Merry Christmas

We are so glad Christmas is here and we don't have to run around like crazy anymore.  Shopping got so bad that even Sofia started to go a little crazy.

This video was how we all were feeling about trying to find presents at the end.  I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.

Snow Day

A few weekends ago, we got our first decent snowstorm of the season.  I'm pretty sure we had more snow in that one storm than we did all winter last year, so it was exciting to see some accumulation.  Sofia had never really seen snow, and she was definitely interested when she noticed it.  We bundled her up and took her out to try walking in it:

 

She wasn't so sure about that, there was enough of it that it made her feel unstable, so she didn't want to walk much, but she enjoyed watching the dog run around.  And just being outside, of course.

One of her many favorite words right now is 'cold', which I believe she was saying in this picture, right after she finally took a handful of snow: 

 We didn't stay out long, and I'm hoping we get more snow this year so we can go out and try it again.


This Sunday was Sofia's first time going to nursery for the whole two hours.  We had gone in and visited for a few minutes a couple times, and I was a little worried about how she would react when I left, but she was great!  I told her goodbye, walked out, and she was happy as a clam in there with all those toys!  I stood outside the doors, waiting for screams, but never heard them (from her).  I peeked in a couple of times, she was always busy but happy.  One of the times I saw her wrestling an Elmo doll away from someone else...we may need to work on sharing, especially when it comes to Elmo! Our nursery leaders are great, and I picked up a happy, but exhausted, girl afterwards:

She wore her new dress from Aunt Marcie that is so pretty, and even managed to leave the hair clip in.  When she went down for her nap after church, she actually wanted to get in her bed, and fell right asleep without the usual chatter or running back and forth in her bed after I leave the room.  I could get used to that!

 

The Lovely Crunchy Leaves

We went for a walk yesterday, and afterwards Sofia thoroughly enjoyed crunching through all the leaves in our front yard:

Now I'm glad we haven't had the chance to clean them all up yet, she had a great time!

Fall Picnic

On Saturday, we had the lucky occasion of Jon having the whole day off, so we decided to get out of the house and go up American Fork Canyon for a picnic and the Fall colors.  It just happened to be the first day of Fall, and the colors were amazing:

I love getting up into the mountains, and it was such a nice day, it even ended up getting hot later in the afternoon.  Since it was a Saturday, the road was REALLY busy, so the actual driving part wasn't as fun, but still so nice to get out of the valley and spend some time in the outdoors.

Sofia of course had a blast, she enjoys getting out and doing pretty much anything, especially if it's outside.  But one of her favorite things is Zoey, and she thought it was really great to hold Zoey's leash:

 Following Dad and Zoey up the trail:

This picture is the result of me trying to get her to turn around and look at me, she basically slowed down just long enough to glance back: 

We live in such a beautiful place, and I love seeing the change of the seasons.  But the best part by far was getting to spend time with my favorite people!

Birthday Party!

It was so fun celebrating Sofia's birthday! Her birthday was on Friday and I took the day off to stay home with her, so we tried to do a few things to celebrate on her actual birthday.

I 'stole' a tradition from one of our friends and decorated Sofia's door for her to wake up to on her birthday (if you can call this decorating):

I tied the balloons to her highchair while she ate, and so every meal had to be eaten with one hand, because the other hand was occupied holding the balloons: 

Then we had a party on Saturday with our families, we were so glad that so many people could come, and we missed those that couldn't. Even Grandma and Grandpa Laidlaw drove down from Wyoming for the festivities! We had fun, and Sofia enjoyed the attention and gifts.
 My sister in law Darci was kind enough to take pictures, I never managed to take a single one that day, so I definitely owe her!

Hanging out with Dad, climbing the stairs in her party dress.

Opening gifts

Watching everyone sing and stare at her...adults can be so weird :)

Once she figured out what the cake was, she started shoving it in her mouth in chunks!

Fairly clean all things considered...

 And I have to include the pictures of the decorations, because I enjoyed doing them:

I loved this lime green watering can I got as a gift last summer, so it was my 'theme' inspiration. The cupcakes were also key lime flavored, although they got a little overcooked in my crazy preparations that morning. 

My tissue paper puffs

Lots of balloons!

And after it was all said and done, we decided that birthdays for your kids are WAY more fun than your own birthday! Happy Birthday Sofia!

My Little Big One Year Old!

