35 Months

Next month Sophie is going to be 3 years old! Whoa!

- Potty training is still going very slowly. Each morning I will have her pee on the potty before I change her diaper. She will pee, dump the bowl from her potty into the toilet, flush, and throw her diaper into the Diaper Genie. She does the same thing at night (one night she even pooped on the potty, much to both her and my surprise). It is hit or miss during the day though. Sometimes I will ask her to use the potty and she will, while other times she flat out refuses. Some days I think I should just let her run through the house naked, letting her have a few accidents so she learns. I don't know. Even though I really want her to be potty trained, I'm not going to push her that hard. I have learned that Sophie will do things on her own timeline, not anyone else's.
- My girl is still a great helper. Most days she will happily grab things for me or throw things away. It is so nice to have an extra set of hands around while Joe is at work!
- Sophie has been going to dance classes this month. Since she is still young (and not potty trained), she is going to a class called Tiny Tunes. It is a 30 minute class that I attend with her. We do a lot of different songs and activities. Sophie's favorite things are playing with the parachute, singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and being a butterfly with the scarves. She gets so excited about 'dance school' and has us practice things she learned from there often.
- Sophie still likes to throw temper tantrums and press her luck from time to time. Time out has been a pretty effective way of discipline. She hates being there (on the stairs) and will stop throwing a fit after a minute or two. Of course some days miss sassy pants will say to me, "Mommy you make me so mad. You go to time out!" Uhhhh...no. (There are some days I do tell her that sometimes she makes me mad when she doesn't listen. She usually responds with, "You make me mad sometimes, too, Mommy." Touché.)
- I'm pretty sure that Sophie is a walking bruise. She is constantly bumping into things, falling, and randomly hurting herself. The worst injury had to be the busted lip from earlier this month. Hopefully that will be the last big injury of her 2nd year of life. *crosses fingers*

Sophie was so excited to get her face painted at our church's festival. 

When Josie takes her morning nap, Sophie and I like to go out on the front porch and play. Besides blowing bubbles, Sophie loves playing with these plastic shapes. She likes to organize them, both by shape and by color. 

Sophie with two of her three favorite men - Daddy and Pawpaw Bill (or Beeeehhhlll, as she pronounces it.)

My sweet girl.

Temporary tattoos are one of Sophie's favorite things. She likes when Joe puts on matching ones. 

Sophie loves coloring, painting, and doing other artsy things. We've been using her paintings as cards for birthdays and other occasions. She gets pretty proud when she gives them to people. 

Daddy's girl

On the way home one day it started pouring rain. Since there was no thunder or lightening I decided to introduce Sophie to the joys of dancing in the rain. She was a big fan!

I still find Sophie sleeping in random places at night. Interesting fact - when she sleeps on the floor or in her tent she wakes up happy. When she sleeps in her bed she wakes up crying. 

One day Sophie asked to nap in Josie's bed. I let her and she slept for over 2 hours! 

Yeah...Sophie enjoys getting in the Jumperoo from time to time. She can even climb in on her own! (Getting out on her own is a different story...)

We love our hair bows from Dandelion Loveys. 

The girls helped to make their 4th of July shirts (an idea from Pinterest). 

Sophie loves 'taking care' of her baby dolls. Anything that we do with Josie, Sophie likes to do with her dolls. They get fed bottles, burped, mouths wiped, put in the swing, play in the jumperoo, and put to sleep. Often I will go to put Josie in some baby thing and find a baby doll there. 

Puddle jumpers!

Josie loves to grab at Sophie. I often hear Sophie saying, "Josie, don't get me. That not nice!" (Usually she giggles while saying this. She loves the attention from Josie.)

My friend, Becki, bought Sophie this old dance costume. She immediately wanted to put it on and refused to take it off. She loves it!

We all cracked up at how Sophie was posing in this picture. She looks like a little southern belle!

Usually Sophie wants her hair wild and free. Some days she lets me put her hair in a full ponytail. Other days I can manage a half pony or even pigtails, which she takes out after a few hours.

Sophie is getting a lot braver in the water thanks to this swim vest. She will even jump into my arms from the side of the pool (sometimes without warning - eek!). She does pretty well in the water unless her face gets wet or she accidentally swallows water. Then she is scared for a few days. 

Sophie likes to 'read' to Josie.

Kaci was able to get Sophie to swim a little on her own. She would paddle over to the stairs or to Kaci.  

Sophie had a wonderful play date with our friends. Hammering toys out of ice, playing in the pool and sandbox were a lot of fun!

She also had her first ice cream cone on her play date! In this picture she is realizing that she can poke holes in the cone. 

Yum!

Stealing some of Aunt Sara's ice ball. We had to buy one for Sophie afterwards because she liked Sara's so much.

Sara's boyfriend is home from Africa! Sophie was so excited to see him again. She adores Rodger!

Well, Sophie loves princess things. I have lost the battle. She enjoys walking around the house in her princess shoes with her 'Cinderella' (aka tiara) on her head. It is pretty cute though, so I won't protest anymore.

