April With My Fam-Bam

What a busy month for this blog! There are so many things to write about! A day after we returned from New Mexico, my mom came to visit. A couple days after that, my brother Tyler came to visit. We've never had visitors for 2 weeks before, but we are sure glad we're in this new apartment or there's no way it would have been as pleasant as it has been.

During mom's visit she helped in my classroom, did some Utah shopping (since this might be her last time being here for quite a while because we're moving), babysat Sophia while I worked and Russ did check-outs, and attended Tyler's graduation.

During Tyler's visit he proposed, graduated, babysat Sophia, and spends about 12 hours a day with Rachel. It has been really nice to have him back. It feels like old times when he would come over a couple times a week.

 Here are some pictures (in very random order) of Mom and Tyler's visit, or more accurately....Sophia during mom and Tyler's visit :D

Baby's 1st app

Waiting for graduation to start. She didn't last long. She was excited....and loud.

 

 This is mostly for Lissa: can you identify which is Tyler? We didn't know where he was, but we could all identify him by his walk.

 Good uncle-niece bonding :)

 The ring!

 Family dinner with my cousins, my cousin's fiance, and my future sister-in-law

Check out that open mouth. 

Whenever I'd change her diaper, she's crane her neck all around to be able to see Grandma or Tyler so that she could smile at them. 

Walking to graduation. Sophia was in charge of the balloons. It was so cute!

 

 My new favorite family picture. I wish the lighting was a bit better, but everyone looks nice and is smiling!!! I also love Sophia's shoe-socks!

 The happy couple, just hours before they got engaged.

We tied the balloon to her wrist, and she LOVED it! She was kicking and bouncing, and watching what happened to the balloon.

 I love that little face! She looks so grown up in this picture.

A cold evening walk

Very active at her 6 month check-up

 Tyler and Rachel visiting my class. We were singing them Zippidy Doo Dah. I don't just make strange hand motions while I teach :)

A sweet picture

Sophia just after her bath. She even still has her wild towel hair.

Sophia loved smiling at our visitors, and eating the tags on the tag blanket Grandma made for her

Posing after church

Fresh and clean in her towel

2 of her very favorite things: the "Baby's 1st Christmas" rattle she was too young to appreciate at Christmas and my BYU ID (sometimes I tell her it's a credit card, and we go visit daddy in his office and she buys tickles with the credit card).

 Cuddling with daddy. Sorry Russ, not the best one of you, but Sophs looks cute!

Twins in gray!

 Cheezy grin. Uncle Tyler dressed her that day and put her in a dress. He also got her a matching headband and bow. I was very impressed.

 Reaching lunging for the camera while getting out the 6 month clothes

Where Sophsy eats when Mommy and Daddy need to be hands-free. She looks so cute: just a tiny head and little feet.

I am really glad we could have mom and Tyler come for a while. It was so fun to see them, we all had a great time, and as strange as it may sound, it was really nice to have extra people there to take pictures!

6 Months

Happy half birthday to our sweet, baby girl! These photo shoots have gotten more and more fun each month as Sophia develops more of her personality. They are also getting more difficult because she's not as content to sit and pose - she wants to be moving and exploring (and eating) everything!
This doctor's visit was also much different than previous ones. She tried to eat her chart, crumpled up the paper on the bed with her tiny fists, wanted to strand up, and tried to do crunches and roll over while getting her physical exam. Guess there were no questions about how she's developing!

SIX MONTH STATS

Height: 26.35" (50-75%)

Weight:15.0 lbs (25-50%)

Head: 16.5in (25-50%)

Look at that cutie!!!

 We recruited daddy to help her not eat the lion. This was the face she gave him when he took it away.

 Yay! Daddy gave the lion back!!

"Mom. I don't want to sit here anymore!"

Sophia, Sophia. At 6 months, she:
- wears some 0-3 month clothes, mostly 3-6 month clothes. I tried to move to the 6 month ones, but they are quite baggy.
- sleeps for about 10.5 hours straight at night (sometimes more), eats, and sleeps for about another hour. Takes 3 naps during the day
- can't sit up on her own for more than a couple seconds
- can roll over both directions, but most often just rolls onto her side to reach a toy or see us better
- smiles more than ever before
- is very ticklish (especially above her knees, and we just discovered that she's VERY ticklish on the back of her neck and shoulders)
- loves reaching, holding things, wiggling, kicking, eating tags and moving herself around
- has started reaching for us, seems to want to interact more and has played peek-a-boo with me a few times (holding up the blanket over the face until I said, "Where's Sophia" and then she drops it with a huge smile)
- loves eating baby food - my mom has been visiting and said she's never seen a baby so enthusiastic about eating

Eating carrots. I call this picture "Mohammad coming to the mountain" because she'd try as hard as she could to get that spoon into her mouth

Sophia's favorite way to fall asleep.

