Happy Birthday!

It's official- Sophie turned one on April 9th. We celebrated in style with balloons, streamers, party hats and, of course, the highly anticipated Birthday cake. Up to this point, I had resisted giving her any type of sugar. Yes, the person who had a whole desk drawer dedicated to all kinds of candy and chocolate somehow turned into her mother upon having a child. (Although I still have chocolate, I now sneak it during nap time). But I digress, the birthday was a great success, and Sophie thoroughly enjoyed her cake- thus proving that she is indeed my child. Here is some pictures of the big event:

Opening presents, she is just starting to figure out what to do- and yes, I did make her wear a birthday crown.

Trying out her new princess car- thanks Uncle Mac and Aunt Emily!

The big moment. She took one finger and tried some frosting, and then went back immediately for a fistful.

One handed feeding proved not fast enough, so she had to use both hands! Yes, we are so proud of her ambidextrous skills.

Here is Sophie using the baby approved method of packing in food with your fist approach.

And finally, Sophie stares at her cake in extreme sugar shock as she ponders whether she should have eaten that last bite.

Happy Easter!

Sophie had a wonderful Easter weekend at the cabin. She got to spend lots of time with her cousins- Vivi, Kyle, and Ellie, and get lots of lovin' from her Grams and Gramps. Sophie had a great time watching the big kids play, and they had a great time watching her cruise around the living room. They were also impressed by how much she ate, and watched in awe while she opened wide for broccoli. This was apparently something they had never seen before. Here are some of our favorite pics from the weekend:

Sophie and Daddy sharing a laugh before church. By the way, the dress was a big hit with the little old ladies at church. She also had on sparkly pink shoes, which they all adored.

We all know that Sophie is a professional passie thief, but she can now add Easter basket thief to her resume. She decided that the big kid's baskets looked much more fun then hers.

Instead of joining in the Easter egg hunt, Sophs decided to sit on the sidelines and eat a plastic egg.

Here is a picture of Kyle playing with Sophs. He is asking her where she wants to go. He soon found out the answer, Grandpa's shoes. Kyle quickly realized that Sophie just can't pass up an opportunity to pull laces, especially with an easy target like Grandpa.

Kyle, Sophs, and Ellie playing in the mirror. A great time was had by all.

New Activities

Sophie has been very busy lately. Very, very, busy. She now has no time for toys. She is far to busy to stop and play as she is constantly on the move. We have now baby proofed our entire house, so she can pretty much roam free. I do however close the doors to the bedrooms and bathroom, as that is just asking for trouble. In all of her busyness, she now has a couple of new favorite activities:

Circling the coffee table. She will do this many times to get what she wants as we constantly move it out of her reach. Her record so far is seven laps.

Crawling in her room to take books out of her book basket. This activity is especially fun when the books have just been put back.

Tackling pooh bear. Carl started wrestling Sophie with Pooh bear a couple of months ago. I never dreamed she would enjoy it the way she does. She will even crawl into her room and go over and push Pooh bear over, I think assuming that he will spring to life and start to get her. She laughs, giggles and lets out little screams when she is getting Pooh bear. I now have fears that she will be the lone girl on the wrestling team. Here she is eyeing Pooh, and deciding how best to attack him.

And here she is successfully pinning pooh. Yes, I am very proud.

Since she has been so busy, she has been eating us out of house and home. She will eat just about anything- except cauliflower, this is the one food that we have found that she does not like. I have read books that tell me that babies stop eating when they are full, we have yet to reach that point with Sophie. She will just keep eating until we stop giving her food. Last night for dinner she had an entire pancake, half an egg, two tablespoons of peas, Cheerios and puffs. We think that she is in training for a baby hot dog eating competition.

In other news, Sophie has started sleeping better at night! Hooray! Some nights she will wake up to stand and move about, but we are able to lay her back down and she has been falling back asleep. Thank goodness, only getting a few hours of sleep did not work for anyone.

Why sleep when you can stand?

