Halloween 2009

Well, we've finally made it to the end of October here on the blog! Halloween was really fun with Sophie this year because she actually understood what was going on. We carved pumpkins, which we didn't get to do last year, and Sophie really enjoyed herself--except that she really didn't like the slimy parts!


Here she is after we finally got the pumpkins on the front porch:


She wanted to pose by her pumpkin before we went trick or treating. Hers is the cat pumpkin.


She dressed up as a lion, thanks to a friend of ours whose kids also dressed up like lions. :-) She really got into her costume and started roaring like a lion. She even won a costume contest at Centre's Halloween festival!


At the festival, she won a pair of vampire teeth, which rounded out her costume nicely.

A group of students got together and recreated Michael Jackson's "Thriller." Sophie loved it, and I think they did a pretty good job!



The students had all sorts of games and crafts at different tables for the kids:


And we even ran into some of Sophie's friends!

Sophie showing off all of her loot after the festival and normal trick or treating:

Office Mascots

Every so often, my coworker, Joy, and I get Sophie and her son, Daniel, together for a picture together since they're only three months apart. We actually have pictures of them posted on our website as our official mascots. (You can go here to see past pictures. Click on the picture that's there to see the progression of mascot pictures over the last year and a half.)

We both brought them to carnival, so here are some updated pictures of them. You'd be amazed at how difficult it is to get two kids this age to look at the camera and smile. You'd think with all the antics mommies and daddies are doing behind the camera, we'd get at least one!

Visit to North Carolina/Kidzu in Chapel Hill

We got back from NC late on Monday afternoon. We had a great visit and got to see a bunch of good friends, including Ericka, Anna, Scott & Laura (and their daughters, 5-year old Ellie and 6-month-old Caroline), and John & Tanya (and their daughter, 4-month-old Molly).

Sophie liked her first taste of NC and looks forward to going back more often. She really got confident with her walking during the trip. We think she's now mostly left crawling in the past, and we're encouraging her when she falls down by saying, "Up!"--it seems to work pretty well. Our friend Anna thought her walk looked a little like Frankenstein's and encouraged us to dress her up that way for Halloween. We do hope that she's walking a little more fluidly by late October, however. On the other hand, Mindy did call her "Frankensophie" yesterday morning.

It was fun to see Sophie around babies on the trip--she really seemed like a little girl around them, which was a bit of a shock. She's grown up a lot very quickly.

We also discovered on the trip that she likes Indian food and really enjoys a mixture of refried beans and rice at Mexican restaurants.

The weather during our visit to North Carolina was truly brutal--as high as 100 degrees, with a heat index of 110 degrees. So we spent as little time outside as possible. One of the places we beat the heat was the Kidzu, a children's museum in Chapel Hill.

Sophie enjoyed the toddler area the most, especially the giant duck she could ride and rock on. She did have some trouble getting up onto it, though:


The current exhibit at the museum focused on art. In various ways, it encouraged children to get into art in a very literal way. Here's Sophie as the Mona Lisa:


Here she is skeptical of the hat prop from John Singer Sargent's painting Camp at Lake O’Hara:


And here she is riding a giant chicken from folk artist Clementine Hunter’s Big Chicken:

Visiting Mommy at Work

On Wednesday, Sophie visited me at work. My coworker had her mom bring her son in as well, and we had an afternoon play date. (I love spring break!) Here are a couple of pics from the afternoon:

Sophie hasn't pulled herself up to the standing position since the first time she did it a couple of weeks ago, but I put her up to the table where her friend Daniel was standing, and she seemed to enjoy herself:

Here she is with our friend Ruth, who stopped by to see Sophie:

Do you think she's excited???

Daniel grabbed Sophie's ear, and although I don't think it really hurt, she put quite the show on!

Pictures to Go Along with the Video

We have some pictures to go along with the previous video, so I thought I'd post them today.

She looks so proud of herself for making a mess in this one!

Here she is with her friend, Megan:

And here she is with Megan and Lilli: