Sophie Update

I just can't believe how much Sophie is changing. She has learned so much in the last couple of months. A week and a half ago, on Sunday, January 21st Sophie climbed out of her crib for the first time. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. She stood in the corner of her crib and held on to one side then she lifted her legs up on the front rail, so that her body was parallel to the floor. She then swung her legs over the bed so that she was hanging and then she dropped, but not without help. Luckily she hasn't tried to do it on her own, she is too scared.

While we were in Utah during the Christmas break Sophie began saying so many words. Before we left we could count all of the words she could say, now there is no possible way to keep track. I couldn't believe how quickly she started talking. Some of our favorite words that she says are: "chapick" for chapstick, she likes to say noise anytime she hears a new noise, "rosies" for ring around the rosies, "Fwosty" for Frosty the snowman, and so many others I can't even remember or know how to write. She loves to hide whenever she hears Jon or I coming. She is learning her colors and is doing very well with them. She knows red the best, but she can recognize blue, green, yellow and orange and she can say all of them. I can't believe how much she is learning, she is so smart! She has become very loving and she loves to give hugs, but she calls them loves. Sophie's been giving squeezes, tight hugs, and she says "quees" as she hugs you. I love it! It's so cute. She has such a sweet voice and I love hearing her talk. Everyday she'll say a new word that I didn't even know she knew.

We are also getting ready to potty train Sophie. She has been telling us when she is poopy, and sometimes she tells us before she poops and then a minute or two later she'll poop. We've decided to try potty training during Jon's spring break. I bought her a little toilet seat and she thinks it is the neatest thing. The first time I sat her on the toilet, she screamed with excitement. Wish us luck with potty training.

Sophie loves to dance! If there isn't any music, she'll ask me to dance, which means please turn on the music. Other times she'll hum for herself or else she'll just dance with no music. These days she likes to dance around singing "Fwosty, Fwosty". She also likes to hang on anything that is tall enough for her. I think we'll put her in dance or gymnastics when she gets a little older. Just the other day she did the splits in the kitchen for Jon and I couldn't believe how far she could go, her legs were almost perfectly strait out to the side. Needless to say, she is quite flexible. She likes to do summersaults and she loves to bounce. Her favorite thing to do these days is fly. We hold her hands and twirl around making her fly. As soon as we stop, Jon and I are so dizzy, but Sophie looks up at us and says "fly". We try to explain to her that we are dizzy or spinning, but she doesn't quite understand what we are saying. I don't know when I became so senstive to spinning, but Jon and I both feel that it must be because we are getting older. I get dizzy just doing Ring Around the Rosies with her. Usually Jon and I take turns "flying" so that we have a few minutes to recover from being dizzy. We love our Sophie and life is so fun with her around. She makes life interesting and I can't imagine my life without her. I love being a mom, Sophie's mom. I truly feel blessed to be her mom, and I am so grateful to Jake and Shiloh for giving her to us. They are our special angels.

Since it's winter, it's hard to find things to do with Sophie since it's too cold to go outside and play. Actually it has been a pleasantly warm winter, but still a little too cold for her to play outside for an extended amount of time, so we've been going to the mall to play. Her most favorite thing to do is to ride the horsies on the carousel. She gets so excited when she gets to ride the horsies. My favorite is when she waves to me as she comes around.

The mall also has a play area for the kids. This bear is at the entrance of the play area and Sophie loves to give the bear a hug every time she goes in to play. The play area was donated to the mall by the Mankato Clinic, so all of the toys are medical related.

This is the ambulance, and Sophie is sitting in the wheel, which is a small tunnel. She likes to go through it, but will only do so if she can see me on the other side.

This bear is Sophie's favorite to play on. She loves to give bear hugs. Sometimes I'll set her on the nose of the bear and she'll slide off in to my arms. She thinks it's so fun.

Sophie has so many cute outfits, and I love taking pictures of her so that we can remember what she looks like in them. We gave her this dress and sweater for her birthday. The pink on the bottom are little fish blowing bubbles. I love her little boots too! I've been curling her hair lately with my flat iron and it looks so cute. I can't believe how long her hair is getting. I know at some point I'm going to need to get it trimmed, but I just can't bring myself to do it yet.

I love this outfit! I saw the pattern for the sweater and hat in a knitting book and loved it. My mom is amazing when it comes to knitting, especially knitting sweaters. I showed her the pattern and she knit this sweater for Sophie, and I knit the hat and made the flowers. She looks so cute in it, but she doesn't like to leave it on for long.

Showing off her cute sweater and hat.

