Bryn, Paul & Sophia's Blog

Food Fun

2008-11-09T18:57:00.000-08:00

The last few weekends we've spent a lot of time with Grandparents. Last weekend we were in Battle Ground and Grandma taught Sophia how to make ginger snaps. Sophia loves to help, she gets very indignant when we're doing something she can't help with, so she was delighted to be allowed to squish down the cookies. Grandma and Grandpa were here yesterday to watch the Husker game. Sophia and Grandma were decked our in their Husker finery.

We're slowly working our way through the Halloween candy. Today Sophia had a little pack of Oreos and shared the cookies with her face. She thought it was pretty funny.

Happy Halloween

2008-10-31T18:06:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween from Sophia the ladybug, and Sophia the cowgirl.

International Travel

2008-10-31T11:42:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday Sophia and Paul carved our pumpkin. She didn't do much carving, but helped design it at least.

Sophia and I had an adventure these week. We took the train and a bus to Richmond, British Columbia (Canada) to visit our cousins Carrie and Jeff. Carrie came to visit in January and ever since Sophia has called our guest bedroom "Carrie's room" and the guest towels "Carrie's towels" sometimes protesting when others used them. I intended that Sophia and I would go to visit her earlier in the years, but minor things like surgery got in the way.

Since I wasn't quite brave enough to drive up there with just Sophia we took the train to Seattle and then had to take a bus to Canada. Sophia really liked the train and seemed to like the bus more than a car, but not by a whole lot. On both, though, I could do more to keep her entertained than I could have in a car, and I got to see the scenery too.

Carrie is one of those people for me who I can not see in quite a while and it feels like no time has actually passed, so although it's been several months, and had been years before that, we just picked things up where we left off. She was great at finding things for us to do, and Sophia enjoyed all the extra attention. We went to parks almost every day, a pumpkin patch, swimming and to an indoor play time at the local community center. Since it's Canada, they actually put money into things like parks and community centers so those facilities were quite a cut above what we'd find here. The swimming pool was fantastic because it was only about 2.5 feet at the shallow end and only about 4 feet deep at the deep end, so with a flotation belt on, Sophia was able to move around on her own. She really enjoyed that. When traveling with a two-year-old you don't have take her to major tourist sites; she's perfectly happy with going to a park every day.

The one major thing we did was go to a pumpkin patch. It was Sophia's 3rd of the year. This one was quite impressive. They had live music with a dancing pumpkin and corn, and large hay rides which had musicians/singers on them. Sophia was a bit intimidated by the large dancing vegetables, but seemed to love the rest of it.

Sophia really loved the room she stayed in. Carrie introduced it to her as a "princess room" and from there Sophia was hooked. It also had a door in the closet into the next room, and Sophia could entertain herself for quite a while running through the door and around. There were also 2 sets of stairs and she wanted to pick which one we used each time.

Jeff works long hours so we didn't see too much of him. Sophia did find him hysterical and would giggle every time she looked at him. Of course, he may have been making funny faces, I'm not sure. We didn't get a picture of me the entire week, which ok with me since Sophia is cuter than I am.

At the train station in Seattle, a man waiting for our train felt the need to display his religious opinion. Different from most people like this, he actually didn't try to talk to anybody about it, so that was ok with me.

Pumpkin Patch

2008-10-25T11:09:00.000-07:00

I'm not doing such a good job of updating the blog anymore. Complaints are coming from various family members, but I guess I'm not finding this as fun as I once did.

2 weeks ago my father spent the weekend with us and we took our annual trip to the pumpkin patch. We couldn't have asked for better weather; it was high 60's and bright and sunny - not exactly typical Oregon weather in October. We had lots of fun and took many pictures. One of the pictures we took in front of the llama pen and one very pushy llama posed with us. Later, when feeding the animals, the same llama tried to get all the food. Sophia was supposed to feed the animals, but she chickened out so I got to.

