Our Sophstar is 3!!

Sophie Jo turned 3 years old yesterday!  (I have a 3-year old--crazy!)  The partying started on Thursday and lasted all weekend long, just as birthdays should. :)

Sophie requested a My Little Pony theme for her party.  I decided to try my hand at my first tiered cake and thought the 2-layered pony cake turned out alright.

It definitely wasn't perfect, but Sophie liked it, and that's all that mattered.

Sophie has a "twin" named Kate and her mom Shannon and I decided to do a joint party for them with their friends.  We had about 15 kids and their mommas come and had a great time.  We started it off with a game like musical chairs called "Pass the Pony".  Sophie didn't want to get out when it was her turn to.  "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to" went through my head more than once during the party, but all in all she was a good sport and had a lot of fun.

These are some of the friends who came to celebrate with us.

Sophie and Kate got to wear these cute crowns that Shannon made them to blow out their candles.  Then we dove in and ate up that bottom layer pretty quickly.  I kept the top layer for her to have to blow out candles on her actual birthday.

Sophie dreamed and talked about breaking open this pinata for the entire week leading up to the party.  She gave it several good whacks but it didn't budge.  In the end, nobody was able to bust it open and we had to pull the strings on the bottom.  They sure make them impenetrable these days.

Avery spent the majority of the party wandering around with the helium balloons trailing behind her.  She's such a sweet, funny little girl!

Sophie was given so many ponies for her birthday!  She definitely has a plethora of them now.  This largest one was from her Gramma Jensen.  Thanks, Bob!

Here are my girls in their matching outfits.  Avery's pants look like bell-bottoms and we call her our Flower Child when she wears them.

Our gift to Sophie was this Disney Princess kitchen.  She and Avery both have loved playing with it and have used the fake food that she also got for her birthday to make me and Joseph meal after dessert after meal to eat.

Sophie loves her daddy and she loves apples.  So you can see why this is one contented girl right here.

I just think this is such a cute picture.

We sang once again to Sophie for her family party and she thought long and hard about a wish before blowing out her 3 candles.  It was very cute.

We sure love this Sophie Girl!  She brings our family so much laughter and joy and we're so glad she made us parents 3 years ago!  Happy Birthday, Sophstar!

L.A. County Fair

We checked out the LA County Fair tonight and had so much fun.  Joseph got free tickets from BofA which made it even more fun!

We drove our wagon on down to Pomona, which after arriving we realized was a big mistake since it would have only taken 15 minutes to get there by car!   Our horses weren't the fastest....

We weren't prepared for the craziness that is Fair Food and about died when we saw this: Chocolate covered bacon.  CHOCOLATE COVERED BACON!  Who in their right mind would eat that?  Okay, so it probably isn't half bad, but if it tastes anything like the last snack I got then I bet it's as gross as it sounds.  They had another booth selling anything and everything DEEP FRIED.  I got sucked into trying a deep fried twinkie.  As if a twinkie needed any more help being totally unhealthy and disgusting.  They also offered deep fried s'mores, avocados, zucchini, and probably anything else just sitting around.  Gross!  But now I can say I have had a deep fried twinkie.  (Mrs. Rother would tell me it'll still be sitting in my stomach 15 years from now!)

We enjoyed some sea life along the way, because after all, this is L.A.

I thought this octopus was pretty adorable.

And this is by far the cutest crab I've ever seen!

I wanted to get this diver's number, but as you can see he was a little preoccupied.

One of the highlights of the fair was the petting zoo.  If you know anything about goats, you know what that entailed.  We were all trying to keep our clothes on us and out of their mouths the entire time.

Avery was super excited about touching all the animals, but she quickly changed her mind.  This picture was taken exactly .2 seconds before the goat bit her.  Poor little Peanut!

She spent the rest of the time safely in my arms and didn't mind when the goats nipped at her toes instead of her hands.

Sophie was getting to know a second cousin here.  (My maiden name is Lamb.)

She realized the safest end of the goat is this one!  They sure are aggressive little beasts!

Avery wasn't sure if another animal would attack her, but thank goodness the sheep there were very docile, and she warmed right up to it.

Here's two cuties resting their feet for a little bit.  Sophie didn't want to budge from this pink massage chair, even though it wasn't even on.

We each got to choose a fair snack and we chose cotton candy for the girls since they'd never had it before.  It was definitely love at first taste.  I don't think they'll ever go back.

