Still Growing!

Sophie is getting older everyday.  I mean that beyond the “duh!” obviousness of the comment.  She just seems more alert lately and seems like she’s acting older.  Still haven’t had a repeat of rolling over, but we practice everyday.  She seems more interested in trying to crawl while she’s on her belly rather than working on rolling back to her back. 

Mom brought home a few toys for her – she absolutely LOVES the toy that she can kick and it makes the the top part spin.  It’s hard to explain, but the main thing is that she loves to kick and now she has a purpose (other than splashing bathwater out of the tub!)

She has a couple of bumps on her bottom gum but I’m not sure if they’re teeth coming up or if it’s something else or just normal.  Part of the reason I’m not sure is that it is a little behind that thin part of the gum ridge, so who knows.

Worked on the garden some more today.  Tom did a lot of weeding, Mike rototilled, Mom made dinner and corralled Sophie, and I planted.  We got in a 4 row block of an early variety of corn, planted some more carrots (from a different seed packet), planted more snap peas (different seed packet), did a whole row of green beans (still have a few left over) and did a row of squash.  I still want to get some more stuff planted out back soon.

Things are coming up nicely.  The lettuce is popping up, we’ll probably have to thin it soon.  The radishes really came up ahead of the carrots – I thinned some radishes today, not ready to thin carrots yet.  All (or most) of the shelling peas came up but the snap variety didn’t so I don’t know what’s up with that.  We’ll give it a few more days and see what happens but we may have to start again with them.  Didn’t see any green onions and only one (maybe) broccoli.  Mike watered after we were done and we are expecting rain this week (Tue-Wed-Thur but not sure on the chances).

Well, it’s been a nice long weekend – we had a cookout on Sunday with Mom, Mike, Kevin, Kenny, Sandy, Jeff (basically to pick up food), Tom Shmina with Liz and Brian.  It was a good time; nice to have everyone over.  Today we golfed 9 at Knoll’s with Kevin and Kenny after we finished gardening.  Golfing at Knoll’s (especially with our 30 mph winds today!) is like a golf ball exchange:  you lose one in the woods but you’re bound to find at least another to replace it.  Now we’re home and our fussy baby is off to bed.  She started carrots today but didn’t like them so we’re going to skip tomorrow and try them again on Wednesday.  I pureed them myself so maybe she’s already rebelling against my cooking!  Oh, one more thing:  Sophie can’t seem to keep her thumb out of her mouth lately.  Not sucking on it but chewing on it – she’s going to be in for quite a surprise when she gets teeth!

Grant and Bobbie are coming to town on Wednesday or Thursday and Mendy’s having a cookout on Friday and Connie’s going to be in town this weekend (Friday?) so things aren’t going to get any less busy!

Nature’s first green is gold…

I was sitting outside today admiring the colors and had a few thoughts that I’d like to share.  1- the main reason I like fall is because we only have two colors the rest of the year; either everything is green or everything is gray.  It’s like if you look at a color for a long time you become desensitized to it (there was something about this in 9th grade biology…)  2- it’s pretty amazing that color is a result of absorbed/reflected parts of the same light spectrum; so basically everything is the same but it just reflects different things.  Basically the sun is coloring with one of those magic clear markers that make the colors appear on the book.  3- part of the way that we see color has to do with the atmosphere and what light it allows through so does “color” change as our atmosphere changes?  If you took a tree to Mars or Jupiter would it be a different color?

Sophie’s loving the warm weather of late because she can rock the onesie and ditch the pants!  New pics on the camera but they just haven’t made it to the computer yet so enjoy this from the other week:

Creativity Abounds

Made a few more pictures using PowerPoint.  I scaled them to either 4x6, 5x7, or 8x10 since it saves it as different dimensions (so if you go to print one later, be aware that they could be cropped if you use a different size).  I want to add a duck to the bottom right of the bath picture.  I’d love to hear your feedback!

Eating Pictures

I’ve been neglecting pictures up here for a couple of weeks so I thought I’d share these meal time photos (and Sophie marveling her hands in the sunlight).

Cranky Pants!

Sophie had her 4 month check-up yesterday.  Things went pretty well, she is in 25th percentile for head circumference, 50th percentile in height, and 75th in weight.  All are along the normal curve so that’s good.  She did have to get shots though so that was pretty horrible.  She was cranky yesterday and last night and today so hopefully tomorrow she’s over it.  She was running a slight fever today, nothing too high, but higher than normal.

I’ve updated Ofoto pics so be sure to check that out.  Here’s my Mother’s Day present:  :-)

Playing softball for Muggshots this year…we have a tournament on Saturday in Sterling (hopefully the rain holds out).

