Sofia-8 months old

• She is full fledge crawling everywhere. Started crawling on Aug 2, 2008
• Started pulling herself up on the furniture on August 26,2008
• First tooth on August 19, 2008,  bottom left in the front,
• Second tooth the next day On August 20,  right next to the first one
• She is babbling all the time,  right now it is mostly Dadadada,  she also says something that sounds like goo.  So Daddy will calls her "Goo".  
• She can now drink from sippy cup and a regular cup and she loves it.  She has not mastered a straw yet but loves to play with them. 
• She loves eating big people food.  She kind of gets upset when you feed her baby food and we are eating something that looks much more interesting.  She loves graham crackers, bread and stick of carrot or apple. Because she can hold and feed those to herself.  She loves fruit and gets mad and won't eat much when I try to feed her vegetables.  
• Her favorite thing to play with is paper. She rips it, eats it, waves it in the air and crawls all over it. 
• She loves books,  and loves pulling herself up on the basket and throwing them out.  Her favorites are whatever Noah is reading at the time.  She loves  My Pal Al, Board book Princess,  My first Alphabet,  Look and Feel Colors,  That's Not My Monster and Mommy Loves Me
• Her favorite toys right now are her Star Wars sqeaky toys that they bought for her at disneyland, (I think it is because she sees Noah playing with the same guys), V-tech playing table,  Baby Einstein Music cube,  Baby Radio, Barbie Princess Pegasus Polar Bear that shakes with cold (funniest thing ever),  Noah's measuring Caliper from his tool set and Noah's blue crocs.  (For some reason she is completely fasinated with Noah's shoes,  if she sees them she races to get them and eats them,  Maybe his toe cheese is really yummy,  Noah  has started hiding his shoes from her)
• loves Pat a Cake the most , then itsy bitsy spider and then "This is the way the Lady rides"
• Noah can make her laugh the most.  She is so much easier to get to smile and laugh now.  If he says Dadada it cracks her up for a good 5 minutes.  She follows him with her eyes and crawls after him trying to engage him.  He still smothers her with love but she laughs and likes it a bit more now.  Not quite as frightening as in the past.
• Brightens up when Dad comes home and now follows mommy around the house and cries if I go up the stairs without her in my arms.  
• She is just a joy and into everything.  She puts everything in her mouth so we have to be careful and watch what she is doing.  Noah is good to let me know.  We just love her and can't get enough of her cuteness.

Sofia Through Mara's Lens

Oh, my beautiful baby.  Can you get over that smile.

I love her cute sun dress.  She is looking at me.  Love that face

I love the above view.  And she is eating a stick

Her crooked smile

Priceless, our sweet tweet-ums

Noah through Mara's Lens

My big boy.  These pics made me miss his long hair with his curl. 

Sweetness.  I love this boy

Those lips and his curl in his hair are killing me.  

Can you see how honed his Jedi skills have become.  I love this action shot

Genius

My friend Mara took these pictures back in July.  I finally have the disks and can I just say she is a genius.  I can't express in words how much I adore these pictures of my kids.  I am so overwhelmed with gratitude I don't know how to thank her enough.  She has brilliant talent and it was so lovely just spending time with her.  I keep browsing through them to find my favorites and I did not want to post billion of pictures on my blog but I could have.  Thanks again Mara.  We love ya

Dragons

"Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses

 who are only waiting to see us act,

 just once, with beauty and courage. 

Perhaps everything that frightens us is,

 in its deepest essence, 

something helpless that wants our love." 

— Rainer Maria Rilke

A Visitor

Look who has been at our house, the last couple of days.

Batman!

This is his Batman, tough guy face.

He looks pretty menacing to me.

His favorite part, is the Bat shooter off his wrist.

Daddy has a new nerf gun, so he is the bad guy.

And apparantly it does not hurt if you get hit by a nerf dart

 when you are wearing a Batman chest.

Good to know. 

I don't know why I was worried.

Spencer gave his Batman clothes to Noah, since he has outgrown them.

Thanks buddy,  You are such a nice friend and cousin to Noah.

It's been fun having you play with us the last couple of days.

Girls Overnighter

Last year, my friends Kieran, Kiersten and I went on a girls overnighter. This year Kiersten is really pregnant so she was unable to come this year. So it was just me and Kieran and we went up to my family cabin in Midway.  It has been quite awhile since I have been up there and it made me really happy to be surrounded by the memories of it all.  Kieran was nice and indulged me and let me ramble about all the silly things we did there.  
Friday Night we watched like 4 movies , Footloose, Hairspray, Juno and Dan in Real Life.  We had a hard time getting into the groove of scrapbooking.  We needed our tiaras for some creativity.  We talked, laughed and ate a lot.  Which is just as important.  We went to bed around 3 am.  Woke up around 10, finished a couple more pages.  Cleaned the cabin like mad woman and drove home.  We stopped at McDonalds in Park City and Jim graciously gave us some free food.  

It was so completely heavenly to get away.  It just did not seem long enough. I came home refreshed and ready to be a better mom.  Noah ran into my arms he was so happy I was home.  It was a nice welcome.   We went and saw Clone Wars that afternoon when I returned.  So I had a party day.    So grateful to have such a fun friend,  Thanks for being creative with me Kieran.  Love your guts.