Enjoying an afternoon at Totter Otterville

Someone had some fun at the face painting station...

Doc McStuffins

 I never thought Sophie looked much like me (even though many people have said this) until I saw this picture. Upon seeing this I thought, "Oh my gosh...she looks just like me when I was a kid! Or just like Debra. She looks like me and Debra. Oh my gosh, Debra and I somewhat look alike."

Sophie and Josie with Grandma and Pawpaw S

Grandma Z and her grand loves

Octagon

Today Sophie had dance class. As I was packing up the diaper bag for Josie (who was going to hang out with Grandma Z while Sophie and I danced) I heard Sophie talking to Josie. I wasn't paying attention that closely, but it sounded like she had one of Josie's toys and was describing it to her.

"What shape is this? A square! What shape is this? A star! What shape is this? An octagon! Good job!"

I chuckled to myself because we often play the 'what shape/color/etc is this' game with Sophie. I didn't think much of it though since I was preoccupied. I figured she was just rambling and calling out random shapes. Later on as the girls nap I was cleaning up and noticed the toy that Sophie was showing to Josie. There was a square, a star, and an...octagon!

I have never really paid much attention to the shapes on this toy so I didn't realize that there was an octagon on there. I assumed the red shape was a circle. (Like I said I never really paid attention to the toy. It is obvious when you look at it that it isn't a circle.) I was so impressed that Sophie was able to identify the shape as an octagon. She knows what square looks like and she knows what a star looks like (among other shapes), but I had no idea that she knew what the other one was. I was sure that someone must have told her what the shapes were. I called around to a couple people to see if they had pointed out to her what the shape was on the toy. No one fessed up to it though. If someone did point it out to her then I owe them a big thank you! If no one told her what it was and she identified it on her own then I have one flippin' smart kid! (Either way I still think she is pretty darn intelligent.)

A Mini Vacation

When found out that I was pregnant with Josie I figured that we wouldn't go on vacation anytime soon. I knew that it would be hard going anywhere with a very young baby, not to mention all of the stuff we would have to bring with us to care for her. Once Joe started his new job taking a family vacation became even less of an option. In a way that was a relief to me since I was pretty much scared to take a vacation with two young kids. I was doing fine with that decision until a couple weeks ago. I really just wanted to get out of town and enjoy my summer break with my girls. My sister and her family were going to Coldwater again this year (we've gone up there with them and my mom the past two years) and she had asked before if we wanted to go. I wanted to but I knew I couldn't make a drive on my own with both kids (Joe would not be available to go due to his new job). My mom wasn't interested at first. On July 4th when we were at my moms house celebrating the holiday, Debra  was talking about them leaving for vacation the next day. I got sad and really longed to go with them. My mom had a change of heart and said that she would go with us for a few days. Whooo hoooo!

Let me just say that riding in the car with two young kids is not fun at all. Josie was good for the most part. She usually falls right asleep as soon as she gets in the car and will stay asleep for a while. Of course our drive was a 4 1/2 to 5 hour ride (with one stop on the way) so she didn't stay asleep the whole time. When she would wake up she would play for little while, babbling happily before getting really cranky. It definitely had me flustered. Sophie had me even more flustered. She took a small nap when we started the ride but when she woke up she did not want to be in the car. She has always been a bad traveler so this didn't surprise me much. Still it is difficult when you have a kid constantly whining and saying that she wants to get out while thrashing around. ACK! I'm sure that my mom wondered why she volunteered to go with us multiple times. When we finally made it to the cottage in Coldwater we were all ready to get out of the car. I'm not sure who was more excited.

The cottage where we stayed. 

We basically only stayed for two days. We arrived Sunday evening, stayed all day Monday, and left on Tuesday afternoon. That is a pretty short amount of time for that long of a drive. The weather was pretty gross mess the time that we were there. There were rainstorms on the way to and from the lake and it was overcast most of the time that we were there. The mosquitoes were awful, too! It was all worth it though to see Sophie having such a great time with her cousin and for us all to be together as a family. I especially loved being able to share Coldwater Lake with Josie (Sophie has been the past two years). It was always my favorite place when I was little and for both my girls to be able to experience it means the world to me. Monday night as I was putting Sophie to sleep I told her that I love her. She replied, "Thank you for taking me on cation." My heart melted. 

Josie's first time in the lake.

Not so sure about this whole lake business...

Sophie's first steps in the lake this year. 

Breakfast outside by the lake!

Entertaining themselves on iPads - my how the times have changed!

Getting brave!

King Queen of the Mountain

Taking a short walk in the front carrier.

Best friends

Sophie was going crazy over the chicken noodle soup at Clay's!

Sophie vs Bench

The bench won...

My poor girl tried climbing up on a bench and Grandma and Grandpa S's house and slipped, busting her lip open! I wasn't there, but Joe said that it bled a ton. She cried when it happened, but hasn't seemed bothered by it since then. The first two days her lip looked rough. The third day her faced looked pretty bruised. The fourth day things were almost back to normal-just a little bruising and the lip was mostly healed.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

 Day 4