A Play Date

My friend, Jennifer, brought her two girls over to play with my girls today.  Jennifer and I met in kindergarten and have remained friends all these years.  While we live quite a distance apart, we still try to get together with our girls for birthdays and a few scattered play dates.  Her oldest, Sydney, will turn 6 in July,and while we aren't able to attend her birthday party year, we still wanted to make today special for her.  (Her youngest, Kiera, was born three weeks before Sam).

As soon as they arrived at our house today, we headed down to the beach before the sun got too hot for us -- afterall, the temperatures have been near 100 degrees here the last couple of days.

This was the scene in front of Jennifer and myself as we travelled the short distance to the water.  Both her and I whipped out our cameras to secretly capture this moment -- the girls did this all on their own, totally unpromtped and unscripted.  I think we both smiled the largest smiles possible.

Sophia set a record and managed to keep her hat on for the first half of our beach adventure:

Sam set to work making sand castles, of course.  It seems to be her personal mission everytime, and I love that ...

Sydney and Kiera joined in by gathering all of the water needed.

Before we left to head back home, Jennifer and I set out to do the impossible -- we attempted to take a picture of all four of our girls together on the beach.  This was the best one:

Sam and Kiera:

Blowing out the candles on Sydney's special cake:

And, finally, opening her gift from us.  It was all that Jennifer and I could do to hold the girls back and just let Sydney open her own gift!

It was a great day for all of us!  Hours later, Sam said to me, "Momma, Sydney is so great.  She's just so adorable ..."  Yes, she is a very special girl!

Sophia is 16 months old

Sophia is 16 months old today -- 16 months!  In two short months, she will be a year and a half old ... and before long, I will be planning a second birthday party.  This month has brought with it so many changes and so many new developments.  Sometimes, the changes seem to happen just overnight.

One of the biggest obstacles developments is that she cut several teeth this month.  Four molars and two cuspids -- wow.  And, I am pretty sure that the other two cuspids will be breaking the surface very soon (the gums are swollen there and she is constantly jamming things into her mouth).  After that, there will only be four remaining molars to cut and then she will officially have a full mouth of teeth. 

With all of these new teeth, we decided that it was time to start helping her brush them.  It's a nice routine to get into with her, and I suspect that it probably feels pretty good on her gums.

Sophia has been mobile for a while now, but her crawling has increased dramatically in speed just in the last couple of weeks.  She can climb now, and with that new-found ability, she demonstrates absolutely no fear.  She will throw her leg up onto the couch or our bench in the blink of an eye, and I have witnessed her sitting in the middle of the coffee table or in the middle of our dining room table (yeah, that was because she climbed out of her high chair and straight onto the table).  A lot of our pictures look like this:

I have a feeling that she will try taking some steps in the next couple of weeks.  She is finally gaining some confidence and will stand up on command, though it is only for a couple of seconds.  And she has learned to walk on all fours (instead of crawling on her knees) if she doesn't like the texture of what she is crawling through (sand, cement, etc).

She will also stand next to anything for balance.

Sophia loves baby dolls.  Her favorite thing is to feed them a bottle, and I often catch her doing that at random times of the day.

She loves to do anything that Sam does.  And she really loves Sam's tutu!

She also loves her books.  Sometimes she will bring us a specific book to read, and other times, she'll sit in her chair and "read" them out loud to herself.  She is so expressive when she is doing that.

There is no word that she won't try to say.  This is so different for me because Sam's expressive language did not start until right after she turned two years old.  Sure, Sam understood everything we were saying to her and took directives very easily, but she didn't use very many words, herself.  Sophia is already imitating our words!  This week she started using the word, "good."  When I ask her how she is doing, she always replies, "Good!"

Sophia has never cared for television.  Sam loved Sesame Street right from the start, but Sophia is not content with simply sitting in one place for more than one minute.  She just doesn't have the patience for it.  So last week, I couldn't resist snapping a quick picture of the girls watching a movie together.  Sophia's attention span only lasted about 10 minutes, but I was excited about that.

And then Sam couldn't resist cuddling with her sister.  I love these girls to pieces!

Little Miss Independent loves to be in charge of her own snacks these days.  She isn't pleased with my usual "portion control" ...  This miniature box of Cheerios entertained her for a short period of time.

Then she exhibited a little bit of frustration when she couldn't get all of the Cheerios out of the box.  That girl can go from happy and content to angry and frustrated in mere seconds.  Any emotion, well, she knows them all!

Sophia still continues to sleep from about 7:30 pm to between 7:30 am - 8 am the next morning.  We give her a bath every single night as part of her nighttime routine, and we finally made the transition to the big girl bathtub this month.  No more sink baths!  She seems to do just fine in the tub upstairs and the girls often take their baths together.

It has been a busy month in terms of her growth and development, and to be honest, it has been a very trying month for me.  I blame her fussiness on her teeth and am hoping that this next month will be a little more easy on her (and me).  I can't wait to witness more words and more communication from her, as well as the joy that will come with her finally being able to walk.  She's close to doing it, but I suspect that she feels some frustration because she can't quite keep up with Sam.  That will all change soon ...

This and That ...

I mentioned in the last post that the girls and I got Steve a second chipmunk trap for Father's Day.  We really needed another one because the chipmunk traffic around here has gotten out of control. 

The very next day, we caught a chipmunk ... and Steve asked if we wanted to go for a ride after dinner to let him loose.  We piled into the car and travelled to a location a few miles from our house.  Sam helped her dad let "Chester" go.  (It should be noted that this is the second picture that I took of the event.  The first picture would have been even better -- you would have seen "Chester" actually making his rapid escape, but it turned out blurry.  Why?  Oh, because without me realizing it, Steve had aimed the trap at me and I jumped out of the way, thus juggling the camera, as Chester was running straight for me).