Sure enough, a whole year has passed by since our sweet baby girl was born.  It's gone by really quickly, and although I'm kind of sad that she has moved on past the snuggly little baby stage, we are always so excited to see her reach her next milestone.  It's so fun to see what she has learned, to see her be excited about things, to watch her pick up on something new everyday, and to get to know her personality better. Right now, she loves:

"Seats" of any kind:
But they don't actually have to be a seat, just any defined space where she can sit:

In the dog's bed under our computer table:

 

And again a different day: 

 

In her Bumbo-facing various ways: 

 

On her dad's arm: 

 

 On the top of her little slide (sorry for the blurry, she doesn't hold still much):

 

In the toy box: 

 

And again: 

On a box: 

 

On pillows, on shelves, pretty much anywhere she can get herself onto!

Food: Pretty much any kind she is given.  She unfortunately has a fairly restrictive diet due to her allergy issues, but she particularly loves the corn puffs made by Gerber in the Veggie Dip flavor, and Goldfish crackers.  If she sees you eating something, she'll say 'yum!' to indicate that she thinks you should share! Hopefully she will continue to add more variety to her diet as we continue to figure out what she can or can't have!

Her pink bunny:  Her Aunt Marcie gave her this bunny around Easter, and we frequently see her snuggling it at night, and she will grab it on the way out of the crib in the morning.  If she sees it somewhere around the house, she starts squealing and hugging it!  It's incredibly cute!

 Babies:  She loves pictures of babies, real babies, mirrors, videos of babies (mostly of herself), and she even has a baby doll (that used to be mine) that she loves and squeals and talks to.

Trying to walk:  And she is so darn close!  In fact, she has taken a few steps, and stands on her own often, but she isn't quite there yet. So any available object she can push around in a walking position is her 'favorite'.

Baths/Water: She loves playing in water, and gets SO excited when I start filling up the bathtub for her!

Books: She will pull books of any kind out and flip through pages.  When she has access to them, she crawls up the stairs, goes straight to her room, and starts pulling out the books.  She also has some downstairs, and they are often the first thing to come out of the toy box in the morning.

Music: Any tune or jingle is good enough for a dance for this girl!  She dances for commercials, toys that play music, cell phone rings.  She has learned the word 'dance' and gets a great big smile when there is music to dance to!

She is quickly picking up on words as well, she signs 'more', 'dog', 'all done', and occasionally 'food' and 'water'. She says Mama, Dada, yum, uh-oh, go, and a whole bunch of other gibberish that I'm sure means stuff to her, but I just don't understand!  She has started 'social laughing', when she laughs because we are laughing, she has figured out the power of pointing, and she likes trying to imitate anything and everything that we do!

It is so fun to see the excitement about the simple things in life through her eyes, it has definitely made us appreciate all the small things we take for granted each day. We love our sweet girl, it has been the best year, and we look forward to all the ones to come!

Mahalo!

Once again, it seems like time slips by way too quickly...so it's been almost two months since we left for our vacation in Hawaii.  It was beautiful, fun, crazy, relaxing, and SO nice to spend time with the ones we love!  Between Jon's two jobs, my one job, and all the other stuff we cram in between, we hardly see each other, so a week together was such a nice break from the craziness! The location was just beautiful: 

Sunset from the backyard:

 

The backyard in the day: 

  

We snorkeled, we relaxed, we went to the beach a few times:  

 

 

 

 

And Sofia LOVED the water!  Unfortunately our camera lens had water on it in this shot, but she was just always so happy in the water: 

  

And again: 

 

So, while the plane ride there was a little challenging with an almost-one-year-old, it was most definitely worth it!  We loved it, and we are so grateful to everyone that helped make it possible.  We definitely owe them a big MAHALO!

Umm...March?!?

It seems like we just had Christmas.  In fact, it seems like I just barely had a sleepy, cuddly newborn, yet here we are, half-way through March, and Sofia is already standing, talking (so far just Dada when she sees Jon...no Mama yet) and crawling around getting into EVERYTHING.  She also has started cruising along the furniture standing up.  Then, the other day the laundry basket was in the living room, and this started happening:

No prompting from me, and now whenever she sees it she does it again.  I'm betting she is walking by her first birthday, if not before. She is so fun, and learning so fast!  Before I know it she'll be running-even scarier (for me anyway).