Just playing outside on a nice day.

Sophia looked so cute today I just had to take a ton of pictures of her playing in the front yard. Take a look for yourself.

Another Costume

Sophia has a rather dreadful bin of costumes. Here's another one of her beautiful concoctions. This was the first time she's put the plastic pink shoes on her feet. She loves playing dress up right now. She runs around the house shouting COSTUMES. And she's really into playing with all of her stuffed animals too.

Today we ate lunch again at a picnic table at a brand new playground. Then Sophia enjoyed the "big girl" swings for a bit before we had to come home for a nap.

She's so smart - and I can prove it!
A few days ago I told Sophia that we were completely out of Playdoh because, frankly, I'm over picking up little tiny Playdoh crumbs left all over the house. I told her that she would have to remind me to buy some the next time we went to the store. Well, she reminded me yesterday.

After a half hour of pushing her on the swing I told her we had to leave to go to the store. At first she loudly protested. NO! STAY HERE!! SOPHIA STAY HERE! I explained to her that it was going to rain and that we had to leave anyway. I told her she could have 5 more minutes. That's when she said - PLAYDOH AT STORE, MOMMY? PLAYDOH? SOPHIA GET. I said something like, "Oh yeah, good memory, we'll have to get some." Then she looked at me with her big, beautiful eyes and said BUBBLES, MOMMY? I told her we didn't need those. She thought about it for a while, looked at me and grinned and said NECKLACE, MOMMY? And I told her she had to ask Daddy about those types of things!

Dolls

Sophia's 2nd wedding

Sophia attended her second wedding this weekend. Actually, now that I think about it, it was really the first one she's attended because I believe she and Will showed up really late to Uncle Mike's wedding.

Regardless, she thought the bride was really PRETTY and she loved the flowers. It was an outdoor wedding at a State Park and Will and I were able to wear shorts! Shannan and Tien, our friends from Brooklyn, stayed with us and Sophia now has a new boyfriend. She was absolutely crazy about Tien.

For the past couple of weeks she's been telling us that her BOYFRIEND is JAMES! Um, we do not even know a James, but okay. Will keeps telling her that Daddy is her boyfriend, but now I think she'll probably claim that Tien is her boyfriend.

Tien took this picture of Sophia.

Family Fun Night

On Friday night I took Sophia to Family Fun Night at Addie's church. Haley and her family were also there. Since Addie is familiar with the church and has lots of friends there she was off doing her own thing for most of the night, but Sophia and Haley stuck close together. They gobbled up their very first tastes of cotton candy and sno cones. Sophia was a bit perplexed about how to eat the cotton candy. At first she was too afraid to even put her tongue on it, but once she "accidentally" did there was no stopping her. She had blue and and then she wanted a pink one. (Yes, that's Aubrey crying in the stroller behind Sophia).

Sophia really loved riding on the teeter totter with me. And my legs really enjoyed with workout!

All three girls got ladybugs painted on their faces right before it was time to go home. Sophia has never wanted to have this done in the past, but after Addie and Haley got their ladybugs she simply had to have one too. Check out all the pictures.

Aubrey in Sophia's crib

On Friday morning I put Aubrey in Sophia's crib while I helped Sophia to get dressed. When we finished Sophia climbed up the side of the crib and nicely placed all of her "friends" beside Aubrey. As she put each "friend" down she said HERE YOU GO, AUBREY. She really is great big sister.

WOW with Haley

Today we went to the WOW sprinkler garden with Sophia's friend, Haley, and her mom, Michelle, and 3-month old baby sister, Carlie. The girls had a blast splashing in the water and then finding all the alphabet letters scattered throughout the park. Sophia calls them NUMBERS. She knows the P and she knows the D. Today she found the letter D and then said D FOR DOGGIE. I think she also recognizes the letter S but hasn't labeled it yet.

