Vacation

TJ was on vacation all week. He needed a break and we needed him home. It was so nice to have him all to ourselves for 7 whole days! We spent the first couple of days cleaning our house and he got to go to the dentist. Then we re-seeded the backyard. On Wednesday we went down to St. Louis. The zoo is free so we spent a few hours there. It was a gorgeous day and we had a really good time. Sophie was interested in the "doggies" (every animal was doggie) but was more interested in pushing the stroller. We forgot the camera so we didn't get any pictures. We all really enjoyed the butterfly area. It was cool, calming, smelled like Hawaii and the butterflies were beautiful. Sophia was pointing at all the butterflies flying around and would duck or scrunch her face when they would get too close.

After the zoo we went to TJ's cousin's house. Jenny was nice enough to watch Sophia for a few hours so TJ and I could go to the temple. What a great experience. We haven't been for a while and have been wanting to go so it was so nice of her! Thank you Jenny. We ate Ihop for dinner (at 10:30pm) and then went to the Hilton Garden Inn. It was a nice hotel considering we got it from Hotwire and they don't tell you the name of the hotel until after you pay for it. The bed was super comfy. TJ woke up around 4:30am with the worst heart burn of his life. I forgot the medicine so I told him to go down to the front desk where they had a 24 hour store. He found something and went to the reception desk to pay for it. The receptionist was asleep and he tried a few times to wake her. She didn't budge. So he took it and came back up to the room. We told the morning receptionist and he said it was on the house. Kinda funny.

Thursday we did a lot of city things. TJ went to the Apple store to get his phone fixed, then we took the car to Firestone to get it aligned, Best Buy, ate at Mimi's (I have really been missing this restaurant and we had a not so great experience, bummer), Babies R Us, Target, back to the Apple store, LDS Distribution Center, Sonic, and home. Sophie was a trooper through this day and she refuses to take a nap when anything is going on. We were at target around 3:30pm and she started falling asleep in the cart at the check out line. She is so adorable! We had such a wonderful time together as a family. He really spoiled me. We did pretty much anything I wanted to do. I am so glad he is able to take vacation days so we can spend some quality time together. I am sad that tomorrow is back to the grind.

Olives

Sophia loves olives. I taught her how to put them on her fingers and now she can't eat them without putting them on her fingers. Even if we are at a restaurant and they are sliced, she still puts them on her fingers. So silly. 

18 month stats

Sophie had her 18 month appointment on daddy's birthday (March 14th). She loves going the the pediatrician's office because of the toys. They have a slide and a few toys that hang on the wall. She climbs up the two mini steps and stands at the top of the slide until she decides she is ready to go down. She squeals with joy every time :) Once we get in to the room she is so curious. She climbs out of the stroller and onto the bench, counter, then tries to get back in to the stroller. The tongue depressors are right on the counter in a jar that she likes to take the lid off of and dig in. When the doctor came in she had a pen in her back pocket. So when she and I were sitting talking Sophie was bursting through the personal space bubble and stealing it right out of her pants! Then the doctor put tongue depressors in place of the pen. It is the simple pleasures in life! However, I need to teach her about personal space!

Anyway, to her stats.

Weight: 24 lb 15 oz
Height: 33.75 in
Head Circ: 48.1 cm

Words she is saying:
"appa" apple, "nana" banana, eye, "ea" ear, "no" nose, "mou" mouth, "a da" all done, "tak you" thank you, "papa" grandpa, mama, daddy, "Sosie" Sophie, "sue" shoe, "saw" sock, doggie, woof woof, "mau" meow, "Eyi" Eli (cousins dog-every time we turn on to their street she gets super happy and starts saying Eyi Eyi), ok,  "nigh nigh" night night, "gikle gikle" tickle tickle, no, see ya, bye bye, and I'm sure others that I can't think of.

That's more than I thought! I love when she learns a new word. Her little voice is so cute! She blows kisses too while trying to make a kissing sound :) She gets really happy when mommy and daddy kiss and then wants to kiss each of us too. Tonight we were laying on the couch and she started pointing out the features on my face. When she got to my nose she said "no" and then hit it. I pulled her hand away and told her not to hit and that its not nice. As I was trying to do this she looked at me, puckered up and tried to kiss me!  She knew she was getting in trouble and was trying to get out of it! I tried to continue but she started to laugh and kept trying to kiss me. Man, she is such a stink but she is so cute!

First trip to the dentist

On February 28th Sophie had her first dentist appointment. She loved playing in the waiting room with the cool toys. She also enjoyed roaming throughout the offices. It is so fun to be pregnant and chase her around a dentist office :) The cleaning room had a beach theme. It made me miss California. The hygienist was super nice and was really good with Sophie. Brushing her teeth has been a challenge and we basically have to hold her down but I assume that is pretty normal. She really likes "brushing" her own teeth (or tongue) but does not like it when we try. We do the best we can and that's better than not trying, I guess. Anyway, she fought the hygienist too but we got the fluoride treatment on her teeth and that is what we wanted so it was an overall success. 

nice comfy padded chair

super cool equipment

happy to be done! look at those cute teeth!

First Haircut

On February 10th Sophie and I went to get our hairs cut. I was a little nervous about how she would act but I was pretty impressed. The pictures below describe how it went, perfectly.

Happy and intrigued. 

Distracted and a little disturbed. 

Upset and over it. Can you see those tears!

All done. Happy to be with mommy again. 

The lady who cut our hair said that most 1 year olds don't sit by themselves when getting their haircuts. Sophie sat all by herself the whole time. I kneeled in front of her for some of it but she stayed in her seat. I love her bangs. She looks so cute. My brother in law said that she has a girl hair cut now :) It's not all long and straggly.

Kidneys

So we had a bit of a scare with the baby after we had the ultrasound on February 10th. The nurse called me on the 11th to tell me that the baby had enlarged kidneys. She also said that the cord was wrapped around his neck twice. She said that the cord was not a problem as that happens all throughout the pregnancy and 1 in 4 babies are born with the cord wrapped around at least once. The nurse said that when the kidneys are shown to be enlarged it usually doesn't mean anything and that the hospital we went to doesn't tend to measure things very well. But I asked TJ what enlarged kidneys could mean and he said anything from Down's Syndrome to blocked urethras. It is a blessing and a curse to have a doctor for a husband! Either way we were sent to Springfield to see a Maternal Fetal Ob/Gyn specialist. They did a complete ultrasound again and said that the baby's kidneys are normal and are the size of any normal 21 week fetus. It was such a relief to get this news and it was so fun to see the baby again. I was also looking forward to going to a real restaurant but there weren't any that we saw and we were running out of time (my sister in law Hayley went with me and had to be back to pick up her kids). So, we stopped at Arby's drive thru and they got both of our orders completely wrong. Who would order a bacon, lettuce and mayo sandwich!!! The fries and rootbeer were good though.