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!

A Trip to Pittsburgh

A couple of weeks ago, while my parents were visiting, we took a trip to West Virginia/Pennsylvania to visit Uncle Kyle. We spent the full day we all had there in Pittsburgh, a city we all enjoyed. One of our first stops was a spice store called Penzey's Spices. It was probably one of my favorite places in the city and was full of every herb and spice imaginable!


We wandered around a little before lunch. Although Pittsburgh definitely isn't in the best shape, it's obvious it was a beautiful city at one time and is in the process of being returned (maybe?) to its former glory. There were some beautiful details in the not-so-new parts, though.


My dad had heard about this sandwich place called Primanti Bros., so since we were in the area, we decided to try it out. (That's my dad in the lower right-hand corner.)


The sandwiches were huge and contained all of the sides, including the french fries and coleslaw!


And Sophie decided to use her french fries as chopsticks...


After lunch, we headed over to the Monongahela Incline to see what the view beheld.


It was worth the ride in the un-air-conditioned funicular:


Grandma and Grandpa treated us to ice cream after a hot afternoon. Sophie enjoyed hers, as usual.


But I think she enjoyed playing with Grandpa more!

Uncle Kyle's Birthday Visit

Uncle Kyle drove down from Wisconsin for a quick visit before he had to be at his next job in Pennsylvania the weekend before Sophie's birthday. His MO seemed to be to ply Sophie with sugar whenever possible!

He took her to Burger King one day, and here she is sporting her crown:

It was a little too big.


We also got Sophie's hair cut for the second time while Kyle (and Aunt Heather) were here. Her hair was getting long and scraggly, so we got it trimmed. Here's her before picture:

She was such a good girl in the big-girl chair:

Checking out her new 'do in the mirror:

Showing it off:
As a reward, Uncle Kyle took her to A&W (which shares its space with Long John Silver's) for an ice cream. She also received a sucker from the salon, so she was in heaven. Here's what we came up with to save her sucker while eating ice cream:

Uncle Kyle tried on the pirate hat:

Uncle Kyle also introduced Sophie to the joys of money. He gave her all of his change in his car, which was a considerable amount, and she spent a lot of time putting into her monkey bank, taking it out, and starting all over again.

Happy Birthday, Sophie! (Part One)

Sophie's birthday celebrations started off about a week before her birthday since we knew that family was coming to visit and that Sophie would be spending very limited time at "school." We took in cupcakes and punch for her at daycare for her to share at snack time. She is very into butterflies right now, so we had the bakery decorate the cupcakes in the shape of a butterfly...Sophie was duly impressed!




Sophie's teacher took a lot of other pictures, but I'd rather not post them since they are of other children in her class. Suffice it to say, Sophie wasn't the messiest in the room...

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: