True Love

Tonight I was getting Sofia ready for bed, and she looked at me and said, "love you mama." Then pulled me in for a big kiss! As you can imagine it made my day, my week, my year! This truly made my heart sing. I really needed this pick me up after our car got broken into this weekend and my cellphone and GPS system were stolen. So I won't be able to know where I am going, and I can't call for help...ha ha ha.

You better watch out!

That's right, Santa Claus is coming to town:)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Well the Christmas season is upon us, and last weekend we took Sofia to an event called Festival of Trees. It was fantastic! We had so much fun. Sofia loved looking at all of the trees, and lights. We waved to Santa from a far, I don't think we are quite ready to sit on his lap yet. She got her face painted, ate cotton candy, tried to eat a gigantic paper candy cane, rode on a carousel and a train, and got to see some beautiful ballerinas dancing the Nutcracker. We are really getting into the Christmas spirit around here.

Babies

Sofia's new passion is Babies. She has always liked babies, but now she LOVES babies. The other day when she was napping on me, she all of a sudden started to just say, "Babies, Babies, Babies." Yes the girl loves babies!
Here she is with all of her babies. She was in her play room and had pulled out all of her babies (and Elmo of course)and put them onto the couch, so I helped her line them all up. Then she asked for, "hep," translation help. She wanted to be sitting right next to them:) Then we lined up everyone, can you find the real baby?

Watch out Vanna

I have a confession to make. Occasionally during dinner Sofia and I will watch Wheel of Fortune. She LOVES that people shout letters and then everyone claps. It is the best show on earth. We have also been writing her name a lot lately with the new marker she has. Well when we turned on wheel tonight, she shouted "S, O," and then clapped and said, "YEAHHHHHH!!!" I don't know if this is a good thing or bad, but it sure was funny:)

Long Time

Well I haven't posted in a while because our house unfortunately came down with the plague just as we were getting back to East Coast time. But now that we are all back to normal we have been up to a lot. Sofia had her first "hair cut," she can now put her guns up, and Sofia has found and loves to wear my running metals! Enjoy these pics. There are more to come.


Sofia get your guns up! Wow that gun is really shooting for the sky!!!


Tiny guns, I guess they are close to her heart:) Watch out Oklahoma, she is ready for you.


Wow a future runner. I am so proud, and excited for her to do her own race, and wear her own metal. But this is fun to watch her wear mine.


The first hair cut. I noticed that her bangs were getting too long, and in her eyes. So we just trimmed her bangs, she was a good client for her mommies first beautician job.


The final product of the hair cut. Doesn't she look gorgeous!

The Last of Ireland

Well in this slide show you will see the last week of our trip. We went to Marian's cousin's house, Barbara. She has two kids, so Sofia was in heaven. Emma is three and was so sweet with Sofia, and Ben is only two weeks older than Sofia. She thought he was great....I think we may have a match here:)
We also went to the waterfall just outside of Sligo, by the mountain Benbulben. It was a rainy but fun day. Sofia kept saying, "wawa, wawa." I think the whole thing blew her mind. Then we made cupcakes, for her 15 month birthday. And of course it was a special treat to find Donald Duck cupcakes in the grocery store. We also managed to find some time for some last minute shopping where Auntie Marian found a special way to spoil Sofia. She bought her, her first DIAMONDS!!! It is a bracelet that is made just for little girls:)
We then found an indoor play ground where Sofia just went nuts! It was called Happy Days, and it was a happy day for Sofia. The slides were very fast, so of course we had to ride them a thousand times! We also went to the Harp one last time for some good Guinness and music. Then it was off to Dublin to see the zoo and go to the Auld Dubiner, my favorite pub in Dublin! We had a great flight back, and it was nice that they played "Mama Mia," Sofia's favorite new movie!
We had great time, enjoy the pics!

Back from the Ireland

Well we made it back.  It was a great trip, and we were so lucky to spend that time with Marian...or as Sofia calls her Maian.  She made the 8 hour flight seamlessly, she is such a good girl.  I will post pictures later on when the jet lag wears off.  In the mean time here is a video that became Sofia's favorite video to watch on you tube while we were there. She watched sesame street, Donald duck and a few other from you tube, while Marian and I made breakfast for her every morning.  

An Irish Halloween

Well Halloween has come and gone, but we sure did have a lot of fun. We started the day in town where we shopped, got scary movies and went to lunch at our favorite restaurant the Bistro. We then went to the park and enjoyed the beautiful day. After dinner Sofia got a real treat, a bat cookie! We were then off to go trick-or-treating, so we put on the monkey costume. At first Sofia SCREAMED!!!!!!! But after we put on a dancing monkey video she was fine with leaving the costume on. We went to a neighborhood close to Marian's house, and there were great decorated houses. At first Sofia didn't understand why we were knocking on people's doors, asking for candy and then leaving, but she soon caught on, and was all about ringing the door bell then waiting until the door opened and then lifting up her trick-or-treat bag:) She didn't like some of the scary masks, but loved watching all of the kids run from house to house.

Kisses, Guiness and More!

