Christmas fun

We are rested and recuperated from our 5-day Christmas extravaganza. We started Friday evening celebrating Christmas just the 3 of us. We opened presents and ate dinner on our special Christmas china. Sophia liked her horse, but she fell off the first time she got on it, so was a little hesitant after that. She was much more into the Lego's we got her. She also got to open the package sent from Aunt Meghan and Uncle Pat which contained a Wiggles movie. That was an enormous hit and she wanted to watch it immediately.

Saturday morning we went to Portland and stayed at my parent's house through Christmas. We spent the day preparing for the Wittmayer family (my father's siblings and their kids and grandkids) Christmas party. We also had a fun dinner with both sides of the family and Sophia loved having all of her grandparents together.

Sunday morning we went to my parents' church where they enjoyed showing off their granddaughter. It was nice for me to see so many of the people I grew up with. Then, mid-afternoon, the Wittmayers descended upon us. Sophia was hesitant in the beginning, reluctantly playing with Great-aunt Sue, but sticking pretty close to Mom and Dad. But when cousins Roya and Layla got there, she was off like a shot. This was really the first time she has been a full participating in their play, and they ran all over the house, jumped on beds, played dancing games around a foot-stool, and had a wonderful time. They were a little loud, but they were very well-behaved and were just having fun, so we didn't mind the din. There were presents for the little girls, and the adults participated in our usual exchange.

After everyone left, we introduced Sophia to Papa's hot tub. She called it "swimming" and seemed happy as a clam. Granny watched through one of the windows close to the hot tub, and Sophia said "hi Granny" over and over. Afterwards, she shared her bedtime snack with Grannie, although she mostly gave the broken crackers to Grannie.

Christmas Eve day we spent all of at Paul's parents house. Uncle Barry and Aunt Jessica were there too. We cooked, hung out, played games, read and Sophia played "boom boom" again with anyone she could talk into it. We had a wonderful traditional Christmas dinner with turkey and all the trimmings, and then it was present time! Last year Sophia found it stressful and overwhelming. But this year, she helped carry presents, opened hers with only minimal help and would say "more!" after each gift she opened. I think her favorite was a soft plush bowling set from Barry & Jess, although that may have been because it came in a plastic case with a handle and she could carry it around, and play the take-out-and-put-back-in game. We also spent some time tossing the ball around the room and she thought that was hysterical.

Christmas morning started bright and early with Sophia discovering her trike that Santa (Grannie and Papa) got her. It was a big hit as was unpacking her stocking to find treasures. She loved our traditional Christmas breakfast of scrambled eggs with ham, and then got into the general present-opening with great glee. She was happy to carry presents to people and wanted to help open. In the afternoon we visited my grandmother in the nursing home who was quite happy to see Sophia. It was also good that the rest of us came along. After that, we took Sophia to Darla & Earl's house and left here there for two days! Paul and I got to enjoy a couple of relaxing days on our own. We got her back today at my father's birthday dinner. It was great to have the time alone, but better to have her home with us.

We had a wonderful Christmas, which was much less stressful than last year's. Sophia scored big with presents, which made Paul and I feel good about only giving her 2 things. I don't think she got any sense of a deeper meaning of Christmas yet, but she certainly is now familiar with most of the Christmas icons, Santa, snowman, candy cane, and baby Jesus. Hopefully as time goes on, she come to understand what all of that means. I also hope that some day soon, she'll stop singing 'Jingle Bells' as I'm getting really sick of it!


Happy holidays all!

Christmas excitement

We are home and mostly unpacked from our 4-day Christmas extravaganza. I'm posting this one picture of Sophia surrounded by her 'loot' now, and will post more soon. I hope your Christmas was happy.

Family Photo Shoot

About 6 weeks ago we got new family pictures taken. We also had several taken of just Sophia. I keep forgetting to post them online, so here they are a little late.

Sophia's stranger anxiety came out full-force during her alone photos. Of 12 pictures of her alone, only 2 were any good. Not even the addition of bunny, her favorite toy, helped her smile. She just did not want to smile for that stranger who kept talking to her and making funny noises. In the photo where she's looking over her shoulder, I am just to the left, out of the shot. The photo with her hand in her chin was uncoached; she did it on her own and the photographer was quick enough to catch it. I think it's the best one of her.

Once we joined her, she was quite happy and we got some good family pictures.

Happy Birthday Grandma!

Saturday we went to Battleground to visit Grandma and Grandpa for Grandma's birthday. Barry and Jess joined us too. Sophia had fun all day even in the car on the way up. She played with her sunglasses, very proud of herself when she got them on her face, which she could only do with them upside down. In Battleground we played all day, and cooked Grandma dinner, since I didn't think it fair to make her cook her own birthday dinner. (As Darla gets such pleasure out of cooking for others, she may have actually preferred to cook.)

As always, Sophia basked in the devoted attention of 6 adults. Boy is she going to have a rude awakening when Barry & Jess' baby comes in January! We've told her about the baby, and now when we mention Aunt Jess, she says 'Jessica, baby" which I think is toddler shorthand for "Jessica is having a baby." Lately we've been trying to teach her that when she eats food, it goes to her tummy. So on Saturday as we told her that Jessica's baby is in her tummy, Sophia looked both confused and concerned.