Her favorite part was the big hay slide but she also liked riding the hay wagon and the mazes. We let her lead us through the mazes which wasn't them most efficient way of getting through them, but she enjoyed it.

Beach Week 2008

2008-09-07T14:04:00.000-07:00

We are back from spending a week at my parent's beach house with almost the entire family. Both sets of Grandparents were there, along with Barry, Jessica & Lindsey, and Meghan and Patrick. Only Aunts Amy & Karen couldn't make it and they were missed.

Sophia had a fantastic time and enjoyed all the attention, especially after Lindsey and her parents left on Monday when Sophia was the only one to get attention. Sophia also enjoyed spending time with Lindsey. She got to help feed Lindsey a few times. Sophia loves to sing, and sometimes it was quite obvious that Lindsey was trying to sing along. Sophia spent quite a bit of time on the beach, and even went out into the water with a few brave and hearty adults.

We took a short walk in Oswald West State park, which is one of my favorite places on the coast. The picture on the right was taken 2 years ago on the same bridge as the picture on the left. How Sophia and I (but mostly Sophia) have changed in 2 years!

My father fixed his traditional shrimp boil which was enjoyed by all, except the vegetarians and shrimp-allergic among us. Dad cooked it downstairs and outside on the patio but we wanted to eat upstairs. He and Earl arranged to haul it up by a rope. It worked quite well. You can see pictures on Barry & Jessica's blog.

We visited the tide pools and Sophia enjoyed it, but we didn't find any starfish and I think she would have understood better what we were looking for if we'd found a creature she already knew. We found a clam, some tiny crabs, and lots of snails. But Sophia was mostly happy climbing around on the rocks.

Saturday was the first Nebraska Huskers game of the season, so many of the family members were decked out in their red finery. Grandma got Sophia a "go Huskers," as Sophia calls them, dress and she loved it. Sophia would wear dresses nearly all the time if we'd let her. She skins her knees enough that we have to give them a break and put her in pants sometimes.

Now we're back at our fairly boring house. Sophia was quite grumpy today. I think she missed all the attention from everybody. She's also less worn out at bed and naptime since she's not running around all day on the beach and chasing aunts and uncles. Compared to all that fun, we're pretty boring. But it's nice to be home. A week is a long time to be gone and our cat had some nasty things to say to us when we got home!

Beach

2008-09-01T11:39:00.000-07:00

We are at the beach with most of the family: my parents, Paul's parents, Barry, Jessica, Lindsey, Meghan and Patrick. We're having a great time and there are enough folks around that Sophia isn't getting too jealous of the attention Lindsey is receiving.

Our computer died so I'm using my mother-in-law's computer. Our camera also died, but we've replaced that. It will take a bit longer to replace the computer. I may not post to the blog for a while. But in the meantime, check out Barry's blog. He's posted a few times about our time at the beach. Try here, and here. This is the photo that Barry took of all of us yesterday.

Family Camp

2008-08-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

Last weekend the 3 of us went to the Moms, Pops & Tots family camp at Camp Magruder - my favorite place on earth. My friend Christina and I were the deans of this family camp designed for families with kids ages 2-5. As far as dean's jobs go, this one was pretty easy. We put together some fun family activities (to the left is a photo of Sophia, Paul & Gabe enjoying a "micro-hike" where you examine things very close to the ground with a magnifying glass), organized free time and threw together morning worship and campfires.

I went to camp at Magruder with my family and my church as a kid, and in high school. It's a very important place to me, as is the experience of going to camp. Paul didn't spend much time at camp as a kid, and never went to a church camp. So he was very brave to come with me into this world in which I'm quite familiar and comfortable. He was a good sport and says he had a great time. I even believe him! It probably helped that one of his closet friends, Derek, was there with 2 of his sons. So Paul had a friend who also had never been to this camp to hang out with.

