Sophia's 2nd Birthday

We celebrated Sophia's 2nd birthday a few days early on Saturday with family and friends at our house.  It was a sock monkey theme (I like to have "themes" to all of my parties) and it was completely appropriate because Steve is constantly saying to the girls "Monkey see, monkey do."  Sophia is always copying Sam's every move ...

Before the party, I was able to capture some pictures of the birthday girl and her big sister. 

And of course, there was the obligatory picture of me and my girls.  I just love them!



And how sweet is this?

Sophia was the most excited about her cake -- and that makes my momma heart swell.  I worked really hard the night before to decorate her cake and I am tickled pink that she was thrilled with it!

She was a big fan of the sour cherry balls too.  Eventually, I had to start rationing them with both Sam and Sophia.

Over the course of the last week, Samantha helped me with several of the decorations.  We did quite a few "projects" together, and I was so happy to see what a big interest she was taking in all of it. 

Some of the decorations:

A close-up of the cake:

At the party, we served spaghetti and meatballs, salad, bread rolls and fruit.  Everyone seemed to really enjoy the food (and spaghetti is one of Sophia and my favorite meals of all time!).

After we ate dinner, we migrated into the living room to open gifts.  Sophia was practically an expert ... Sam was willing to help her open every single gift, but Sophia preferred to do it herself.

After almost every single gift, Sophia would reply, "Wow ...!"  It was so cute!

After opening all of her gifts (and we were encouraging her the whole time to be sure to say, "thank you"), we moved back into the dining room for cake and ice cream.  This was one of the highlights for Sophia.  For weeks, we have talking about her birthday and she would always tell us that she was going to have cake at her party.

Posing with her cake:

This picture cracks me up.  Note the pouting face on Sam as we are telling her to let Sophia blow out the candles first and then she can join in.

And then she joined in!



With her birthday hat:

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Over all, this party was a success and a wonderful way to celebrate our two years of having this little girl in our family.  She brings us such joy and laughter every day and I can't wait to see what the next year brings.  She will be a big sister in less than three months (this pregnancy has just flown by for me) and I know that she will be just as natural in that role as Samantha was ...

Happy Birthday, Sophia Marie!

Samantha's First Visit to the Dentist

Last week, after Samantha's Valentine's Day party at school, her and I headed to the dentist for a teeth cleaning.  This was Samantha's first visit to the dentist and she was really nervous about it.  For that reason, I was sure to go first (allowing Sam to watch) and the hygenist carefully explained everything to Samantha.  By the time it was her turn, she was excited about it!

Showing Samantha how to use the suction (her own personal job):

Counting her teeth; she has all 20 of them:

She was doing a great job!

Sam asked for a mirror afterwards so that she could see how "shiny" her teeth were:

At the end, Samantha got to meet our dentist, Dr. Watts.  She was wearing sunglasses to protect her eyes from the bright light!  Dr. Watts said that her teeth look great -- no cavities.  We will return together in 6 months for our next cleaning and Sam is actually looking forward to it!

Of course, one of the highlights of the appointment was that Samantha got to choose a special prize out of the treasure box!

Sophia's Transition

This was a big week of transitions for Sophia.  For several months now, I have been wanting to move Sophia out of her crib and into a "big girl" bed.  I wanted to make this transition as smooth as possible (much like we did with Samantha), but there were a couple of hurdles that we needed to overcome first.  The biggest decision that we needed to make involved WHERE we would be putting this new bed.  Would she share a room with Samantha or stay in her old room?  This basis of this decision came down to how fast we thought that Steve would be able to finish the two bedrooms down in the basement.

After much debate, we opted to move Sophia into Sam's room.  It is a huge bedroom, and Samantha was completely okay with this decision.  We ordered new bedroom furniture and a set of matching beds and told the girls about their new sleeping arrangements.  With their two mattresses down on the floor temporarily until the new beds arrive at the warehouse and can be delivered, everything seems to be going as smoothly as I had hoped.

Each girl claimed their respective spot in the bedroom,and we have had four successful naptimes and bedtimes with the girls sleeping peacefully.  The first night (Monday night), Sophia got out of bed three times in the first hour, but we put her back down each time, and by 9 pm, she was sound asleep.  The next night, she only got out of bed once in the very beginning and then stayed there the rest of the night.  The last two nights have been a complete success.

Pretending to sleep right after we first put her on her new mattress:

This new transition was BIG, and I am so proud of her for adapting as quickly as she did.  She went from sleeping without a comforter or a pillow in the security of a closed-in crib to sleeping in a completely different room with a pillow and comforter on a big mattress.  The good news about all of this is that if she falls out of bed, she will only tumble down about 4 inches to the ground (and there is a pillow there to prevent that)!  Once the beds are delivered, we will put up a safety bar on the side as an extra precaution.