Sophie got to go outside in the snow for the very first time on Friday, January 20th. The bishop and his wife were coming over for dinner and games, so Jon shoveled the driveway when he got home. Since he was outside, I got Sophie all bundled up in her snow pants, coat and boots so she could go out and play for a few minutes. It was really cold, below 10 degrees so I didn't want her outside for too long, but I wasn't sure how many chances she'd have to play in the snow. When I first opened the door for her to go outside, she didn't want to go even though Jon was outside. She was a little scared. She did eventually walk outside with Jon. Jon said it took her a few minutes to warm up to the snow, and eventually he got her to walk in the snow.

This winter has been so warm, and we haven't had much snow. We've probably had four or five inches at the most. My friend Mandy bought some snow pants for her little girl at the end of the season last year, but Amelia was too big for the pants, so she gave them to Sophie. I bought some snow boots for her on clearance at Target a few weeks ago and she's only been able to wear them a couple of times.

Sophie all bundled up ready to play in the snow.

Another one of Sophie's cute outfits. She got this outfit from Grandma Reed for Christmas. This is one of my most favorite outfits. I love the cupcake on her skirt! I'd been watching for this outfit to go on sale at Gymboree and I ended up going to Gymboree at midnight on Black Friday to buy it. Grandma paid for it, but I'm the one who bought it since our mall was a bit closer.

It's not easy to get these cute pictures of my Sophie. She doesn't like to pose for pictures and she definitely doesn't like to hold still long enough for me to take the pictures. I usually end up taking several pictures so that I can get one good one.

Sophie got these cute snowman pajamas for Christmas. Here she is holding her Rudolph and her milk sippy cup while watching Frosty. Frosty is her most favorite movie. She first fell in love with Rudolph, which is why she got a stuffed Rudolph for Christmas, but she has since switched to watching Frosty. She still asks to watch Frosty, but we are trying to get her away from watching Christmas movies. I think we watched Rudolph at least 30 times during the Christmas holiday and we've probably watched Frosty at least that many times. I'm glad that she loves watching Christmas movies so much.

Sophie in her snowman pajamas laying on the coffee table. We tell her that she can't sit on the table, but as you can see she doesn't always listen to us.

Another cute outfit from Grandma Reed. She gave this outift to Sophie for Christmas. Thanks to Grandma Reed for providing Sophie with so much of her wardrobe. My mom lost her job last March and was out of work until December. It killed her not being able to buy clothes for Sophie, so once she found out that she was going to have a job again, she began buying Sophie more clothes.

Grandma Reed knit this sweater too. It's so nice to have so many nice sweaters to keep Sophie warm this winter. Sophie's hair is getting long enough that I can pull her hair back into a pony tail. It's a small pony, but it sure looks cute.

Grandpa Reed gave Sophie this cute hat. She doesn't like wearing it for very long, but it looks so cute on her.

Sophie being silly while Mommy tries to take her picture.

Sophie wearing Mommy's glasses. Doesn't she look so smart?

I took this picture of Sophie the week before we left for Utah. She had gotten sick with the stomach flu and was finally able to eat something. She woke up one night around 10:30 and Jon went in to check on her and she started throwing up. We have been very lucky, because this was the first time she's ever thrown up. We had to wash her bedding and give her a bath before putting her back to bed. The next day she seemed to be feeling better, but she ended up throwing up again during her nap and then again several times that afternoon and evening. Our friend Adam Anderson came over around 7:30 to help Jon give Sophie a blessing. Within 30 minutes she began to show signs of improvement and thirst. I didn't want her to drink too much in case she threw up again, but she did really well. She ate a popsicle for the first time that night.

Christmas Morning

Christmas Day was a busy, yet wonderful day. We woke up and got ready for church first thing in the morning. My parents had Sacrament meeting at 9:00, so we decided to put off opening presents until after church. Sophie did get one of her gifts before we left for church. Below her stocking was a stuffed Rudolph. She was so excited to see her Rudolph. She has fallen in love with Rudolph this year, so I just couldn't resist when I saw the stuffed Rudolph at the store. Luckily she didn't beg us to take it to church. Sophie got to wear her new Christmas dress, but there wasn't enough time before church and by the time we got home from church she was upset and crying, so I didn't get a picture of her in her new dress. Sacrament Meeting was really nice! When we got home, we ate breakfast, which was ready to come out of the oven. We had breakfast casserole and orange rolls, and boy was it tasty. After breakfast we went downstairs to open presents.

