Soccer & Swim Lessons

This spring, a bunch of our closest little pals & cousins are playing on a soccer league, but not all on the same team.  And tonight was the first game that they faced off against each other.  So the kids and I ate dinner ASAP this evening and then scooted over to the soccer fields to cheer on our friends.  The weather wasn't the best but we brought along umbrellas to ward off the drizzle.

Soph & Stel had a little mid-game chat.  It's hilarious how casual these games are.  The kids run on and off the field whenever they want.  If they want to play or chat on the sidelines, it's all good.

My dad and brothers came to watch too.

Hey, Jax!

What up, Cora?

Cora's got the ball with Charli close behind.

Go, Jax, Go!

Coach Jason, Cora, Lyla and Stella.

Cora's made the shot!

And she scored!!

She ran straight off the field to hug her mom.  :)

So cute.

Cousins don't let cousins get rained on.  :)  Sophie shared her umbrella with Stel.

Also this spring, we've started swim lessons!  Nana & Papa set these up for the kids as a Christmas present.  We meet at the Oak Harbor High School pool once a week in the evening and they take a half hour private class with a girl my mom knows who gives lessons.  The kids love her.

My favorite picture.  I LOVE Sophie's sweet face.

At the end of their lessons at this pool, the instructor, Jenna, is going to come out to my parents pool for a couple of follow up lessons once it's open.  Can't wait for summer swimmimg!

Sophia at Age 4 Years

Stats:

Weight:  40# exactly

Height:  40 1/2"

Clothing sizes:  Depends on the store/brand... 4T/5T shirts usually, 4T shorts/pants/dresses

Shoe size: 9/10

Milestones:  Just finished up her first year of preschool! 

Language:  Sophie has begun to master the art of polite responses and conversation etiquette.  I'm not saying everything that comes out of her mouth is nice.  But in conversation, she has definitely improved her back-and-forth rhythm of polite responses.  Her manners are better and she has suddenly amazed us at her improvement in phone conversation skills.  She is talking more clearly and, though she is still lispy with some of the letter sounds (for example, she sticks her tongue between her teeth like a /th/ sound when she's saying an /s/ sound), I spoke with a friend of mine who is a speech therapist and she reassured me that those are self-repairing problems that will disappear over the next couple/few years on their own.  So it doesn't sound like any speech therapy will be in order.  My concern was that the thumb sucking and gap between her top, front teeth were the culprits.

Sleep:  As I've said before, bedtime goes in phases for Sophie.  Sometimes, she'll stay awake in her bed for hours and other times she'll get to sleep reasonably quickly.  Depends on how active she is that day and how well her nap went.  Bedtime is usually 8-8:30 though we've had some later nights recently and I'm afraid they're going to be more frequent with summer upon us.  I'm really going to try not to let that happen too often, but we all kind of catch the "carefree" bug when the days start getting longer and we lose track of time outside and then dinner is later, yada yada yada. 

Wake time varies quite a bit, usually ranging from 7-8:30.  And she naps daily for about 1 1/2 - 2 hours still.

Eating:  Still a slow poke.  And LAZY about getting the food to her mouth.  Of all people, I should know better than to try to feed her (for crying out loud, she's FOUR!), but I often fall into the trap of picking the food up and then she'll take bites.  This only happens once we've all been sitting there and finished ALL of our own meals and still there sits Sophie talking and singing and playing with her utensils, but not doing much eating.  I'm really trying not to cave, because I'm just being an enabler and I know that.  Handheld foods (tacos, wraps, bigger quesadillas, sometimes sandwiches) tend to fall apart when she picks them up and then she freaks out.  And sometimes she struggles with getting foods like salads on her fork.  So instead, she'll just sit there and play.  On my good nights, I just leave her there (she doesn't fight to get down) and let her go on and take an hour and a half to eat while I clean up the table/kitchen and start Will's bath.  I know that length of time is normal for some cultures... maybe Sophie was meant to be European?  And all of this crazy behavior is really only occurring at dinner time.  Breakfast and lunch are much better.  Soooo... I think mommy has more to work on than Sophie, 'cause it really annoys me to watch adults feed their fully-capable children.  Same goes for 6/7/8 year olds in strollers or toddlers carried around in infant car seats, but that's a whole other topic.  ;)

Behaviors:  I have nothing unusual to attribute this to, but Sophie has been extremely clingy to me lately.  She wants to be near me and tag along with me all the time.  She asks to snuggle nearly every night and she gets very upset if goodbyes are not thorough enough when we have to separate.

Other challenging behaviors recently include LOTS of whining and tantrums.  Again, not sure what to attribute this to, other than it just being a phase... we hope.  She's difficult to reason with and can be very bratty when she doesn't get her way or something she wants.  We just continue to do our best with consistency and firmness, which can be difficult in public at times.  I'm thinking we just need to use our lazier summer schedule to get some laid back family time, so that maybe a little more relaxed attention will help relieve some of her antics.

