Mother's Day

About a week ago, I was away for the evening and the kids were in bed before I got home. The next morning, I went in to get Sophie up in my usual fashion..."Good morning!"...kiss..."Did you have a good sleep?"...open the curtains. The first comment out of Sophie's mouth was, "I made you a card!" "Oh, really?" I said with a chuckle, "I don't think you're supposed to tell me yet." Sophie, obviously ignoring me said, "Daddy helped me. It has glue and glitter on it. Can you have it now?"

I couldn't have it then (I didn't know where they were hiding it!), but I did get it for Mother's Day.



Inside were flaps to open, and under each one was a giftcard to a place that fit the description on the flap. I get to go out for dinner, to a movie, have an hour massage and get a treat with my friend Laura (her picture was under the "friend" flap). So fun! I can't wait to have my big day out!!



Sophie explained her drawing to me. It's a monster with a crown and hair and ears. Quite the artist, huh? I'm impressed that you can actually see what she's talking about!

Family Pics

Great Grandmas' Houses

We spent the weekend visiting with the Great Grandmas on Greg's side of the family. While the men hung out at Grandma E's, we ladies (including Sophie) went to a ladies salad luncheon at one of the churches in town. Sophie mostly ate crackers and gummy worms--the worms were part of the table favors. She also occupied herself by sorting her peanuts and M&Ms into two different cups because, as Sophie reminded me, "I don't like peanuts." More pictures are to follow!

Owen's Newest Trick

I laid Owen down to sleep after his early-morning bottle today because he was about to go out on my lap. I covered him with his blanket and then led Sophie out of the room (she'd just woken up). After a few short minutes of quiet, Sophie and I started hearing Owen talking in his bed. I gave him a little while, thinking maybe he'd still go to sleep. A few minutes later, Owen's noises were only getting louder, so I figured we might as well get him up. Sophie got in the room ahead of me and yelled back, "Hey, Mom! Look at Owen!" This is what I found...



I guess he wasn't on his way to sleep after all. And evidently he can stand up in his bed now.

Today was Owen's second time in the nursery at church. After checking him in and dropping him off, I went around to peek in the back window of the nursery. Owen was already half-way up the body of a much bigger standing baby, pulling himself up by the other kid's overalls! Which reminds me that he was doing the same to Sophie this morning as she washed her hands in the bathroom. Except his crawling up her caused her pajama pants to fall down, and Owen along with them.

Zoo

The kids and I went to the little zoo today, and we had a lovely time. I've been wanting to take them for some time now, and today it was finally nice enough to actually do it, so we did it.

We stopped first to see the "mingos." If you get a chance sometime, ask Sophie why flamingos are pink. She knows. She explained it all rather succinctly to Greg last night.

It was such a beautiful day that we had lunch outside--our first outdoor picnic of the season! While Sophie and I ate her "cheese-hamurmer" Owen played under our table. Mostly with my shoelaces. Since learning to crawl and pull himself up on things, he refuses to just sit on my lap anymore (unless he's eating!). So I held onto him with one hand and tried to eat with the other.

After lunch, we headed inside to check out the conservatory, which we'd not done before. There were a few ponds with fish in them, which Sophie was totally fascinated with. She even got down close to stick her fingers in the water of one of them. Owen would have actually crawled right into the pond if I'd let him, so I only had a few seconds to try to get a picture of him enjoying the water too.

My favorite thing to look at were all the beautiful flowers. Sophie refused to pose alone or with her brother, so I had to trick her into smelling the flowers just to get a picture of her by the colorful blooms. Owen would have happily sat by the flowers for me, however, whenever I placed him near them, he immediately was grabbing handfuls of dirt or trying to rip the petals off! In the picture below, he is straining to grab them while my hand, just out of the picture, is holding his other hand to keep him from actually succeeding.

Horse Show

My cousin Christa was in town this weekend for a horse show, so we stopped by the fairgrounds to show Sophie the horses up close and to see the horses run around the ring. Sophie requested to wear her new, never worn, mostly-white princess tennis shoes to the horse show. I explained that the barn where the horses were would be stinky and dirty and may have poop on the floor, so she agreed to wear her old ones instead. But, she did keep talking about and singing "dirty, stinky, poopy" for most of the ride to the fairgrounds!

Sophie was so excited about all the horses she got to see. She even got to go right in the stall with Christa's horse, Glitter, and even pet her. Sophie looked a little nervous--she's never been that close to a horse before--but she did great. She enjoyed watching the people ride the horses around the ring, and we enjoyed catching up with Christa for a while.

School Carnival

We attended our neighborhood school's carnival on Friday night with our friends the W's. This school could potentially be the one Sophie would attend someday, so while we went for the games and the cafeteria food, I also wanted to spy a little on what the school is like. We got to eat nachos, pizza and hotdogs in the cafeteria. Then we made our way around the building, playing the games the girls were interested in. They did the fish pond, the duck pond, golf, mouse toss (Sophie got one in!), book walk, face painting, and others I'm likely forgetting. Sophie, much to our surprise, was willing to get her face painted! When it was her turn, she sat very still, hardly breathing. Very cute! Much of her rainbow was on her shirt by the end of the night. We ended the evening with mini-donuts (the moms' request) and cashing in the tickets the girls had won. Sophie picked out a sucker and 2 princess lipglosses--one for her and one for Lydia. And Owen took a little rest.