Silly Girl!

I just had to share this one. I went upstairs to get Sophie after her nap, and this is what I found.

She put the blanket over head all by herself. As soon as I saw her, I started laughing so hard. I had to leave her and run downstairs so that I could get the camera and take a picture. Of course she cried when I left, but stopped as soon as she saw me. She has been so silly lately. She loves to do her fake laugh, and it makes me laugh so hard. She is just a ball of fun! I love spending all day with her.

Here she is after we took the blanket off of her. I'm so glad we decided to drop the mattress when we did, because she stands up in her bed all the time.

I wanted to share this picture because I thought it was so cute. I just love the sweet look on her face. She is such a sweet baby!

Families Can Be Together Forever

Saturday, March 5th we were blessed to have our sweet baby girl, Sophie, sealed to us in the Bountiful, Utah temple. It was such a special day! I am so grateful for the priesthood power that is here on the earth today and for the temple ordinances which bind us together as families for eternity. It was a wonderful experience to have Sophie in the temple with us all dressed in white. My sister Nicole held Sophie during the ceremony, so she was dressed in white also. When she walked in the sealing room holding Sophie, they looked like two angels. Sophie came in smiling and pointing. She just learned how to point and as soon as she saw Jon and I, she pointed to us. I did very well during the sealing, until I looked up and saw tears rolling down Jon's cheeks. Once I saw him crying, I couldn't hold back my own emotions. I was filled with joy, knowing that my Sophie will be ours forever. Nothing and no one can ever change that. We have taken several steps throughout the adoption process, but this was the most important step of all. We were blessed to have our families with us in the temple. We know our friends in Mankato were with us in spirit. We appreciate the love and support and many prayers that we have received throughout the adoption process.

Don't mind my hand, I don't know what I was doing. Sophie looked like a little angel in her beautiful dress.

My angel baby! She did so well during the ceremony, other than she didn't want to leave her hand on mine. I ended up holding her hand with my thumb.

Our eternal family!

Kisses from Dad!

I just love her little smile. My cousin, Jonathan took pictures of us, so these are candid pictures that my dad took.

That afternoon, after pictures we had Sophie's blessing. We blessed Sophie at my parent's church and we were blessed to have more family and friends with us. Jon gave Sophie a beautiful blessing and in it he thanked Sophie's birth parents for listening to the spirit, and being willing to give Sophie to us, to be a part of our family. We are eternally grateful to them for their sacrifice and the wonderful gift they have given us. We love them very much and are grateful for the opportunity we have to be parents. Sophie is such a sweet baby, and we are so blessed to have her as a part of our eternal family. We had a wonderful day! It was a long day and Sophie did so well, it was as though she knew what a special day it was. She was so tired by the time we did her blessing, that she fell asleep on Jon's shoulder during the blessing.

What a surprise!

I must apologize first, I don't have a picture to go with this post. Yesterday afternoon, I put Sophie down for her afternoon nap. She didn't seem too interested and all I heard on the monitor was her cooing and playing. About ten minutes later, I went up to check on her and I could tell that she had pooped. I changed her diaper and assumed that she would go to sleep now that she had a clean diaper. Boy was I wrong! Another fifteen minutes went by and again I went up to her room to check on her and what I found was quite a surprise. Sophie was sitting up in her crib. She has never sat up on her own until now. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. She had sat up all by herself and was playing with the crib bumper. She was so happy and proud of herself, it made me laugh. I was so excited, I wanted to tell Jon but he was teaching at the moment, so I had to wait until he got home to tell him. I knew right away, that the best solution for this problem would be to lower her crib mattress. I didn't think we'd have to do that for at least a few more months. Not only did we lower the mattress, we lowered it all the way. She seems so far away now and I can't lean in and give her a kiss before I go to bed. I hate that she is growing up so fast. I love watching her as she learns new things, but it's killing me that she isn't my tiny little baby anymore. Jon keesp saying she's not a baby, she's a little person now. It is so true! After lunch today, I sat Sophie on the floor to play with her toys, while I did some typing. I looked over and she was having a great time rolling around on the floor. A few minutes later, I looked and she was sitting up. I missed it again. I called Jon to let him know and while I was talking to him, I got to witness my baby girl sit up on her own. She lays on her side and gets up on her hands and then slowly scoots her hands closer to her body until she is sitting up. She's just getting so big and so grown up. I sure love her and all of her energy.