Planted a few more things in the garden the other day (spinach, onion sets, green onions, broccoli, lettuce, and more lettuce).  It’s coming along nicely!

quick update

…still waiting to upload pictures, I’ll get to it soon!  Planted a few more rows of the garden – some lettuce, spinach, green onions, broccoli, and onion sets.  Sophie has been OK lately, a little moody.  Doctor’s appointment and 4 month birthday tomorrow.  Big day ahead!

Happy Mother’s Day to Me!

Still working on organizing pics…have taken new ones but they aren’t on the computer yet.  Had a good Mother’s Day – went to Ingrid’s in the afternoon and saw Michelle, Craig, Caitlyn, Mike, Erin, Tom (Shmina), Liz, Brian and of course Ingrid and Paul.  We had a good cookout (and mac and cheese too!!) and just hung out.  After, we went over to Mom and Mike’s to see Mom’s new peach tree (it’s Sophie’s gift to Grandma) and have dinner.  The highlight for me were the steak kabobs on the grill and the frozen corn.  I’m usually not a fan of the frozen corn from the year before but this was really sweet and delicious.

I was inspired by the pictures they try to sell you at Penney’s when you go in for portrait’s so I came up with my own variety.  Let me know what you think or if you have any other ideas.  I just used PowerPoint (the new 2007 version is great) and Saved As a jpeg.  They wanted to charge $30 for something pretty similar to this at JC Penney…I’ll make you one for $10 :-)

Gardening

Started the garden today!  Planted peas – two varieties – and some carrots and radishes.  We chose two types of peas because one is the snap kind that you can eat whole and the other is the shelling kind.  Figured we could use the shelled peas for Sophie food.  I mixed the radishes in with the carrots because one of the packets said that the radishes bloom early so they loosen the soil and make things easier for the carrots.  We have more room in the row for the peas so maybe we’ll start more in a couple of weeks. 

Sophie was good for Ingrid today – full of laughs and giggles…and then things turned.  I took her over to Mom’s while I worked in the garden and she pretty much screamed the entire time. 

Tom bought batteries today so we should have new pictures soon.  He also brought home my Mother’s Day present:  two rocking chairs and a table for the front porch.  It is SO awesome.  I’ve been saying how much I love those chairs for a couple of years now; since Rosie and I went to the Red Barn.  It was very cool to come home and see them on the porch.  I’ll have pictures up soon.

Sophie has an appt. on Wednesday so we’ll see how well things are going.  Unfortunately, she’ll also be getting shots!

I’ll take new pics soon – in the meantime enjoy the eating video from the other week.  We started out with it really thin (that’s how they said to mix it) and now she’s on to thick cereal and loving it!

Roll On!

Sophie rolled over today!  We’ve been spending some more time on her tummy and I’ve been helping her “practice” by rolling her back and forth.  I put her down on her tummy today and she pushed up on arms and legs and leaned at the same time and voila!  Of course, after all that work, she was starving so we had some cereal and bottle and had to take a nap.  Cereal is a messy endeavor but she really is getting the hang of it.  I can make it thicker now (she actually seems to prefer it a little thicker) and she keeps a lot of it in her mouth.  Of course, she likes to help and then figures that since her hands are already there, she might as well stick those in her mouth too.  All in all, it’s messy.  I know, I need new pics but I still don’t have any batteries for the camera.  It’s killing me!

We’ve been pretty busy around here – I’ve got about a gazillion things that I want to do but I usually settle for one or two a day! :-)

Tom and I went golfing again yesterday at the Breeze (just 9).  Tom golfed pretty well, and I, well let’s just say that I did better than last time.  I did work out some kinks though so hopefully I’m on the right track.

It’s Like Christmas!

Traded totes with Kelly again today – it’s like Christmas going through all the new clothes and seeing what is in season for her to wear.  Really looking forward to some of these outfits – and as always we love getting clothes to use since it seems like she’s only able to wear some of them a time or two!

We also saw Rich and Carolyn while we were in Saginaw today.  It was great getting a chance to catch up with them and let them meet little Sophie!

She’s still sleeping through the night and she’s getting better at eating cereal.  She got through most of it today without pushing it out.  It was adorable:  she grabbed the spoon at one point and “fed” herself … and then chewed on the spoon.  I wish my batteries weren’t dead on the camera – it would have been an awesome picture.  She’s getting her legs further and further to the side as she lays on her mat…one day she’s going to surprise both of us and roll over.  I really need to give her more tummy time so she can practice rolling over from there (I know, I say that all the time!)

Today after her one feeding, she sat with Tom in the chair for a good 20 minutes or more and watched the Red Wings game.  She really wasn’t looking at anything else, just watching the TV.  She probably can pick up movement in hockey better because of the white background.  Paul’s always saying we need to get a bigger TV; Sophie probably agrees with him because she really likes to watch at Ingrid’s and Michelle’s.

Recycling through pics since my batteries are still dead.  Haven’t finalized the April folder on Ofoto yet for the same reason.