Merry First Christmas!

We had our first Christmas yesterday, and had a wonderful time. We came out to the cabin bright and early in our pajamas and found Sophie’s cousins excited and waiting for her. We had a quick breakfast and then prepared for the whirlwind that is opening presents with kids. Sophie needed no encouragement or help opening presents this year. She charged in and had to be reminded to slow down, and wait her turn. She received many, many gifts that left us wondering how they might all fit in our little house. Sophie loved every second of it, and will be thrilled to learn she gets to do it all again next weekend.

Uncle Ry looks on as Sophie and Kyle build blocks.

Santa brought Sophie a Dora backpack and map. Sophie was thrilled and has been carrying it around ever since. Santa also brought Dora underwear, we get the hint Santa- it's time.

Grandma and Grampa got Sophie and Elly Princess Chairs. They both loved them!

After all the presents were opened, we bundled the kids up and headed outside into the snow. All the kids were thrilled to play in the snow, and played outside at least 3 hours. It was a wonderful day!

Carl and Sophie out on the frozen lake.

Sophie and Elly in their Snow Chairs that Val built for them.

Kyle escorted Sophie and Daddy around in the golf cart.

Grandpa braved the cold and built a snowman with the kids. Sophie is adding a finishing touch. By the way, the clump of snow on top of his head is a hat.

All the kids posing by the finished product! They worked great together!

Christmas Cookies

It's probably some rare form of child abuse that we have never let Sophie have her own cookie before. Certainly not one with frosting. But, we decided that since she has reached the age of 2 1/2, it's probably time. So while Sophie had "quiet time" in her room, I baked the cookies and let her frost one after dinner. She was, of course, thrilled- and kept saying that the cookies were "yummy", and "tasty". We then gave her a nice long bath and put her to bed, where she literally bounced off the walls for about 45 min. Perhaps she will have her next cookie when she is 5.

As you can see, Sophie's frosting skills mirror my own, the more the better!

Yummy, Yummy cookie!

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

Sophie was Thrilled to help us decorate for Christmas. Thrilled. She especially loved helping us put our tree up. She could hardly stand all the excitement and had to be part of every step.

Coming to investigate what exactly this giant box was in our living room.

Carl and I had never set the tree up this fast before- Sophie kept bringing us more and more branches and did not seem to care that they were supposed to go in a certain order.

Christmas lights are very exciting.

Daddy was moving a little too slowly while putting the lights on the tree- Sophie had to come help.

We decorated the tree later, it's a good thing we have lots of non-breakable ornaments.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We just returned from Portland, and had a wonderful time! Sophie absolutely loves being with her Nana, and I greatly appreciated all the extra help (since Sophie is in a Sassy stage). It was a lot of fun to be able to shop, run errands, go see movies, take naps and relax while Sophie was being well taken care of. In fact, usually when I returned, Sophie would cry because her special time with Nana was over. The only downside to being in Portland? Sophie demands to do the same thing, in the same order that we did the last time we visited. Mom and I had to rack our brains to remember exactly which games we played, where we played them, and even where we were sitting. I can’t believe that Sophie remembers all the details about everything we did on our last visit, but she does. It was hard to take pictures of her doing different actives.

Wearing Jewelry is still very exciting. What’s better than wearing 1 necklace? Wearing 20.

Reading books with Nana- a favorite activity still.

Having a tea party with the kitty. Sophie was quite pleased, the kitty- not so much.


Nana gave Sophie an early Christmas gift of a table and chairs, which she loved! Here she is with cousin Claire having a tea party.

Sophie introduced Claire to Dora. Apparently, it was a very interesting episode.

We are looking forward to going back at Christmas!

Me and My Car

The moment Carl walks into the door, Sophie runs to him and never looks back. She is thrilled everyday to see her daddy, and of course he feels the same way. Carl has lots of games that he plays with Sophie, which last from after dinner till bath time. One of Sophie's favorite games is playing on her car. For this game, Carl gets our little toy dog, and essentially chases Sophie around the house while she rides on her car. This game usually lasts at least a half hour. Sophie never bores of this game, and will happily play all night.

Sophie has gotten quite good at riding her car. She zips around the house, never slowing for corners or turns. Every once and a while, she will go so fast that she crashes into a wall, which only makes her laugh. She is quite content to sit on her car all night, preferring to ride around everywhere instead of walking. I believe that she is a future city girl.

Stopping mid-chase to play in her kitchen.

Pausing to watch tv- never getting off her car.

The video has an annoying high pitch sound, which is the lovely music the car plays. But, what is great about the video is that it shows how fast Sophie flys down the hall. When she is going really fast, she flings her head back and tucks in her toes, for maximum speed. I'm not sure what she says at the end, but I think I can hear a "booyah" in there. Oh dear.

