Her new thing and a little photography

Sophia pulls herself up on everything these days, nothing is safe anymore. I put her in her room to play while I fixed breakfast for her the other day. I walked into her room and there she was, pulling all her books off the bookshelf. I went to grab my camera because she was having so much fun. Little stinker.

Caught red handed!

I've been trying to practice more with my camera and I had the opportunity to do a photoshoot with my friend's 3 month old little girl. We had so much fun. She bought the stuff to make the hat and the flower pot and brought it over. I made it while the girls took a nap and then went outside to shoot. We didn't get any smiles so I think we will do a redo this coming week.

Isn't she a doll? Makes me miss Sophia being so little...

A day at the zoo

Sophia had her first visit to the zoo yesterday. My brother came with me and we met a friend and her son there (he is only 10 days younger than Sophia!). We talked last week about going beause the weather has been so nice lately. The weather was ok yesterday, it was about 70 degrees but very humid.

Sophia only had a quick 30 minute nap on the way there, so I was a little worried about how she would do while we were there but she ended up doing great. We had such a good time. She was a little crabby at first but once we started walking around and looking at all the animals she perked right up!

Oh and wanted to add that I got my new Beco Gemini baby carrier the day before we went to the zoo and I love love love it. I love babywearing and I loved my Moby but Sophia was getting to heavy for it. The Moby is fine for around the house when she gets in those clingy moods but I knew I needed somthing else to use for longer periods of time. I did some research and decided the Beco would be best for us. It's a little on the pricey side ($130) but it was worth every cent. The way this carrier works is, it distibutes the weight of the baby on your hips and not your back and shoulders. It almost felt like I wasn't even carrying her and she was in it for a good 3 hours. Sophia loved it too, she loves being close to her mommy :)

Ok back to the zoo, I knew Sophia would enjoy it because she loves animals. In books and in person. I was right, the first animals we saw were the flamingos, she couldn't take her eyes off of them. She was "talking" to them the whole time. It was so cute.

We were able to see most of everything while we were there, we had to leave before we got to the lions and tigers though because my brother had to go to work. The babies were wore out anyways, Sophia passed out in the carseat right away! Anyway, here are some more pics from our day. Enjoy!

Giraffes!

Checking out the fish

My favorite of the day

You can't really tell from the pic, but this alligator was HUGE!

The babies checking each other out

The gorillas are always so much fun to watch

Ready to head home!

Needless to say we will be making another trip to the zoo very soon!

Catch up post

Wow I feel like I haven't blogged in awhile, it's so much harder now that I have a mobile baby. I used to be able to get things done around the house while Sophia was awake because I could put her down in one place with toys around her and she would stay there and play for the most part. Now that she is crawling around and getting into everything I can't do anything except when she naps, so that leaves minimum "me time". That girl wears me out, all she wants to do is crawl all over the place! And when she isn't wanting to crawl, she wants to hold on to my fingers and walk everywhere. Whew,she is definetely giving me a work out!

In other news, the past couple of weeks have been pretty busy. We've had a couple of play dates which is so nice. I love that Sophia interacts with other babies (even though they are younger), plus it gives me some much needed grown up time :)

We went and saw Leah and baby Gene last week, Sophia loves being around other kids! I really need to join a mommy and me group so she has more social interaction. Here a couple of pics from our playdate.

A few days later, A friend of mine and her daughter Ari came over and we took a nice long walk to the park. The weather has been absoutely beautiful lately...hello spring!!

Oh and we might be going to the Ft Worth Zoo tomorrow if the weather holds out, there is a chance of rain so we'll see. Sophia is really into animals lately so I think she will love it.

Also, last week was really special for us. Rudy's truck has been giving us a lot of problems over the past year or so and we've had to pay quite a bit of money to have it fixed. Well this last time it broke down during the snow/ice storm, we had to put it in the shop again. We had been thinking about selling it and looking for a new vehicle after it got fixed. Well after one of my playdates last week, I came home and this was sitting in the driveway...

A brand spankin' new truck! My husband's boss dropped it off while we were gone. I was left speechless. Rudy came home after work and was totally suprised. We are more than blessed, he has such a great job and works for the most amazing people. I honestly don't know if they know how much this means to us, it's a total burden lifted off of our shoulders. Here is Sophia checking out Daddy's new truck!

I am definetely counting my blessings...

