Video from Chapel Hill

Here's some fairly recent video of Sophie--from our visit to Kidzu in Chapel Hill. We still have to document just how well she's walking right now, and every week makes a huge difference. One week ago she was Frankensophie, but she's already walking with a much more fluid gait. Look for that video soon!

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Blast from the Past IV: Newport Aquarium and Lexington Explorium in Early July

Sorry that this video has been delayed--there has been a glitch with the space where we've been storing the videos, and we couldn't get any new ones to upload. But now we're back from NC and have figured out a solution. Photos and video from NC coming soon. Enjoy!


While Mindy and I were in Vienna, Sophie had many great experiences with her grandma and grandpa Fine. Among them were her first trips to the Newport Aquarium (in northern Kentucky near Cincinnati) and the Lexington Explorium, which is a sort of interactive children's museum. She really loves water and the creatures that live in it!

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Video of Visit to DC

Here's Sophie in Washington, DC near the White House and at the National Zoo. I think she made a subliminal connection between the two places, concentrating as she did on the bars at the White House that seemed like they might be containing an affable but dangerous creature of minimal intelligence. But again, I may be reading too much into the matter.

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Video of Visit to Baltimore

We visited Sophie's great-grandma Wilson in Baltimore last week. Sophie had a good time with her, though she was a little fussy from the disruption to her schedule.

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Blast from the Past III: Mid-June Sliding

One of Sophie's favorite activities while we're out on a walk in our neighborhood is to slide down a slide. Here she is back in mid-June playing--she's sliding for one of the first times without much help by us.

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Blast from the Past II: Sophie's First Birthday

I've been editing video like a madman this weekend, and I'll be posting the results over the next few days.

There was so much great video footage from Sophie's first birthday party that we can only post a very little bit. The first video shows her right before her party and at it. The highlight, of course, is eating the cake.


The second video shows her opening presents after her party. She got quite a haul and has really enjoyed playing with all of her toys.


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Blast from the Past I: Early July

Returning from Europe has been tougher than we expected--jetlag seems to be harder everytime we experience it (though worse on the trip back now than on the trip over--we've been managing that pretty well for the last few trips). We've also been planning for trips (to Baltimore and Washington, DC and to North Carolina) and catching up on work.

At any rate, we've been slow to update the blog. So here's a brief video of Sophie from the beginning of July. She's hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa Fine here, dancing and even walking a little!

You don't get a sense in the video, of course, of what has been going on with Sophie since we got back. We returned to find her walking much more, and she's now up to many steps at time (6-7 at least), though she still prefers to hold onto a hand while walking. Her active vocabulary is growing pretty fast now, too (just yesterday she said "hippo" and "elbow" for the first times, I think). Grandmas and Grandpas will be happy to know that she also mastered those words in early July. She's been adjusting to her new daycare situation slowly, but it gets a little easier every day. I think hanging out with a bunch of kids who walk has helped motivate her to walk more. And she's getting at least one molar now. It was pretty rough on the day it really broke through the gums, but she seems to be OK with it now. More updates and pictures soon, though it may not be until we get back from DC next Thursday.

P.S.: For anyone who hasn't heard, apologies, but we're officially spending the 2008-09 academic year in Strasbourg, France, where I'll be directing Centre's residential study abroad program and teaching a few courses. We're really excited about the experience and look forward to keeping the blog updated with Sophie's adventures in Europe! If you want to get an idea of where we'll be, visit Strasbourg's tourism site or the official site of the city. It really fits us well--it's in France, so Mindy and I can improve our French, but it's also on the Rhine river, right on the border with Germany, which is only a bicycle ride away. (If you visit the tourism site, click on the British flag to choose the English-language site, then click on "Discover." After being shown a map of where Strasbourg is located in Europe, you'll see a photo of the old city center [the Grande Ile] featuring the cathedral in the upper left. If you move toward the canal further to the left and then down a bit, you'll see a very long building right on the canal. Move back into the city one block, and you'll be looking at the street where we'll be living. The apartment is not in that first block but the one closer to the bottom of the photo.)

