Family Picture

Sophie drew her first family picture the other day. She has always loved to draw and paint and recently she has started to tell us what she is drawing, whether it be an octopus or a monkey (she was hung up on drawing those for quite sometime). Of course the drawings typically look like nothing more than a bunch of swirls and scribbles all mushed together, but to her they were monkeys and octopuses. Then last Thursday Neal and Sophie were playing in the playroom and she drew a picture of our family, three separate swirly looking things and told Neal, "That's Daddy, that's Mommy, and that's Sophie". Awww, so sweet! Of course Neal took a picture!

Rainy Day Trip To Discovery Place

With all the lovely weather we were having last week I felt so bad for poor Sophie (and myself, honestly) being cooped up in the house. She was so good all week, so Thursday we headed out to Discovery Place for a little change of pace and to get the heck out of the house! I had my expectations set pretty low, I had been to Discovery Place before and knew that it was mainly geared for school age children, but it had been a while since my last visit so I thought, what they heck, we're getting out of the house. Low and behold Sophie had a blast and therefore, so did I! They had this great little room that was specifically for children 6 and under, of course we spent most of our time in there on the slide and at the water table! We got there at 11am and didn't leave until a little after 2pm, we did stop off for lunch too so that took a little of that time, but she played hardcore and passed out fast in the car!

Mini Videographer

Sophie just had to do some filming of her own. She decided that she wanted to be on the other end of the camera for a change. As you can imagine the footage is a bit shaky, but the commentary from her had Neal and I rolling with laughter when we went back and watched it later.

Taking A Page Out Of Daddy's Book

Yes, the pictures are blurry, mainly because I couldn't help but chuckle a little and in part because Sophie kept trying to grab the camera because she did not want her picture taken during her "outburst". I could not resist putting up these pictures blurry or not. The main reason behind these teary eyed blurry pictures? My two year old was begging, begging to go "night night". She did not want to eat, she wanted to go to sleep! She ran over to the stairs and sat on the edge and cried to go to sleep. This girl knows when she is tired and knows when she wants to go to bed and will not take no for an answer. I had to convince her to eat part of a PB&J before I took her up. We were out doing errands this morning and as we were walking into the post office she looked at me and said, "Mommy, I a little sleepy, I need to go night night". Really? Don't most kids fight sleep? Not my little Mini-Neal, she, like her Daddy, loves and cherishes her sleep! I am glad she loves to sleep and trust me I'm not knocking it, it makes one part of my job easy, I am just in awe of her ability to recognize her body's need to sleep. You go Sophie!

Bread Anyone?

Always up for a challenge in the kitchen, I decided to make my own bread today. Not only were we two slices away from no bread in the house, but I figured I had all the ingredients so, why not? I had tried a while ago to make my own bread at home with Neal's bread maker that he used in college and after several failed attempts I just quit. This time I used a recipe for whole wheat bread out of my trusty "can't live without it" Better Homes and Gardens cook book. I have to say I am very proud of myself and will definitely be doing this again, not only to I feel accomplished, but the smell of fresh baked bread throughout the house can't be beat! The loaves are a little on the small side, we can mow through some bread in this house, but homemade bread tends to spoil faster than store bought since there are no preservatives in homemade, which I feel good about! So I thought I would share my success and how easy it really was!

Sophie's New Backyard Adventure

The pictures really do speak for themselves here. Sophie got a new play set and Neal finished putting it together yesterday morning. Today was the first day she was able to play on it since we spent most of yesterday up at Neal's parent's house. Neal spent three nights putting this together so that Sophie could play on it this weekend. He was like a little kid, I'm not sure who was more excited him or her! He would get home from work, we would eat dinner and like a little kid, couldn't wait to go change into his "play clothes" so that he could get out in the yard and make the most of the evening daylight hours to get this thing together! He would work until it was pitch black, I would have to go out and tell him it was time to come in only to find him out there with a flashlight in one hand and a drill in the other......that is what I call determination and an accident waiting to happen all rolled into one! He even worked in the rain one night he was so excited and determined, the things a Daddy will do for his little girl!

She was a little hesitant to go up the ladder at first and very hesitant to go down the slide, which is weird since not more than 2 or 3 weeks ago you would have thought she was Evil Kinevil at the park with Neal's parent's, but hey that's a two year old for you, love it one week, hate it the next! Once she came around and got the hang of climbing up the ladder and sliding all by herself she had an absolute blast! Of course the tears started flowing when we told her it was time to go in and get ready for bed, but like anything with her the tears didn't last long. Enjoy the great pics and the look of pure innocent joy!

Reading the instructions, to quote Sophie, "Daddy you're a mess" when she saw Neal's work pants.

Such a big helper.



Working hard.



"Sliding on my belly like Tinkerbell and the penguins".




Scaling the rock wall.




She was pleading for "one more slide" after we had already given her 3 more slides!




We ended on a happy note though!

Sayonara Uncle Joe!

On March 27th Uncle Joe (Neal's bro) departs for his studies abroad in Japan! He will be gone until August 15th!!!! I know he is super excited to be able to experience what I am sure will be an awesome adventure and learning experience. We are excited for him however, he will surely be missed, but we hope to keep in touch with him via email and he says he may start up a blog to keep us all updated as well, so be on the look out for that link on our page! Good luck Joe, we will be thinking about you and praying for you and safe travels!

In honor of Joe's departure for Japan we traveled up to Neal's parent's house for a little party to say good bye and Great Grandad made the journey from West Virginia to share in the festivities as well! We had Japanese food (Hibachi Chicken LOADED with shrimp sauce is how I roll!) and Neal and Joe were the only Sushi lovers. Sophie who always wants to try whatever looks new, fun, exciting and different, decided that she wanted to try Neal's sushi. Thankfully, the one that she picked was not a raw sushi roll, but rather a tempura fried shrimp roll. Shrimp is her ALL time new favorite food, so once she bit into the roll she was so excited to find that it was shrimp inside the fried goodness. She then proceeded to pull the shrimp out of the fried batter and eat just the shrimp, she later came back to the batter and finished that off too! That's my girl! Neal was very excited, he desperately wants someone to share his love for Sushi and it ain't gonna be me, so he has his sights set on Sophie and last night he got one step closer!

Get Your Hair Did

Sophie is very much into pretend play these days; pretending to eat the food she "makes" in her kitchen, pretending to eat the food she makes out of sand in her sand table, playing castles and princesses with her mini Disney Princesses, and a recent favorite, pretending to "wash" my hair.

Thought I would share some cute pics of Sophie blow drying and combing Ariel's hair the other day. Ariel (and Flounder too) got to go in the bath tub with Sophie the other night, but since she sleeps with Ariel we had to dry Ariel's hair too so Sophie could take her to bed with her.

The other pics are from a couple days ago when Sophie "washed" and brushed/combed my hair. Please ignore the silly expressions on my face, when a two year old is coming at your head with a very hard brush you must brace yourself for what could possibly end up being a painful experience. Ahhh the things we endure for our child's enjoyment!

So excited to hold the blow dryer



Sweet Feet

Fish out of water -- poor Flounder