Picnic & Fair

Yesterday was the first staff picnic for my work and we had a lot of fun at it. Many of my closest friends from work were there and we played the always-fun game of pass the baby. In fact, we walked up to the park, and my friend Liz promptly stole Sophia and I don't think we had her again for almost 30 minutes. Sophia enjoyed all the attention, and being under the trees, as always.









Today she and I went to the Oregon State Fair with cousins Lisa, Roya & Layla. Despite the hideously hot weather, we had a good time and Sophia was very good. She even honored us with a "Regulation Sophie nap" of 40 minutes. We watched a fun dance troupe, Roya & Layla had their faces painted, and we got to see the animals. Sophia got a little close to a goat, who was sticking his head through the bars of his pen to look at her and she was fascinated right back.

Sophia & Daddy Bonding

Next Saturday will be the Nebraska Huskers' first football game of the year. Paul is doing what he can to get Sophia excited about it. Last night he was pointing out the "N" on his shirt and telling her all about the glories of the Huskers. With as much attention as she was paying to the "N", she seems very excited. (Or maybe it was just the most entertaining thing on Daddy's shirt.)


Another thing that Daddy and Sophia do most every day are what Paul calls his "Sophie-cizes." (Exercises with Sophie on the front.) These involve Paul lifting Sophie in the air repeatedly and basically using her for weight lifting. He figures that as his strength increases, so does her weight. Plus, she thinks they're playing a fun game. So it works out well all around.

Lately, Sophia has shown great interest in whatever we're eating or drinking, so we've broken out the sippy-cups. She doesn't quite have them figured out, but she can play with them for a while until she does. She has also taken a great leap forward in the food department this week. She is eating a lot more and is opening her mouth quite wide for every bite. She's even opening her mouth when she sees us eating. I suspect that our days of eating without fighting her for our food are soon to come to an end.

5 Months old!

Today Sophia is 5 months old. I'm not quite sure how that happened. It's amazing how much she has changed in just 5 months. I can only imagine how much she will change in 5 years!

She celebrated being 5 months old by starting her official day care today. She is going to an in-home day care with a lovely woman named Karen. It sounds like Sophia quite took to her, greeting her with a big smile this morning, and me with an even bigger one when I picked her up tonight (the kid knows on which side her bread is buttered). It's sad that we only have a few hours together in the evening before bed-time, but tonight we've tried to cram lots of bonding into those hours.

Day around the house

Hello World!

All we did today was hang around the house and try to keep Sophia occupied. Strangely, we took a lot of pictures while doing it. We must still be in vacation mode.

One motivation for all the pictures was that today Sophia is wearing this adorable dress that my cousin Connie bought her. It's one of my favorites and I wanted to get pictures.

In the past few weeks Sophia has taken a few developmental leaps. She waves back at people occasionally when they wave first. She's sitting up by herself. She mostly leans on her hands, but occasionally lifts them to reach for something. Today she spent a long time sitting up being entertained by our cat.

She has learned to play the music buttons on her command center. She will play them over, and over, and over. It's new enough that it isn't yet annoying, but it may get there eventually. We enjoy watching how she changes every day.

Beach Week!

This is the first of two posts about the beach. Please scroll down to see the second post with more pictures.

We had a wonderful week at the Oregon Coast in Rockaway Beach with most of our family. Both sets of grandparents were there, Nancy & John, Earl & Darla. Uncle Barry & Aunt Jess were with us over the weekend, and good family friend Joanne and her granddaughter Drew were also with us for three days. Thanks Nancy and John for hosting us this week at your beach house!

We had a very good time, although Paul and I left feeling a bit like we were not strictly necessary, we could have just sent Sophia and everyone would have been equally happy.

While we were at the coast we got to see our friends Christina, Peter and Miriam who recently moved to Seaside. There were many walks on the beach and one in Oswald West State Park. We all also spent many hours just sitting around staring at Sophia. Several times grandparents made references to getting in their "baby fix" or baby bonding." We introduced Sophia to many classic Oregon Coast places of my childhood: Mo’s for clam chowder (if you haven't ever been to the website you really should and turn up your speakers, the introduction song is pretty funny), the Tillamook Cheese Factory and of course the beach. She was not as excited by the beach or ocean as she was by the trees in Oswald West State park, I bet as she grows older she will love the beach.

After a week of full-time attention by 6 adults, Sophia is a bit spoiled. We brought her home tonight and put on the floor with some toys while we unpacked and very quickly she protested the lack of attention. She'll have to get used to it, I guess!

Beach Photos 2

Here are some more photos from our week at the beach that would not fit in the previous post.

Sophia's Daycare photos

The past few weeks Sophia has been in day care with Rachel a friend who is a teacher and off for the summer. She has an adorable 5-year-old, Talia who is very taken with Sophia. Often when Paul comes to pick up Sophia, Talia tries to push him out the door or close the door on him. Recently she asked her mom if they could just pretend if Sophia was their baby. Having them watch Sophia has been wonderful for us because our regular day-care facility does not have an opening for Sophia until August 21 so we needed to find someone to care for her. Being in another home with just one child has allowed Sophia to become acclimated to being with other children on a regular basis. Sophia is apparently fascinated with Talia too, watching her all the time. So we'll be sad to have this chapter come to an end.

The Amazing Growing Sophia

I recently saw a post on my cousin Cortney's blog that had side-by-side photos of her son's growth. I thought this was such a genius idea, that today I took a comparison shot of Sophia. Unfortunately, not having been taking these photos all along they're not as good as her's, but it's kind of fun to see how Sophia has developed in the past 4 months.




4-9-06 &
8-7-06









In other news of growth and development, Saturday Sophia sat in a high chair for the very first time. It seemed to be a big hit. The only major problem was that with her in the high chair it is harder to hold her hands and keep them from squishing around in her face. But I guess that's just a taste of life to come.

Uncle Barry and Aunt Jess were here Saturday and Sunday and had lots of fun with Sophia. She did her very best to wear them out. Grandma Nancy & Grandpa John came to visit Sunday for dinner. We had lots of family here this weekend. I think they were all here to see Sophia, not us.

Finally, today I broke out the 9-month size clothes. Yesterday my mother suggested I try some on Sophia and I was just sure theywouldn'tt fit yet. The pink polka-dot outfit she's wearing today is a size 9-month outfit. Boy do I hate that my mother is almost never wrong. So Sophia has lots of new clothes to wear. Keeping up with the clothes she doesn't fit into any more and advancing into the new clothes is a full time job. Not that I'm complaining. People have been so generous and there are so many cute clothes. So, she's 4 months old, and wearing size 9-month clothes. They're a little big, but that's ok!