Happy Birthday Sophie

Friday night we had friends over to celebrate Sophie's Birthday. Nana was also here this week to celebrate Sophie's birthday. Sophie loved digging into her cake and opening her presents. Thank you for all of the wonderful gifts.
Sophie started to say "kie ca" a.k.a. "Kitty Cat."

Last week, we got a new bird feeder that attaches to the kitchen window. This picture is of Lillie in her butterfly headband, watching the bird eat from the new bird feeder.

Bedtime

Sophie LOVES her bedtime routine in Lillie's bed. She crawls to Lillie's bed for bedtime prayers and songs. This week, Brian is out of town for training and he called last night to do bedtime prayers and songs. We did this routine in the living room, but Sophie squealed and kicked when I took her to her room and skipped Lillie's bed. I took Sophie back to Lillie's bed to give Lillie a hug and then she was ok with going to her own bed.

Tonight, Sophie was playing at her activity table and Lillie came over and changed the music, by turning a page of the book. Sophie let out a squeal and flipped it back to the original position. It was like she said "I want it here." Sophie has no problem in telling us or her sister that she isn't happy with something.

On Monday, we had a great appointment with the ENT. Sophie is scheduled for ear tubes next month. The PA said that a lot of babies with acid reflux can have problems with their ears, because the acid reflux can affect their eustation tubes.

Baby Gate?

Yesterday, I caught Sophie crawling through the cat door on the baby gate. Luckily, she stopped, because she was unable to figure out how to get her knees over the bottom bar. Mitties does not know how to open the little door, but maybe Sophie will show her how.

She is really starting to explore new toys and objects and I can't believe that she will be a year old in two weeks. January went by fast because she had two ear infections, which kept us up several nights. She has had four ear infections since October and she has an ENT appointment on Monday. I really hope that he agrees to put tubes in her ears, because she has been a a happier baby this past week.

Sophie loves to take baths. When she wants to take a bath, she will crawl into the bathroom and look into the bathtub. She also loves to splash so much that it looks like I washed her hair in this photo, but I didn't that night.

Lillie learned how to zip her coat a couple of weeks ago and she can count to 60 with little help. Today, I started writing a "word of the week" on her bathroom mirror. She is eager to learn new things. Last week, Brian taught her our phone number. She has a Valentine's Day party at School next week and she is excited to write out the names of her classmates on the valentines. Well, it is time to go pick her up from school.

Fishies

Sophie has been exploring the house and one of her favorite places to crawl to, is the fish tank. She loves to watch the fish. She pulls herself up to her knees at least once a day to look in the fish tank.

Chips are yummy!

Sophie has been crawling for 3 weeks and she is starting to really explore. This week, Sophie crawled over to the couch, because Brian and Lillie were eating chips and she wanted see what they were doing. Like a true "Marsh," she loved her first chip. Tonight, Sophie quit nursing when she heard the rustling of the chip bag and went to go eat a chip.

One night, when Lillie crawled into bed, Sophie cried out a "eh" and started to crawl over to Lillie's bed. When she got to Lillie's bed, she looked up and said "eh" again. As if she said, "I want up." I picked her up and laid her down next to Lillie. Sophie had a huge smile on her face, because she wanted to lay in bed with Lillie for prayers and songs.

Two weeks ago, Sophie started to say "Ma, Ma." Last week, she started to say, "Da, Da." When ever we would try to have her repeat "Ma, Ma" or "Da, Da" Lillie would chime "Lil, Lil."

Lillie continues to make us laugh. 3 weeks ago, Brian and I were snoozing in bed when we heard her yell "It's Daddy's Birthday!" at 7:30 in the morning. We couldn't help but laugh and it was a great way to wake up.

Lillie is also doing great in school and learning things that I never thought a Preschooler would learn. She is starting to recognize words that rhyme. I knew that her Preschool teacher, Mrs. Hoard, was teaching the kids to rhyme, but then Lillie really surprised us two weeks ago with recognizing syllables. We were driving home from the grocery store, when Lillie started to clap the rythem to "Mommy, Daddy, Lillie." I asked her is she was doing a cheer, because they have "cheerleaders" at dance class. She said "no, I am clapping to the beat of the words." I proceeded to give her more words to "find the beat." She clapped the syllables for "refrigerator, house, garbage truck, basketball, mailbox, yogurt" and other words as we traveled home and put the groceries away. When I dropped Lillie off at school the next week, I told Mrs. Hoard "thank you."

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from the Marsh's. Christmas also marked Sophie's 10 month birthday. Sophie started crawling on Christmas. It was hard to take a picture of them by the tree, because Sophie kept wanting to move. A few weeks ago, Sophie started to sign "all done" and last week she started to sign "milk".
Lillie is also starting to learn a new language. She loves Dora the Explorer and she tries to tell us Spanish words. Instead of "Feliz Navidad" she would say "Feliz Naughtydad".
We had a great Christmas. The girls love all of the presents that they received from Santa and our family. Thank you to everyone.

Christmas Photo

Last week, I took a picture of the girls in their Christmas dresses for the Christmas card. It took several attempts to get this great photo. Lillie and I were singing the theme song to Dora the Explorer when I snapped this photo. Unfortunately, Sophie's skin broke out in a rash and she will be wearing a different dress on Friday.