1 in 8300 for Edwards disease.

The "honeymoon" trimester

I made it! The second trimester is officially beginning and I'm 4 months pregnant. Some call this the honeymoon trimester because the hormones have supposedly settled down and the woman's body has adjusted to the pregnancy and is able to just enjoy for the next few months until shortness of breath and being uncomfortable settle in for the final few months. Um....for me it's not the case yet. I still feel nauseus when I take off my sea bands for longer than a 1/2 hour. If I don't sleep with them on then I wake up feeling sick.

Other than that - I'm showing. 2 people have commented so far that they can see a baby bump! That's cool.

Cravings: Watermelon! Watermelon! Watermelon! An expensive craving for this time of year.

I'm thankful for Barney!

For Thanksgiving we went to Northern Virginia to celebrate and visit the whole Alexander clan and, since we were all going to be in the same place at the same time, we celebrated Christmas too!

(top left to bottom right: Will, Rob, Mike, Chad, Don, Shirley, Cynthia, Sophia, Misty, Jack, Claire, Madeline, Terra & Charlie)

I woke up on Thanksgiving morning around 4AM with the flu. Will came to the rescue and finished all of our last minute packing and car loading and I literally rolled downstairs and into the car around 10 AM and we began our 3-4 hour trek up to Northern Va. We arrived before 2:00, I think. It was all kind of a blur to me. Sophia was an absolute dream child in the car thanks to her portable DVD player and Barney DVDs. We were also blessed with her angelic behavior all the way home! Thanks, Barney.

This Barney addiction didn't stop when we weren't in the car. Little Sophie was obsessed with watching her DVD all weekend whenever the adults weren't taking turns rocking out to Guitar Hero on the Wii. On Saturday Will, Claire and I took Sophia to Chuck E. Cheese for a few hours to burn off some of her extra energy. How fantastic was it that they had a Barney ride on toy? I think we spent $10.00 in tokens riding Barney!



The Wii was a big hit and provided lots of entertainment for all of us. Especially the night we all took turns taking the "Big Brain Academy" Exam and learned that Cynthia is the smartest person in the family.



Our other outing was to a MacDonald's that had the largest kid play room I've ever seen. Terra and Madeline had a blast playing up high in the rocket ship and Sophia enjoyed beating up little girls in the lower level enclosures. Somehow we're going to have to figure out how to clone Grancy and have one for each grandchild. She's got the best lap in all of Northern Va!

Christmas/Thanksgiving Day was really fun. It seems that Sophia finally understands that presents are meant to be opened and usually contain something fun! She loves her Bitty Baby crib and onesie outfits that Grancy and Big Daddy gave her. Since we've been home all of her baby dolls have taken turns wearing the new onesies. She also loves the Bitty Baby Carrier Backpack from Madeline & Terra and has put all of her baby accessories in it for safe keeping. This morning she asked me to push her around in her umbrella stroller while she leaned forward and pushed Bitty Baby in her stroller. We looked like a stroller train. I got to be the caboose! Lucky me!!

Here's some of my other favorite pictures from the weekend: