More on Sophie

We have this potty training toilet in the garage for some future date. While Keri was prepping furniture for paint, Sophie decided to entertain herself for several minutes with this. I hope she is always so joyful about the potty.

Often when we get out the camera, Sophie repeatedly says "Cheese?!" and runs to get her camera. This usually ruins the shot we were trying to catch but it's sweet.

Just look at our kid make her way into mom and dad's big bathtub. She has such a cute bum. I absolutely adore it!

Rock On!

What's Going Down at our Place

Splish-Splash. We are enjoying scattered thunderstorms with tornando warnings just west of Fort Worth. Don't worry. We have our shelter and 72-hour kits ready for the season. Here Sophie is enjoying a nice puddle in our front yard walk way.


Shall we dance? Sophie and her parents have this tradition of dancing together often. We don't usually get dressed up but we were getting ready for church this morning (see Keri's freshly washed, wet hair?). Yes, that's John Denver in the background. Keri gets rather winded these days with being 6 months pregnant and whirling a cute, 27 pound child around. It's all totally worth it.


Stuck! She does escape eventually.

Sophie Quirks

When Keri brushes her teeth in the morning, Sophie will grab Keri's hair brush and rub the bristles across her tongue to "brush" her teeth too.

Yes, we know it's mid-February but Sophie while "reorganizing" her closet brushes against her Christmas shirts with the flashing lights that are motion sensitive and decides that is what she is going to wear today. She wore the Christmas green and red one with Rudolph and Santa right on the front to Home Depot and Hobby Lobby. I have to admit, it is the first time since Christmas that she hasn't put up a whining fight to get dressed in the morning.

We often sing the Carpenter's song, Close to You, to Sophie. You know, "Why do birds suddenly appear Every time you are near? Just like me, they long to be Close to you." We sing two of the verses and do the "Ahhhhhhhh Close to You" part twice after each one. Sophie loves to sing along with "You" for "Close to you" and the "Ahhhhhhhhh" part. She really tries to get the intonation in there too. It's Sooooo Sweet!

If You Haven't Got Your Health...

What a week! As posted below, Sophie got the stomach flu last Sunday and then just became a picky eater for the better part of the week. Keri was none to thrilled to catch the stomach flu on Tuesday night. Thank goodness, Neal stayed home on Wednesday to take care of Sophie and check in on Keri. Keri was pretty much back to normal by Friday. Neal got a little digestive funk going on at the end of the week but we are very happy to say that we are all better this Sunday. We were all able to attend church and even had several friends over for taco salad.

Neal has jury duty tomorrow and we are hoping he gets out of it. Nothing else really going on but regular life. We are just happy to be healthy and able once again.

Super Bowl and Super Parenting

Well, we spent our Sunday evening with Rudy and Becky eating all sorts of wonderfully bad foods and watching the Super Bowl. Carter and Kari, and their daughter, Kenzie, were invited over to join in the fun. They are REAL Steelers fans. They wore their jerseys and waved their "terrible towels" and Kari even made a cake (YUM!) with the Steelers and their insignia on it. Neal is a fan of the game and Keri rooted for the Cardinals to create opposition and side with the underdog. Sophie had fun running around the house and playing with Oma, Opa, Tracer, their dog, and Kenzie.

We got to bed a bit late for our sweet Sophie but life is like that sometimes. Sadly we woke to coughing and whimpering at 4 a.m. and saw that Sophie had thrown-up for the first time in her young life. For the next two hours approximately we held her and let her vomit into towels several times while the other parent cleaned up and got laundry going. Poor kid and poor us--no one loves the smell of vomit. She took it all in stride though. She'd sit up and heave and usually after 3 hurls she'd sign "finished" and we'd get the next towel ready. She finally was able to relax enough to get back to sleep without much more trouble. Poor Neal got up and headed to work as usual and Keri has been enjoying a rather chipper, sick kid who is keeping things down for now but isn't eating or drinking a whole lot either. The nurse said it probably wasn't too much junk food from last night but the flu since she wasn't eating much still. Well wishes to Sophie!

Beginning My 6th Month

Here is a bellylicious picture of me at the start of my 6th month. There is definitely a bump there. No! I mean in the front. I have a girlfriend, Toni, who is due in March, and her doctor says that we need to be big in the backside to help balance, otherwise we may topple over and hurt the baby. I love her doctor!

Family Time at the Park

Today was sunny and warmish, after a few cold days this week. We get so busy doing regular life stuff during the weekends that we forced ourselves to go have some fun at the park.

First Prayer

Today Sophie said her first prayer! Usually she tries to draw the spirit closer by repeatedly hushing whoever is offering the prayer, or if we are holding her, she enjoys poking our closed eyes with her finger. More recently, she has been holding her hands, palms out, over her eyes. It's quirky but at least she is not poking our eyes. So today at lunch, mommy tried to break the prayer up into smaller phrases so she could try and copy the words. It went something like this:

Mom: Dear
Sophie: Dee-uh
Mom: Heavenly Father
Sophie: He-duh
Mom: Thank you for the food
Sophie: hooood
Mom: In the name of
Sophie: (nothing)
Mom: Jesus Christ
Sophie: Je-juh
Mom: Amen
Sophie: Amen

Happily, Heavenly Father understands all His children's prayers. Good job, Sweetie! (If you are wondering what is on the plate in front of her, it's leftover meatloaf, ketchup, grapes, and crackers. See! It needed to be blessed!)

Winter Charm

If Heavenly Father was cleaning out the freezer yesterday with all our ice, then Heavenly Mother must of done some baking this morning! We got a fine dusting of powdered sugar--well, snow! Very light but very nice!

Good Job God!

Last night we had freezing rain followed by a short period of sleet and this morning we had sunshine. Everything was iced over and the trees looked SO beautiful. It looked as though every twig had been delicately dipped in glue and fine silver glitter or diamonds. It was breath taking! We took pictures but it just looks like grey wet stuff--totally not what we are actually seeing. We are also very glad to have cars for transportation rather than having to walk. Chunks of ice are sloughing off from power lines, phone poles, over hanging branches, and the like. Look out below!

In Honor of our Chinese Ancestors

Okay, I think there is only a grand-aunt that was half Chinese but still....we celebrated Chinese New Year in a toned down fashion! On Saturday, we cleaned out and organized our food pantry and emergency food storage as well as another catch-all cupboard. This to honor the tradition of thoroughly cleaning one's house to get rid of the old and bad and to welcome in a fresh new year. Then Sunday, we invited Opa and Oma over for dinner and played a game of Uno (thanks for the salad and cake!). Neal made red beans and rice for the first time and it was very yummy and VERY filling. Chinese celebrate Chinese New Year Eve by having a feast and playing games with their family that evening. And on Monday, we ate Chinese food because we are too frugal to hand out red envelopes with money and because we love food. Actually, our friend Kari, made a stir-fry (thanks!) and we ate with chopsticks. Enjoy the Year of the Ox!

Oh Look! More Pictures of Sophie!

Sophie is such fun company to be with. She does several things a day that just melt my heart (and a few that raise my blood pressure). I am so happy that I can be a stay-at-home mom and that I have such a romantic husband that makes that possible.

Yesterday, while on a walk in a near-by green belt, we went along a creek that many houses back up to. Sophie said hello to friendly dogs (apparently no psychological scars from our recent GPS trip), sat by the creek, and best of all, slid down a not-so-smooth hill and said "Weeeeeeeee" the whole time. And repeated this new found joy twice. Today we went to the park where they have contraptions called "slides" made specifically for this purpose.

Latitude 33.097078, Longitude -96.64474

So yesterday Neal had work off so we decided to have a bit of fun. He punched through some formula and came up with the coordinates seen in the title. He entered that into his GPS and we took off. This is how our journey went...
It started out so nice. We filled the tank and made sure we were all comfortable.

After some time on the main freeway we pulled off in the city of Sherman, population 37, 710. We went through downtown which had many bail bond businesses and an abandoned mill. After passing a few more dilapidated homes we headed out into the country, east of Sherman. A couple miles out of town, we pulled onto a country road and passed several old ranch homes. Nearing a turn in the road we came upon our destination. This...

See the horse that stared at us wondering what the heck we were doing out there?

So Keri suggested to Neal that he get Sophie out of the car so she could stretch her legs. And he had just done so when guess what came tearing across that field?
See that dog coming right for us. He's right between the horizontal bars of the fence; which, might we add, hold horses in but not dogs. His tail was wagging and his tongue was flopping out and he looked very happy to see us. Neal, being the protector of the family, asked that we get back in the car. He was already buckling-in Sophie. The dog seemed friendly as Keri was trying to get his head out of the way so she could close her car door. However, just as we got situated and the car doors closed several of his less friendly canine buddies joined in. Where they all came from we can't quite say. But there were about 7-8 barking, growling, unfriendly dogs surrounding the car, and every time we tried to move forward, they would chase us.

Except there was one or two especially intimidating ones that kept jetting in front of the car as if to herd us off the road. See that dog at the front corner of the car? He was really aggressive!
Anyway we finally pulled away without harm to us or the dogs and drove a short distance when we remembered the road had no outlet and we would have to turn around and face them again. But most had gone back to wherever they had come from and we were able to pass a couple others without any major conflict.

We just love adventure! How often do you wake up in the morning and think, "Hey, I wonder if I'll be chased by a wild pack of dogs today!" Besides, what a great story.

A Day in the Life of Sophie

Sophie is Sprouting Perfectly

At Sophie's 18 month well check, things looked , um, well! She weighs 27 pounds (80th percentile), is 34 inches (95th percentile), and her head measures at 19 inches (88th percentile). So we have a healthy, well proportioned little girl. She only got one shot and took it in stride. Good job, Sophie!

Sweet Freedom

Well, because Sophie has met the 18 month mark and no longer needs the coaxing of her father, Sophie is now attending the nursery class the last two hours of church on her own. She gets to play with friends, eat snacks, have a gospel lesson, and enjoy music time (her personal favorite). And because Keri has been working in the Primary with the 3-11 year old children, Neal has been tending to Sophie on his own, forever it seems. Now he can actually pay attention to the lessons in Sunday School class (scripture study) and in Priesthood class (men's group). Sweet Freedom!--well, until Rhys arrives.

In Other News

Freaky Thursday! Keri was startled by Mohini, our kitty, (lovingly referred to as Mimi by Sophie) when out of the corner of her eye she saw him up in the window, ABOVE the front door. This is a new place for him.

And Sophie tweaked mom's brain when she adamantly requested her kitchen apron be put on and then crawled into her stroller to indicate we were going for a walk. We passed many people, petted thier dogs, and Keri was so good--she didn't attempt to explain the kitchen apron once.

The Results are In--It's a Boy!

The final results of the gender poll were 22 votes total, 5 (22%) for girl, 17 (77%) for boy. And according to the sonogram this morning we are happy to announce that we have a BOY on the way! Please leave in the comments whether or not you guessed right or wrong. And, yes, we hope that this is the only instance, EVER, that our son's genitals are posted on the internet.

Pathetic

Sophie likes to "read" her books in her chair. She climbs up there and we hand her a book or two or four and she is good to go for quite a while. Today I found her like this...

Wacky Winter Weather

This was Monday...

Friday is suppose to be in the mid 70s. We have had about 3 weeks that range like this over the last month. I just start to think I'm in CA when suddenly I'm reminded I'm in TX. Brrr!

Curtains Up, Christmas Down

We decided to put up heavier drapes because people could see everything we were or were not wearing if they passed by the front window at night. Sorry peeping toms! Here, Sophie is "helping" Neal get the job done.

The next day we got a shot of Sophie in her gay apparrel before taking all the Chirstmas decorations down.

Wanna Drag? Vroom-Vroom

She crawled in there herself while Keri was emptying out trash from the car. Only 15 years more to go! Hang in there, Sophie. You'll have your day.

Groovin'

Ever since her second cousin, Kenzie, showed Sophie her MP3 player, Sophie has been opening the desk drawer in the office and pulling out earpieces (connected to nothing) to "listen" to music.

Final Report on Destroyed Christmas Items

This Christmas Sophie only destroyed a train set, pieces of a music box, a candy cane ornament, and a monkey ornament. We will chalk up the first 3 items as due to exploration. The monkey ornament, however, suffered repeated attacks and attempted repairs. She either really loved the ornament (a bit too much) or detested it.