Sophia's Silly Side

Our Little Love-Bug

Monday of Spring Break we were up before the sun...and on the road before the sun...heading down to Sacramento for Sophia's ear-tube surgery. (Long version will be posted later) Everything went PERFECT and now we have been experiencing a whole new girl. A MUCH happier girl at that! :) So here are some pics that capture just how sweet & silly our little girlie is these days!

One Saturday morning Sophia and I had gotten up early and had breakfast together. (as we usually do together, as Saturday's are Matthew's sleep-in day, Sunday mine). We were playing up front and she was being her usual silly, playful self. I took her into her room to get dressed, only to hear Matthew waking up. Upon walking into our room, SOphia went right for our mirrored closet door. She stood there and made the "kissy face!" I was cracking up! Where in the world did she come up with this? So I grabbed the camera and told her to make a kiss again, and here's what we got! Smooches!



Her hair is growing at a rapid rate! Thank goodness because I was a little worried it might never grow at all, and we'd end up with a baby mullet! But I picked her up from daycare the week before spring break and our little cutie had these, not one, but two! Pigtails!




Excuse my morning look! Sophia woke up just as I was getting home from the gym this morning, so we had some early (5:30am) cuddles and watched some Handy Manny. Her favorite show! (And yes....she is drinking milk here! FINALLY!!!! We thought that day might never come!)




All dressed up! We went shopping a few weeks ago, and at the request of Daddy, Sophia got a few new summer dresses. This particular morning she even asked to wear the cute hair flower I made her!



And her newest trick: Undressing herself at nap time! :) Although we've avoided the diaper disappearance (knock on wood!) it was still a shock to find her naked when we went in to get her that afternoon! Don't mind the nervous look, we were laughing hysterically, and I'm sure she was wondering why we were laughing at her!

***Updates from Spring Break will be here shortly...or rather, in a while...we had so much happen around the house (the yard, really) that it will take a while for us to post...but we will***

And we might be kinda biased, but you know some of these pictures are just too cute NOT to comment on! :) Don't be strangers out there!

Spring is Here (part 2)

Here are some pictures of our little Sophia Girl. The little munchkin was too interested in that bunny to smile for any of the pictures! Figures...But we just LOVE how they do capture her interest in all things new. If only there was some way to freeze the curiosity of a child...it's amazing to watch! Enjoy!

Spring is here

Not only are our allergies letting us know, but the jungle formerly known as our backyard is screaming at us as well...

Oh home ownership...It's a love/hate relationship. The upside is that our monthly payment is going to something that is ours. Something that is (hopefully) going to turn around and gain equity. Something that we can make our own. The downside is the yard work. When we were house shopping, having a big yard was something that was important to us. Okay, maybe more important to me because yard work has never been something I loathed. Until it became a priority. So, we got a house we loved, with a backyard that would take more time than we could EVER imagine.

Let's premise this. We've lived in our house for over two years and the yard is no where near where we envisioned it. Partly because EVERY year we put the yard project on hold while we waited out the dreadful layoffs. And when the school district finally announced that the jobs were safe, mid-July, it was boiling hot outside, and there was NO WAY we could have made new plants survive, much less ourselves. So, yard work has been put on the back burner. Until this year! YAY! The visions that we had in the beginning are finally starting to take shape.

So, below you will find some pics of our progress, but you won't fully be able to appreciate them without seeing what our yard looked like on day 1. So here's a little preview of the old yard:

Garden Beds

What seemed like a fantastic find upon our house hunting days, turned out to be a mess. One season of enjoying the tomatoes, squash, peppers & strawberries left behind by the previous owners turned out to be a big project for us. The garden beds that housed these delicious crops were quite literally being held together by the dirt in them. So we crumpled them up, and began the deconstruction of what is known as the "back-back yard" around here!

The Pond

I admit this is one major feature of the back yard that I reaped the most benefits from. But, Matthew will not be sorry to see it go. What looks like a beautiful, well cared for pond ended up being a major inconvenience, and now with our little munchkin running around, a major safety hazard. Between several broken pumps, a weekend up to my thighs in icy cold water scooping scum out of the water, dead koi in the pump, hundreds of frogs/toads in the yard, and often in the house, and now the fear of Sophia falling in, we've decided this beauty is a gonner.

The Shed
It's huge! It holds everything we need for the backyard. The patio table & chairs fit in it for the winter. AND it's infested with rats. SERIOUSLY. This winter wrecked major havoc on the shed as rodents took over. :( So you can imagine the joy Matthew felt as he opened the shed doors this spring to find it a total disaster. Don't worry, we disinfected every inch of the patio furniture, and we're proud to say...the shed is already gone! (Destruction pictures below!)

One of the many "entrances"
No joke, this is a wooden shed on dirt...no cement foundation. What were these people thinking?

And Some Progress...

This is the Back-Back Yard now. No more garden beds. (And although that looks like grass, I assure you it's not. The weeds were as tall as Sophia, if not taller.)

The Tall Weeds

Draining the Pond
Not to worry about the fish...We rescued (most) of them and took them to the river. No lie. I didn't have the heart to flush them. And Sophia LOVED them! So funny!



Sophia admiring the goldfish



Our Blue-Eyed Cutie helping out too!

She LOVES being outside, and even tells me on the way home from daycare "ouuuusiiiide"
So stinking cute!



Matthew and Whit starting the shed destruction

And in case you're wondering if I do any of the work here...I do, and here's some proof of my work...(I'm just usually the one behind the camera!)

The front is all ready for 'tilling, fixing a few minor sprinkler issues and planting! I thought that day might never get here, but it's close!

So, as you can imagine, if we do not already have plans set in stone we've dedicated the next 2,000 weekends to finishing the yard. Family and friends, we know you'll wait for us to be social again. Someday! :)