Sophie Meets Santa

We recently had our ward Christmas party, which we attended despite the 6 inches of fresh snow and bald tires on our car. We made it to the party okay, but not without some anxiety (mostly on my part) We slid around a bit, and hit a few curbs, but we made it. Once there, we were able to relax and eat some delicious food, visit with friends, and Sophie met Santa for the first time. She was surprisingly calm through the whole thing. I expected some tears since she has been going through a little separation anxiety lately. She must somehow have known that this man is connected with fun toys! It was hilarious to watch her examine him. She just stared at him for the longest time! I'm guessing next year will probably not go as smoothly.

Getting home after the party was a bit more challenging. We were unable to make it up any sort of a slope, since our tires were so bad. Not good, considering our house is surrounded by hills. Matt's brother eventually came to our rescue and towed us back home. After replacing the tires, we are now ready to travel in the snow, although I think I will still avoid it!

Nobody looks happy here

Happy Birthday, Matty!

We recently celebrated Matt's 29th birthday. It was pretty low-key since Sophie was sick with her first cold, plus Matt prefers a small celebration anyway. Next year, though, we will definitely go all-out for the big 30! We had the usual cake and ice cream and opened presents. We got to celebrate a little more over the weekend with a short trip to Park City. It was fun to relax, shop, and eat out during such a beautiful weekend!

So let me just tell you a little about this birthday boy! He is one of the most easy-going, likeable, fun, hard-working persons I have ever met. Anyone who knows him might agree. Often Matt is the life of the party, and some of his close friends may know what I'm talking about. I'll never forget this one night in Provo while we were dating. We were hanging out in his apartment, a frequent occurance in those days, and I can't remember what prompted it, but Matt came out of his room in a wife-beater tank top, surfer-looking, nappy, blonde wig, and electric guitar. He proceeded to rock out on his guitar and even slid down the hallway on his knees (he got a pretty nasty rug burn from it, but all totally worth it!) It was so hillarious, and I'm thinking I might have to ask him to bust that move out again sometime.

Matt is also very talented, and I'm still surprised with what he can do. It seems like anything he atempts, he excels at. He loves wakeboarding, skiing, crocheting (a hidden gem of a talent), playing Settlers and Acquire, surfing, playing pool, basketball, golf, soccer, building web sites, playing the piano, (he can even play the organ!), and I'm sure I'm still forgetting some. A little story about Matt's talents: Once while we were dating, I wanted to learn something Matt didn't know how to do. I bought a harmonica, a "learn how to play harmonica book" and learned how to play a couple easy songs. I thought at the right opportunity I would showcase my hidden talent to Matt and impress him. I did so, only to find that he knows how to play the harmonica! He continues to impress and amaze me!

I'm still not sure how I got Matt to marry me, but I'm glad he did! It's been an awesome 6 1/2 years together! I love you! Happy Birthday, Matty!!

The birthday boy!

Celebrating in Park City

Pebble Beach

Playing Acquire in Carmel

Swamp Thing!

Happy Halloween!

I'm not sure if this qualifies as child abuse or not, but I felt pretty guilty about putting Sophie in her Halloween costume. Although she looked adorable in it, she certainly was not comfortable. She ended up resembling the little boy in "A Christmas Story." (You know the one I mean!) Most of the time the peas were totally in her face and she made the best of the situation by sucking on them. It was pretty gross by the end of the night. We were unable to take her trick-or-treating around the neighborhood as we had planned, since Matt didn't get home from work until about 7:30. We did have time for a quick stop to grandma's house for a little treat bag and a visit with the cousins before we had to get Sophie to bed. She was such a trooper, and stayed really content most of the night!

Turning over a new leaf!

Okay, so the day after we had Sophie, Matt got super motivated and created this blog. He was so excited about it, and it was cute to watch him as he posted something nearly every day and even blogged about the diaper genie! I loved that he was so into it and enjoyed reading his posts. As you can see, the motivation has been lost somewhere along the way, and we have not updated it in MONTHS!! I have decided to take over and hopefully will be able to keep up with it.

So much has changed with our little Sophie in the past couple of months. Next week she will be five months old (seriously where does the time go!) and is now able to roll over, eat sold foods (so far she has only had rice cereal and sweet potatoes) and grabs ANYTHING within her each. I am accepting the life of wearing minimal jewelry, and feel I should consider cutting my hair shorter since she is constantly grabbing at it. :) She is so much fun and our new favorite thing to do is make her giggle. It is honestly the best sound ever and hopefully we will be able to capture her laughing on the video camera. We have not had much luck so far...as soon as she sees any kind of camera, all the magic is lost. She stops doing whatever she was doing and stares at the camera. We love this little baby so much and feel blessed to have her in our lives!

Sophie LOVES to eat! This was her first taste of rice cereal

In Park City celebrating our 5 year anniversary

We have so few pictures of us all together. One day we will get a good one.

Hanging out with the Blakes

The Student Surpasses the Teacher

We were so overjoyed to receive so many great gifts for Sophie from friends and families, but this one took the cake. A friend of mine from college by the name of Amanda Perron crocheted this cute little Puritan-style cap for Sophie!

The story is, I started crocheted just before my freshman year of college. I had broken my leg, so I got my Grammie to teach me to crochet since I didn't have anything better to do. I got pretty good, but always kept it a secret from my college roommates. Then, I decided to "come out of the closet" and they were so open to it. I even got one of my roommates hooked (no pun intended). Amanda was another friend that joined our little crochet club and I taught her everything I knew. She has now surpassed my abilities and has a legitimate and enviable skill. It was so thoughtful of her to put all the time and thought into making this cap and booties. Also, be sure to check out the latest photo album here.>

SOME PHOTOS FROM SOPHIE'S BLESSING
(JULY 1, 2007)

Clearly not one of her finer moments, but she still looked beautiful!