She had a great time playing with everyone, especially Grandma and Grandpa. She loved the Christmas decorations and spent a long time playing with long strands of beads. Yes, we know this is not the best toy for her to have, but since she was supervised full-time by 6 people, we thought it fairly safe. She enjoyed "decorating" Grandma. Later, she had fun combing everyone's hair. She's not very gentle at this process. She and Grandpa invented a new game Sophia calls "boom boom." She sits on the landing in the middle of the stairs, and Grandpa throws a ball up to her and it bounces around and falls back down. Sophia laughed, laughed and laughed until her face was all red.

She had a great time all day and was in one of the best moods we've seen her in for a while. If only we could give her this much attention all the time, she'd never be grumpy!

Time away from home

Last week Paul attended a conference, so Sophia and I spent Tuesday-Saturday in Portland at Grannie and Papa's house. Sophia more commonly identified it as "Papa's house" and when asked who else lived there, would reply "Bob" (my father's cat). Only with urging would she say "Grannie." When we got there Tuesday, Grannie was the one she ran to first, so Grannie shouldn't feel too left out. She opened her special Advent box with Grannie each day, which they both seemed to enjoy.

We had a good time with them. Papa gave Sophia her bath on Wednesday, well-supervised by Grannie. Sophia was quite delighted with Bob and wanted to play with her (yes, Bob is a female cat, all questions on this point should be directed to my father). Bob, however, felt that the small, running, shrieking creature should go away and would hiss every time Sophia got close. So now, when you ask Sophia what Bob says, she will hiss in response.

Friday our cousins Kathy, Theresa and Elizabeth came to town to visit, and my father went to the beach for the weekend. These cousins come up every year and help my mother decorate for Christmas. They seem to enjoy it, and my father and I are grateful that we don't have to! Sophia tried to help with the decorating, but as Grannie's ornaments are more fragile than ours, didn't get to do too much. Sophia seemed to like the company, and took to Kathy particularly well. Saturday afternoon, Paul came and got us, and I don't think Sophia had been as happy all week as she was when daddy got there.

Last week she finally began to be able to participate in a conversation on the phone. Several times she said "call my daddy please?" so we called Daddy. She couldn't initiate conversation, but would respond to questions. This is the first she's been able to do that, so it's a good step. Generally she would yank the phone out of my hand and press buttons while talking, so she hung up on Daddy several times. Saturday she asked to call Papa so she did that with Grannie. I think she hung up on him too. She's got a ways to go with phone etiquette.

Friday we went to Lloyd Center with a friend of my mom's. It is too difficult to take Mom and Sophia out with just me; we tried by going to the grocery story on Thursday and it was exhausting, even though they were both quite well behaved. At the mall we took Sophia to see Santa. She was quite interested in doing this, but flatly refused to sit on his lap. "No lap!" she kept announcing. Pictures with Santa have gotten expensive, or perhaps we were at the wrong place. They only let you take pictures with your own camera if you buy some of theirs. Sophia insisted that sit with her for the photo, so I didn't get any digital pictures of the event. Maybe next year it will go better.

Now that we're all home we're back to our routine. Last night Sophia stole Paul's hat and spent some time playing with it. Then she asked for her picture to be taken. She's doing this quite a bit, and you never know what kind of expression we're going to get out of her when we do.

Christmas decorating

Saturday we jumped into the Christmas spirit with all of our energy. We decorated the house, listened to Christmas music, wrapped presents, and even went to the Zoo with Grandma and Grandpa to see the zoo lights. I am not someone who is really full of the "Christmas spirit," in fact, I try my hardest to be a bit of a humbug. My favorite Christmas song is "Grandma Got Run over by a Reindeer", but it is true what they say: Christmas looks different through the eyes of a child. Sophia was very excited to help with decorating, and she keeps asking me to take her picture in front of our stockings. We put out our most kid-friendly decorations so there are lots of things she can play with, and left in boxes the things I would be most distressed if she broke. So we're having fun.

Grannie got us a beautiful Advent calendar and filled each box with a treat for Sophia. We're enjoying taking things out each day. She's also done a few funny things lately. A few days ago she took her bunny to the living room couch and said it had to go to time out (that's Sophia's time-out place). When we asked why bunny was in time out, Sophia said bunny was crying. Sunday when Sophia got up from her nap she brought all of her stuffed animals out of her room one-by-one and lined them up around Daddy. It was a great project, it kept her occupied and running for a half an hour. It doesn't get any better than that!

We'd never been to the zoo lights before, but since we have a membership we thought we'd try it. They were really beautiful and despite the cold and the rain we had a lot of fun. Sophia's favorite part, as usual, was riding the train. We took Grandma and Grandpa with us which really added to our fun.

Tonight Sophia and I are going to spend the rest of the week in Portland with Grannie and Papa. That should add to our Christmas fun. It's going to be quite an exciting month!