Thanksgiving in California

We spent Thanksgiving in California with my family. (Yes, I know that this post says that Ian is posting, but my account is too full to post very many pictures, so I'm going through Ian's account.) We were so tired from the long semester that we didn't take very many pictures, but here are some of our favorites from what we did take.

You can't see it, but Great Grandma Linda is reading Sophie a book here. Sophie was fascinated with her necklace:

Here she is with Great Grandpa Fine:

Giving Great Great Grams a kiss:

One of the highlights of her trip was to make cookies with Grandma Fine. On Nick Jr., her main source of cartoons, they played a segment (endlessly) of a man making turkey sugar cookies by using their hands as the base for the turkeys. Sophie was set on making these, and Grandma had the patience of a saint when she helped Sophie for over three hours with them!


Sneaking a taste:


Very proud of her creations: (There were more, but these were the main turkeys.)


Eating the turkey cookie that's almost as big as her head!

More Christmas Pics and Sophie's First Haircut

I think I'll be posting Christmas pictures all the way up to next Christmas! Here are a few extra pics. The first one isn't the best of Sophie, but it's the best picture we got of her in her Christmas outfit.





Sophie received a harmonica in her stocking and hasn't stopped playing it since!


And she received her first haircut while in California. She was looking kind of scraggly, but her new cut turned out nicely. She didn't really like it much until they gave her a sucker.

Family Pictures

While we were in California, we had family pictures taken. My mom bought the copyright, so we should be able to print out whatever anyone would like. Please let me know if there's a certain print or size that you'd like. Right now we have 5x7s of the three of us for all of the grandparents, but if you'd like anything else, please let us know!

Daddy's Home!

Ian came home from his class trip to Europe last night, and Sophie was so excited to see him! I wasn't sure how she'd react since he'd been gone for a while, but as soon as she saw him she ran straight to him! She wanted him to hold her the rest of the night (even insisting that he change her diaper at the airport...I didn't protest!). When he was getting the luggage, she'd get a little upset whenever she'd lose sight of him. Most of the time that he was gone, she'd had trouble sleeping, but she slept right through the night last night!

Needless to say, Mommy's just as happy that Daddy's home safely!

Here are some random pictures of Sophie over the holidays. The first one is one of my favorites. I remember this pretty clearly...Sophie watching Shrek the Third (which she got for Christmas) with her new Shrek and Donkey dolls. I'm not sure where she got this pose from, but she seemed extremely comfortable!

Sophie enjoyed sitting on Grandma's Harley...no rides, though, for a few more years!

Sophie received a hat in her stocking on Christmas morning and insisted on putting it on right away...that girl loves hats!

I don't know if you can tell in this picture, but she received a little stuffed hippo from her great uncle Kenny. She is really into wrapping her animals and dolls in blankets and putting them "night-night," but we didn't have any blankets handy, so she stole some tissue paper from someone's present and insisted on wrapping the hippo in it!

"Official" Santa Picture...Finally!

This one was worth the wait, folks! I finally scanned Sophie's Santa picture, and all I can say is that I think she must have just been informed by Santa that she was naughty this year!

Christmas Eve Continued

Okay, so I won't be able to post the "official" Santa pic yet because my mom informed me this weekend that it was sitting on their desk in Apple Valley. As soon as I get that, I'll post it.

Instead, I'll post some more Christmas Eve pictures. We had my mom's side of the family over for a Christmas Eve dinner, including Sophie's newest cousin (once removed or second or somesuch designation), my cousin's daughter. Sophie usually loves other babies, but I think the lure of presents kept her from really interacting with Chandler. Here are some pics from that afternoon.

Here is one of the only pictures of the two little ones together. Sophie wouldn't get any nearer to Chandler because she was afraid that Chandler was going to steal her baby. So far, I haven't figured out who has the picture that has them both looking at the camera!

Here is our five generation picture with Sophie's great great grandma, Grams, her great grandma Linda, my mom, my aunt Chris, my cousin Sharri, her daughter, Chandler, Sophie and me.

And here is a pic of the two mommies and the babies:

And the proud grandmas with their granddaughters:

Grandma Linda brought a tent and tube set for Sophie to play with, which she loved!


Sophie being silly with one of her toys:

And me with Chandler:

Sophie's Visit with Santa

Sophie really liked the idea of Santa Claus this year, but when it came time for her to visit Santa, she wasn't having it! She pretty much screamed or pouted the whole time. As you can see in the first picture, she's trying to escape. The second one is a great one of her screaming. They finally wised up and tried to distract her with a book, which kept her from screaming, but she still pouted. I forgot to bring the "official" picture to scan, so I'll try to post that next week.

Christmas Eve Night

Finally, I've had a chance to upload some pictures from Christmas to our computer. Being a single mom while Ian's in Europe has had its challenges, so I'm running behind on almost everything! I hope these pictures make up for the delay. Grandma Schmidt made Sophie's dress that she wore to church on Christmas Eve. She looked adorable!



I have some more pictures of her in her dress, but I forgot to upload them last night. I'll post more each day this week until we get caught up from Christmas.

"An Uneventful Week"

I ended my last post with something about looking forward to an uneventful week. I should have knocked on wood! On Tuesday afternoon, Sophie's daycare called to let us know that she had a fever. We picked her up a little early and we could tell she didn't feel well. Her fever lasted until Thursday! I stayed home with her Wednesday, Thursday and Friday! She had a little rash that the phone nurse said was chicken pox, so for about a half of Wednesday, we thought she had chicken pox. That night we went to the doctor because her fever still hadn't gone down and he verified that it wasn't chicken pox; it turns out to be just some viral thing connected to her cold. So, Sophie just returned to daycare today, and I think she was ready for it!

Here are some more pictures from her trip to California. I'll try to post the few pics we have from Buffalo tomorrow.

Grandma and Grandpa Fine and Uncle Matthew took Sophie to the Big Bear Zoo, which is a pretty small zoo in the mountains near their house. She seemed to enjoy her time there and learned to howl like a wolf:



Sophie's Great Grandma Linda and Great-Great Grandma "Grams" visited on our last day there. Sophie enjoyed giving and they enjoyed getting kisses! Sophie kept trying to push Grams' wheelchair around for her!

Visit to California

Ian had a conference in San Diego a couple of weeks ago, so Sophie and I went with him. Sophie visited with Grandma and Grandpa Fine while I enjoyed being back in San Diego after a 3 1/2-year absence. Sophie had a good time playing with her grandma, grandpa, uncles, and great grandma and great-great grandma!

Grandma and Grandpa Fine bought a few toys to keep at their house, and Sophie really enjoyed playing with the rocking giraffe:


Here she is pretending to sleep with Grandpa Fine:


And playing with her tea set with Grandma Fine: