Daisy Girl Scout

Sophia was very excited about joining Girl Scouts when she entered school. They have a Daisy troop for kindergarten girls. There was a troop meeting in the evenings but nights are still so hard in terms of Sophia being exhausted that we wanted her to join an after school troop. No one stepped up to lead it. Steve and I finally decided that we would do it together. We had our first meeting in October. We have had three meetings so far. We have eight girls in our troop.

They have begun earning their petals. They are learning what it means to be helpful and caring. They love the troop meetings and the activities that are done within our troop and with other troops in the council. It is so nice to see the girls learn how to become leaders in positive ways.

We have a troop mascot which will travel home with the girls in between meetings. The girls all can't wait to have their month with Daisy Bear.
Steve and I are glad to be leading the troop.

November update

We always start November off with a bang. Sophia turned six years old on November 1st. I can't believe how quickly she is growing. I think back to when we brought her home. She was just learning to crawl, saying a word or two and totally dependent on us. Now just over five years later she is independent, active, smart, caring and funny. She wakes up every morning signing. Her creativity blows me away. She is kindhearted and well-liked. There isn't a day that goes by that I am not thankful for being her mother.

We celebrated Sophia's birthday a few days early with her grandparents. She got a wonderful horse and doll which she now plays with all the time.
We kept the birthday morning tradition this year. We greeted Sophia with a balloon, a card, cupcake and her gift from China. This year she got a song book from China.
We asked her what she wanted for dinner to celebrate her birthday and she wanted to go to Bertucci's.

Sophia had her birthday party at Jump Zone. She had a blast. She got her first Barbie dolls and now loves playing with them. The Barbie dolls always spend time at the stable and hiking! She has very down to earth Barbies.


Sophia continues to play in her room at night before she goes to bed. Tonight she had a tea party and then fell asleep on the floor. Noelle attended the tea party and fell asleep right next to Sophia.
We celebrated Thanksgiving with Grandma Beadle, Grandma Bev and PopPop. Sophia brought some of her school work to PopPop. Katie spent Thanksgiving with us. As I said before, we have a lot to be Thankful for.
We had an active Thanksgiving weekend. We went for a hike on Friday to work off all the delicious food we ate. We also went ice skating on Saturday. Katie only went once before but she did great. Sophia did a great job for her first time. Steve and I managed too even though it has been years since we have been in skates.

Sept/Oct update

The fall was very busy and lots of fun.

Sophia is really enjoying school. She is learning a lot and comes home talking about her friends and the thinks she is learning. She is still exhausted at the end of the day but she always wakes up singing.

We visited Grandma Barb in Sept. We always have fun when we visit. We had a yard sale and got rid of some of Grandma and Auntie Linda's stuff. It was fun. Sophia came home with a bunch of costume jewelry. How glamorous.
Katlyn and Sophia had a sleep over. The next day we went to the horse center and Sophia showed Katlyn around.
October was filled with all Fall activities. We went pumpkin picking, apple picking and through a corn maze.

The horse center had a Halloween Party and Sophia won a costume contest. Sophia was a horse, of course.
We had a blast trick or treating and at the school party.

Labor Day- Horse Show

Sophia has been taking horseback riding lessons since May. Today the school had their in house show. This was the first show Sophia competed in. The in-house shows are informal and a great way to show off what you have learned.

Sophia chose to ride Jenny, a horse she has ridden before. However, Jenny spooked at the very beginning of the show, rearing up with Sophia on her back and me trying to control her. Sophia took this all in stride. The staff quickly helped me get Sophia off that horse and gave her another horse to ride. She rode Noell who she has ridden a lot.

Sophia competed with two other children. The first class was for equitation which is where they judge on form, style and ability while walking, posting trot and two point trot. Sophia took first place in this category.The next class was pleasure which is where they are judged on keeping a smile while walking, posting trot and two point trot. Sophia took third place in this category. They said sometimes a rider gets so intense when they are riding they forget to show they are having fun. I think it was because she was talking about winning first place while she was in the middle of this competition.
The third class was cross rails. She had to jump over a short cross-rail in two point position. Sophia took first place in this category too.
It was a great day. Sophia enjoyed the event and it was a huge self-esteem booster. She is already confident on the horse, even with it rearing up, but I am sure this just adds to her confidence.

August update

Wow! It has been an exciting month but it has gone by too quickly.

We started the month with a trip to Grandma Barbs. We always have fun when we visit. It is filled with shopping and eating out. We also spent some time with Uncle George and Aunt Linda and Sophia's cousins.


Nick came to visit for a weekend. It just happened to be the same time of the year that we get our family pictures done. Nick was able to join up for the first time in five years. We were thrilled.


We went to our yearly Chinese family reunion. It is amazing to see how nicely the girls get along. They played from the moment we got there until the time we left without any fights. I am glad we are committed to making this reunion happen every year. I hope it is something we continue to do as the kids grow older.

Katie went back to her mother's to start band camp at the end of the summer. We miss her but she will be coming to visit this coming weekend. Sophia is thrilled.

Sophia celebrated her last day of daycare with a farewell party. She is going to miss her friends and Mary Beth so much. Mary Beth has taken care of her since December 2006. We have been very fortunate to have Sophia there.

Sophia attended her kindergarten orientation on August 26th. She went to her classroom while the parents met in the media center. She walked right into her classroom and didn't look back. It might have helped that the parents organized two play dates at the park so she knew a few of her classmates before the orientation.
After her orientation, Sophia and I spent our last "Mommy and Me Day" at the state fair. Sophia and I have been doing "Mommy and Me" days every Friday for five years. Now that school is starting those days will be happening less often. We were at the fair for seven hours. Sophia had a blast running from ride to ride and making new friends. We looked at the animals and saw a pig race. It was a great day.
The first day of school was delayed by a day due to the hurricane. Many schools were without electricity. Her first day of school was on Tuesday, Aug 30. She was a bit nervous on Monday night but was thrilled when she woke up on Tuesday. She had a great first day. She was exhausted when she came home but clearly loves school. On Wednesday she woke up early, got dressed, ate breakfast and wanted to wait outside. It was an hour earlier than when we had to leave!
Did I mention that we also had an earthquake this month? As I said it has been exciting month.

How my brain works

Sophia explaining how she remembers things on 7/18...

Sophia--My brain takes pictures. Then it goes down (a conveyer belt is what it looked like) and then I sort it.

Me- how do you sort it.

Sophia- well they go into boxes.

Me- Boxes? What kind of boxes?

Sophia- Well, I have a car box, a nature box, a food box, an animal box. The helping hands takes it from the in box and puts it in the right box.

Steve- what does the helping hand person look like?

Sophia- it is not a person. It does not have eyes.. just lots of hands and it is big.

July 2011

It has been a very hot and very busy summer thus far. That has not kept us inside. We went to the July 4th fireworks which Sophia loved despite the fact that she had her fingers plugging her ears the whole time.

We went picking berries. They were great in yogurt and made yummy smoothies.

Sophia got her haircut in July. She decided she wanted to grow out her bangs and then get her hair cut shorter. She did a little trimming of her bangs on her own...right in the middle of her forehead. It is going to take months to grow back there is no way it could be blended in with her new haircut seeing she cut it so short.
Sophia's art work has really changed over the summer. Guess she is getting all those skills in place for Kindergarten in the Fall.

We took a day trip to Dutch Wonderland this month. Sophia had a blast jumping from one ride to the next. It was a hot day but that didn't stop us from having fun.
We also went to see Katie's race on the last day of her crew camp. Another hot day but thankfully the race was in the morning.
We put Chloe to sleep on July 26th. Chloe was Anne's fifteen year old cat. She was such a great cat. She used to sleep on the bed every day when it was just me. Once Steve and his cats joined she took to sleeping on her favorite bed or the ledge going upstairs but she jumped up to the bed every morning and night to get some loving. We will all miss her.

July 1- through the years

July 1st... Referral Day

2006
2007
2008 2009
2010 2011