Sophia "ate" her first apple today. She literally grabbed the apple out of our cooler and, instead of letting me peel and cut it into slices for her, she took it over to the sprinklers and WASHED IT OFF and then proceeded to take a bite! She at the whole thing! It totally floored me.

See all the pictures from our fun day.

Both girls take a bath

I'm trying to get Aubrey (and Sophia) on more of a schedule. I know it's summer and time for crazy days and staying up late, but Aubrey is craving a routine. I've been giving her a bath in the afternoons while Sophia naps, but now I've switched her to evenings too. Both girls took a bath at the same time tonight in Mommy's bathroom. Sophia loved swimming around in my over-sized tub. I gave Aubrey a bath in her tub at my sink and could see Sophia in the mirror the entire time. It was perfect and Aubrey's been sleeping like a log for over 2 hours now. This is probably going to break some sort of record for her.

Aubery the Pooh at 6 weeks

Aubrey - 5 weeks old

This is a picture of Aubrey from last week when she was only 5 weeks old.

She turned 6 weeks today. She's growing quickly just like Sophia did. Will measured her length last night and he got 21 inches. I weighed her on the scale with me and she's somewhere in between 10.5 pounds and 11.5 pounds. I want to look at Sophia's baby book to see how big she was at 6 weeks old. 6 weeks marks the second "growth spurt". The next will be at 2 months....which is technically just 2 weeks away.

She doesn't really like the swing very much as she gets frustrated or perhaps even overstimulated by the motion. She definitely prefers her vibrating seat.

Interesting Aubrey Facts
1. She started smiling real smiles and she's really quite a friendly, little sweetheart. I do not remember Sophia smiling nearly

2. She really likes to take baths and doesn't mind having her hair washed.

3. She's starting to coo and talk to us. She still grunts and groans a bit, but now it's mostly when she's trying to sleep and loses the paci. Will wants to invent something that will keep it in her mouth.

Play date

Last week I had to get the girls out of the house so we attended a pot luck lunch play date with the ladies/kids from the March for Babies. Aubrey slept in her car seat the entire hour and 1/2 and Sophia stuck to me like glue. It's been over 2 months since she's seen any of these kids and really wasn't interested in rekindling the old friendships until about 5 minutes before we left.

Sophia sat with me at an all adult table while all the other kids either ate on the floor or ran around the room. Then she drew on the chalkboard by herself. See the rest of the pictures.

I LOVE YOU GUYS

How cute is this?...in the last few days Sophia has started telling us she loves us. Sweet music to my ears. She also likes hugging GETHER (together).

My new sleeping trick....

I KNOW I'm not supposed to put Aubrey to sleep on her belly, but I put her on the bed for a minute to see if she wanted some tummy time while I checked email and she fell fast asleep. We'll see how long it lasts....

Aubrey turns 1 month old

I'm posting a few days late, but I'm happy to say we survived our first month as a family of four (five if you count Sadie).

Sophia's clamoring for attention any way she can. Most Tuesday mornings we go to the library for toddler story time. Sophia loves it. Today she found a Christmas Barney movie to borrow from the library for a week. We got there early so we were able to read lots of books and scope out the scene. After careful inspection of all the kids Sophia decided that she would spend the entire time on my lap instead of huddled together with the group of kids. Oh well... Afterwards we had to stop at the grocery store and we ALMOST made it the whole way through without a melt down. As I was bagging and paying she decided she wanted to get out of the cart and when I told her she would have to wait until we got to the car she decided to alert the entire store of her "bad luck". She was crying and screaming! The cashier gave her a balloon on the way out the door and that made her happy and quiet.

Aubrey seems to be doing a lot better now that she's turned 1 month old. Maybe her little system is finally maturing. I don't think we're out of the woods yet because today she started a brand new symptom...spitting up. Twice today after she ate she spit up as I was burping her. She's really alert for stretches during every day and I swear she gave me a few huge gummy grins earlier that weren't related to any gas bubbles. She's 5 weeks today and all the books I've got say that around 6 weeks is when she will make eye contact and smile at me. Sophia smiled at me for the first time at Grancy's house when she was 5 weeks old.

