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.

Teething biscuits for 7 teeth

Today, Sophie tried a teething biscuit tonight for the first time. She ate more of it than Lillie did at her age. But Lillie only had 4 teeth and Sophie has 7. She bit a piece of the cracker off and I held it out towards her, She took the piece in her hand and tapped it on the piece that I was holding. She did this several times knowing that the two pieces went together.

Sophie had her 9 month check up last week. She is almost 28" (2" more than Lillie at 9 months) and 17lbs, 5oz (and 1.5lbs more than Lillie at 9 months). Yesterday, Sophie pulled herself up to play at her activity table.

Hey Santa

Tuesday, I worked at Lillie's school and they had a Jack and Jill family tell the class about Hanukah. We also learned how to play dreidel. That evening we finished our Christmas shopping and visited Santa at the mall. When we told Lillie that we were going to see Santa, she asked "Is Rudolph going to be there?" I told her that the reindeer were at the north pole. Sophie did not cry or smile when she sat on Santa's lap.
One of my favorite memories of this Christmas season will be: When we got to the mall, Lillie stopped as she was getting out of the car, because she heard the Salvation Army bell ringers and thought that it was Santa's sleigh.



Sophie is starting to make new noises and she is starting to squeal really loud. She loves to dance while standing at her activity table or even when she is sitting down. This past week, she developed another ear infection. (Edited 12/10: I forgot to add Sophie's new accomplishment yesterday. While I was writing this blog entry yesterday morning I heard music. We don't have a church nearby and Lillie was in the bathroom. I then realized that it was the musical toy on the side of Sophie's crib. Sophie had learned how to maneuver herself over to the toy and kick her leg to hit the button with her foot. At 6:30 this morning she was fussing a little bit and I was hoping that she would put herself back to sleep and not need me to feed her. But she had maneuvered herself over to the side of the crib with the toy and began playing the music. Brian called it "the mommy call button.")

Lillie is starting to recognize words. The other day she saw the word "money" on a store wall. Lillie asked if it said "monkey." I told her that is said "money" and she will remember the next time we shop at that store. This week, we were doing workbook pages and she recognized the words "Yellow, Orange, and Green." Her Preschool teacher does a "word of the day" exercise everyday that she is in class. Another Christmas Memory: On Monday, we started putting ornaments on the tree. I unwrapped an ornament with different colored mirrors on it and handed to Lillie to put on the tree. When she saw the ornament she said, "Whoa, that is a pretty ornament."

We are getting use to the Michigan snow. It has snowed or flurried almost everyday since we have been back from Nebraska. If it snows an inch or two, they do not plow or put down sand/salt. In Nebraska or Pennsylvania they would have put down lots of gravel and salt. There was a lake effect snow storm that hit Michigan this past week. We are an hour from the lake shore. We got 1" of snow, but the lake shore area got 11-18".

Happy Halloween

We have not updated the blog in a while, because we have been trying to get over a cold. Sophie's cold turned into a double ear infection and bad diaper rash. In addition, she had her 2 top front teeth come in within 2 days of each other. She is working on the 3rd top tooth now, so we have been missing out on a lot of sleep.

Last night, we took Lillie trick-or-treating around our neighborhood and Sophie went along for a buggy ride. There were a lot of kids trick-or-treating and it was great to see all of our neighbors.
The best part of trick-or-treating is eating the candy and tonight, Brian had to show Lillie how to eat pixy sticks.

Sophie's 8th month photo:

And finally we leave you with a Lillie saying. Saturday, we watched the Husker football game on TV. When Lillie saw the football players in their uniforms, she exclaimed, "Hey look, they are wearing capris."

Blueberries, dinglehoppers, and firetrucks

We have been busy the past few weeks, so we have a lot to update you on.
This morning, We went to the Library this morning for Fire Safety week. The Morning 4 year old class from Jack and Jill Preschool was also there. Lillie is in the front row in the overalls and heart jacket. Camille, the Little blonde girl next to Lillie is one of her friends. Camille's Brother, Gavin, is in Lillie's preschool class.
Sophie's 2nd tooth came in about 3 weeks ago. She has been scooting backwards a lot and last night, she pushed herself up onto her hands and knees. Two weeks ago, she decided that she hates baby cereal and baby food. She refuses to open her mouth when we try to feed her. She usually laughs with her mouth open, but when she is at the table and laughing she keeps her mouth shut tight while she laughs. She also learned how to play with the food by blowing raspberries. The other night at the dinner table she was blowing raspberries and I said "are you going to blow raspberries?" Lillie chimed in, "I am going to blow blueberries."

Lillie's favorite movie to watch in the car is "The Little Mermaid." There is a scene in the movie where the silly seagull, skuttle, tells the little mermaid, Ariel, that a fork is a "dinglehopper" and humans use it to comb their hair. Two weeks ago, Lillie was sitting at the kitchen counter eating lunch. I looked over and she was using the fork to comb her hair. I told her, " don't comb your hair with the fork." She responded, "It is not a fork, it is a dinglehopper."

Lillie can also count backwards from 10 to 1. At the end of each preschool class, the kids go outside to play and as the moms were watching them play last week, Lillie's Preschool Teacher, Mrs. Hagen approched me. She said, "During circle time today Lillie was able to recognize all of her classmate's names." When she said "During circle time today," I must have had that 'oh great, what did my child do today' look on my face, because I couldn't imagine what Lillie could have done to have the teacher approach me. Lillie also is great at recognizing store logos, "kalamazoo" signs and police cars. The Police car recognition is great when you are suppose to be driving 25 mph on the main street in town.

And finally, Brian would like to thank "Preschool." Two weeks ago, Lillie came down with a cold, followed by Sophie, myself and finally Brian. When I told Brian that Lillie probably brought the cold home from preschool, he said, "thank you Preschool."

Sophie's 7 month Birthday, Zoo and Pumpkin Patch

Today, is Sophie's 7 month birthday. She now has her 2nd tooth. Her favorite thing is to play with the tags on stuffed animals and blankets. When I took her picture this month, she wouldn't leave the lamb alone. She kept grabbing for it.
Yesterday, we met Brian at the zoo after work. This is the last week of the season that the zoo will be open. The Giraffes were not on display, because they lost power earlier in the day and couldn't run the register at the Giraffe lookout. The zoo sells lettuce leaves to feed the Giraffes. We did see the Swans for the first time yesterday. This one wanted us to feed it. Lillie may look tiny in this picture, because the swans were big. There are a lot of swans and cranes in the area that we live in. There are at least 4 pairs of swans, that we are aware of, on the local ponds and lakes that we drive past. Unlike geese, Swans live in pairs and not flocks. There is only one pair of swans per body of water.

Today, we went to Gull Meadow Farms. They are a greenhouse, orchard and pumpkin patch. They had hayrack rides out to the pumpkin patch and orchards. We did not pick apples today, since it was a little cool. They also had a play area for kids, with a bouncy area, hay mazes, tunnel slide, tractor/train rides and a zip line. Inside, there was a wide selection of canned items from michigan farms.

Lillie's First Day of Preschool

Lillie had her first day of Preschool today. At 10am, Lillie asked "Can you tell me when it is time to go to school?" I said, "yes, after lunch." Lillie responded, "I am hungry for lunch now."
It was "meet the teacher day" and Beth stayed with her, even though she wanted to stay by herself. Lillie's teacher is Mrs. Louden (in the picture above with Lillie). We had circle time, with poems and songs. Choice time with the art room, the dress up/house room and the game room. In the picture below Lillie is playing in the sand with 4 of her classmates.