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At the Zoo

Video of Sophie's birthday is still in the editing phase, and I hope to get to a DVD I've been planning that picks up at about the 3 month point from the last DVD sometime this summer. But in the meantime, here's a brief video of our trip to the Cincinnati Zoo last Saturday. Enjoy!

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Inside during April Showers

We've been confined to the house a lot lately after wonderful March weather. First it got really cold again (it even snowed), and then it stayed cool and got rainy, too. This video shows some of Sophie's play indoors yesterday morning.

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A New Video!

Well, it's been months and months since I posted a video. We've been making them, but I just haven't had the time to edit and post them. I'm heading to Italy today for a week, and partially for the fun of watching her as I edited the video, and partially for you, too, even, we took some video yesterday evening and I got it ready early this morning.

It shows Sophie eating her finger foods, including her favorite mozzarella cheese, and then playing with Mindy. She's been pointing at everything lately, and here she started pointing at . . . well, you'll see. Suffice it to say that this is further proof that she will be a lover of literature.

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Video Catch-Up, Part III

This video at last catches you up to early December at least. It begins with Sophie playing on December 3 and ends with a brief glimpse of Sophie hanging out with two friends, Lilli Hall and Megan Colter, on the 9th. Megan's the leader of the gang, being in kindergarten and all, but Lilli's a solid lieutenant. Sophie's making a valiant effort to take after her more mature friends. In the middle of the video is its really, um, solid part. It shows Sophie eating baby food for the very first time. We started with carrots, which she now tolerates, but which she found a little disgusting back on December 7. She's now more a fan of fruit than vegetables (especially pears), but she'll even eat peas and green beans under the right circumstances. She also likes squash a lot, taking after neither of her parents.

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Video Catch-Up, Part II

The video above is also a bit of a blast from the past. The first part features Sophie eating rice cereal for the very first time (on September 19). It got a lot easier after this first, very rough attempt, as most of you know. The video continues with material shot on October 14 and 15 while we were in Baltimore to visit Sophie's great-grandma Wilson (who turned 90 on December 30). We weren't able to be there for the birthday celebration, but we drove to Baltimore over my fall break. A good part of the video shows Sophie playing with her second cousins Ariana and Josh Toney. Below are a few photos from this trip.




Click here to see a few more pictures from this trip, and right click here to save the video above.

Work, Illness, Holidays, Travel, and More Work Killed the Video Star

Things have been rough for all you ardent Sophie-fans as far as videos go. We've dedicated some time to video editing this past weekend, and we will get you almost up to date in the next few days. (The Christmas video is still on its way.)

This first video, very, very overdue, is from Sophie's first trip to California in September. There was some sort of glitch with the DVD, and I tried over and over to fix it, but I was never able to. A rough version without audio is what you are watching below.


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Thanksgiving video #2

As promised, here's the second Thanksgiving video. Expect more photos tomorrow, and hopefully another video this weekend.

Sophie had her 6-month appointment yesterday. She's in great shape, 27 1/4" long and 17 lbs. 9 oz. Since her last visit had her at 27" long, we think maybe they mismeasured a little that time. She's still in the 95th percentile for height for her age. She got two regular immunization shots and her first flu shot. It was tough, but after a little crying she was back to her regular cheery self.

The doctor cleared Sophie for eating real food, too, so we TRIED babyfood carrots last night . . . you'll appreciate waiting for me to edit the video of that experience to see how much Sophie loves carrots right now.

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Thanksgiving video #1

I've got two videos left to edit that come before this one (of Sophie's first trip to California and her trip to Baltimore), but we've been working a little in the vein of a Sophie Advent calendar lately, so I've decided to go ahead and post this first video from Thanksgiving today. Another will follow tomorrow, and then the others I mentioned above!

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Finally! A new Sophie video

13 AUGUST 2007: THIS VIDEO HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THE BLOG. PLEASE EMAIL US IF YOU WOULD LIKE A COPY.

So finally, here's a new video of Sophie, shot over the course of the last week. We've shot a lot between the last video and this one, but this will have to do for now. Sorry it's been so long, but I hope you enjoy it.