Sophia loved it. From the moment we got out of the car she was running around, giggling in delight and very excited. She says that her favorite thing about camp was riding the donkeys, and Jenny was her favorite. She also says she enjoyed boating. Each time we'd take her on the big swing, properly supported by Paul, she'd laugh and giggle like crazy. She also enjoyed craft time, but her patience for that was pretty limited. I'd been teaching Sophia some of the camp songs, so she was able to sing along with a lot of the music at campfire and she had lots of fun with the other kids. I couldn't have hoped for a better first experience at camp for Paul and Sophia. Christina and I are committed to being deans of this camp for the next two years, so I'm glad Sophia and Paul want to go back!

Sophia tries to get all the attention

2008-08-07T00:38:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, Sophia's day care was closed for the week. We weren't sure that I was up to having her on my own all week, so we hired the daughter of a friend to come help me. Sophia loved having Jane here to play with. Jane had lots more energy than I did and was very patient and fun for Sophia. Sophia's best day care friend, Julie, came over for a few weeks and Sophia really loved having her friend in her space, where she can rule the roost. It ended up being a wonderful week.

Then Uncle Patrick and Aunt Meghan came to visit and we spent the weekend in Battle Ground with the family. It was a bit tight with 10 of us there, but we had so much fun! Sophia got enough attention from everyone that she didn't mind too much when Lindsey was getting attention too, although she often would want to be involved. She got to help give Lindsey a bath on Saturday night. (Bath and other photos from the weekned here on Lindsey's blog.) On a visit to a park, Uncle Barry helped Sophia climb a large, fake, rock and she was quite proud to be up so high. There was also a fun game of uncle-jumping. She loved riding a tire swing with Uncle Patrick. Aunt Meghan spent a tremendous amount of time reading to Sophia and playing with her. Meghan is a braver soul than I am and tried playing Risk with the boys. Sophia and Lindsey managed to keep the rest of us entertained while the game was on.

Last Saturday my parents came to visit. She got in my mother's lap and they read stories. I hadn't realized that Sophia could still well enough for this to be possible and it was wonderful to see. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of it.

Sunday Sophia and I attended a baby shower and she got to wear her offical "party dress." Whenever someone would compliment her on it she would say "this is my party dress." After the party, we pulled out the air matrass, ordered pizza and watched Finding Nemo. It was great fun and Sohpia was a bit dissapointed on Monday when we told her we would eat at the table that night.

Catching Up - Again

2008-07-23T18:52:00.000-07:00

Friends and family, I have heard your pleas, your complains, your not-so-subtle remarks that the blog has not been sufficiently updated. Things have been about as busy as could be expected, but as I heal from my surgery, I haven't been spending much time on the computer, and the time I do spend on the computer, I've devoted to planning the 2 camps I'm helping run in a few weeks.

We've had all kinds of excitement. We celebrated the 4th of July with Grandma and Grandpa and went to a small town parade. Sophia loved it, especially when she discovered they were throwing out candy. We weren't going to keep her up until dark for the fireworks, so Paul spent $6 on some fireworks that we set off at about 8. That seemed to make her happy. It also pleased some of the neighbors who were too frugal to buy fireworks and got the benefit of ours.

We spent about 2 weeks dealing with lice and it was not fun. Sophia was very good and patient about the whole thing and we were proud of her. She was especially good the night we tried the mayonnaise treatment. Apparently leaving mayo on the hair for 2 hours suffocates the lice and while we were skeptical, after trying it we became believers. We found no more live lice and very few eggs after we did that. We have one additional piece of advice for any of you whose children get lice: don't bother with the plastic combs, they don't work at all, get the really fine-toothed metal ones. Or, better yet, don't get lice.

Paul was gone overnight for work and I was not yet up to taking care of Sophia by myself, so my friend Laura came to stay. Laura has recently moved back to Oregon after living in Idaho for a while and we are so excited that she's close by! Sophia took to her right away, which is unusual for Sophia, and had lots of fun playing, learning about the guitar and riding the carousel with Laura.