Practicing sitting up

Spring Break Trip to New Mexico!

For my Spring Break, we loaded up in the car and drove to New Mexico to visit our good friends, Bonnie and Brian Olsen. They were the first friends Russ and I made as a couple, and since we met 3.5 years ago, they have 2 girls and we have 1. They moved about a year and a half ago, so this visit was overdue, and VERY fun! Our visit was so great, especially to play so many games after the kids went to bed each night and eat Easter candy until we all got sick (no, really).

The 10.5 hour drive wasn't too bad either. In fact, it was quite beautiful and scenic. Sophia did a really good job sleeping in the car on the way down. The way back wasn't as good....let's just say there were multiple poopy diapers, not a lot of sleep, and what I would consider Sophia's first true "throw up" experience. Poor little girl. By the time we rolled into our parking lot, even her backup outfit was completely soaked. Despite all that, she was in good spirits and loved having either mommy or daddy sitting right next to her to play with her for hours on end.

First, here are some random Sophia pictures from the trip. Then we have trip pictures.

Lately Sophia has started to suck her thumb. I probably shouldn't like it as much as I do, but it's just SO DANG CUTE!

Sophia and Aspen exploring each other (or mostly, Aspen touching Sophia's face and Sophia trying to eat Aspen's loose clothing)

This next picture was taken about 5 seconds before the chair tipped over and she face-planted into the floor.

On Monday, we visited Bandelier, which had a lot of Indian cave dwellings. It was really cool to see all of them, and it was a nice walk along all the trails, learning about the people who used to live there.

Sophia ran off again - just like at the Mesa Temple at Christmas. When we found her here, we had a discussion about being safe around heights.

scrunching up her nose when she smiles, just like me

This is where Sophia spent about 1/2 of our trip because we were always on the go. At least she still falls asleep in her car seat!

On one of our trips, we tested out the "big girl" side of the stroller. We think she looks awfully cute in it, but looks pretty little in there. I think we'll keep her in the car seat part a bit longer (or maybe I just don't want my little girl to grow up yet!)

Also during our visit, Sophia tried new baby food. We have another winner: squash. Sophia. LOVES. Squash. Here's the proof:

Part way through, she started helping me feed her in order to get the spoon into her mouth more quickly. I wasn't kidding when I say she LOVED that squash!

She even cried when it was all gone. I thought she might just eat a few bites, but she ate an entire container of it. Oh yes, and check out those "squashy" pants!

On Monday night, we had a pretend campout, complete with tin foil dinners and FHE around the fire pit.

 Unfortunately, the picture below is the only one that got taken of me. Isn't it attractive? I always eat my smores that way.

On Wednesday we visited Santa Fe.

Here we are trying to blend in with the locals :D I don't know why Russ is wearing the pink one...

In Santa Fe, with Sophia sleeping in her "cave" to avoid the rain.

 One of Russ's trip requirements is to go out to eat the local cuisine at least once. This was delicious!

 On our way back from Santa Fe, we pulled over to take some pictures. I didn't know New Mexico was SO beautiful (or windy)!

This is supposed to be a picture of us and the landscape, but since we were at the mercy of putting the camera on top of our car...it just turned out to be a great picture of us (while our daughters were sleeping in our cars)

 It was really nice to get away for Spring Break, especially to see such wonderful friends! Thanks for everything, Olsens!!!

Easter

We spent Easter with our friends, Bonnie and Brian, down in New Mexico. I'll post about our trip later, but I left our camera cord at home, so I've been waiting to post our Easter pictures.

It's great to visit people because then we can get pictures of all 3 of us. :) Nice smile, Russ

After the family pictures, Russ and I took pictures with Sophia. Mine didn't turn out so well, but the Sophia and daddy pictures were sure cute:

When she gets excited, she opens her mouth. She recently started doing it whenever she sees one of us, and it makes us very happy parents!

I guess after all that picture taking, she just needed to take a break and chew on something :)

 Here are some pictures of Sophia in her Easter dress. I didn't realize until just now that she's not smiling for the camera in any of them. I guess that plastic egg was just too interesting!

Her new thing is to drop stuff on the floor so we'll pick it up for her. She's mid-drop in about half the pictures I took.