Learning

Sophia

Sophia is learning new things every single day, She amazes me. She is so mobile now it's crazy. I thought she would never crawl but this weekend she finally started. She does her own thing though, she gets on her hands and knees at first, then puts one leg down. She crawls on one knee then pushes herself with the other foot. It's so funny. I think she does it because she isn't that confident yet. She gets around pretty well that way though!

She is also pulling herself up on everything. We were in her room playing yesterday and I started putting her laundry away. She was on the floor playing with her toys, I turned around to put something away and when I looked back at her, she was standing up at her play table! She did it all by herself! I was so proud of my little girl.

Holding on like a big girl!



Also, if I hold on to her hands while to is standing up and let go, she can stand all by herself without holding on to anything for a few seconds. I bet she will be walking in the next month or so! I can't even believe it. Where did my little baby go?

Me-

I'm also learning about my new camera. Yesterday was so nice I decided to pack Sophia up and hit the park to snap a few photos. It's so hard to take pictures of Sophia now because she wants to crawl all over the place. Here a some that I got when she wasn't moving everywhere :)

::sigh:: I love this little girl so much. We had such a good day yesterday. Maybe we'll hit up the park again today!

Sophia's very first Valentine's Day

It was a good day yesterday. Sophia and I spent the day prepping for dinner. We went to the store in the morning to get everything we needed to make a special dinner for daddy. I decided to make Chicken Parmasean (I even made my own sauce). I put the sauce in the pot and let it simmer all day long, it turned out pretty good.

Then, like every other year, I made Rudy a heart shaped cake. I usually make a strawberry cake but I thought I would do chocolate this year. Mmmmm it was good :)

While we waited for everything to bake and cook, the doorbell rang. It was the flower delivery guy. He brought us this.

Rudy sent us flowers! One dozen red for me and half a dozen pink for Sophia. Such a sweet hubby and father. Thank you my love :)

By the time Rudy got home from work, Sophia was already asleep. That left us a nice, quiet, relaxing evening to spend together. It was really nice.

This Valentine's Day takes the cake, by far the best I've ever had. Hope everyone enjoyed theirs as well!

Well she did it...

Sophia finally said "mama". I've been waiting to hear that sweet word for 9.5 months now. It was like music to my ears :)

Of course, she is just babbling at this point. She hasn't associated the word "mama" to me yet, at least I don't think so. She has been saying "dada" for a good month now. But all of a sudden yesterday, just out of the blue she said it. I was so suprised!

It's amazing how one word can absolutely melt your heart...

Snow Day part II

So we had another round of snow Thursday night. We bundled up Friday morning after Sophia's morning nap and played in the snow for a bit. This time, it wasn't as cold and windy as it was Tuesday so we were able to stay outside a little longer. I thought for sure this stuff would be out of here by now, but it still hasn't melted! Plus I heard we will be getting hit again next Wednesday...boo. Hopefully this next storm won't leave me stranded in the house for 4 days again. That was painful to say the least.

Anyway, here our are snowy day pics :)

Maybe there will be a part III soon?

Birthday stuff

So with all the ice and being stuck in the house, I decided to work on some more of Sophia's birthday decorations. I just finished her birthday banner yesterday. It was pretty simple to make. I saw some examples on etsy.com but they were about $15, so I decided to make my own. I bought 2 packs of scrapbook paper from the dollar spot at target, a pack of letters from the dollar store, and used some string/rafia stuff I found at the house.

Total cost for a super cute banner- $3.50

I am going to make Sophia a big cupcake cake for her smash cake at her birthday party. I finally bought the pan and made a pratice cake the other day. I still need to tweak the baking times because the top part of the cupcake finished baking before the bottom half did leaving me with a semi-overdone cake. I think I need to put batter in the bottom part and bake for a few minutes first then add the top half. I forsee a few more cakes being made in my future. I think I'll probably give them away, I don't need all that cake in my house :) Anyway, here was the final result. I'm debating whether or not I should frost the bottom half. The top half was hard enough to do and I think if I do the bottom half it might just look sloppy. Anyone have any tips on how to frost the cake a little better?

I think next on my agenda is photo banner kind if like this but I'll use our theme instead of owls. Maybe I'll start that today since we are stuck inside yet again. ::sigh:: I'm ready for this ice to melt so we can get out!! Hopefully soon!