Other random updates:  Since reaching 40# and four years, we've switched Sophie to a booster seat in our cars and now both kids are in them.  Sooooo much easier than five-point-harnesses, and easier to get seats in and out of the cars too.

Sophie still wears a pull-up to bed at night.  Not ever for nap time and there are actually many nights that she stays dry.  But washing all of her bedding has been a frequent occurrence lately between all of the times she does wet in her underwear overnight and the recent stomach bug she seemed to have.  Ugh.

Some of Sophie's favorite activities include:  playing games (especially as a whole family), dressing up and playing pretend, playing with her fairies and dolls, practicing yoga, grappling with her brother and using some of the MMA moves her daddy taught her, mimicking people and saying "jinx" whenever she realizes someone has just said the same thing as her.

She has a newfound love for the color pink and has also become very interested in Barbie, which I strongly reject at every turn.  The whole princess-culture makes me want to vomit and my daughter has been fully sucked into it.  :( 

Hard to believe Sophie is four now!  I so wish I had the power to make time stand still on occasion, that I might freeze this age of innocence and wonder and enjoy it longer.

This photo shoot with the birthday signs turned rather silly towards the end, since smiling on command does not come easily to Sophie at this age.  The goofy pics are always my favorite anyway.  :)

Current fave:

Happy Birthday, sweet girl.  We love you so very much!!

Sophie's 4th Birthday & A Cooking Party

With Sophie's birthday falling on a Saturday this year, we decided to have her party ON her birthday, of course.  The party day is always a little overwhelming with presents, so we let Will give Sophie the present he'd picked out and purchased for her (with his own allowance money) on Friday evening so that it would get the special attention and excitement it deserved.

Side note:  Sophie is wearing an infant-sized hat that is way too small on her in these pictures.  I don't know where she even found it, but she's been tugging it on when she plays dress up lately.

The day Will and I went on a special date night, he brought along $10 from his "give" jar to pick out a present for Sophie.  Sooooo stinkin' sweet.  Shopping with him for her was one of my proudest mommy moments as he carefully selected something she'd like and made sure he had enough money to pay for it.  The final selection was a Rapunzel doll (the size of a Barbie) with long hair and a comb.  And the response from his sister was a total thrill.  LOVE!

These pictures are dark and the first one is blurry, but I just adore them... and these babies of mine.

A bear hug for big brother:

Still hugging as he tries to get it open for her.

On Saturday morning, the kids piled into our bed for Sophie to open two more gifts from mom & dad - things that she could wear to her party later on.  You'll notice, Sophie had already taken the time to strip off her jammies and put on a swimsuit that she plays dress up in.

Another Tea Collection dress and a pair of Sketchers Twinkle Toes sneakers that she'd asked for.  Pink & purple, of course.  We put a pair of denim leggings with the dress and let her wear the shoes in the house since they'd never been worn outside.

For Sophie's 4th birthday party, I'd had an idea almost eight months in advance that it would be fun to do a cooking theme for the kids.  The original idea came from a kids cookbook called Bean Appetit.  And then I searched on Etsy for some cute invitations.  These were my fave.  I loved the personalizing of the "S" on the apron and the "Regrets" and phone number on the rolling pin.  Plus I love chevron and the girl sorta' resembled Soph.

From Pinterest, I got a few super simple ideas for decorating.  I wrote our dinner menu on some blackboard paper and framed it.  A mason jar tied with raffia held some cooking utensils and my favorite Anthropologie bowl was filled with lemons and limes.

That's it.  Easy peasy.

We had leftover, striped, paper straws from last year and we did our usual Mason jar beverage glasses and a big drink dispenser of ice water with lemons and limes.

Around our dining room table, I hung aprons for each child-guest, which I'd bubble-painted a name on, and then tucked a mini rolling pin into the front pocket.  These were the favors and they used both at the party.  Aprons were from Amazon and rolling pins from birthday express, I think?

Sophie requested banana cake again this year and she picked out these candles when we shopped for her special gift from daddy.

Our parties always start about 4:00 and either I'm just getting better at this stuff or this was one of the easiest parties to date to prepare for.  I felt totally together and organized before our first guests arrived.  We were missing Cora & Molly today as they were attending a bridal shower for a wedding they're both in.  And Cecilia was actually home sick with her daddy... and Kelly & Veronica didn't arrive until after we ate, so our numbers were a bit smaller this time.

 

Chef Lincoln

 

The kids menu was different than the adults today in order to make it a more hands on "cooking" experience for them, while still leaving me a low-effort meal to have ready for the adults.  We got the kids started right away and their mini-pizzas in the oven.  I was able to have one lasagna cooking and two cookie sheets of mini-pizzas all at the same time.