Hello from Ireland! Well Sofia and I made it to the Emerald Isle safe and sound. It took four days for poor little girl to get on Ireland time, but other than that we have had a blast so far!

Some of the events of our "holiday," or so they call vacation here, have included rain, rain, hail, more rain and some sunshine:) Marian wants you to know that it is sunny right now... for the next 60 seconds at least.

We went shopping in town the first day. We then went to the beach and saw GIANT waves. We have gone to the park, which was a great hit besides the 45 degree weather. Sofia actually tried to steal another girl's doll:) Yesterday was a great day though. We went to church in the morning, where Sofia got to sit with Marian and I in the cry room. She LOVED giving the sign of peace to EVERYONE at least once if not twice. We then went to the Harp Tavern where we had a Guiness and listened to traditional Irish music. Sofia danced the afternoon away. She even met a boy there who she danced with and blew kisses at. He thought this was an invitation to plant one on her. So she had her first boyfriend, and kiss in Ireland!

I have been able to see a lot of old friends, and visit. They all think that Sofia is just "gorgeous!" They all, also said how American she looks....I am not quite sure what that means. Sorry for the long post, we are just having a great time! I hope you enjoyed the slide show, and here is a video from the Harp...there will be more to come.

Happy Halloween

Even though we will be gone for Halloween we are still going to get dressed up and celebrate all month long. Here is Sofia carrying around her trick or treat bag in her Halloween shirt from Mimi. She is also singing and shouting pumpkin in excitement in her shirt from Grandma.


Sofia kissing the pumpkin and singing "Five Little Pumpkins."


Running and yelling Pumpkin and pointing to her shirt.


Is this a trick or treat bag or a purse?


A purse!


Well I could put DVDs in here.

Snow Suit

We got a great package from Grandma last week that included two snow suits. Sofia got to try one on and was hilarious walking around in it, and put a monkey in her pocket! I guess she is not like her mommy, because she is obviously ready to play in the snow!

Pumpkin Patch Fun

Last weekend I went with our friends Jeff and Jenn and their baby Avery to the Pumpkin Patch while Chad stayed home and did some writing (I think he was so sad to have missed out:(
We had a BLAST! The girls ended up by accident wearing the same shirt, so the pictures are extra super cute! Everyone kept asking if they were twins:) I think they loved the moon bounce the most. We loved spending time with Avery, here are a couple of pictures and two short videos.


One pumpkin for you and one pumpkin for me:)

Walking on hay was harder than it appeared to be!

Measuring each other according to the "pumpkin" chart

Eating dinner together at the big girl table after all of our pumpkin fun.

Wild Things

Our current favorite book is "Where the Wild Things Are." I think that I could literally recite the entire book to you at this point. Sofia we have found that she is just like me, she LOVES to be scared and scary things. So she just loves this book, she will bring it to you and say "Wild Thi." The other day I took her to the toy store to just look. Well we found max the doll and a wild thing. After playing with them and telling everyone in the store that it was a "Wild Thi," we had to go home. The whole way home from the back seat I heard, "Wild thi, Wild thi." I guess Santa may be bringing her a wild thing for Christmas! Here are is a video or her reciting a part of the book. It is all pretty hilarious to me.

Mommy Sofia

Last weekend we took Sofia to the park with her baby carriage. She loves baby dolls and she loves her carriage, our house is just to small to really stroll in. She loved it, all except for wiping out when she went down a hill too fast, after that daddy had to push the stroller and she carried her baby. I guess it was too dangerous for Cinderella baby to be in the carriage after the wipe out.

Newport Beach Slide Show

So we are heading home tomorrow. Six hours on a plane....wow I can't wait:) But I thought that I would share some pics of our trip. Here is a slide show from my mom's camera.

More Disney Picks

Sorry I couldn't resist more pics, they are all just so cute. I guess I should have just done a slide show...maybe next time:)


Notice how far she is standing from Goofy....she wasn't so sure of him (or any of the characters with a "mask." However she loved to look on from a far and wave)


She is trying out the car in toon town, while enjoying a rice cake.


Minnie ears! The only time she wore them was for this picture:(


Riding the tea cups AGAIN with Uncle Tim.


Watching the princess show. Where she met a prince and she kept blowing kisses to him!

Disney Land... I am not so sure about this.

One thing that I forgot to mention in my Newport post was that Sofia took a little bit of time to warm up to Disney Land. We took her on the pirates of the Caribbean first, she clung to me. She didn't cry, she just wasn't sure about the dark. So of course the next ride we took her on was the haunted mansion, she really didn't like that one. So we then took her on Dumbo, the tea cups, and then the Alice in Wonderland ride. She liked the first two, but didn't like the Alice one. We finally figured out that it wasn't the rides, she just didn't like the dark rides. So we stayed on rides that kept us outside:) Here are a few pics.


At lunch with Mimi and PB, Thank you again for bringing me to the best place on earth!


Riding the Dumbo ride with Mommy and PB


Here I am so excited to ride the tea cups, I am not waiting for Mimi, I can get in on my own!


I loved Alice, I would go anywhere with her.


One of these rides again! (Please notice how happy Mommy and Mimi are, and how I think that Disney Land is not for me!)