ABC's

I will be the first to admit, Carl and I are pretty easily impressed. We, like all parents, happen to think our child is smart. But now we are even more impressed. Sophie appears to know her alphabet. Really. She loves the alphabet puzzle, and we still do it about 3 times a day. The other day I asked her to hand me a certain letter, and to my disbelief she found it and actually gave it to me. We then made a game out of pointing to different letters and she seems to know them all. By the way, if you thought this game would be a quiet, sitting still activity-you would be mistaken. Sophie does not sit still quiet or any other way. Future Rhodes Scholar? Perhaps...

Swimming

Sophie loves going to the pool. Having her comfortable in the water was one of my main

goals, as she is around the lake all summer. I think I can safely say, mission achieved! Sophie has no fear of the water-never has- and plays in the water with a certain reckless abandon that frightened her swim instructor. I was told that she was not the most dangerous kid in the water, but was up there. Darn, we really do strive to have her be the best.

Here is Sophie swimming in the water- Carl has his hand under her keeping her afloat. This is an accurate picture of what she looks like in the water- she just takes off in a certain direction and is unconcerned if you are going with her or not. Needless to say, having her head underwater is not a deterrent for this little lady. I think she thinks she has gills.

Sophie saw some big kids jumping in the deep end, and not to be out done, wanted to do it too. She showed them!

Sledding

We had a TON of snow- and then it rained for an entire week making most of our snow disappear. Before it was gone completely, we got Sophie dressed in her snow gear and voyaged to the backyard for some sledding. For the record, getting her ready for snow is a good 10 minute process. Not surprisingly, Sophie loved the sled. Carl dragged her around the backyard for a long time until her little nose turned bright red. She also loved going fast and didn't mind falling off- she just climbed back on and wanted more! I am sure that we will get more snow, and Sophie will be waiting with her snow boots on- literally, she loves the boots and clomps around in them all day. I have even resorted to hiding them.

Carl refers to her passie as her "mouth guard." It turned out to be a good thing, she tipped over a lot!

Carl shows Sophie the finer points on how to make, and throw the perfect snowball.

Clapping, because making snowballs is such fun!

Puzzle Mania!

Sophie has a new favorite activity- puzzles. She will work on them several times a day.
Usually once she has completed the puzzle, she dumps it over and starts again. She cycles through different favorites, this week it is the alphabet puzzle. I am pleased to say that she can place over half of the letters in the right spots by herself. Carl's mom told me that he used to love doing puzzles too, so she must get that trait from him. It is certainly not from me- puzzles rank right up there with Scrabble and getting a tooth drilled at the dentist. If she starts to like to spell and play Scrabble then Carl will have to stay home with her, because I will no longer be able to play with her. I will have other fun things to do, like go to the dentist.

Christmas Part 2

We made it back from Portland, and are glad to be home for a while! Sophie was very pleased to be back at Nana's house- and succeeded in destroying the place in under a day. A new personal record. Since she had just a Christmas, she knew exactly what to do and was able to focus on opening her presents. One of her favorite gifts, a new Barney stuffed animal that sings. This gets played a lot. Thanks Nana-can you sense the sarcasm?

My mom has a Latin CD that Sophie loves. LOVES. She asks to listen to the song at least 6 times a day. We all took turns dancing with her. Here is Uncle Sam striking his best pose.

We waited in line Christmas Eve to see Santa. Carl and I knew ahead of time that this would not be a pleasant experience for Sophie, and that she would be screaming in the picture. What I did not anticipate was her super strong arms and her amazing ability to cling to Carl in order to get away from Santa. After about 30 seconds of trying to pry her off, Santa looked at Carl and said, "Let's do a family picture instead." So now we have a family picture of Sophie looking dazed and worn out from her scream fest and Carl and I happily smiling at the camera.

We had a wonderful Christmas, and are adjusting to being back home. For Sophie this means not having 3 adults and a dog chase her everywhere she goes, and for me this means not having desert after every meal. No small square of fudge after breakfast, how am I to face the day?