Sunday, December 31, 2006

2006 - A Year in Review

2006 brought many adventures.
Here's a recap of my year:

JANUARY




W
e find out we're expecting a new addition to our family





FEBRUARY




A new car




MARCH



I celebrate 2 years with my wonderful husband






APRIL



We decide to move out of our house temporarily, and spend the summer in Mesa




MAY




It's a GIRL!!!





JUNE




My hair is finally long enough to chop and donate to Locks of Love






JULY



We spend a wonderful week in San Francisco for Jake's brother Jordan's wedding



AUGUST




We lose a tree





SEPTEMBER



Our baby is due....but decides not to come




OCTOBER



Sophie Grace




NOVEMBER



Sophie disappears for a while





DECEMBER



Sophie's blessing






I can't wait to see what 2007 will bring.
How was your year?

Saturday, December 30, 2006

A Bad Habit?

Sophie invented a new trick yesterday. She pulls her upper lip into her mouth with her tongue and sucks on it - tongue sticking out of her mouth. It doesn't seem like a good habit to me, but at the same time, it's a way for her to self-soothe. I'm afraid she's going to get a hickey on her upper lip, or a really bad chapped lip or something.

We noticed it yesterday afternoon, and every time she woke up in the night, or every time I put her back to sleep at night, I could hear her sucking her lip. She also just does it randomly if she feels like sucking.

What do you think???

Friday, December 29, 2006

Our Journey Back Home

After a fun and exciting week with family and friends, it was time for our family to head back home yesterday. We loaded up the trunk to nearly beyond its capacity, strapped up our Christmas presents to the back of our car, and enclosed Sophie in the back seat with even more of our junk.


We double checked and triple checked our straps and knots, and then got on the road. About half way home, we ran into some rain. It made for a slightly slower drive, but was overall enjoyable to see (that's the Arizonan in me).

As a favor to one of Jake's co-workers, we were transporting some late Christmas gifts with us. The plan was to meet said co-worker's dad at the Target by our house to give him the gifts. Sophie was at her wits end with the car seat and lack of dinner, and I knew we were barely going to make it to Target and then to our house before she went all-out hysterical. (She was figuring out that the pacifier I kept offering her did not provide milk).

Well, as we pulled into Target, we encountered an unusually large bump, followed by an unusually large crashing noise, and shortly thereafter, an unusually worried "Oh, crap" from Jake. Since Sophie was crying, I assumed that something from our overloaded back seat had somehow landed in Sophie's lap, so I quickly turned around, only to look out the back window and NOT see our bikes. The large bump had snapped one of our bike rack straps (which sailed across the car and landed on the windshield) and the entire bike rack fell off the car. No, the hook did not break. The strap actually frayed and split apart. It must have been fraying the entire trip home. I felt very fortunate that this did not happen on the freeway, or else we would be bikeless at this very moment.

Back to the story.

I hit the hazard lights and Jake jumped out of the car to pull the bikes and the rack all the way off the car and out of the street. I moved the car to a nearby parking spot, but then decided to drive over to Target to see if I could drop off the presents. I couldn't find the person we were supposed to meet, but during my drive through the lot, Sophie (as predicted) became hysterical. I go back to my original parking spot, park the car, and lean over the back seat to unstrap her. (the car was too full to reach in from the side to get her). I pull her up to the driver's seat, and begin nursing her.

Sophie, in the past week, due to vacation stress, illness, or just because she's getting older, decided to have a bowel movement only once every 24 to 36 hours. It had been a long time since we had seen a soiled diaper, and the poor child finally figured out how to let it all go. I had never heard her "go" for so long. As she was nursing, I kept checking the back of her onesie to see if she had exploded (she did something similar, but not as extreme earlier in the week, so I knew what to expect). After a minute or two, it started seeping through. I grabbed the blanket sitting on the car seat next to me and placed it under her for the duration of the feeding. When she was done (well, probably not quite done, but we weren't in an ideal location for a proper feeding.) I took off her sweater and pants to assess the damage. Here's what I saw:

So I took everything off, and here's what was left:

Reminders: I am in the driver's seat of our car. We are in a shopping complex parking lot. Jake is outside trying to figure out how to reattach the bikes to get them home. It's raining.

