Robots!

These days Sophie thinks that whatever she builds with her toddler-sized legos is a robot. Here is the "robot" she built a few days ago. Although it doesn't look like there's a pattern involved with the colors, she was very particular about which block went where and took it apart several times to get it just right.



Here she is taking a picture with her play camera. She's so used to us taking pictures of her that she has started taking her own pictures of her creations. I don't know if you can tell, but she doesn't quite understand which way the camera should point yet since she has it facing herself!

Spring Play

The weather here finally turned nice a couple of weeks ago, so we've been trying to spend a lot of time outside. Sophie loves to play outside, and although Daddy wants her to take after us and study humanities, I think she's going to be a scientist, perhaps a botanist, given her love for exploring our yard. She loves to find new flowers and plants--in these pictures, she was picking some sort of daisy weed, but lately she's been very interested in the wild strawberries growing in our yard (and so far we've been successful in convincing her not to eat them!)


Here she is on the hunt for her purple flowers (which are some sort of wild pansy that grows in and near one of our planters):


You can't really see them since they're so small, but she has some pansies in her hand:

I love this picture because it shows just how active Sophie is right now...we can't even catch her with the camera sometimes!

Here she is telling me about the flowers she found:

Messy, messy, messy!

In anticipation of Sophie's 2nd birthday (and the birthday cake that comes with it, which by the way, will be a Mickey Mouse cake, at her request), I'm posting some pictures of her eating. I naively thought that kids got less messy with their food as they got older, but apparently, that's not true. Take a look:

(Also, just so you know, Sophie has acquired a very independent streak lately and would not let Daddy or Mommy fix her hair the afternoon this was taken. Since we weren't going anywhere, we let her "do" her own hair.)


(The blue in these pictures is neon yogurt...the only kind they make for kids!)

I also thought these were cute:

Graduation Day

Last Sunday was graduation day for Centre. Ian had to attend the actual ceremony, and Sophie and I met him afterwards to congratulate the new graduates. Here area a couple of family pictures:


Last year, we took some pictures of us together at graduation and a couple of Sophie in Daddy's special hat, so we thought we'd do it again. These didn't turn out great, but it's cool to see the difference between this year and last year.

Apparently, Sophie Is Not a Human...

This morning, Ian told Sophie that she was a human, and she replied, "No, Daddy, Sophie is not a human." When we asked her what she was then, she said, "Sophie!" So, apparently, Sophies are not humans...

Here are some pictures of Sophie at dinner at a local greasy spoon after seeing Bill Clinton speak the other night:

Bill in DaVille

Yesterday, President Bill Clinton stopped by Danville for a stump speech that was open to all (and in fact, was given from a front porch just down the road from the college). We didn't bring our camera because we didn't know about the visit until we had arrived at work, but thanks to a couple of friends (Genny and Gareth), we have a few pictures to share.

Here is the best picture of Sophie with Clinton speaking in the background (on the porch). We had to stand toward the back because Sophie wouldn't have lasted in the crowd toward the front, but as you can see, we got good seats...the perks of living in a small town!





And here is a group of us from Centre after the speech. (Jami, who has the sign is a Clinton supporter, while Gareth, making an "O" with his hands is an Obama supporter...)

Some Pictures, Finally!

I've finally uploaded our recent pictures of Sophie. Here are some of Sophie learning to sit "Indian style." She saw mommy and daddy sitting this way on the floor and manipulated her legs until she got it:

More Sophie Artwork

I promise that we do actually have some recent pictures of Sophie...they're just not uploaded to the computer yet. While you wait for us to do that, I thought I'd post some more of Sophie's recent artwork:

Mother's Day Card

Sophie made me two cute cards for Mother's Day at daycare. Here is a copy of the one with her hands:

We had a nice Mother's Day. We've been so busy lately that we haven't had time to relax or go to Lexington, so we did both. It was rainy and stormy, so outdoors activities were out. Ian let me sleep in, and then we went to a student art show. The we went into Lexington, did some shopping, and ate at a pub where they serve draft cider...mmmm! This weekend was the first weekend in a long time that I felt rested by Monday morning!

Car Accident

Well, Sophie was in her first car accident yesterday. No worries...she's completely fine. She and I were driving home from the grocery store when an older man decided to pull out in front of us. I honked and braked, but apparently he didn't hear or notice us. Luckily, it was on a stretch of road with a 25 mph speed limit, so we weren't going too fast to begin with.

There were no injuries, but our car is not drivable at the moment...we're waiting to hear about estimates, who's insurance is going to pay, etc. It is obvious that it was his fault, but he never called his insurance company (thank goodness he was insured!) and is now claiming to my insurance company that it was my fault and that the accident occurred elsewhere. I don't think that there is going to be any issue about the fault, but this just throws a little kink into the "smooth" runnings of the insurance world.

So now we're driving a hot gold minivan rental...