Sophie's saying here "Um, WHY have I never had this sugary goodness before?"

Avery got it everywhere, of course, and they both had a ton of fun playing with it as well as eating it.

Overall, we can say we are fans of the L.A. County Fair.  We even saw Bikini Girl there!  (If you didn't watch American Idol last season that will mean nothing to you.)  It really was her, and she barely had any clothes on there, too, sadly.

Family Pictures '09

My friend Tonya once again delighted us with a photo shoot, this time with the entire family.  We had plans to do it at the beach (hence the sandals we all wore that were never meant to be in the pictures!) but it was so dark and overcast that evening that we changed locations to olde towne in the City of Orange.  It was beautiful and so colorful and just right for us.  Despite the quickly fleeting light and wiggly, uncooperative girls, we still managed to get some nice shots.  Rather than narrate them all, I'll just post them here for you to peruse.  The one we'll use for our family picture is towards the middle with the green door behind us.  Thanks again, Tonya, for being an incredible photographer as well as an incredible friend.  Enjoy!

We Heart Sunsets

We headed to Dana Point in Orange County to watch some pirate ships come into the Harbor at the Tall Ships Festival.  We got an eyefull of some very cool ships (who even fired their canons), and the sky graced us with some very beautiful colors, too.

We met Peter and Abby and kids there.  Sophie was so happy to play with her Austin.

Avery kept repeating "wawa, wawa" as she pointed at the ocean and longed to be swimming in it.

And Sophie loved the rocks and sand most, as usual.  Look at those clouds; aren't they gorgeous?  The poor people whose homes are right up on those cliffs must really suffer with a view like this every night.  We were glad to have it for just one evening.

Sophie's Sweet Success

We began potty training Sophie last week, and I really had no idea how it was going to go.  I held off doing it for a long time because I knew that she hadn't really figured out how to feel when she had to go to the bathroom before now and I wanted to wait until she was ready.  But I couldn't have ever guessed how easy it would be and how great she would do!  She was a champ right from the very first day!  She probably had a total of 3 accidents over the next 4 days, but she hasn't had one accident since and is doing so awesome!  I am so proud of her and so relieved (yes, pun intended :D) that we've conquered this!  Okay, that was a lot of exclamation points, but I am such a happy mama right now.  I don't even mind the constant bum-wiping and hand-washing that accompanies this, because I'll take that any day over diaper changes (and paying for all those diapers).  Sophie is very proud of herself and shouts "wahoo!" every time she successfully goes in the potty...still.  She also shows off her Tinkerbell and Princess underwear to more people than I care to admit.  It's fun to see her so happy about accomplishing this big milestone.  Great job, Sophie Girl!  You did awesome and we love you!

Happy Bloggy Birthday

I just realized that our blog has hit a big milestone.  Not only are we coming up on 3 years of blogging, but I just hit 300 posts.  Even my I-haven't-taken-math-in-forever brain can figure out that that averages to 100 posts a year. :)  Kinda interesting.  I'm currently working on my 2nd blog book and am having fun making those and liking the final result.  This blog has been a great thing for recording our family's story, and I thank you all for coming along on the ride with us.  Here's to 30 more years and 3000 more posts!  (Whoa, that doesn't sound intimidating or anything!)  Happy Birthday, Blog!

A Walking Machine

Avery is a walking machine now and usually doesn't even have to keep her hands raised anymore for balance.  But she still prefers to walk with things in her hands.  Usually both hands and sometimes arms are filled to capacity, and often the mouth is full as well.

She loves to bring us things, one by one, and say "thank you" as she gives it to us (I remember Sophie doing that as well) and then go back for another thing.  What a funny little girl.  She's truly so much fun and happy all the time.  I often get asked by people what happy pills I feed her because she always has a smile on her face.  It brightens up our home so much and we sure love this girl!

We love this girl, too, even when she's being silly.  Because of course, whenever we laugh at or praise something Avery's doing, Sophie has to show us that she can do it, too.  When Avery was learning to crawl, Sophie would get down and crawl and say "See how I can crawl?!" so that we'd praise her as well.  Same thing with walking.  It's not like we don't give her praise of her own, because believe me, we do plenty!  I guess it's just a normal older child thing.  So when we were taking pictures of Avery, Sophie had to go get blocks and copy her sister.  What a crazy.