Happy Valentine's Day

We had a wonderful, busy Valentine's Day. I had to work, so that made our day a little busy. When I finished work, I went to pick up Sophie and she was still taking a nap, so I came home and made Honeymoon Mousse. By the time I finished making the mousse Sophie had woken up from her nap, so I went back to Shannon's to pick up Sophie. We came home and I made sausage manicotti for dinner. I really wanted to go to Target to get something else for Jon, but there just wasn't enough time. I decided that it was more important to get dinner ready. We've only gone out to dinner on Valentine's Day once since we've been married and the one time we went out, we had to wait in line for two hours, because the restaurant didn't take reservations. I prefer having a quiet dinner at home anyway. Once Sophie went to bed, Jon and I relaxed on the couch and watched Maid in Manhattan. We hope all of you had a wonderful Valentine's Day too.

I made this sign and intended on emailing it to the grandparents, but having to work and being so busy when I came home from work, I never got the chance to email it. Grandma and Grandpa, we hope you had a wonderful Valentine's. Here is your Valentine from Sophie.
Grandma Reed gave Sophie this cute Valentine shirt. I wanted to get some pictures of her in her Valentine shirt, but she didn't want to cooperate. The first two pictures I took she had her eyes closed, but I thought this picture was so cute.

As I said, she didn't want to cooperate and smile for me, so here's another funny picture of my cute Valentine.

My two favorite Valentines. We bought Sophie a balloon and some balls for her Valentine gift. She needed something fun to play with.

Our fancy dinner setting. We had sparkling cider, the other cup has the mousse in it and Rita made heart shaped eclairs for us. I gave Rita and her family some of the mousse since it made more than we needed to eat. The eclairs were amazing!

Jon surprised me with these beautiful tulips and the BBC movie Little Dorrit. When I came home from work, I found the flowers and movie sitting on the kitchen counter. Jon told me that Sophie decided that she wanted to get me something, so they bought me flowers. I love tulips, so they were the perfect gift. Jon also gave me the BBC movie Bleak House both movies are originally books by Charles Dickens. I highly recommend the movies if you like old English movies. I gave Jon a game that he ordered for himself, Forbidden Island, and I bought him another card expansion to Killer Bunnies, the Chocolate Bunny set and his favorite heart shaped Reese's Peanut Butter cups.

Update

Life has been a little busy around here. Starting the end of January (Jan 31st -Feb. 14th) I got to work for two weeks at the pain center. My co-worker, Mary went on vacation for two weeks to Arizona. I told her months ago, that I would be willing to cover, but as the time drew near, I was dreading having to work. My biggest concern was how Sophie would do for Rita, my friend who offered to watch Sophie during the two weeks. Rita has a baby, Elsie, who is exactly two weeks younger than Sophie, so I knew Rita would have her hands full. She is amazing and was able to get both babies on the same nap schedule, so at least she had a little break throughout the day. Elsie and Sophie had a great time together, entertaining one another, which made life a little easier for Rita. Sophie is very needy in that she loves to have you right there playing with her, whereas Elsie is content to play on her own. They are such cute girls and they truly had a lot of fun together. Thanks Rita for all of your help. You truly were a lifesaver.

We survived me working everyday for two weeks. We've come to realize how truly blessed we are that I am able to stay home with Sophie. I love being a stay at home mom. It is the best job in the world. I truly feel for those moms who have to work outside the home. I can't imagine having to leave Sophie everday, knowing I had no other choice. This week has been much nicer, now that I'm done working and able to be home again. Jon has been sick the past few weeks, in fact he's been sick since December. We think he might have mono, but we need to wait for test results. While I was working he got a cold which turned into a sinus infection, so I took him to the clinic and the PA put him on amoxicillin. On the tenth day he broke out in a terrible rash. He still has the rash, but it is slowly going away. Once the rash is gone, he will be able to go in and have his blood drawn. They probably won't be able to do much for him, if it is a virus, but at least we will know. It comes and goes, but he gets fevers for several days and is very fatigued. As I said, this has been going on since December. Hopefully we are getting to the end of it and he will be back to his normal healthy self once again. We've had a fairly relaxing weekend. He's been able to rest and I've been taking care of Jon and Sophie. It's wonderful to spend so much time with my two favorite people. I love you Jon and Sophie! Here are some pictures of Sophie from the past several weeks. Enjoy!