Sophie is currently obsessed with trying to stand. It is all she wants to do. Toys are not very interesting right now, unless she is holding one while trying to stand. Even sleep is now secondary to standing, which is very upsetting to Carl and I. She now wakes up every night and tries to stand and crawls around in her crib, waking herself up. Unfortunately it then takes up to two hours for her to go back down. We are hoping that this is just a phase and will pass very, very quickly.

Sophie blowing berries at me from her crib, quite pleased with her standing self.

This is her main toy that she likes to play with right now, as she can try to stand to play with it. It has a lot of annoying songs that she can listen to happily for hours. I have woken up singing them in my head. The batteries are now starting to die, and I am trying to decide if I should replace them. Hmm...

Pneumonia

Our sweet little baby has had pneumonia this past week. It all started with a cold, since Sophs has had colds on and off since the middle of December this was not a big deal. The cold then turned nasty and we made our first trip into the doctors. She was given an antibiotic and we were sent home. Four days later she was still not any better so we went back to the doctor, told it was croup, and given a different antibiotic. She seemed to be getting better but then got worse seemingly over night. Sophie was now having trouble breathing, not eating and no longer wanting to play. We went back to the doctor- third times a charm- and were told that she needed to go into the hospital to receive oxygen and that she now had pneumonia. We spent 24 hours under an oxygen tent, Carl and I taking turns every couple of hours, holding Sophie on our laps. By the way, there are several things that Sophie did to entertain herself while under the tent: try to escape the tent; stick your fingers in the unsuspecting adults ear, eyes and nose; try to grab and pull down the tent; eat the tent, as it made a delicious crinkly noise.
Sophie now is much better but still requires breathing treatments every 6 hours for 2 weeks. The breathing treatments are not fun and they require us to hold Sophie on our laps for 30 min. This was impossible at the beginning, but we have now found the secret to having her sit quietly and still for a half hour- simply watch basketball on TV. Yes, it is sad but true. Sophie is riveted by basketball and will even shift around in her seat to get a better view if you happen to block the TV. We have tried Sesame street, and Barney but she could care less about them. Carl is of course thrilled. Sigh.

10 months!

Sophie just turned 10 months, and here are some new stats: she is 30 inches tall and a whopping 21 pounds 12 ounces. She currently has 8 teeth and 2 more are on the way- sigh. Now that she has so many teeth I decided that I should let her start finger foods. She is very pleased with her new ability to gum peaches and bananas, although these are very slippery and hard to pick up. She also loves Cheerios, and these are much easier to eat!

She is now trying to pull herself up on everything, which absolutely scares me to death. She is also trying to open cupboards and drawers and merely smiles and goes about her business when we tell her "no." Sophie is demonstrating that she will make a fabulous 2 year old, because when we take her away from these forbidden things, she throws a magnificent tantrum. Carl and I are now starting to worry that Sophie inherited both of our stubbornness, in which case we have definitely met our match.

Sophie is in the "mommy phase" where hysterics ensue if I attempt to leave the room without her, or heaven forbid, try to go to the restroom by myself. Yes, privacy is now a thing of the past. Hopefully this phase will not last forever.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Sophie has been very busy trying to crawl. She is now attempting to do the "army crawl" and this exhausts her. Hurray! She is mostly motivated by the remote, and once again, Carl's cell phone. Interestingly, she does not seem to care for my phone, only Carl's. Now that she is becoming more mobile, she is starting to get bumps and bruises from her new adventures. Carl tells me that this will make her tough, but I feel bad when I am not quick enough to catch her.

Sophie has also begun to realize that her mouth is a great place for holding things while keeping her hands free. She often has her froggy chewy toy in her mouth as she roams around the room. Every so often she will stop, take out the frog, play with it, and then stick it back in and roll some more. The froggy toy is her favorite toy right now, she will sift through her entire toy bin until she finds it. This is most likely because she sprouted 3 teeth this past week- yes, 3- and the toy feels good on her gums.

We're not sure why we find this funny. Sophie has a very large head right now, and her onesies often get stuck when we attempt to pull them off. She is very good natured about it, in fact things on her head do not bother her one bit.