Merry Christmas, Pt 2

Blogger.com just will *NOT* let me add anymore pictures to that last entry, so here's a few more...

A new "baby" to go in her doll crib from Mommy & Daddy.

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At Grandma & Grandpa Levi's house

It wasn't long before the doll's clothes came off.

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Ooh! Another new Little Einstein book! Score!

It was hard to get her interested in opening anything else after that.

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Hanging with Grammy and Gramps

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Just messing around with my new camera here... Thought I'd try out the sepia tone setting.

Turned out nice, don't you think?

Merry Christmas!

We had a great Christmas this year. Although Sophie wasn't as in to opening her presents as I'd hoped she'd be, she did love a few of the things Santa and family brought her this year.

I got a Kodak EasyShare digital camera from Frank this year and have already put it to very good use! It's really fun to play with and easy to use. I love being able to see the pictures I take right away and delete them if they're not good.

So here are a few pictures from Christmas 2006... (More coming as soon as Blogger starts copperating with me again)

One of her favorite activities: eating snacks and watching Little Einsteins

All she wanted to do Christmas morning, actually, was have a snack and watch "wo wo" (her way of saying "my show"). It was difficult getting her to open presents. It's our morning ritual; what's a parent to do? :) Eventually we got the job done. I'm pretty sure I had more fun than she did, though.

Our tree

So here's this year's creation. I decided to try something new with our tree this time. Even though you may not be able to tell, it's done all in shades of blue and white and silver, with tulle and silver bows. I think it's our best one yet. But my pictures never turn out very well. I can't figure out how to take an adequate photo of a Christmas tree. But here's a couple anyway. (Pay no attention to the fact that the tulle stops before the tree does. I need to buy some more so it keeps going all the way to the bottom. And normally, the branches go all the way to the floor but we just didn't have to room to put them all on...)

10-31-06

Take a look at the progression of these few photos... She kept trying to sneak away with some Halloween candy and got caught every time. It cracks me up every time I look at them.

No, no, Sophie...

"What, I wasn't doing anything."

"Aww, come on!"

Our little Einstein

Well, not exactly, but I do have to brag a bit...

Sophie received a V-tech laptop toy from my mom as a birthday gift in September and plays with it all the time. (There's pictures of her playing with it below, one or two entries down.) It has word and math games on it intended for children much older than she is, but she really likes pushing the buttons, making it make sounds, and watching the pictures move on the top screen. Well, several weeks ago we noticed her playing a game on it that asks you to press the number that is shown on the screen, and she was getting them right!! She can recognize all the numbers 0-9 and can say a couple of them (two, nine).

Well, now she is doing letter games and getting the answers right!! The particular game she was playing last night (and there are over 30 games to choose from; she lands on whatever game she plays just by chance) was asking for her to press the lower case letter it was saying and showing on screen. The buttons on the laptop keyboard are laid out in alphabetical order (as opposed to the "Qwerty" arrangement like on our keyboards) and have the upper case letters in the middle of the button and the lower case version in the upper right part of the button, quite a bit smaller than the upper case letter. She has to recognize the letter and locate it on the keyboard and press the corresponding button. She got all the vowels right and more than half of the consonants.

I know we're biased, but we thought that was pretty amazing. :)

New words

As most of us know, Sophie is a pretty quiet kid. Always has been. We know she understands a lot because of how she responds to our questions and comments about wanting a snack, a nap, a toy, etc. But finally she is starting to say more. She's been saying Hi for a while now (she really likes to say hi to cashiers when they greet us at the checkout), and of course Mama and Dada/Daddy, but here are some recent additions to her repertiore: "nigh nigh" ("night, night") when she goes to bed, "na-na" for Snack, "buh buh" (with a wave) for Bye Bye, and my personal favorite, "pee", which of course means Please. Sometimes it sounds like "Pease," but most of the time it's only "peeeee." Probably the most useful one yet is when she says "up." She mimicks the "come here" hand motion I make when I ask her if she wants up. Very cute!

Sophie and I were at the library recently and I sat down on the bench in the lobby getting my things together and she laid her head down on the bench, squeezed her eyes shut really tight, and with a huge smile on her face she said "Nigh nigh." And she did this over and over again. Each time, she made sure to open her eyes when she laid her head down to see that I was watching.

Her favorite thing to say for the past several months has been something along the lines of "DuppyDuppyDuppyDuppyDuppy." Sometimes the D sounds like Th, and sometime the U sounds like O, so if you've followed all that, it kind of sounds like she's saying her name over and over again. Duppy=>Thopie=>Sophie? Maybe. We're not sure, but we like to think so. :)

Our little Heffalump

I found the CUTEST Halloween costume at the Disney Store last week. Being so close to Halloween, it was on sale for half off and I couldn't pass up the fabulous deal. Plus, it's big enough for her to wear next year. I doubt she'll be old enough to go trick or treating by that age, but I'm sure she can wear it somewhere and show it off. She recently got a Little Einsteins 'Rocket' costume for her birthday, but that one is big enough for her to wear until she's 8, at least. I know this because both Maddie (age 6) and Sophie's friend Sarah (age 8) both wore it at her birthday party! Without further ado, here's our little Heffalump...

(That little lump on the side is the mittens and slippers that go with the outfit.)

New pics

Here are some new pictures for you all...

A birthday gift from mommy & daddy

Rocket Peek a Boo

Sophie Turns 2

We had Sophie's second birthday party this weekend. This past year has gone unbelievably fast!

The party was a lot of fun. Sophie got hardly any sleep at all before the party so I was worried that she was going to poop out halfway through opening presents, but she did all right.
The theme was teddy bears and I made a large teddy bear cake and several mini bears sitting around a "table" made of cake. They turned out really well. I was pretty proud of my bears. :)

Here are some pictures from the party.

Sophie in her party dress.

"Happy birthday to you..."

Notice that the ice cream got eaten first.

All done, daddy!

Some new Sophie pictures

Here are a few of my favorites from the latest batch...


Look at those eyes!

This is her looking longingly into the pool area at our hotel in O'Fallon, pulling behind her the backpack my mom bought for her as a gift.


We snapped this cute one of her at Eckert's Orchard in Belleville during our trip.

My Trip Home

We drove down to where my mom lives in O'Fallon, IL, just outside of St. Louis, to visit her for a few days in mid-September. It was really nice going home again and getting to see my mom. She got to see Sophie again for the first time in several months. Sophie's changed so much in the past few months, my mom was really tickled to see how much she's grown and to learn all the new things she can do now. And it was really nice getting to have dinner with a good friend of mine from the area (Hi Jaime!) who I haven't seen in about a year or so. We had a lot of catching up to do!

My favorite part was going back to my old college for a visit. The 4 of us stopped at McKendree and went to the bookstore to pick up a few souveneirs, then walked around the campus. It was amazing to see how incredibly friendly and welcoming everyone was. I felt like I was home again. There have been so many changes on campus, new buildings and such, but everything was still the same. I really miss it. It was hard to leave.

On the front lawn of McKendree's campus.



Spending time with Grandma.

Walking down the path in front of Bothwell Chapel.

New exterior house photos

So, here is what our house looks like now that everything is done (sod, landscaping, etc.) It's all been done for quite some time now but it's taken me a while to get around to snapping a picture, finishing the roll, getting them developed (yes, I am one of the 4 people left on earth who doesn't own a digital camera), and uploading them to the site.




Here's another view of our backyard, now that they've put up the fence between the houses. It makes for watering the backyard a bit of an adventure, but at least it's somewhat more private.