Auntie Claire meets Aubrey

...and is able to hold her and rock her to sleep. Wow, that's quite a feat. I have to say that Big Daddy and Grancy were also able to calm Aubrey quite a bit too.

Sophia and Sadie stayed at Grancy & Big Daddy's house for the weekend while Will, Aubrey and I went to one of my college friend's wedding in Gettysburg, PA. I gave a reading and am happy to report that Aubrey slept through the entire ceremony. The reception was another story all together, but I'll spare you all the gory details.

We have another wedding to attend on July 12, but it's going to be held outdoors in the afternoon and there won't be loud music keeping Aubrey awake the entire time. I'm sure adding Sophia into the mix will add it's own trials.

Sophia had a blast at Grancy's house. I know because as soon as our car pulled into the driveway last night and Sophia realized her little vacation was over and started crying because GRANCY GONE. I know they had fun at the park riding the horses and the train. She's still talking about it. I think her favorite part was getting into the sandbox on the deck! She played with her sand toys in the rocks today and wanted to build a sand castle. I fear that she was spoiled a little bit too....she certainly was a handful today and wanted everything her way. That's what Grandparents are for, right? :-)

Sisters

Pigtails

Sophia and her crazy hair!

It drives us crazy because none of her barrettes seem to stay in place and she still rips out her pony tails sometimes. This pictures was taken on Saturday. I think her hair looks cute like this, but to me she looks like she could be 4 or 5 years old. My baby is growing up!

Of course, she's the typical kid who doesn't like to have her hair brushed or combed. She also doesn't understand the concept of "Keep your head still" so it's always a challenge to "fix" her hair. Oh well.

Some of her cute saying right now are:

• Mishlows - this is what she calls marshmallows. She absolutely LOVES them.
  
• SLISH SLASH - aka splish splash -- she loves to splash - in her pool, in the bathtub, in the sink when she washes her hands. And she loves to jump in puddles any time we see one!
  
• Earlier this week we were all in the kitchen while I was trying to get dinner ready and Will asked me if he should feed the dog the rest of her can of food for dinner. I replied that I didn't really care. And in turn Sophia said - I CARE, MOMMY, I CARE.

I started writing this post a few days ago....and at the time had a ton of Sophia-isms to post. Sleep deprivation has robbed me of memory and I cannot think of them. So, check back soon....and hopefully I'll have a few more posted.

Did someone swap babies with me?

I really don't want to jinx it, but Aubrey has been good all day. She's still blowing out her diapers, but her belly seems to be feeling much better and she's been able to sleep today without too much discomfort. YAY!!! Have we turned the corner? Only time will tell...

Dress up

Sophia picked out these two trend setting styles:

Aubrey Tales

Zantac works and Aubrey can successfully be left on her back for periods of time now without screaming and grunting in pain. This is absolutely great!!! So, our little girl should be all better. Right?

Wrong.

She's just as miserable now! We had an awful weekend with her. She literally didn't sleep at all on Saturday - day or night. Will stayed home today so I could keep a hair appointment and honestly I don't think I would have had the energy to survive the day alone. (But as of 4:00 today I'm a blond again and I have new eye cream that I'm looking forward to trying out tonight ~ hopefully it'll turn out to be a miracle cream in a jar.)

Oops...Back to Aubrey. She was constipated for 3 whole days and she was in some serious pain. And now she has diarrhea and horrible gas. This poor girl. She also hates to have a dirty diaper - and the dirtier it is the harder she cries.

Yesterday I began eliminating certain foods from my diet. I didn't have to worry about anything I ate with Sophia so this is all new for me. Some of the spices/foods I can't eat are: cinnamon, chili, pepper, garlic, onion, chocolate!!!, potatoes, corn, milk & all dairy products, citrus fruits. We'll see if that helps.