Here's how I prepped for this part:

The pizza dough was made just before the party and was finishing rising as the kids arrived.  I consulted all the moms on favorite pizza toppings and had them all pre-portioned (as well as the pizza sauce) into little 1oz cups with lids so they could be passed out and worked on simultaneously rather than taking turns with a jar of sauce, etc.  Casey brought over enough flexi-mat cutting "boards" for each child to have their own and they worked on those for everything.  The rolling pins were used to roll out the dough and spoons to spread the sauce.  There was LOTS of hands-on adult help... almost a little too much.  I appreciated the supervising eyes and hands, but I think some of the "work" (which is the fun part) got done for them.  Oh well - it was fun.

Once the pizzas were popped into the oven, the kids moved on to "salad on a stick".  I had typical salad veggies, cheese cubes and small pieces of lettuce cut into appropriate sizes and put out in bowls.  The kids skewered them onto a stick and then set the kabobs onto their plates.  I also consulted the moms about dressing preferences ahead of time and had those pre-portioned into the 1oz lidded-cups as well for dipping.  Those little cups were such a help for all of this!

Once the salad sticks were onto their plates, we moved on again to fruit salads.  I had small, plastic cups for them to put their cut up fruit into as they worked.  All of the fruit was prewashed and some of the things were cut into larger chunks (i.e. cantaloupe, kiwi, banana, etc.) so that the kids could still get the opportunity to cut them down for a fruit salad without giving them too much or too little at once. They all used serrated plastic knives, which worked well.  I think this was the favorite of the "cooking" tasks and was probably the easiest for them to do independently.

About then, the pizzas were ready to come out of the oven and most were quartered and put on the plates to cool.  So finally it was time to eat!  Check out Will's LOADED fruit cup on his plate.  Haha!

The kids all wanted paper straws too, so we did plastic cups with water for easy clean up if necessary.  No worries; there were no spills.

Our ridiculously ADORABLE, little chefs!

After the pizzas came out, the second lasagna went in along with the garlic bread and the adult meal was a breeze.  My mom made an awesome salad for me and I just put out the rest of the fruit and raw veggies for snacking.  Perfectly easy.  I love this meal for parties.

Now if only I had enough table space for everyone that was eating.  :(

Smooches and a super-tight bear hug from my birthday girl.  You can see she put her "play swimsuit" on over top of her clothes again.  It's a size too big and I got it for like $5 on clearance at Target.  I intended to save it for the future, but she found it and wants to play dress up in it all the time.  So it's the "dress up swimsuit".

Love this little lady!

Our baby.  Such a little lover.

\

Time for gift opening!  FINALLY!  Sophie had been sitting there for awhile just waiting and saying she just wanted to look at the presents.  :)  Lincoln was not thrilled that his daddy said he couldn't help open.  It's a hard thing to be a kid and have to watch when it's not your turn.  Trust me, my kids get that too.

Some love from Papa Riedeman.

Will's sibling gift from Grandma & Papa Riedeman.

Love these!  So cute.  They strap on her shoulders like a backpack and then she loops her pointer finger through a whole at the wing tips.  (From Magic Cabin.)

Mesmerized by the talking Strawberry Shortcake message inside her card.  :)

"Happy Birthday, to you!"

Make a wish, baby girl!

Oops!  One is still lit!  Help her out, Linc!

Thanks, buddy!  :)

Banana cake and strawberry ice cream.

Case & Dub

It was a great day and a fun party.  I was a little wiped as usual afterward, but totally worth it.  Thank you to all our family for coming to celebrate with us!  And thank you for your generosity with gifts and help with activities.  As always, thanks to my mom and grandma for help with clean up and some dishes.  You are soooo appreciated!

 

I did take gift pictures again this year just because I love to look back on these, though I'm not 100% certain that Sophie hadn't snuck anything into her room/bed before I got a chance to set everything out and snap these.  So I do apologize if I've missed something.

From Grandma & Papa Riedeman:  a princess story book, a princess Play-Doh kit and some extra Play-Doh, and a handmade super-soft blanket with her name on it. 

From Nana & Papa Skees:  Strawberry Shortcake DVD & book, butterfly wings, scooter, a doll with butterfly accessories and some money.

Sophie's doll has a set of butterfly wings too!  There's a theme here.  :)

From the Rethmans:  dress up dress (her FAVORITE), matching blue heels and jewels, a Tinkerbelle movie and another cute bracelet.

From mom & dad:  a couple of requested books, Rapunzel dress-up dress, Sketcher Twinkle Toes, a new Razor bike helmet, two fairy dolls... + the Rapunzel doll from Will.  Plus the two dresses that she wore today and Thursday.

From the Pearsons:  Barbie pink slippers and tote bag, a Barbie dancer doll who's skirt reverses when you twist her.

And some clothes!  Dress on top left + silver sandals + one of the outfits on the bottom left from Nana & Papa Skees.  Other outfit on bottom left from Uncle Taylor.  Swimsuit (top middle) from Uncle Zach.  Dress on top right from Rethmans.  And purple skirt from Grandma & Papa Riedeman.  Lucky girl!

Not pictured:  Sophie received a bubble machine from Cecilia & the Munoz family later when she saw them.

 

Sophie is a blessed little girl.  And we are blessed that she's ours!