Busy Busy Busy

We have had an eventful week. On Sunday morning we got to see Audri for a little while as she was passing through La Grande on her Spring Break road trip. She and her friend Sarah are visiting several colleges in Oregon and Washington. Sophie enjoyed seeing her big sis and went to her right away! After meeting the girls for breakfast Sophie and I headed to my mom's for family birthday dinner (my mom's bday was on Friday). Grammy surprised Sophie with some "new" toys that she had found at a rummage sale. Sophie especially liked the car that she can ride on. It makes lots of noises!

Sophie is getting another tooth (right next to her first one). She is learning that teeth are for biting....in fact she bit mama's shoulder today! Those little baby teeth are sharp. OUCH! She has also been learning a lot more words and she tries to repeat a lot of things we say to her. She calls dogs (or anything that slightly resembles a dog!) a "bow wow." She has been able to say mama and dada for a long time but she now knows which word belongs to each of us. She also says bye bye when she waves. One day I showed her how to make the "ssss" sound and she began to copy me! So we've got the first sound of her name mastered but need to work on the rest. She is really starting to pull herself up on everything and soon we expect her to be cruising along the couches and other furniture. I have been working on teaching sophie to use a fork and spoon. She did quite well the other day with it. However, after awhile she gets frustrated and just picks her food up with her hands and looks at me as if to say "hello mom, this is A LOT easier!" It appears as though Sophie may be a lefty just like her Auntie Sara and Uncle Jeff. :)

We are getting ready to leave for our cruise of the Mexican Riviera. We drive to Portland tomorrow and fly out for San Diego on Saturday morning. Our ship leaves Saturday evening. We will stop in Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, and Cabo San Lucas. We are very excited! We are especially looking forward to escaping the wind and rain and enjoying some sunshine. Sophie will have fun at grandma and grandpa's for the week. Hopefully she'll be a really good girl! :)

A visit with Auntie Heidi

This past week Sophie and I had the chance to see my friend Heidi, who I've known for almost 20 years. Wow, that makes me feel old! Heidi had just returned from a trip to Alaska to see her brother and family and she was in Payette at her parent's house for a couple of days. We went and stayed one night and had a great time catching up with Heidi's parents Mike and Debbie and also with Heidi and her husband John. Sophie took a couple of hours to warm up to the "new" people but soon Mike was feeding Sophie some baby food! It didn't take Sophie long to notice the "bow wow" mounted up on the wall. It was of course actually a deer and Soph wanted the "bow wow" to come down and play with her. She got a little mad when it didn't! Auntie Heidi spoiled Sophie and let her open her very first birthday present almost a month early! As most babies are, she was more interested in the packaging than the present. :) She had a great time with the tissue paper. We are so glad that we were able to visit Heidi and family and hope to see them one more time in April before they leave for Alaska for the whole summer.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Kiss me...I'm Irish! Or at least I'm little bit on my mama's side. And actually you better not kiss me because my dad will knock you out! ;) Happy St. Patty's Day anyway!!!

Weekend Getaway

This past weekend I had the chance to go with Eric to the Officer's Conference in Seaside. We left Sophie overnight for the first time with Eric's parents in Hillsboro. I was nervous about leaving her but just as we thought she did great with grandma and grandpa. I know that she loved having all the attention and getting a little bit spoiled! ;) Eric had to attend a few meetings but that just gave me time to go to the Outlet Mall! We enjoyed our time at the beach a lot. We went to Canon Beach and walked around town and on the beach. We also had the chance to eat some yummy seafood (and we didn't have to take turns eating so one of us could feed the baby!). We had a wonderful weeked at the coast. Thanks Dan & Paula!

Fun times with family!

Last week we got to spend some time with Eric's parents, sister, brother-in-law, and nephews. We all got together to celebrate William turning seven! Sophie was very excited to see all of them. She also enjoyed seeing her "cousin" Tess...the white labrador! Between playing blocks with her cousins and crawling around after the dog she had a great time. We enjoyed getting to visit with family and we also loved the yummy Oreo ice cream cake that Sara made!

Happy Birthday Mama....I have my first tooth!

A couple of days ago I put my finger in Sophie's mouth and there it was, something sharp and pointy! After months of teething and a few hours up at night she finally got her first tooth. It's not completely in yet but probably will be in the next week or so. We have been keeping up on the Tylenol, Orajel, and Teething Tablets and she seems to be doing well. Pretty soon she'll be able to eat steak with mommy and daddy! ;)

Crawling Crawling Crawling!

We love the park!

We have been blessed with some sunny days recently. On Sunday we got the jogger out and took a walk to the park. Sophie had not been to the park since she was 5 months old. This time she was old enough to appreciate it and boy did she! She loved the swings. She liked going by herself as well as with daddy. She even went down the big slide on daddy's lap and didn't cry a bit!

On Monday it was nice again so we met our friends Jessica and Taylor (and their golden retriever Hayley) at the park again. The girls had a great time! It was too cute when Taylor held Sophie's hand before they went down the slide. Hopefully we have some more nice days so we can get out and get some fresh air. It's good for both of us and it helps Sophie take longer afternoon naps! :)