Sophie ended up pooping all the way through the beautiful dress my mom made. We tried to get a couple of pictures before we had to change her.

My sisters came all the way to California for the event

HANGING IN SAN FRANCISCO

Half Moon Bay...It was FREEZING!

What a view!

We waited an HOUR to ride this trolley

Sophie and grandma

So Far So Good...

We had another great week. We didn't mention that Sophie went in for her two-week appointment and weighed 9 lbs. 14 oz. and grew an inch. This is good considering that babies typically lose about a pound after birth, so she essentially lost a pound but gained two back. Now, she is probably well over 10 lbs. and I start to feel that when I carry her in the car seat. I am going to have a massive shoulder muscle from carrying that thing. I can't figure out why they don't invent something better to carry her, maybe some sort of strap that hooks onto the car seat that you sling over your shoulder.

Speaking of inventions, we were watching "American Inventor" this week, and I saw that a guy stole my idea! It was the baby bidet! I was surprised that they didn't give the idea much air-time. The judges and/or producers of the show must not have changed many diapers, so they don't have an appreciation for the baby bidet.

We took Sophie to church today, which was great. We saw a lot of friends and felt really good after, and Sophie behaved quite well(mostly slept the whole time). Life is great!

The Honeymoon is Over!!!

We have been spoiled! We had Lisa's parents in town for the first week, and my parents for most of the second week. This week, we will brave it all alone. Hopefully we can make it! We were trained well for parenthood (plenty of friends and family who have kids, Kaiser classes, and parents there in the first couple weeks). There is no way we can fail now!

It was a lot of fun having our folks here. I got a chance to golf once with my Rubert, my father-in-law, and twice with my dad. We also got the crib put together, did some shopping here and there, and just had a nice relaxing time. It was also a great opportunity to be with my folks before they head out on their 1.5-year mission to Brazil next month. It is strange that next time we will see them in person, Sophie will be a year and a half. We plan to make use of modern technology so we can talk, email pictures of Sophie, and maybe even get webcams set up so we can chat through Skype, but we'll see if my parents actually are able to do that. At any rate, we'll find some way to keep them in the loop about her development.

Gramsie and GrandBob

They both sleep much prettier than I do...I usually have a little drool coming out of my mouth

This baby does not like to be swaddled...she prefers her arms free!

Bath Time!

We finally did get around to giving Sophie a bath this week. She didn't like it too much. She does like the warm water, but not the cold air around her.

We have this little foam pad that has contours to her body. It is really nice because it keeps her in place, and she is slippery when wet!

We still have to be careful about her umbilical cord. We just use a rag to sponge bath her, but in a couple weeks, when the umbilical cord falls off, we will be able to submerse her. The umbilical cord is pretty weird. When she was born, it was really long and looked like twisted surgical tube (the stuff water balloon launchers are made out of). Now, it just looks like some dead skin though.

One of our first family photos

Nothing like a sleeping baby!

We were lucky to have grandma and grandpa with us during our first week as parents

What an Invention!

Have any of you seen the Diaper Genie? It is a great invention! Why didn't I think of it? It is basically a covered garbage can for diapers (to keep the smell down), but it also has an innovative way of packaging the diapers. It is just a long tube of plastic. When you put another diaper in, you rotate it so it twists the bag and seals off the offending diaper. It is nice because the plastic is also scented so it keeps the odor down quite a bit. Sophie's poopies aren't very stinky right now, but I have already gained an appreciation for the Diaper Genie, and I am sure I will even more in six months when she starts eating solids and the poop gets really interesting.

I actually picked this one up for free through http://www.freecycle.org/. Lisa is always opposed to my scavenging ways, but successes like this add ammo to my cause. It is basically a Yahoo Group where you get emails of people in your area that are giving things away for free. You just go pick it up at their house. It is great!

Aunt Tesha came to visit all the way from Hawaii

Sophie loved the sling, but quickly outgrew it!

I didn't think Sophie ever really looked like a newborn. She is only 10 days old here, but looks like she is at least a month or two.

Looking a little mischevious!

Second Night Home Waaaay Better!

Okay, now we are figuring things out. With the help of Gloria and Rubert, we kept Sophie up late last night. First, we took her out for her first outing to Target to get the glider chair and ottoman, which will come in handy at night. We weren't able to find the crib, but we don't need that for a while. She just sleeps in a bassonet, which she is still adjusting to since it is open and doesn't really feel like the womb. She did poo all over it too, so maybe that was a message.

Anyway, we kept her up at night, not letting her sleep, and it paid off. She slept for about 6 hours only getting up to nurse. It was a great night compared with the night before. We are pretty stoked! It is amazing what gets us excited now!

My babies!

She loves those hands

Reality Hits!

Lisa's parents made the 12-hour drive from Utah to come help take care of Sophie. It was a good thing they drove because they were able to bring a bunch of the gifts we couldn't bring back from the baby showers in Utah.

We had our first night alone with Sophie on Sunday night. She slept all day on Sunday, so she was up all night! She is a night owl! We are going to have to change this party girl's sleep patterns because it is killing us! We went to bed around 11 PM, and got up around 10 AM, but we probably only slept 3-4 hours each in that entire span. Our bodies really need to adjust to getting 1-2 hours at a time! We didn't appreciate the hospital nursery as much as we should have!

Anyway, it was a reality check of how things are going to be for the next little while, and also how we need to have a little more discipline in keeping her awake in the day, especially in the evening, so she will sleep through the night. You live and learn!

Sophie has always loved sucking on her hands. Right after her birth, she began sucking on her thumb wich wasn't too hard to find since she has HUGE paws.