Okay, I know every parent loves to brag, but I am very impressed with my two year old. Sophia seems to have an affinity for doing puzzles. After working with her a few times she seems to understand exactly where things go and is willing to take the time to do them. Chuck bought her a United States puzzle a few months back, which she mastered very quickly. She can do it faster than Mom. It has definitely helped with my sense of geography though.

Our rule is once she can do a puzzle by herself she can have a new one, so when she mastered the US, she adamantly expressed her desire for a Buzz Lightyear puzzle. I didn't even know if one existed, but assumed that if it did it could be found at the Disney store. Sure enough, they had two puzzles and one was Buzz. The problem-no outlines to follow, no corners, and 26 pieces!! I must admit it took me awhile to help her with this one. I am proud to announce that she can do this one solo. It is a riot to here her looking for a "black & white outy" and a purple inny"

Here's the capture of her first solo run on Buzz.

Okay folks I finally came to the realization that capturing the life of a 2 year old has to be done with whatever recording device is handy. For way too long I have been operating under the belief that I needed to use my honker camera to catch Sophia's daily adventures, but it is usually packed and ready for the next shoot and not handy when I need it. So what to do?....iPhone to the rescue. I realized it is always with me and I have been capturing many priceless moments I haven't been sharing. So prepare yourself for a stream of entries in the next few days. I'll work backwards so you can see the latest first.

Here is Sophia helping mommy shovel the TON of snow we received yesterday. Of course her idea of helping was to throw snow on me as I shoveled but she had a blast. When I was whipped an hour or so later, she did not want to come in. She cried. "Clean all the snow mommy!" I guess she wanted me to hit the street too:-)

Okay, I'll admit I'm a much better blogger on my site, than on Sophia's, but I thought you might be interested in seeing some of Sophia's Christmas pictures and hearing about her first interactive Christmas. She loved putting up decorations. For some reason she decided that a little bead from a decoration needed to be in her nose, but from what I've learned most kids do this. The dr. said that it is often disguised as a sinus infection, so parents beware. She was quick to tell me she put a ball in her nose and thanked me for trying to get it out, even though I was unsuccessful. I kept the little thing for the purpose of photographing it and posting it here, but better judgement prevailed.

We spent Christmas Eve with my sister Nancy and her kids and grandkids. We had a blast and Sophia got her first Mr. Potato Head. Here's what she did with that. Hopefully this is not an indication of future piercings.


Here is Bullseye. The cute little rocking horse from Grandma. You push his ears and he makes horse noises and his head goes up and down and the tail shakes back and forth. Too cute!!!!








I bought myself a Bow-dabra this year. I wanted to give gifts just to create the bows. Here's one of my creations on my niece Betsy. I think she could set a new stylish trend




Alas, now Christmas decorations have been packed away. Sophia was asleep while I completed this and when she walked into the living room held out her little hands in confusion and asked. "Where did Christmas go?"

Hopefully it's living in our hearts.

We had a fun filled trip to Las Vegas to visit Uncle Gary. I got to ride the Ferris wheel with Daddy. We also got to ride the merry-go-round. I had to ride the lion...RRRRRoarrrrrrr. We also went to the Top of the World and looked down from the Stratosphere.





I got to color with my Uncle Gary.

We had the pleasure of attending Maryn's 1st birthday party this past weekend. What a little doll. It's hard to believe it's been a year since our friends adopted little Maryn.




Maryn had no trouble digging into her cake.


Our little Sophia had a great time playing dress up with the "big girls". She is very good at undressing, hence the reason for no pants, but she decided she needed "princess hair." We had to do a double take when she came down the stairs in this get up. We thought it someone else's kid.


Mark & Stephanie adopted little Maryn.

Checking out viewing ability of new layout pages on different blogs.

It seems like everyday there is a new milestone in our daughters life. Last night was no exception. Her first trick or treat experience. Since Sophia's daily mantra is "I love choc-o-late" it wasn't too far of a stretch to think Halloween would be a blast for her. I'm not sure if she liked the social aspect or the candy more. Each house we went to that had kids, she said "I come in."

We went out for our rounds pretty early so she could also experience kids coming to our house. She loved both. We saw a couple other "bees" and she thought she should go back out and fly with them, however more than enough candy has landed in our home. She buzzed around in circles for hours on her sugar fix.

Knowing that the wings and antennae were part of costume and necessary for trick or treating we had no problem keeping them on.

So as many of you know we go out to eat sushi regularly. Bento's has become home away from home. Sophia loves to go there, and see Ricky (the sushi chef and owner) Rachael (his wife) and their kids (Jade, Paige, Nathan and baby Eli). She is not into raw fish yet but she can put away piles of pickled ginger!!!