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Sophia has no fear of the sprinkler anymore.  She goes straight for it, even if she is fully clothed.



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The beach ... we spend a lot of time there these days.  A quick little sprint down to the beach, even if it is only for less than an hour, seems to rejuvinate the girls and soothe even the most irritable attitudes.  And this momma needs that every once in a while.

There is something so relaxing about the feeling of sand between our toes and the warm sun shining on us.

Digging deep in the sand and creating masterpieces is rewarding too.

We try to catch at least one fish, just using a net, every time that we head down there.  If you look closely, you can see a bluegill in the sand pail.  (We only keep them in there for a couple of minutes, just so the girls can see them up close).

And then Samantha lets them go.

How Sophia prefers to climb out of the water:

Spending some time on the slide at the beach playground:

Sophia loves to "swim" with her daddy. 

Sam likes to swim with her daddy too, but spends a lot of time just splashing around.

And then, we had the pleasure of having Uncle Jake (my brother) and his girlfriend come over and go down to the beach with us.  The girls loved it!

Sophia is very "hands-on" with all of the sand toys.

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Steve's friend, Eric (Sophia's godfather), stopped by today to show Steve the corvette that GM let him borrow for the weekend.  Sam wanted to sit in the fancy car, and within a few seconds, Sophia made it perfectly clear that she would like to sit in there too!

Our big girl looking out at Momma and Daddy:

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Father's Day

I have to start out by saying how proud I am of Sam and her ability to keep a secret (or many secrets) for at least a week prior to Father's Day.  She knew all of the gifts that we had chosen for Steve and I had hoped as much as I could that a three-year old would be able to not blurt out the surprises ahead of time.  She more than surpassed my expectations and it made for a really special day for Steve. 

We decorated his cards a few days before the holiday, and one of the surprises was a recordable princess card.  I recorded Sam's voice saying, "I love you, Dad.  You're the best dad ever.  Happy Father's Day..."  It will be a memorable keepsake for him to keep forever.

On the morning of Father's Day, Sam woke up and said, "Is it Father's Day today?"  I smiled and told her that it was!  She only needed to keep the secrets for a little bit longer.

We made cinnamon roll pancakes for breakfast, and they were absolutely divine!  We will be making these a lot in the future ...

We took a couple of pictures ...

Sophia's shirt says "Wild About Daddy."

Steve and his girls:

And finally ... the moment that Sam had been waiting for -- time for Steve to open his presents.

We got him a new live trap for chipmunks (he needed a second one because of the rapid rate at which he catches them at the front of our house), a new cooler (the thing that he was most excited about), some new shirts and a new pair of boxers that Sam picked out for him (they have lobsters on them; she is obsessed with the lobsters in the tank at Meijer).

Sophia loved helping with the wrapping paper most of all:

Later in the afternoon, we invited Steve's parents and my mom to come over to join us for some smoked chicken that Steve had prepared (my dad wasn't in town -- he had just left for Washington State to attend a conference).  I made a cake and decorated it.  Pink is probably not the best color for Father's Day (blue might have been more appropriate), but I wanted to make a pink lemonade cake.  So, I decorated it with hearts to follow through with the theme that we love our dads.

Of course, we had to put candles on it and blow them out!  Even Sophia tried to blow some of them out!

And Grandpa won over the heart of Sophia because he let her have some of his cake ...

Overall, it was a nice way to end out the weekend and to celebrate how special these dads are.  I am so thankful that Steve is such a good father -- so hands-on and so involved in everything that our girls do.  There is no doubt how much these girls love their daddy ...

Saturday

We had a wonderful weekend!  I took the girls for a couple of walks on Saturday morning, while Steve accomplished a few tasks around the house.  After we got back from our walks (there were two of them because Sam had to have a "potty break" in between), I put the girls in their bathing suits and let them use the new sprinkler.  I was surprised how much Sophia had adapted to it, almost overnight. 

We had a quick snack outside on a blanket before Steve suggested that we head down to the beach for a little while.  I lathered the girls with extra sunscreen and we piled into Steve's truck for our short little jaunt to the beach.

Initially, Sophia did pretty well keeping her cover-up jacket and sunhat on:

I put her on a towel to minimize the amount of sand that could potentially fill her diaper!

Before long, she had scooted off the towel ... and didn't seem to mind the sand one bit!

And within a half hour, she had officially removed the cover-up and sunhat:

Samantha set to work doing her usual thing:  Digging a big hole and filling it with water.  She referred to it as a "water system."  This was something that she had just learned about on a show called, "Sid, The Science Kid."

And there were sandcastles to construct.

But perhaps the most exciting thing for her (and even Sophia) was that Steve caught several bluegills with a net and they were able to see (and touch) them up close!

And look who was brave enough to go out into the water!

After the beach, we got the girls cleaned up, ate lunch and put them down for their afternoon nap.  They were exhausted!  After their naps, we headed across the street to a graduation open house that we were invited to for one of the neighbors.  Of course, we posed for a few pictures before we left.

Sophia smiles almost on command now:

We are working with Sam though -- she either smiles so hard that she is squinting or she keeps a more stoic look.  This picture is one of the better ones.

It was a great day, and I'm  glad that we got to fill it with so many activities.  We're starting to have more summer weather here, and I am appreciative of the days when it's not too hot and we can enjoy ourselves outside as much as possible!

** As a side note:  Sophia cut two MORE teeth (her top cuspids) this weekend.  That makes a grand total of 6 teeth (four of which are molars) in less than three weeks!  Yes, this momma is blown away with the rate that her teeth are coming in!