Smarty Pants!

As you know, Sophie is quite fond of drawing flowers and piggies, and a few days ago she drew her first pink mousie.


















Well today she and I were playing and I drew a flower. Just for fun, I asked her to write an F. She did.


















Then she wrote a P and an I. She needed help with the G.


















I am speechless. She's only 3 1/2! We must be doing something right!
PS This is my first time posting with the Blogger App. Testing 1 2...

The 9th of July - A Quick Update

I just realized that I haven't posted an official update of Sophie in a loooong time now, so I'd like to take this opportunity to do that, before teardown officially starts and we move to Houston. Sophie is 3 1/2 years old, going on 42. She weighs 36 pounds and is 39" tall. She is talking up a storm! She talks pretty much nonstop until she goes to sleep at night.  She can spell a ton of words, and "P-I-G" is her favorite! She can count by herself up to 40, and 1-10 in French. :] She LOVES books! Her favorites lately are any Princess books (Aurora/Sleeping Beauty especially), Fancy Nancy, the Critter books, and Pinkalicious. She likes it when you read to her, but she can "read" them back to us. Lately her favorite movie is Winnie the Pooh, and her favorite tv shows are SuperWhy and Imagination Movers, which are all we let her watch. She just saw her first movie in the theater, Brave. Some parts were intense, but she wasn't scared at all. She's happy she got some jellybeans out of it, I think! 

She LOVES to draw and color, she even uses other colors besides pink now! She's getting pretty good at drawing pigs, lollipops, and flowers. Here are a few examples. These are going in storage for sure! 

She loves Play-doh and blowing bubbles. She loves KOOZA as well, and her favorite act is the trapeze. She still has dance class and actually ASKS to have her hair put up in a "pointytail." She loves to sing (anything, anytime). Her favorite food is a grilled cheese and her favorite drink besides apple juice is the organic strawberry smoothie drink from Trader Joe's. Sometimes we have "pinknics" on the floor in the living room. She loves any and all fruit, and it still takes some coaxing to get her to eat her veggies. She's getting better! 

We celebrated the 9th (HA!) tonight by doing sparklers on the balcony. Here are a few shots I snapped.

Anyway, it's teardown week and travel week, which means it's going to be quiet for a few weeks.  

See you then!

Children's Museum of Phoenix

So Jim scored some tickets to the Children's Museum of Phoenix so we decided to use them up before it was time to leave for Houston. In 110 degree weather, that sounded like a wonderful plan! It was a gorgeous place to visit! They had pretty much everything you could wish for a children's museum. Here are a few pics Jim let me snap!

Playing on the sand table
 


Wall of CDs

On a trike

The floor of the cafe

Playing the instruments. She LOVES the xylophone!

Happy girl! 

Stroller parking!

Grocery shopping!

Paper or plastic?

Making pizza for lunch

PEEK!

Butterfly wall on the giant play area, and a big flying bathtub

On a wall, they had an air machine with clear pipes. You put the scarves in and they flew out where you can grab them. Sophie loved, what else, the pink scarves!

Waiting...

Success!

We LOVED it! If you're in the Phoenix area and haven't checked this place out, DO IT! We loved it so much we're planing on going back before we leave town!

The Grand Canyon

On our way to Phoenix, we decided to take a little detour north to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. The drive was beautiful, albeit HOT! Because of the high temperature, we didn't spend too much time outside. There was a visitor center, a room with a giant map and information about the Canyon, and a bookstore. We got Sophie a little jackrabbit that she called a "jacket bunny" that she carried around all day. All in all, it was worth it!

Trip to Michigan, Part 2

Here is the second set of pictures from the rest of our time in Michigan. Enjoy! And once again, if you'd like better quality pictures to print, please email me. Thanks!

These were taken in Mt Pleasant at sunset. Sophie was/is obsessed with flowers, even more so if they're pink! That second one makes me laugh!

 At dinner
 

Fun with the cousins on their trampoline!


Fun with Daddy!

Getting her first professional haircut! She was such a good girl!

Momma cardinal outside the house in Lowell. Here she is sitting on three eggs. Sophie loved looking at the hungry babies after they hatched!

Hummingbird feeder in Lowell. I'm pretty sure Jim took these beautiful pictures! In the first one, I think you can see its tongue!

We were able to catch up with some old friends, where they had a drum set in the basement. We couldn't tear Sophie away! Here she is playing with plastic bowling pins. She loved it!

Jim and I after the Fifth-Third 5K he ran and I wogged. 

After all the training and finishing the race, Jim and I were able to take a little trip down to Orlando for a few Sophie-free days. This is why grandparents were invented. Thanks SO MUCH to my parents who made this trip possible! We went to Epcot, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Universal's Islands of Adventure, where I enjoyed my favorite drink of all time in my favorite park of all time, a frozen butterbeer!

After the trip, we only had a few days left in Michigan before we began the trek to Arizona for the show. The two month break went by quicker than I expected, and I'd like to thank Jim's parents and my parents for allowing us to take over their houses for such a long time. We really, really appreciated everything you did for us and with us, and I'm so glad you all got to bond with Sophie. She talks about you all daily and misses you terribly! Until we see you again: it won't be long now! Love you!