Trip home day 6

As I write this, we are finally in Ohio! We're staying in cincinatti tonight then going to jungle Jim's grocery store in the morning, then going home! I am very excited and am going to be very glad to be off the road.

Yesterday we just hung around the hotel for most of the day. We took Sophia to the hotel pool, got take out and ate it in the hotel lobby, and generally just relaxed. I kind of felt the kind of exhaustion that I haven't felt since I was waking up every 3 hours with Sophia at night in the weeks following her birth. Thankfully, we had a nice hotel and the time available to relax.

Having a great time in the pool

With the hotel "christmas tree"

Today we checked out of our hotel in Nashville and headed to visit my friend Staci. Even if we haven't gotten to see all the friends along the way that I intended to see, it has been so nice to see the ones I could. Afterwards we went to see the Nashville Parthenon and visit the dog park next to it. It was a rally cool sight, and even though it was not a sunny day, it was a nice temperature and I had no complaints. 

Trip home day 4

Today is the 4th day we've been on the road! We're on the road to Nashville, TN right now and we've already been through New Orleans and Pensacola.

Sophia admiring the New Orleans view from our hotel room. 

The beautiful Christmas tree at our New Orleans hotel. 

My little roaming gnome in front of st Louis cathedral in New Orleans. 

She enjoyed pizza and our Brie platter with us! She ate little bits of Brie, fruit, cheese, spinach, olives and bread 😋

The roaming gnome in the french market

We always have a nice time in New Orleans. It'll be really great when Sophia gets a bit older and can walk and eat with less help. 

And here we are in Montgomery, AL at the house that F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda lived in. 

Trip home day 1

We left our home in killeen, TX at 4:30 December 17 and arrived in Houston, TX (after a couple stops, at least one wrong turn, and several rubbernecking slow downs) at 8:30. It took a while but we got everything and everyone taken care of and settled in. 

Namely this little pup. We accidentally booked a hotel whose website said no pets allowed (either expedia was mistaken or we forgot to check the ✔️Pets allowed box when we scheduled the reservation).  Luckily our friend katelyn lives in Houston and she took care of violet for us! 

Since we didn't put up a tree, I intend to take all the pictures I would have taken with Sophia's first Christmas tree with all the trees we "borrow" as our own during our travels. Here she is with her first one at the Best Western in Houston, TX.  

P.s. I know Sophia turned 9 months on the 15th and I didn't post any pictures! Truth is I was busy packing! I'll take a good one sometime this trip and make it her "official" 9 month picture. 

Christmas time

After growing up in the north, southern christmas always seems to sneak up on me. There's no snow. The neighborhoods are spaced out more so you see less lights. And because I haven't been working, I haven't been out in shopping malls and being forced to listen to christmas music. It's strange! But we're leaving for home in just 2 days, so I'll be seeing snow (and it'll be Sophia and Violet's first times!) and lights and family. Then I'm sure it will feel like christmas.

We went to the nature park BLORA where they have light displays this past week and for $5 we definitely got out money's worth of lights!

12 days of christmas

And a partridge in a pear tree

We even stopped at Santa's workshop and were going to get a picture with Santa, but Sophia was asleep. But they had a "Texas tree" so we got a picture of her with that. Note the boot, star, and skull decorations

She woke up as soon as we saw the "thank you" exit lights. Figures, right?

Recent pictures

Here are some recent pictures of Sophia:

My little artiste

She understands that your supposed to touch the iPad to make things happen. The hardest part of letting her "make art" is encouraging her to start touching the blank screen!

These were from a little play date Sophia had with her friend Mina (and her mommy Melissa). We mommies baked and chatted and the girls crawled around and played! Mina even taught Sophia how to use a sippy cup! I was so excited! Now that Sophia is 8 (halfway to 9) months old, I think it's time to introduce the concept of the sippy cup so we can start transitioning! These days, pediatricians suggest that infants can be transitioned off bottles by their first birthday, and should be no later than 18 months old. Who knew!

And I'll leave you with "best buddies" Sophia and Violet. Violet is so great with Sophia, I am so happy and proud. Violet never is mean to her (unless you count unintentional tail smacks when she is too excited) and Sophia is getting the hang of petting Violet nicely. What more could a mom ask for?

8 months old

Sorry for being so late on the uptake! I took these the day she turned 8 months old, but just forgot to post them! 

She's moving so much it's hard to keep up with her! What started as rolling and scooting is now full fledged belly flop-style crawling! She really only crawls short distances, but that's ok with us!

She has two bottom teeth (and one about to pop through on the top I think!) and, as you can see, tons of hair! She loves eating food of all kinds but lately she's been eating a lot of butternut squash, parsnips and carrots (all those fall veggies while they are in season!). I make her food, so it's fun to let her try all sorts of new foods! Her eyes are still blue and it looks like they are going to stay that way. She her favorite babble sounds are dadadadada and ahyaahhh (I'm still working on mama).

I just started putting shoes on her occasionally.

Time with friends

Now that I'm not working full time anymore, besides cleaning my house and making preparations to move, I've got to go see friends with Sophia!

We went with out twin lady baby friends to the park again. Here are some more pictures from last time:

We went to a different park this time but had a lot of fun again!

And here is a short video:

http://youtu.be/rC5TnjEAta4

Trunk or treating

What was supposed to take place with everyone's cars got taken inside because of rain. But we had fun! We dressed up as Peter Pan, Tiger Lilly and Tinkerbelle (violet was supposed to go with us as the crocodile too). Sophia won the "most original kids costume"! 

Pre costume

It's supposed to be 80 degrees today and tomorrow so I probably won't take her anywhere in this shirt but it's cute so I thought we better at least take a picture! Tonight were doing a "trunk or treat" with Stephen's company so I'll be sure to take lots of pictures and post them so you all can see our costumes! I'm going to keep it a surprise for now though! (I'm really excited about our first family costumes though!!)

Sophia has been eating all sorts of delicious fall foods lately. Yesterday she had a pumpkin, sweet potato and apple purée with cinnamon and nutmeg and she loved it! She also had some nice squash at daycare. I have her pumpkin and bananas with cinnamon and nutmeg today and she wasn't sure about it at first but ended up eating almost all of it. Ian so proud of my good little eater! She gets so excited when I bring over a dish with one of her spoons in it!

Lady Babies

My friend Tara has twin girls and she calls them her lady babies. They are so cute! We went to the park all together the other day and all the girls went on the swings. Sophia loved it!

Seven months old

Hello my name is Sophia and I am seven months old today! I had apple cinnamon oatmeal today for breakfast (it was ok... I like carrots and pears better than apples). 

My favorite toy is anything that makes that crinkle sound, or mommy's iPad/ iPhone (she has a game on there for me that when I touch the screen, animals pop out and make sounds!)

I like long family walks and when our dog Violet pays attention to me( she is he only one in the family that isn't always paying attention to me!) but I am still learning to be gentle when I pet her... So maybe that is why.

I love kicking off my socks and I REALLY want to crawl. I know how to get my legs up under me but I can't seem to go anywhere yet!

We'll let's get on to what you all really want to see- pictures of me!

Being sassy

The Rounds

Today we made the rounds visiting all my family. First we went to visit my Omah and Bill and we had some lovely pastries and tea.

And since it's supposed going to be warm (and not cool like I was expecting and the watcher channel said it was going to be) we stopped at H&M and got a few things to get us through the trip.

(But not actually this cute hat)

And then we went to see grandma Peggy and Papa and Sophia had her first piano lesson

And we took another 4 generation photo

Then we went home and got everything all ready to go Kristy's wedding rehearsal, but more on that later.