April 2011

Spring is here. Things are starting to pick up for us. Sophia is growing up quickly. She likes to pick out her own clothes. She has been into wearing dresses lately. She is truly a princess at times.
We went bowling with Sophia. She had fun. She got the hang of it and did pretty well. She was disappointed that she did not win but we all had fun playing. We went to NJ to see Katie and her crew team row. It was nice to spend some time with Katie. Her team did not win but it was still lots of fun to watch.

Sophia is creative in many ways. It is fun to see her artwork change over the years. She also gets creative with the animals...dressing them up and putting on shows with them.
We went re-enacting with Steve. Sophia has a blast seeing there were other kids in our group. She loved playing with Tommy. In this picture .... she is took the gun from Tommy and told him he was shooting the wrong way. She said "watch, this is how you do it."

She had her first unofficial sleepover with Katlyn. I spent the night there which made it easier for Sophia to spend the night over. The girls had a blast... all of us.. Katlyn and Sophia and me and Heather.
Sophia enjoyed dying eggs for Easter and then finding the candy eggs the Easter Bunny hid for her.

March 2011

We celebrated Katie's 15th birthday this month. I can't believe I have known Katie since she was six years old. Where does the time go?


Sophia also took a free trial horseback riding lesson. She was hooked from the moment she got there. We knew she would be. She has been talking about horses for over a year now. She can't wait for her real lessons to start.

February 2011

Sophia, Katie and BaBa went to Mount Vernon on Presidents' Day. It was a fun little day trip.


Sophia has fun with the dogs and cats. When she is not dressing them up she is making sure they are comfy.
We went to a Chinese New Year celebration at the local Chinese restaurant. Sophia was a bit nervous so she watched from the outside with BaBa. She ended up loving the festivities even if they were loud.

January 2011

Christmas came and went very quickly. We started the new year off pretty busy. We spent time in Connecticut for Mom's surgery. Thankfully everything went well. The were able to remove the lump from her breast. It has not spread to the lymph-nodes. They were predicting a big snowstorm so we went up a day early. Thank goodness because they did get lots of snow.



Sophia was a great nurse. She even gave Grandma one of her stuffed animals to take to the hospital for good luck. She had fun playing with her cousins while we were visiting.



We had some snow of our own at the end of the month. Sophia loves playing in the snow and helping shovel us out. We were even able to build a snowman with this snow fall.

Christmas 2010

It is hard to believe Christmas has come and gone. Sophia enjoyed Christmas shopping for BaBa, Mommy, Nick and Katie. She made beautiful ornaments for her grandparents, aunts and uncles.

We made cookies for Santa but Sophia only left him one cookie and two pieces of cheese. She saw an episode of Imagination Movers where they mentioned Santa needed to go on a diet because his pants did not fit any longer.

We tracked Santa on norad.com. When we first checked in the morning Santa was delivering gifts in Chongqing, China. This was were Sophia was born. To think that we began tracking Santa at the minute he was Chongqing was amazing.

We made ginerbread sleighs to add to the decorations in the house.

Nick and Katie are spending Christmas with us. It is great to have them here. Sophia loves spending time with her brother and sister.

Sophia, Mommy and BaBa went to church and watched the navity pageant. Sophia had one question after another. She is the most curious child I have ever known. I guess that is part of what makes her so smart.

On Christmas morning Sophia woke up at 6:45 and began to ring her "Christmas Bell" saying that Christmas is here... wake up. She woke up Katie and Nick and we all went downstairs to see what Santa left.

Santa left Sophia a big dinosaur from Dinosaur Train along with the Dinsosaur Train trainset. She was thrilled. He left Nick a Harry Potter lego set and Katie a pillow pet. After playing a while we opened gifts from each other. Sophia loved everything she got. Katie got her a horse and Nick got her a remote control car. She got more dinosaurs for her Dinosaur train, a horse calender and a leapster game from us.

We then went to Grandma Bev's for Christmas dinner. It was nice to spend the day with all of Steve's family. We opened more gifts there. Sophia got horse sheets and a blanket for her bed from Grandma Bev and Pop Pop and horse posters from Grandma Beadle. She also got another stocking filled with goodies, stamps for her scrapbook, jelly belly filled crayons and a coloring book. Sophia had a blast playing with her cousin Emma.

I am thankful for the time we get to spend with family. As our own parents are aging we are thankful for the time we do get together. Pop Pop had an "off" day today. He wasn't feeling well. It is hard to see the toll Parkinsons takes on the body.

Christmas in Connecticut

We traveled up to Connecticut on December 17 to celebrate Christmas with Anne's family. We spent the night at Grandma Barb's on Friday night. We were greeted with the typical bag of gifts for Sophia. Sophia presented Grandma with her typical gift of a bag of M&Ms they share together.We headed to Linda's house on Saturday after breakfast. George and his family joined us on Sunday for a wonderful Christmas dinner. We headed home on Monday.

It was great to be all together for Christmas. The kids all enjoyed playing together. They get along so well. There were plenty of gifts to open and good food to eat. Sophia got the gum ball machine she has been longing for from Uncle George. She got a game for her leapster from Aunt Linda as well as things to decorate her room. Grandma Barb gave her stamps for her scrapbook, soft pajama's and a doll.

It was a joyous day after what has been a very difficult month for us. Grandma Barb has breast cancer. She will have a lumpectomy on January 13th. At this point the tumor is small. We are hoping it has not spread but we won't know until later in January after the pathology reports come back. We are hoping that this is an easy surgury and that she makes it through without any complications.

December Update

December was an extremely busy month. We prepared for Christmas. We wanted Katie to help decorate the Christmas tree but on the one weekend Katie was down Anne was away at a scrap booking retreat. Sophia had a perfect solution. We put the tree up one day and decorated around the house. Then when Katie came down they decorated the tree together. It worked out well.

Sophia and BaBa went to Virginia for a holiday dinner with the re-enacting group on December 3rd. They had a blast. They got to town early and found a huge playground and then went into town. There was horse drawn carriage ride in town. Sophia loved this. Sophia and BaBa also saw their first snowflakes that day.

Sophia talked with Santa three times - once at the mall in late November, then at the train station, and once at the Bass Pro Shops. She asked for a gum ball machine, trains, and dinosaur train toys.

BaBa took Sophia and Katie to the train station to visit Santa. They had a blast. Sophia loves trains and never tires of seeing them and climbing on them.

We got a little snow on December 16th. It wasn't much but was enough to go sled riding with Boba pulling the sled. Sophia laughed so much. Her laughter is contagious. If we could all get such pleasure from the simple things in life we would all be much happier.

November update

November started with the big birthday celebrations. Sophia is growing up so quickly. She now has a chore list and has begun to earn an allowance.

November included the typical fall activities like raking leaves and preparing for the holidays.

We celebrated Thanksgiving at Grandma Bev's house. It was nice to be together for a delicious dinner.

Sophia's favorite cat. Noelle (No-No) wasn't feeling well which meant a trip to the vet and the administering of now daily meds. It is no fun trying to give this cat medicine every day but she seems to be more "regular" with it. Sophia was very worried about No-No and took good care of her while she was sick.

We went to a model train show the day after Thanksgiving. Sophia loved the trains. She even was able to control a Thomas train. She picked this up quickly and wanted to return to that set up to drive the train several times.

Sophia loves stuffed animals. She surrounds herself with them every night. When Sophia is put to bed at night she tends to play quietly in her room for almost an hour. One night she took out many stuffed animals and piled them up on her bed. She feel asleep surrounded by these animals.