Then, as if July hadn't already been exciting enough, Aunt Amy came to visit! She rode the Seattle to Portland bike ride and also had some time to visit us, and meet Lindsey for the first time. Pictures of Amy with Lindsey are here. Since it had only been a few weeks since we'd seen Amy, Sophia was quite comfortable with her. Amy is as active as Sophia is, so we could just relax and let the two of them tear around. Amy tried to teach Sophia to play the French Horn, but it's slow going. Amy left behind a mouthpiece, which Sophia practices on every few days. They had lots of fun playing in the water at the park, and Sophia taught Amy the finer points of rolling down hills.

For dinner, Sophia had corn on the cob for the first time.

In other food news, we have 2 blueberry plants in our back yard and are harvesting a lot of berries. Sophia has become quite good at knowing which are ripe and which are not. Recently she helped me make blueberry pancakes and diligently put each blueberry into the batter individually. It took forever, but she would not be hurried.

Finally, last weekend we went to the Salem Art Fair, which is generally my favorite thing about Salem but this year seemed to lack some oomph. They've changed how vendors get into the fair and I think that has made more folks with art, paintings and photos, and less handcrafts which I enjoy more. Sophia, however, enjoyed the children's area and we got this ladybug painted on her cheek. We also listened to several stories at the Library's story tent. So it was an afternoon well spent.

I think this catches us up on most of the happenings, and more importantly, most of the recent photos. I'll try to do better, but with camp coming I don't know how much time I'll have.

Shorn

2008-07-08T17:05:00.000-07:00

We've had some adventures the past few weeks: recovering from surgery, adventures with Grandpa & Grandma and 4th of July, and lice, lots of lice.

But absolutely none of it compares with the haircut Paul got today.

Post edited 07-09-09 12:19 am:

Sophia has the lice from daycare. Neither Paul nor I do and I'm not entirely sure why Paul shaved his head. He's always wanted to and I think dealing with Sophia's lice gave him an excuse.

Sophia's fun

2008-06-22T21:48:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I'll be having a hysterectomy. Sophia is in Eugene with Barry, Jessica and Lindsey. That way, this time can be fun for her. Barry posted pictures of their afternoon's activity and he may post more in the next few days. You can keep up with her activities by clicking the "Lindsey's blog" link to the right or clicking here.

Aunt Amy

2008-06-20T10:44:00.000-07:00

We are just back from a visit to Aunt Amy and Aunt Karen in Washington DC. We went with Grandma. Grandma, Sophia and I came back Wednesday but Paul It was lots of fun and very tiring. Here are a few of my favorite pictures.

Happy Adoption Day!

2008-06-07T14:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Sophia's Adoption Day, when we celebrate the day we went into court and legally became a family forever. It's a day as special to us as the day Sophia was born. We got Sophia a balloon, which she got to pick and therefore is a Dora balloon. She also got to decide what we had for dinner and asked for "pasta and brocoli and sauce." You've got to love a kid who's special meal is both easy and includes vegetables! I made ice cream sandwiches, which Sophia seemed to find quite entertaining.

We also looked at pictures of when she was born and when we went to court. We read several adoption books and told Sophia how much we love her and how glad we are to be a family. One of my favorites is Happy Adoption Day which says:

There are those who
think families happen by chance,
A mystery their whole life through,
But we had a voice and we had a choice -
We were working and waiting for you.
So it's here's to you and three
cheers to you!
Let's shout it, "Hip, hip, hip hooray!
For out of a world to tattered and torn,
You came to our house on that wonderful morn...
And all of a sudden this family was born.
Oh happy Adoption Day!

We are lucky, lucky people get to be Sophia's parents.

