Happy Birthday, Sophia!

Nana brought over a little "Happy Birthday" garden post to stick out in the yard early this morning. It's so cute and the plan is for all three, little girls to display the sign on their birthdays. There's a second one that is more blue and green (but pretty unisex) that Will gets to use and Mya and Stella will have both (one for each). Here's Sophie (still in pj's) beside her sign:

And a smiling one after she pulled her hat off:

This morning while I was getting Sophie up for the day, Will came in and asked if he could sing "Happy Birthday" to her. It was so sweet how he asked and of course I said yes. So he proceeded to sing and she smiled the whole time. When he finished, he gave her a kiss on the forehead. Ahh! I just can't even take the sweetness! Remind me of that when they're pushing and shoving.

Today, I took the day off from work to spend a full day devoted to Sophia. I was lucky enough to have Will's 1st birthday fall on a weekend and then for his second, I was on maternity leave. But I plan to stay home on his third birthday this year (a Tuesday) and have a special day just for him too. So Will went to Lisa's today and was a little sad to be left out (poor guy) but I never have this special time with just Sophie and I really wanted to be able to focus 100% on her. I think it's important for kids to have exclusive times with mom and dad. My dad used to take us on dinner "dates" when we got good grades and it was something I looked so forward to. I want to do that for my kids too.

So the day was totally relaxed and go-with-the-flow. I had a light and flexible plan in mind to have lunch with my grandparents and go for a walk. Otherwise, I just got down on the floor and played with Sophie.

Here is what we did in the morning:

-read some books

-crawled around on mommy's bed

-opened a present (a children's music CD)

-danced around to the music

-twirled scarves

-crumpled the gift wrap over and over

-ate breakfast - she was very curious about the #1 candle on her pancake

-sat outside on the porch and enjoyed the morning sunshine (she wanted nothing to do with cuddling under the blanket despite a little bit of a cool temperature)

-babbled a lot and chatted back and forth

-said goodnight to everything in her room (I'm constantly pointing and naming things for her so we said goodnight to the chair and the lamb and the lamp and the crib, etc. LOL) and took a nap

Sophie took quite awhile to fall asleep this morning but she wasn't crying, just babbling, so I called my grandma and they decided to come for lunch before our walk. Grandma and grandpa brought some lovely flowers for Sophie and a children's book written by grandma's niece! How neat! I made a zucchini quiche and a coffee cake for our lunch (forgot to mention that on my weekly meal post) and we had some fruit to go with. Sophie liked the quiche and she even tried strawberries for the first time!

Sophie was so cute opening her present between grandpa and grandma. She doesn't really get the concept of opening a gift yet, but she loved the bow and loved it when we tore the paper.

She kept handing the bow to grandpa and then changing her mind and taking it back. It was so funny. Such a tease!

I love this one and there were several just like it that were a little fuzzier. Grandma would tear a piece of the envelope or paper and Sophie just smiled away at her.

Following lunch, grandma and I took Sophie to one of my favorite places: Pearson Park. We walked along the walking/biking path and around the pond. It was very peaceful and pretty.

Sophie has decided in the last couple days that she does NOT want hair clips in her hair. (Gasp!!!) I don't know - maybe she just thinks it's funny to pull them out 'cause she hands them to me with a smile right after I put it in. Her bangs aren't exactly in her face, but her hair just looks much better clipped to the side. But it's her day today, so she was clip-free and a wee bit shaggy. :) Here's the only pic of the two of us today:

Checking out the little waterfall and decorative pond. It appeared someone behind us was discussing having a wedding at this spot with her family!

Not sure what she was doing in this but I like all pictures of Sophie with grandma.

MY parents had wedding photos taken on this bridge (and in the gazebo behind it) way back on August 4, 1979.

After our walk, we stopped at the playground. There still isn't a whole lot Sophie can do and it was pretty crowded so we just played on the swings for a bit and went home.

After another nap, we picked Will up from Lisa's and stopped over to Nana's to say hello to Mya and Stella. Casey and Sophia have birthdays just five days apart! So we sang to both the birthday girls and enjoyed a piece of apple cake.

Happy Birthday, Casey & Sophie!