Last year was fun with Sophie, but this year was amazing. She understood a little bit more about opening presents, but most of all she understood playing with the presents. Sophie has never been one to jump right in to opening presents, so Jon had to help her. The first present she opened was a baby doll stroller from Grandma and Grandpa Reed. She loved it! Since she had a stroller, she had to have a baby to push in the stroller, so Grandpa had Sophie open the doll next. Once she opened the first two gifts she didn't have too much interest in the other gifts. Daddy helped her open several of her gifts, but once she plenty of toys to play with she abandoned opening gifts. It broke Daddy's heart to have to open the rest of Sophie's presents, but he did it willingly. Most of the presents were Sophie's new clothes, and boy did she get some cute outfits. She was spoiled! She got plenty from Papa and Maemi Reed: baby stroller, 2 baby dolls, two outfits, sweats, socks, a hat, a book and polar bear. Mommy and Daddy gave her a shopping cart which stayed here, a princess ball, 4 board books, Rudolph, a cellphone, a toothbrush and toothpaste. Uncle Scott and aunt Nicole gave her the rocking chair that Scott made just for Sophie. Nick's family gave her a play piggybank that plays music and counts to 10. Jeff and Jesse gave her a chubby baby doll with big blue eyes like Sophie. Aunt Heather gave her a Christmas book and a stuffed giraffe. Grandma and Grandpa Harper gave her a cute ornament and some money. Grandma Harper gives each of her grandkids an ornament each year for Christmas and most years she makes them. This year she had 12 grandkids that she made ornaments for, and they are so cute. Thanks Grandma! Scott and Nicole came up in time for Sacrament meeting and stayed for breakfast and gifts. Nick and his family came over just as we started opening presents, and they joined in the fun. Ashtyn and Avery got several presents from Grandma and Grandpa too.

Sophie looking at one of her books with Daddy.
Sophie sitting in the baby stroller. Whenever we go to the mall with Sophie, she likes to get out of the stroller and push. When I saw her very own baby stroller, I was so excited, now she would have one just her size, that she could see over. Instead of being excited about pushing the stroller, she thought it would be fun to sit in the stroller. Silly girl! She doesn't like to ride in the stroller that is made for her, instead she'd rather push the big stroller and sit in the tiny stroller. We've finally convinced her that the baby stroller isn't for her to sit in. The fabric has already torn, but it still works.

One of the baby dolls in the stroller. This baby can go in the tub and she came with her own towel and bath toys.

Maemi showing off the Sophie calendar. I made my parents a calendar with pictures of Sophie, and one for Jon's parents with pictures of all 12 grandkids.

Sophie playing with her piggy bank. She loves this pig. We've taught her some of her colors using the coins from the pig.

Daddy and Sophie

Papa bought this cute hat for Sophie. She tried it on when we were at The Childrens Place and Papa just couldn't resist buying it for her.

After opening presents, we put Sophie down for a nap. When she woke up we headed down to Jon's parent's house. The family got together that evening for Christmas dinner. We had such a wonderful Christmas day! We are so fortunate to have been able to spend it with our family.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was spent with the Reed's. It's my family's tradition that we get together with my aunt and uncle Sherri and Israel and their family. We've always taken turns hosting and this year it was my mom and dads turn to host. We had a very yummy dinner: ham, cheesy potatoes, amazing rolls, veggie tray, stuffe mushrooms that were wonderful, cheese ball and crackers, and Liz Messy for dessert. I've heard the dessert called by many other names, but we call it Liz Messy. The crust is a mixture of pecans, flour and butter, and then you put a layer of cream cheese mixed with whipped cream, a layer of chocolate pudding, then more whipping cream topped with chocolate shavings. It's wonderful!

Some of Tio Israel's family were here to celebrate the Christmas holiday with us, Tia Cruz, Champion, Champion's nephew, ex-brother-in-law and a cousin. It was so good to see Tia Cruz again. I hadn't seen her since she went back to Venezuela. Cruz came to the states and took care of my Grandma Reed after my grandpa died. My grandma has alzheimers and had gotten to the point where she couldn't live on her own anymore, without someone there to help. Cruz was a life saver to our family and she is such a sweetheart. She grew to love Grandma so much and took such great care of her. I heard that Cruz went to Logan to visit Grandma, but as with all of us, Grandma didn't remember who Cruz was. I think it was hard for Cruz to see Grandma like that. It's hard on all of us!

Sophie sitting at the kids table, before it was all decorated. She looked so festive in her red sweater that Maemi Reed knit for her.
Sophie and Samantha
Samantha is my cousin's little girl. She and Sophie share the same birthday. They are about 7 hours apart in age. Sophie was born around 4:30 pm and Samantha was born just before midnight. We wanted to get a cute picture of the two girls smiling, but they didn't want to cooperate. Silly girls!