Super Sophia

2008-06-03T15:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Sophia decided it was time to play with the cape that Grandma Darla made for her birthday. She ran around the house, chasing Paul and running by herself when he got tired, calling herself "Supper Sophia!" Lest we think that pop culture has taken her over (it's trying, and working, but hasn't completed its work yet) Paul called her that first and she thought it was highly entertaining.

Last night as her desert after dinner she got a fortune cookie left from my birthday dinner last week. It said something like "It is time for peace in your life. You need to learn to take direction from others." It was a nearly perfect fortune for her. Like her mother, Sophia is very independent and wants to do things by herself.

We've had a few other entertaining incidents with Miss Independent. A few nights ago during dinner she was applying herself to her food and Paul and I started talking about our wonderful niece Lindsey. I looked over and noticed that Sophia had slid down in her chair until her head was about level with the table and was looking very cross. I asked her what was wrong and she refused to answer me, giving the world a dirty look. After asking a few more times and thinking furiously, I asked her if she was mad because we'd been talking about Lindsey. She enthusiastically agreed that was the problem and with our attention more properly invested in her perked right up.

Last night we were playing and I asked if she wanted help with something. This greatly offended her and she got down on her knees and crawled to sit with her back against the front door, crossed her eyes and pouted. After telling her she wasn't in trouble, or in time out and could come any time she wanted, we decided to ignore her and started talking. A few minutes later she ran into the room, threw a stuffed horse at me, and ran back to her pouting station. Pouting just isn't any fun unless she's being watched. There aren't too many dull moments around here!

What happened to May?

2008-05-30T12:48:00.000-07:00

With one thing and another, it's been almost a month since I put anything on the blog. I'm not sure if we've been too busy having fun, or if I have been too sick, but at any rate here we are with almost a month to update.

We've had a very good month. I don't think a weekend has passed without seeing family. We celebrated my mother's birthday, Mother's Day, and my birthday. Mother's Day was very nice, Paul worked quite hard to make it a special day. Sophia colored me a picture and picked out these flowers. When I first noticed these very colorful flowers, Paul told me in no uncertain terms that Sophia had picked out these flowers herself. Paul and the other guys prepared a lovely dinner for us, which unintentionally included chicken en flambé, but tasted quite good.

Mother's Day was just about the first time we'd been with Lindsey when she had been awake and interacting most of the time. Lindsey got a lot of attention from all the adults in the room and Sophia did not approve. She is accustomed to being the sole focus of attention from all 8 of us, and when Lindsey was being fussed over much more than she was, Sophia decided she needed to do something about the situation. She climbed all over me, she danced around so people would watch her, and eventually she got a blanket, climbed into my lap, laid like a baby and demanded that I sing to her. Poor Sophia, she's not the queen of the family any more. While we don't like to see her distressed, it's probably good for her.

There was a heat wave with temperatures in the 90's; which may be common in other parts of the country but is hardly common for Oregon in August, much less may. Sophia lately has been obsessed with trains, so we took her to Portland and road the light rail system with Papa and Grannie. She was overwhelmed by the heat and all the people, but seemed to enjoy it. We went to the zoo, where it was so hot, the bears got a big pile of ice to lay on.

It's been a good, if busy month. While it has cooled down we haven't gotten any less busy. I don't think June will be any more relaxed, but I'll try to do a better job to keep up with the blog.

Happy Birthday Paul!

2008-05-01T12:37:00.000-07:00

Last Friday was Paul's birthday. Sophia made him this lovely birthday hat. We spent the weekend at the beach with my parents. Sophia had great fun playing on the beach. She would go down there with her bucket and shovel, convince one of us to hold the bucket, and walk about 2-3 steps, put a scoop in the pail, and repeat the process. She also enjoyed running from the waves and crafts with Grannie.

Monday Sophia and I spent some time at my parent's house and Sophia got to sit in their tree. She seemed to enjoy it.