Sophie hiding under her blanket.

Beautiful blue eyes!

The doctor I work for, his wife gave us this cute outfit for Sophie. His wife is my GI doctor and a very kind lady. This outfit is one of my favorites. I love the hat!

Sophie has three cute jackets that we got from Old Navy and they all have little ears. She looks like a little teddy bear when she wears them. The pink one with hearts, she got from Grandma Reed for Christmas.

This was the first jacket she got, I just couldn't keep myself from buying it. It is so soft and it was on sale, half off.

I got this one on clearance after Christmas, with matching fleece pants.

Sophie and Elsie, best friends! They really do get along well and play well together. Such cute babies.

Sophie in her hippie outfit, pulling all the diapers out of the diaper carrier. Love that little tongue sticking out!

After waking up from her nap, I went up to get her and found her like this. She had pulled the bumper off of her crib. Silly girl!

Sophie in her new jumperoo. This was her Christmas gift from mom and dad.

My Beautiful Sophie

I can't believe my baby is 7 months old. She is growing and changing so much and she is so much fun. She keeps us on our toes and brings so much joy into our lives. We plan to bless her and have her sealed to us in March, so I wanted to have some pictures taken of her in her blessing dress. Our friend Wes Taylor takes beautiful pictures, so we asked him if he would do the honors. He said he would be more than happy to. We went over Sunday evening after Sophie's nap and Wes took lots of pictures of Sophie, but we didn't get any of her in her blessing dress. Wes is currently taking a photography class at MSU and needed some "artistic" pictures for one of his projects, so he took some really funky pictures of Sophie first, and then we did the normal pictures. We had to give Sophie a little break in between, so he took these pictures of her without any clothes. They turned out so cute! We tried to get pictures of her in her blessing dress, but she was finished, she just cried, so we called it quits. We are going to set up another photo shoot with the dress. Thanks Wes for the beautiful pictures of Sophie!

This is one of my favorites, I love the two little teeth!

Truthfully, I love all the pictures!

What a beautiful smile!

Cute little tongue!

My sweet girl!

She looks so sweet!

She looks like she's ready to pray.

She was trying to roll over and he caught this image.

Abuelita

Thursday, December 30, 2010 my Abuelita passed away. My mom called Thursday morning to let me know that her mother had passed away, but unfortunately I was at work, so Jon was the one who gave me the sad news. I was able to talk to my mom while she and my dad were on their way to Logan and she said that she was doing okay. My mom has been so strong through all of this and I'm sure it hasn't been easy on her. I am going to miss my grandmother, even though I haven't been able to see her very often since we moved from Utah, but she was a wonderful lady. She lived with us when my brother was born and because of her, I learned to speak Spanish. She was always so giving and loving to me. She was friendly and loved people. She loved to crochet and she made beautiful baby afghans and baby booties. She made Sophie a baby afghan and booties and we will cherish them forever. We were fortunate enough to visit her this past summer and she got to hold Sophie. In October when she got very ill, Sophie and I got the chance to go to Utah and I was able to say good-bye to my grandmother at that time. I am so grateful for her and the influence she has had on my life. We love you and miss you! I'm truly grateful for the gospel and the knowledge I have knowing that I will see her again someday. She is now reunited with her husband, whom she has been parted from for 33 years. I love you Abuelita!

The four generation picture we took this past summer with Abuelita.

Irene Oscanoa, 81 years old, of Logan Utah, died Thursday December 30, 2010 in Logan. She was born in Lima, Peru on May 9, 1929. She had four children Guillermo (Edi) Vidal, Edmundo (Irene) Oscanoa, Rosa (Randy) Reed, and Noemi (Luis) Salcedo. She leaves behind ten grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband, Alejandro. Irene was a very sociable person. She loved to travel, to dance, and she enjoyed life to the fullest. She was a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, attending the Spanish branch in Logan. She loved living in Logan, and was grateful that she lived in the United States. She loved the wonderful American people, and she had a wonderful time living and working in this country.