Another attempt to get a picture of the girls smiling. Sophie looks happy, but Samantha looks concerned.

My cousin Bryant and his beautiful wife Amme. They have three cute kids, Lauren, Andrew and Thomas.

My cousin Adriana and her husband Jason and cute little Samantha.

The cute little Harper family. I hate this picture of me. After I saw these pictures, I realized how desperately I need to drop a few pounds. My clothes almost didn't fit me anymore during the holidays. That would have been bad, especially since I only took so many outfits and most of them were getting too tight.

Me and my handsome brother Nick. Nicole and Scott were with Scott's family, otherwise Nicole would have been in the picture with us.

Champion and my brother Nick's family, his wife Ashley and the two girls, Ashtyn and Avery. They are such cute girls and they adore Sophie. She sure has fun playing with her cousins.

The Venezuelan clan. Tio Israel in front on the left, with Champion, Adriana, Cruz, Bryant in the back, Champion's cousin, Aunt Sherri, Champion's nephew and brother-in-law. I feel bad, but I don't remember their names.

Champion, my dad, and Nick on the back row. Champ's nephew, my mom , Cruz, me and Ashley in the front. I really shouldn't stand like that.

Aunt Sherri and Tio Israel

Sophie with Papa and Maemi Reed

Daddy and his little angel!

It's also been a tradition for our family to act out the nativity as someone reads the story. This year, Sophie got to participate as one of the many angels. However, we got her dressed in her costume a little too soon. By the time everyone else was dressed, Sophie was tired of her costume and she pulled it off. Luckily not before I got a few pictures of her first.

My beautiful little angel!

Tio as the donkey and Lauren as Mary.

The Nativity

Lauren was Mary and Andrew was Joseph. Ashtyn and Avery were two of the angels, Samantha was an angel too, but like Sophie she didn't want to participate. Thomas, Jason, Champion and his brother-in-law were shepherds. Nick, and Champion's nephew and cousin were the wisemen. Bryant read the nativity story from the Bible. It was a little chaotic, but it was fun to watch.

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve! I am truly grateful for the opportunity to celebrate the birth of our Savior and to reflect on the life He lived. It is because of His love and sacrifice that we are given the chance to repent and do all that we can to be worthy to return to live with Him and our Father in Heaven. I'm grateful for the chance that we had to celebrate with our families in Utah.

Lights at Temple Square

While we were staying with my parents, we made a trip to Temple Square to see the Christmas lights. Sophie has enjoyed seeing all the Christmas lights this year, so I thought she would love seeing the lights at Temple Square. It was a chilly night, so we got Sophie all bundled up in her red puffy coat and her hat that I knit for her and a blanket, and we set out to see the lights. We put Sophie in her stroller, that way we could walk quicker and keep track of her. If you've ever been to Temple Square in December you know what I'm talking about. It is completely packed with people and it would be quite easy to lose someone. Anyway, Sophie sat so still the whole time. I thought she would get so excited, but she didn't move or say too much. I'm not sure if she was taking it all in or if she was so cold that she didn't dare move. Either way, I haven't seen her so still, not even in her sleep. She moves around a lot when she sleeps. Toward the end of our outing, Jon took Sophie out of her stroller, so she could see the lights from a higher point. Once she was out, she began to talk and she got a bit more excited about the lights.

All bundled up to see the lights at Temple Square for the first time.
Some of the beautiful lights.

It was tricky finding a place to take a picture where the lights were low enough that we didn't have to take Sophie out of her stroller. Doesn't she looked thrilled!

I love the sight of the Salt Lake Temple. It is such a beautiful sight, and what a way to make it look even more beautiful than to have the trees and bushes in front of the temple wrapped in bright Christmas lights.

My two most favorite people! I am so grateful that we've had the chance to take Sophie to the temple, so that our family can be an eternal family.

The last shot of the lights just before I got in the car. Being downtown during the holidays really made me homesick. I miss Salt Lake City! I used to work downtown before I met Jon, and I loved working there during the holidays. The traffic is crazy, but I love the Christmas feeling that you get just being there. Jon and my dad probably wouldn't agree, but I love it.

After being out in the cold, the only thing left to do was to drink some hot chocolate. No one else wanted any, but my dad was sweet enough to stop at the gas station so that I could get some, and I'm so glad we did. The hot chocolate was amazing! I've found that some of the best hot chocolate comes from the gas station.