Pictures

2008-04-24T17:43:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I took Sophia to have new pictures taken. Last winter, the photo session did not go very well and we got only 2 good pictures of Sophia. This time, the photographer suggested that they take some pictures of the two of us first and then of just Sophia. It really helped and we got wonderful pictures of just her, and even a few good ones of the two of us.

Today Sophia came home from day care wearing a chef's hat she made today. (I suspect that Karen did a lot of the work.) She's very proud of it as you can tell in this photo.

Tulip Festival

2008-04-15T12:55:00.000-07:00

This last weekend was so typical of Oregon in the spring-time. Saturday the temperature was in the mid-70's and it was bright and sunny. Sunday, we had clouds, and yesterday the temperature was in the 40's and today it's raining. It's not an unique saying, but we do say that if you don't like the weather, wait a minute, or a day.

It was so clear on Sunday we could see the mountains from the farm. In the photo above and to the right, if you look closely, just over Sophia's shoulder you can see Mt. Hood.

Saturday was so beautiful we took Sophia to the Tulip Festival which is essentially the spring version of the pumpkin farm; farmers realizing they can get silly city-folk to come pay them ridiculous amounts of money just to walk around their crop and take pictures with their kids. That cynical statement aside, it was really beautiful and Sophia loved all the colors and flowers.

There were, of course, the obligatory other entertainments including swings made out of 'rustic' materials, train rides (which cost extra) and the largest johnny-jump-up I've ever seen.

Entertainment, of course, also included all the other people. My favorite were the two woman who had with them on a leash, their goat. Yes, I said goat. They lead the goat around the fields just like a dog, and even posed him for pictures next to the flowers. It's just amazing what people will do.

Spring

2008-04-01T12:29:00.000-07:00

Aunt Amy recently posted pictures of her visit to Washington D.C.'s Cherry Blossom Festival. Well, we refused to be outdone or left behind! Sunday, we made a trip to our own, smaller, cherry blossom festival on Oregon's capitol mall. While Amy's pictures may win in the cute dog department, our pictures feature an adorable two-year old.

We had a good time and Sophia found the fountains especially intriguing. What she enjoyed most was playing hide-and-seek. She's got a lot to learn about effective hiding, but then it's probably good she can't hide very well yet. This way we can always find her.

We had Sophia's tunnel out on Sunday. Abby the cat found it and thought it made a wonderful hiding-place. She too has a lot to learn about hiding.

8th Anniversary

2008-03-25T20:20:00.001-07:00

Today is our 8th anniversary. I think it says a lot about where we are in our marriage that we got each other the same card.

We got to go out to dinner tonight, just the two of us. It was wonderful to have a relaxing dinner together without the distraction of being Sophia's food-police. My very kind friend Liz and her husband Mike entertained Sophia. Despite a meltdown as I was leaving her there, she had a wonderful time with them and at 3 hot dogs. She never ceases to surprise.

Happy Easter

2008-03-24T11:45:00.000-07:00

Our weekend of fun continued yesterday with a combined Easter and birthday party. All the local family, and our friends who have become family, gathered after church to do what we usually do - let the kids entertain us, snack, and talk - especially about legal issues (with 5 lawyers in the gathering, it's a bit hard to escape legal talk). Sophia loved wearing her fancy dress we bought for her baptism. She refused to take it off all day and even paired it with her rain boots for a while.

After church, the Easter Bunny had visited our house leaving baskets and lots of eggs hidden all around. Sophia and the boys had a great deal of fun finding them and then trading some of the presents inside so there was a fair distribution of all the loot. We were quite proud of how well they did that without any complaining.

Yesterday we had 4 birthdays to celebrate: Sophia's, Jessica and Gabe's are March 25 and Alex's which is in early April. We got all the names on the cake, and candles for Sophia, Gabe & Alex. They even managed to blow them out together without any spitting or lighting themselves on fire.