I take out my travel wipes, which luckily are plentiful and still moist, and proceed to wipe Sophie down from neck to toes. She does not enjoy a cold sponge bath, but is pretty cooperative. I decide not to deal with the diaper at the moment, due to the lack of changing-diaper space, so I take a new diaper, lay it flat in her car seat, and place my poor nearly-naked baby back in (over the front seat again) and buckle her up. The hysterics start again, but I decide that it's better to let her cry for the few minutes it takes to get home, because there wasn't much I could do where we were.

Jake got the bikes back on, using special knots learned in Boy Scouts or something, we got the presents to the rightful owners, and we got back on the road. It's about a 2 1/2 mile straight shot to our house and luckily, we didn't have any more problems.

We pulled up to the house and I got Sophie out of her car seat once again and we headed straight to the bath. The onesie and the blanket were immediately sprayed with Dreft baby poo spray and sent straight into the washer, but sadly did not survive.

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Merry Christmas!


We decided to celebrate Christmas Old School this year. Here are a few of the highlights, including our 2006 Christmas card picture.

Merry Christmas!

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Winterhaven

For Family Night last night, we bundled up and went to Winterhaven's Festival of Lights. We layered Sophie up in her fleece coat and big soft blanket and stopped off at Circle K for some hot chocolate on the way there.

Winterhaven is a neighborhood of about 275 homes, and I would say that maybe 3 or 4 houses in the entire neighborhood were not decorated with lights. Some were over-the-top, and some were just regularly decorated. The neighborhood is also lined with 65-year-old pine trees, which were all decorated by the neighborhood association. Overall we enjoyed the walk more than the sites, but it was still very fun.

We're thinking next year we'll do it pulling Sophie (and maybe Kiley) in a wagon. We'll also put 2 pairs of socks on Sophie's feet. We felt bad that they felt so cold when we got back to the car. She didn't have any complaints though. She enjoyed hanging out in her stroller and staring at all of the lights.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Strangers

Having your baby girl be called a boy by a stranger is inevitable. However, there are some days where you are just sure that this will not happen. Take today, for example.

Here is Sophie dressed in a pink onesie, a pink ruffled skirt, and a white cardigan with little pink flowers embroidered on it.

Lady at the Doctor's Office: "Oh look! (gasp) A baby!.........Oh a boy!"
Me: (nothing)

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Our Pre-Christmas Vacation

Our family spent the last 6 days in Mesa, only to come back to Tucson for 4 days and then head BACK to Mesa for Christmas. Why, you ask, are we back in Tucson if we're only here for 4 days? Easy. We can't take that much of the in-laws. Both sides.

Just kidding. Sophie isn't feeling so hot, and has a doctor's appointment tomorrow to determine if she has a cold or acid reflux or something else. And I have a re-do doctor's appointment on Wednesday. We won't go into details.

Anyway, we had a great time in Mesa.

Both of Sophie's grandmas got to do exactly what grandmas do best.

Sometime in the middle of the week (the days are now blended together for me. Maybe Wednesday?) we went out to lunch with Robin (more details here) and to the park with her, her kids, her nephew Jack, Stephanie, and her kids. Jake had a good time with the 4-year-olds playing a revised form of tennis.
And then last night, we had a great time with our Tolleson friends making gingerbread houses. This was my first experience with REAL gingerbread, and Jake and I really enjoyed making our desert home (yes desert, not dessert).

Our house was complete with a saguaro cactus, 2 other cacti bushes, and 2 identical Lifesaver cars. The saguaro cactus fell over as we pulled away from the Tolleson party, but is now magically standing again as our desert gingerbread house is proudly displayed on our coffee table.

Monday, December 11, 2006

Fan Obsession


This is Sophie most every morning when she first wakes up. She's staring at our ceiling fan. Sometimes we'll turn it on for her for a second so it will move slowly. She thinks that's awesome.

Friday, December 08, 2006

Christmas Time

We've finally completed the Christmas decorating at our house.

This is my favorite decoration. I received it in Young Women's several years ago.















And here is my big sewing project of the season. The designs were patterned after a catalog picture I saw a couple seasons ago. I finally got around to doing it this year because we only had 2 matching stockings, but 3 members of the family. As you can see, I actually made 4 stockings. I figured as long as I was sewing, I might as well complete 4 (the other 8 stockings will be completed as they are needed).

Here is our humble tree.