Christmas Vacation

We went to Utah for four weeks this year, to celebrate the holidays. We had such a great time. The first week we were there was a little rough, but we made it through. We stayed with Jon's parents that first week, and Jon ended up getting sick. He hadn't slept well before we left and then we didn't get a lot of sleep the first couple of nights we were in Utah. Luckily I didn't get sick, so I got up with Sophie in the mornings and let Jon try and sleep. By the end of the week he started feeling better. The first couple of days we just relaxed. Both of Jon's sisters and one of his brothers were at Disneyland the first few days we were there, so we had fun with his brother Josh and his family. They came over in the evenings to play games. We watched a lot of Christmas movies, which was my favorite. Jon's mom has Direct TV, so his mom had been recording Christmas movies, and I spent a lot of time watching movies. It was wonderful!

I took this picture of Sophie after church the first Sunday we were in Utah. I hadn't gotten any pictures of her in this dress yet, even though she got the dress and sweater for her birthday.

Sophie and Landon playing with Grandma Harper's wrapping paper.

Sunday evening we got together with all of Jon's family for dinner and FHE. Jon's family gets together every fast Sunday for dinner, FHE and to celebrate all of the birthdays that month. Since most of the family weren't around on fast Sunday, the bumped it to the second Sunday of the month and we were lucky enough to be in town. We got to celebrate Heather's birthday that evening. She was at Disneyland on her actual birthday, and it sounded like she had a wonderful day. Sophie is learning how to say names, and she calls aunt Heather "Hatty".

Sophie with her cousin Landon. Landon is three month older than Sophie and he wasn't too sure about Sophie the first night. He is much quieter and not as crazy as Sophie. I think she made him a little nervous. Luckily it didn't take long for him to warm up to Sophie's craziness and they had fun playing together. Here they are sitting in their twin booster seats.

Sophie after her bath. Such crazy hair!

Uncle Scott made this rocking chair for Sophie for her Christmas gift. She loved it! She would sit in it while she watched "Roo, Roo" (Rudolph) and "Fwosty" (Frosty). She watched both movies at least once a day. Grandpa Reed and Aunt Nicole got tired of watching Frosty and Rudolph. My dad was sweet enough to get up with Sophie while we were staying with them and he said the first thing Sophie would ask for was to watch Rudolph or Frosty. She's addicted!

Sophie is kissing a green ornament on Grandma and Grandpa Reed's Christmas tree. I don't remember why she did it, but I thought it was so cute. It's hard to see the ornament, so I asked her to kiss a red ornament so that we could see it better, but she wouldn't do it. I was worried about Sophie playing with the ornaments on the trees, especially since we never got around to decorating our Christmas tree, but she did very well. She did take some of the ornaments off of Grandma Harper's tree, but they were foam ornaments, so they wouldn't break. We've had friends tell us that when their kids were Sophie's age they could only decorate the top half of the tree. We didn't have any problems with Sophie. She had a small tree in her room with ornaments and she did play with those, even though we tried to tell her not to. I really didn't care if she played with them, but I didn't want her thinking that it was okay to play with any ornament. Grandma Reed gave her an ornament to play with and she ended up breaking it within five minutes of playing with it. Oh well! Just a side note, Sophie calls both of her grandmas "Maemi". It's so cute and Grandma Reed loves it. As Sophie gets older, she doesn't want Sophie to call her grandma, she always wants to be called Maemi.

Playing on Grandma Stuart's walker.

Daddy reading a Christmas story to Ashtyn, Sophie and Avery. The girls had a sleep over at grandma and grandpa's house, and they got to make candy cane cookies. It turned out that Grandpa did most of the work and Ashtyn and Avery helped a little. Sophie was a little too young to help.

The ornament that Maemi gave Sophie. It didn't last long. Maybe five minutes before Sophie dropped it on the kitchen counter.

Maemi giving Sophie a horsie ride. Once Maemi got tired, she asked Sophie to give her a ride, but Sophie just laid down on the floor. Silly girl!

Jon's mom has a play kitchen under in the play room under the stairs. Sophie loved playing with it and one evening Aunt Nicole and I sat in there with Sophie and she played for an hour. I couldn't believe it. She had so much fun. It was so cute watching her pretend to cook. She would take the cans of food and pretend to dump the food in the pans and then she would feed Nicole and I. I want to get her a play kitchen for her birthday.

Sophie busy cooking. I just love her little ponytail. This was the first time I put her hair up and it looked so cute. I couldn't believe how grown up she looked. She isn't my baby anymore; she's a little girl.