This was taken the first night when I went to check on her.  She was sound asleep:

As proud as I am of Sophia, I am even more proud of Samantha and how accepting she has been in all of this.  She loves sharing a room with her sister and she is so good about keeping quiet once I put them down for naptime or bedtime.  She lays still and lets Sophia settle in with minimal distractions.  If she gets up before Sophia, she quietly slips out of the room and lets Sophia rest a little longer. 

I am just so grateful and so thankful for my girls that are growing up so quickly ...

Samantha's Valentine's Day Party

Samantha celebrated Valentine's Day at her preschool yesterday (a day early because she doesn't have school on Thursdays).  Myself and one of the other moms planned the party and it was a complete success.  The kids had a great time ...

We began with a game of BINGO that I designed.  Each of the cards were kept simple with a Valentine's Day theme and then I filled little plastic boxes with candy conversation hearts to use as the "cover-up pieces."  We played until every one of the kids got a BINGO and then they received a special goody bag as their prize.

The parents were there to assist with the game, and I took such pleasure in watching the excitment on the kids' faces.  Overall, I would say that it was a success.

After the game of BINGO, we had the kids do a small craft.  We provided them with a picture frame (complete with a picture of themselves in it, taken at the Christmas party) and gave them the freedom to design the frame with foam heart stickers. 

Several of the children, including Sam, worked feverishly on constructing the perfect pattern of hearts.

The magnetic frame is now proudly displayed on my refrigerator.

After snack-time and a couple of stories (read by yours truly), the long-awaited moment had arrived for the kids to open their Valentines.  They had decorated special boxes that morning in school and deposited the appropriate valentines in them to all of their friends.

(We had worked on Sam's valentines one night before bed this week.  I was surpirsed that we were able to get through all 11 of them that night.  It's a lot of work to write all of the kids' names on them, as well as your own, when you are in preschool and just learning to write your letters.  I am so proud of my hard-worker).

Waiting patiently to open her box of valentines:

Digging right in:

Carefully opening each and every one:

What a fun morning we had!

A Snow Day!

Both Friday and today were snow days for our town -- lots of snow arrived on Thursday night and some freezing rain moved in last night.  While Sam was initially pretty disappointed that she didn't have school on Friday, her disappointment was short-lived when she saw the opportunity to play in the fresh, white snow.

I bundled the girls up and we headed outside to the big pile of snow that Steve had left for us that morning at the front of the driveway.  He was nice enough to shovel and snow-blow the driveway before he went into work.  I appreciated the clean driveway, while the girls appreciated their new snow hill.

Sam, attempting to mount the big pile all by herself:

The snow was so fluffy and the girls enjoyed throwing it up into the air:

We also made some very big snowballs:

The girls spent the majority of their time on that hill.  I tried to get them to head out to the front lawn, just for a change of scenery, but they weren't really interested. 

Soon, they tired of being out in the cold (I don't really blame them) and we headed inside to warm up.  It was just the right amount of fresh air for all of us ...

An Early Valentine's Day Celebration

We do holidays up pretty big in our house.  We decorate, we make fun, festive projects and we usually have some small gifts.  I tell myself that I am doing this for the kids so that they will have tons of memories, but the truth is that I did a lot of this before I even had children. 

I know that the holidays have become even more special now that Samantha is at least old enough to understand and appreciate the significance of them.  However, I have to admit that I wasn't quite prepared for her question that she asked me when she came home from school on Friday.  As if it were a perfectly natural thing, she asked me, "Momma, what are doing to celebrate Groundhog's Day?"

I've never celebrated THAT holiday before...

While we didn't do anything of great significance for Groundhog's Day yesterday, we DID have our first Valentine's Day celebration earlier this week.  My mom came to town and brought the girls their gifts a little early.  I am excited about that because, included in their gifts, each girl received a cute Valentine's Day outfit (and they have managed to wear them quite obsessively since then -- they were a big hit!).

Starting with their respective presents:

Sophia has gotten so skilled at opening gifts, just since Christmas:

Each of the girls received some new books:

And their matching Valentine's Day outfits:

There was absolutely no doubt that Sophia was very excited about her new dress:

In honor of the early celebration, we also made some cookies:

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The girls were so anxious to try on their new outfits, that we decided to do a little photo shoot.  As usual, I can't really decided which one of the photos is my favorite!

Sitting pretty:

We're still working with Samantha to do a more natural smile!

And their reward for having such a good photo session?  Fruit snacks!