Halloween 2011

We had a great Halloween! This was the first year that Sophie really got what was going on, and new exactly what to do. Well, almost- she had saying "trick-or-treat" down, and after receiving candy she would say it again instead of thank-you. This resulted in laughs from adults, and more candy for Sophie. We started our trick-or-treating adventure in the afternoon in Whitefish. All of the Main Street shops open their doors to kids, and pass out free candy. This means that there are hundreds of kids walking around in costumes, which is really fun to see. After that, we came home, had dinner and then hit our neighborhood. Once we were done trick-or-treating, we came home and passed out candy. Well, we thought that Sophie was done, but every time our door bell rang, Sophie would run past Carl, through the front door, and stand in line to trick-or-treat at our house. She is a trick-or-treating genius, and her daddy is a sucker as she got a new piece of candy each time.
By the way, if you are wondering where our pictures of pumpkins are, we did not carve any. I had brought them inside 6 hours before we intended to carve them, but they were still frozen solid. When I tried to cut into the pumpkin, it literally bent the carving knife in half. Living in Montana is super fun.

Trick-or-treating on Main Street with Daddy.

Stopping to see all the goodies mid-teating.

I realized that it was too quiet on the way home, and turned around to find Sophie eating a candy bar. She was a chocolatey mess!

Enjoying some candy after Halloween- notice that she is already a pro, double fisting with a sucker in one hand, and Snickers in the other. Carl and I are very proud.
*Sophie woke up the next day, put her costume on over her jammies and asked to go trick-or-treating again. Unfortunately, she has a long wait.

I Like to Bake!

Sophie really enjoys helping us bake. As soon as we tell her that it’s time to make cookies, she runs and gets a chair and pushes it up to the counter to help. She is a great helper! Sometimes we get less of the ingredients than required, because Sophie samples as she helps. Other times we get more of the ingredients than required, because Sophie has so much fun adding things to the bowl that she keeps going. So far everything has been edible. Perhaps she has superior cooking knowledge and is already changing recipes for the better. We shall see.

Helping add the marshmellows. Sophie was able to count to 10 for us 3 times to make Halloween Rice Krispies. She then, of couse took some out to sample.

Helping cut the butter.

Yum... peanut butter!

Hmmm, pretty tasty!

Pumpkin Patch

It has become an annual tradition to visit the pumpkin patch. It was a lot more fun to visit this year, because Sophie is able to do so much more than last year. When you look back, the difference between ages 1 ½ and 2 ½ are really astounding. Aside from being extremely cold, we had a great time!

They had a small hippty hop that Sophie was able to do by herself. I have many a fond memories of hippty hops from when I was young; we might have to get this little lady one too!

They had lots of animals at the pumpkin patch: donkeys, llamas, chickens, roosters, and bunnies. Sophie went up to each animal and said, “Hello donkey, Hello chickens" ect. In Sophie speak it sounds like hey-yo. She then proceeded to try to climb into each of the cages- hopefully this will change for next year.

The recycle tire/horse swing. Always fun when it's 35 degrees outside.

Bounce, bounce, bounce. In traditional Sophie style, we cruised through each of the stations in 1 minute or less. Except for the jumping station, where she stayed put for 45 min. We had to bribe her off. It's hard to say what she liked best.

Portland Trip

We had another great trip to Portland! Flying to Portland is getting easier and easier since Sophie now gets her own seat, and will sit and watch a movie. Sophie always has a great time at Nanna's because she loves all the animals and- let's face it-Nana never says "No" so Sophie gets away with everything. This time Nana had tons of art projects for Sophie to do, so she glue sticked, play-dohed and colored till her heart's content.

One of our big activities was going to the zoo. Sophie loved going, and tried to climb into the cages- again. Here is Nana keeping a firm hold of Sophie while she tried to climb into the zebra's grasslands.

Nana and Sophie bonding with the orangutan. Future zoologist?

The petting zoo- Sophie walked in and said," Hello goats!" This prompted several to trot over to her, which made her a little scared and resulted in my holding her. I am not a fan of the petting zoo, there was literally goat feces everywhere, so I just held her and waited for our time to be over. Ugh... never again.

Sophie proving that if there is something that could possibly be climbed, she will climb it.


Playing the giant drums, always fun.

At a local park- Sophie showed Nana her climbing ability and Nana got a little scared. This activity was supposed to be for school age kids, and apparently sassy 2 year olds.

Dancing to a band at the local farmer's market.

Sophie loves to walk around in other people's shoes- Nana's were of course, a favorite.