Feeding the ducks

One day we went to the park and feed the ducks. It was a nice outing and it's fun to watch Sophia with animals because she loves them so much. If she was able to, she'd give anything soft, a great big Elmira squeeze! (Do any of you remember Elmira? I think she was a character on Animaniacs.)

 

 

 

Green Thumb

For those of you who haven't driven past our front yard... you should know, it looks like a bomb hit it. Rich is replacing our sprinkler system and will be re-seeding this fall. So, right now, we have nothing green to look at. Because of this, I decided to plant some house plants from seed. 

This is what I chose to plant:

Pretty, right? I really don't know if anyone has had worse luck than me at trying to keep plants alive. Every green thing I have planted/bought has suffered a slow death. It's really depressing watching your plants die. You feel so helpless. Just tell me what you need... more water? less water? more sun? better soil? WHAT??

After I planted these seeds, I was so excited to see lots of little green sprouts poke up out of the dirt. I watched them get bigger and bigger and then plucked out all but the biggest and strongest one.

A month later, it looked like this:



And I had my doubts that it was the beautiful purple flower I had planted.

It is yellow. The leaves are pointy. It is actually quite ugly. And big. But this is my little baby. I had brought it to life. I had watered it daily, I had selected this flower, over all it's siblings, to grow in my kitchen window. I wasn't going to give up on it yet.

 

Until this happened today. 

Now it's in the garbage.

A (half) day in the life...

I decided that, because I love this stage in Sophia's life so much, I wanted to document a day in her life. My plan was to take a picture of whatever she was doing every hour, on the hour, for a day. Well, I made it through half the day before I got distracted with other things, but I'll document what I've got.

Here she is at breakfast on August 16, 2012. She's eating a healty breakfast of chex cereal at 8am. Rocco loves when she eats... it's like the jackpot for him.



At 9am, she's all dressed and ready for the day. Lately she's been cheesing it for the camera. I don't know exactly when she learned to smile for the camera but it makes things a lot easier. 

At 10am, we went to Grandma's. She took a little cat nap in the car while holding her drink.
 

11am at Grandma's. She found out she could fit into the dog's kennel. 

12pm. We went to a farmer's market and I bought a whole bunch of delicious peaches. Sophia found the stuffed animals. She loves them! Grandma was suckered into buying one for her. What a nice Grandma!

1pm. Nap time. She hates it. 

This was at 4pm. This is where I started slacking. She loves her bath and when she found Grandma's tub, she couldn't resist. 

And that was all I did that day. For someone who doesn't normally take a lot of pictures, it was really hard to remember to take one every hour! I am glad I took the ones I did. I think in a few months I'll attempt again and see how far I get.

July and August

On the Fourth of July, we decided to head up to Provo and check our the hot air balloon festival. We had to wake up SUUUUUPER early but apparently, it wasn't early enough. The big Coke bottle was the only balloon we saw get inflated. Bummer. (Surprisingly, the coke bottle really can function like a hot air balloon.) It was still fun seeing all the other balloons in the air and watching to sun rise over the beautiful mountains.



Sophia liked looking at the balloons, but mostly liked looking at people that wasn't her dad trying to take our picture. :)

After the festival, we wanted to eat at a restaurant that makes great breakfast. I knew it was in Provo somewhere - Magleby's Fresh - but I didn't know where. So we decided to just drive down State Street and hope to find it. Eventually we did run in to one... not the one we were looking for, but I felt so lucky to have just bumped into one like that. It did not disappoint. My french toast tasted like dessert. Just the way I like it. :) The rest of the Fourth of July was fun also, but I didn't take any pictures. My favorite was when our cousins lit off those fire crackers with parachutes inside and we all tried to catch them. I also loved playing the "name game" with 4th of July theme words. Good times!

In the car, Sophia turns her head up (like it is in the picture) so she can see me in the front seat and sometimes she'll say "Hi" to get my attention. I love it when she does that. On this drive she fell asleep watching me. It was so sweet.

 

Lately Sophia has a new obsession... stuffed animals. I took her to the Church History Museum with Becky and our friend, Lily, and Sophia gravitated toward these hens.



At home with more stuffed animals.

One day while I was visiting my mom, we went out on the boat for a really quick ride. Sophia has never been on a boat, and once she got used to the life jacket, she loved it. These pictures crack me up because she wouldn't move her head at all. Only her eyes would move. Rocco has his life jacket on too.

 

 

 

 

She finally got used to the jacket and we put her in the water with Grandma. She LOVES swimming, but Rocco, not so much. We threw him in and he was dog paddling as fast as he could right back to the boat.

 

This month, has been super sad because Becky and John and the kids moved to Arizona. While they were packing, I watched Brooklyn for a little bit and her and Sophia were having a lot of fun in the rocking chair together. Aren't they cute!! We really miss having them right next door. I'm counting down until they come back to visit.

Rich found this little cart in his parent's house and brought it over for Sophia to play with. She loves it! I see her sitting in it everyday. She also likes putting all her toys in it and then taking them out again.

 

 

This is Sophia playing peek-a-boo with me. She thinks that's pretty fun!



Yesterday at the store, I decided to get a package of straws for quiet play time in church. I opened them up to see if she'd be interested in playing with them at all. I think the pictures speak for themselves. :) 

 

 

 

Have a great day!

"I'm one!"

Happy Birthday to my little girl! It's amazing how much can happen in one short year! This is Sophia on her birthday. We had her party the day before, so on her actual birthday, we just sang to her and gave her a cupcake. (Ok, she didn't even touch it... this was just for the picture!)



The day before her birthday, we decided to have a little lunch at the church with some family and close friends.

I found this "Sophia-sized" chair at the stage and she sure liked it!

She pushed it all around the church... I barely even saw her. She was so busy!

Here she is, opening her gifts.

She sure loves looking at books!

This was my first attempt at making cupcakes. The frosting was seriously a magical process! If you need a good recipe... use this one.

 

Sophia didn't really "eat" her cupcake. She mostly just threw it on the floor (hence the reason I didn't give her one on her real birthday!). It was a really great day and a lot of fun planning it. Thanks so much to everyone who came... we love you!

Father's Day

This was Rich's first Father's Day as a dad. We didn't do too much. I just made him breakfast, then we went to church, and then that night, we went to Jeannette's for a delicious dinner. 

 

Rich is such a great dad and Sophia sure loves him! When she hears him come home from work, she always crawls- quick as she can- to the door to smile at him. It's so cute. I love watching these two play together and nothing makes me happier than to hear Sophia cracking up at something Rich has done. Thanks for all you do, Rich, and thanks for being such a great Dad to our sweet smiley girl!

More misc.

I don't know if I've mentioned this yet, but she loves to be outside. She loves standing at the bar in our front yard and just looking around. This picture shows what she does anytime someone leaves. She stands at the door and cries because she wants to go out too.

She is a crazy sleeper!

Sophia loves it when Brooklyn comes over to play. Lately she has been climbing up on Brooklyn and Brooklyn HATES it! She doesn't even like it when Sophia touches her, but when Sophia pulls herself up using Brooklyn's shirt, it drives her crazy!

 

I love this picture! Poor Brooklyn is so annoyed but Sophia is so oblivious about it. Hopefully someday their relationship will be mutually benificial!