After sushi we head outside and up the stairs of Lamp & Lantern village to view the shops. Sophia especially likes the one that has "princess dresses." It's a wedding dress shop and she can't believe how many princess dresses are in there. If you have or have had a two year old. You know they run everywhere. She runs up and down the side walk, around the fountain, back up and down the sidewalk. Which is fine we think because then she will sleep well. After a while of this you could tell her little legs were getting tired and we were afraid she was going to stumble and hit her head on the sidewalk. When she got down to the far end of the walkway, Chuck yelled "Sophia. Walk back." She immediately, turned around and started walking backwards towards us. Ricky, Chuck, and I were laughing so hard we were crying.

Okay so the picture and the story really have nothing in common, but I thought it was all good enough to share.

I learned that if you want to take pictures of a child catching bubbles you must have more than two hands. By the time I blow them and get the camera poised for a shot, the bubbles have blown away, and I get one of Sophia running toward me saying "again, again." So when Daddy came home guess what his assignment was? ...you guessed it - the "Official Bubble Blower. He was kind enough to help me out in the perfect light of the setting sun until he began to hyperventilate.

Sophia started school today. She is going to a Mom's Day Out Program at a church close to our house. Here she is with her Pretty Pony Backpack and Little Einstein lunchbox. She is growing up way too fast. She has a blast with the other kids, and the teachers are fantastic. She decided she didn't want to nap today at school, in fact according to the teacher only one child out of 8 did. Instead she watched a video with the big kids and got to play some more. When I picked her up though she was one tired girl. We only live 5 minutes away and she was fast asleep when I pulled in the garage. She is pictured here with Mrs. Donna. Not shown are Mrs. Debbie and Mrs. Lori.

We had a wonderful day on Sunday. Went to our friends annual Fish Fry and Weird Beer Party. Jeff is the Fry Daddy (the title of the post comes from his apron and this year's complimentary beer huggy). Also pictured is his wife Mary working it for the camera. Sophia made a buddy on the swings, her name is McKenzie (check out those eyes)!!! I also included a picture of Melody, Jeff & Mary's teenage daughter. She is great with kids and Sophia had a blast hanging out with her.

Here are a couple more shots from Sophia's birthday party. First is Ava and Alexsandra, Sophia's cousins. Decked out and ready to party. The next is a prep shot of Uncle Bill sucking the helium out of the balloons.

There will be more pictures coming from Sophia's Birthday Party, but I thought I would get this one up to share the joy she had at seeing all of her friends and family singing Happy Birthday to her. It was a BIG day!!! We are so grateful for everyone who showed up and joined in the celebration.

This was one of the highlights of Grant's Farm. Sophia did NOT like the goats. They were way too aggressive for her, so we weren't quite sure how she would handle these large animals, but after a little coaxing she did end up giving these large beasts a little snack. They in return gave her a little slime. Good thing there were hand sanitizing stations.

Last weekend was a busy weekend. We went to Grant's Farm for Chuck's company picnic. Even though it seemed like the hottest day of the year, the kids found a great way to stay cool....and get soaked head to toe. At first Sophia was a bit hesitant, but her friend Nevaeh coaxed her in and within minutes she was hooked and would loved to have played in there all day. I

Sophia is becoming quite exceptional about telling me exactly what she wants. She went into the cabinet and grabbed the peanut butter, looked at me and said "peanut butter toast please." How could I resist, after all she did say please. I promtly made it and sat her at the table with the her toast.

My laptop is in the kitchen, so while she ate I thought I'd catch up on a few emails. When I looked back a couple minutes later, I saw this lovely look of satisfcation on my daughter's face. I think she was much more satisified, by her creation, and my reaction than the toast itself.

I'm sure every parent goes through this stage, but we have finally hit it. Sophia has taken to disrobing. Oddly enough she doesn't seem to have this ability when I'd like her to get ready for a bath. I guess while watching one of her favorite movies, she just needs to get a little more comfortable. The best thing about this from a photo perspective is that the shirt always gets stuck on her head giving Mom a moment to snap a shot. Don't think I haven't shot the embarrasing ones also, they will be locked away for bargaining material in the teenager years.

I wanted to take this opportunity to get a shot of Kalin and Sophia. Kalin has been watching Sophia since she was itty bitty. Now Miss Kalin is going to be leaving soon to start her career as a college student. Chi Town awaits her later this month. Sophia will miss her water balloon playmate.

Today, my very good friend Franki, brought me into Bloggerville. I promise to keep this site posted regularly.