Opening her owl dolls from Nana & Papa. These go with her big girl bedding for the future and are super cute toys in the mean time. "Penny" is the pink one and "Joy" is the green one. They should get along just fine with Prudence (her knit owl doll from Christmas). :)

Will has to get in on it.

Papa stopped by to wish Sophie a happy birthday on his way home from work.

And daddy had some hugs and smooches for her when he got home too.

We played outside in the sun for a while before dinner. Yikes! Our deck could use a new coat of paint!

My only attempt at a pic of the kids together.

I love having fields around us. It's so nice to play out in the back yard and see the tractors and watch the crops grow. (Wow. That sounded very granola.) It's very peaceful.

Check out the super cute card my mom ordered from an online artist! I love it! The inside says "always" and I'm going to frame it for Sophie's bedroom after we display it during her party.

For dinner we had the grilled chicken with salsa and broccoli.

And after dinner, Sophie opened just a few more small presents from us. Ahem... I mean, Will opened just a few more small presents for Sophie. She got excited about tearing one tiny piece and then crawled away. Absolutely no interest whatsoever in presents. Will, on the other hand, was begging to "help" Sophie open. So we made a big deal of asking Sophie if that was okay and then told Will he had to at least sit beside her while he opened and show and tell her what they were. So here he's saying "Look Sophie! You got two plates! A monkey plate and a girl plate!"

Opening another gift for Sophie. You can see in the background she's playing with a cool new toy that Grandma and Papa Riedeman brought over tonight. Both Will and Sophie are all over that one.

Once opened, she did take a small interest in the chunky puzzle. :)

And that was Sophie's birthday! Casual and fun. I was glad to spend the day with her and acknowledge the exact minute she turned one (at 1:21 pm!) Happy Birthday, baby girl!

Since this is also technically her "12 Months Old" post, here are a few more updates on our little lady:

1) Sophie is now officially done with bottles. Hooray! It has been an easy transition because she likes her sippy cup and has been drinking water from it since six months. We'll still nurse once in the morning and evening and for the meantime, I'm still pumping just once over lunch at work. So she'll continue to take that from a cup at a mealtime for Lisa and we'll be introducing whole milk this week.

2) Evening catnap is officially dropped with bedtime between 7-7:30 (and, rarely, before 7) plus two naps, about 1-2 hours each somewhere around 9 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.

3) I'm always updating Sophie's new foods on my weekly meals posts... Have I mentioned beef? And then the strawberries today. Hmm... what else? She still only has four teeth in her mouth (daddy says the top two look like "hippo teeth" because they're so far apart - LOL) but that hasn't slowed her down!

4) Randomly (but just like her brother at this age) Sophie has started cross-crawling instead of army crawling. (Like, up on all fours with her belly off the ground like "normal".) She occasionally likes to practice walking while holding our hands but she usually just tries to drop to the ground so she can move faster. She still pulls up on everything and LOVES to climb (stairs, dishwasher, low tables, etc.) but walking doesn't appear to be in the immediate future. Sophie also still sits in that hurdle position and I can't figure out how she moves in and out of it so easily. She'll go from hurdle to normal v-sit to up on her knees and back and forth.

5) I can tell already that she'll be a little better listener than Will - i.e. not so defiant when she's told not to do/touch something. If I say "Sophie, please don't touch that", she'll stop and look up at me and usually listen with a curious face. Will always gave me this raised eyebrow look while he went ahead and did/touched it anyway while challenging my reaction. Her tempermant is not quite as ornery. However, in saying that, she has taken to whining a bit more when she doesn't get her way with a scrunched-nose, squinted-eyes face where I can see both of her top teeth while she makes this exaggerated whine noise. It's actually pretty funny - so dramatic.

6) In the last couple days, Sophie has (I think) tried to start singing! Since she was a tiny baby, Will has always sang Twinkle Twinkle to her when she starts crying and I sing it too on occasion, so she's heard it a lot. Now I've noticed she'll do her dance/sway move while "singing": "op-a-baba..." to the tune of "up above the..." That's usually all the farther she goes but she smiles when I sing that line back to her and then does it again so I'm pretty sure I'm understanding her correctly.

Hmm... I think that's all for now? Till next month...