And finally, here is the front of our house. Big white bulbs, evenly spaced. I love it.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Beautiful Sophie

Sophie and I had a fun photo shoot yesterday. I wanted to capture more pictures of her in her blessing dress.






















Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Festive Outfit


In the spirit of the season, Sophie decided to wear her new snowflake skirt. This festivity was made possible by Grandma Kim. It fits great!

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Blessing Day


Today Sophie was blessed by her dad at our church. She looked absolutely beautiful. Jake did a wonderful job blessing her.

We were lucky enough to have both sets of Sophie's grandparents, a great grandmother, 4 aunts, 4 uncles, and 2 cousins come up from Mesa to join us.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Christmas Meme

A Christmas meme. (tagged by Robin)


1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Hot Chocolate 100%. I love flavored hot chocolate. I have a cup about once (or twice if I’m cold) a day

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? He used to set them up around the room. I’m not that big into Santa though.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? Big white lights on the house (evenly spaced – they look awesome) and little white lights on the tree.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? No. But one year Robin & I made cookies and gave them out to random people in my Grandma’s neighborhood (rang and ran), and on each plate we attached a piece of mistletoe. It was probably the first secret good act I did on my own.

5. When do you put your decorations up? Usually right after Thanksgiving. This year I started even earlier since I was going to be out of town for Thanksgiving weekend.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Hmmm, maybe cheesy potatoes. And slush (a new holiday food since meeting the in-laws.)

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child: Watching my dad watch Home Alone or Christmas Vacation. I can’t explain the joy of this, it has to be experienced.

8. How and When did you learn the truth about Santa? I don't remember a specific moment of finding out. I do remember planning an extravagant ploy with Kellie to figure out if he was real one year though. I’m pretty sure I already knew by then, but I guess Kellie didn’t.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Yes. We have a family white elephant gift exchange at my Grandma's or Aunt’s house every year. Grandma would also always give all of the cousins matching PJs too.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? We have a small 6 foot artificial tree from a thrift store right now. It’s covered in white lights, red & silver balls, little cotton ball snowmen, and cute little ornaments that look like sugar cookies.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
Love it, but snow is for visiting, not for living in.

12. Can you ice skate? Umm...I have. Once.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? My parents gave me 2 cockatiels one year. They were a complete shock to me – completely unexpected until I snuck into the living room early Christmas morning and peaked at my gifts (A HUGE no-no in my house). Sorry Mom & Dad.

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Celebrating Christ's birth, being together with my families, Christmas music (real Christmas music, not “jingle bells” type of music)

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Fudge, chocolate covered cherries & Sees Chocolates. I also like plates of goodies from other families because it gives us a variety of desserts.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? We don’t have traditions in our own family yet, but I liked driving around looking at Christmas lights, going to the Mesa Temple lights, driving around plates of goodies to friends, and Christmas Eve at Grandma’s house. And maybe a new tradition – “What Were You Thinking??!?!?” with my family.

17. What tops your tree? A lighted star. (Star #2 – I broke star #1 last year. I think I broke star #2 this year too when I toppled our tree earlier in the week, but it still works.)

18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving? I love shopping for other people and getting excited about what I’m getting them. I also like anticipating my own gifts too, and trying extra hard (for Jake’s sake) to not peak at my own presents beforehand.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? Hmmm, I haven’t listened to a lot of Christmas music yet this season, so I’m kind of rusty. But I like “The First Noel” and most of the songs in the LDS Hymn Book.

20. What is your favorite Christmas story? Luke 2


I tag Stephanie and Cathy.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Bouncy Chair

Sophie loves bouncing. Her favorite thing to do is lay in someone's arms as they bounce on the exercise ball. She also loves her bouncy chair as long as someone is bouncing it rhythmically for her. We took the toy bar off of it since we use it so much - for ease of getting her in and out of it.

On Sunday, we were invited to dinner with a couple in the ward who had a baby almost exactly one year before Sophie was born. This is convenient because they know almost exactly (calendarly, that is) when Sophie will begin new tricks. They asked us if she had started reaching for toys yet, and I said no, but thought, "maybe it's because we haven't given her the opportunity to try it".

So the next day we attached her toy bar back onto her bouncy chair, and it turns out she loves it. Yep, we've been stifling our baby's intellectual growth for our own convenience. Luckily she's pretty resilient, and I think she's caught up to her age level in the past 2 days.