Presents were enjoyed by many. It seemed Sophia's favorites were the tent that Grandma Darla made her and a crawl-through tunnel from our friend Therese and Ellie. Even my father had some fun with the tunnel - that's him standing in it on the right. She got lots of beautiful clothes, which she was less excited about than I was. (I love it when grandmas buy her clothes, they buy nicer things than I would.) There were also several Dr. Seuss books, who Sophia has just started to enjoy.

By the end of the day Sophia was exhausted and refused to pose for pictures, hiding her face or giving us dirty looks. After 3 days of non-stop fun, it's no surprise that she was just done with it all. It was a very fun weekend.

Two!

2008-03-22T21:10:00.000-07:00

Today Sophia is two. How is that possible? We tried to pack as much fun and excitement into one day as any two-year-old could handle. In the morning we went to an Easter Egg hunt, where Sophia thought her bucket would make a good hat. She did very well at the hunt, finding about 8 eggs, several of them on her own. Then we went out for a snack, a donut. She liked it a great deal, but not the sticky hands.

There were a few presents to open today, a couple of books from us and a bubble blower from a neighbor.

Her big present from us was going to see The Wiggles. In the beginning of the concert she was pretty overwhelmed, quiet and refused to sing or do any of the hand motions that she knows so well. We were only 5 rows back so we were almost too close for her. But after the characters, Wags, Dorothy, Henry and Captain Feathersword (and if you don't know who they are, you aren't spending enough time with kids under 5) came out she warmed up.

By the end of the show she spent some time in the aisle dancing with the other kids, clapped and sang a little. It was so much fun to see how in awe she was of it. We couldn't have found a better birthday present. A good day was had by all.

St. James Day 2008

2008-03-21T21:27:00.000-07:00

Today is St. James Day! For the uninitiated, this is the day that Sophia's dad celebrates the first round of the NCAA Basketball Tournament (see the St. James Day website for a full history of this glorious holiday). This year, the festivities were in Roseburg, Oregon, at the home of St. James Day co-founder Derek Simmons. Sophia and dad drove down to Roseburg last night, and then spent all day in Roseburg watching basketball and eating Kielbalsa.

Sophia really enjoyed playing with Derek's son, Gabe (who is a year older than Sophia). They had a good time chasing each other around the house, coloring, and playing with legos. A good time was had by all! These are a few of the pictures of Sophia and Gabe playing together (Gabe's older brother was at school in the morning, so he didn't join in the fun until later). We'll put some more St. James Day pictures up later.

Birthday Party

2008-03-19T18:44:00.000-07:00

On Sunday Sophia got to attend a birthday party. While not her first, it was the first since she was an infant, and is now old enough to join the fun. One of our neighbors just turned 4, and they invited most of the neighborhood kids to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate. Paul is a kind, decent and giving person and he took Sophia to the party and let me stay home. He says I have to go to the next one. Sophia enjoyed herself, but was a little overwhelmed by all the noise and activity. Talking about this birthday has helped us prepare her for her birthday this weekend. We have all kinds of festivities planned, including taking her to a Wiggles concert Saturday evening. We're looking forward to it!

Sledding

2008-03-08T23:37:00.000-08:00

Today we took Sophia to Mt. Hood so she could experience the joys of sledding. It is unlikely that she will have many opportunities in her lifetime to sled close to home; happily there are lovely mountains not too far away that we can travel to. After some initial reluctance and fear, she got quite into it. When she saw a slightly older girl riding on her own, she went all by herself, giggling all the way. Getting her back up the hill again was a bit tough, but to of us were able to manage. Grannie & Papa went with us, and we were able to park in a place where Grannie could see most of the fun. Papa only went down the hill once and, despite requests, didn't ride with Sophia. Paul and I had a great time, except for our bottoms getting all wet. That may be why Papa didn't sled more than once. Sophia had snow pants, but none of the rest of us did and it got a bit cold. But we all had fun and there isn't anything much better than a child giggling with delight.

Trained Monkeys

2008-03-06T22:48:00.001-08:00

I would like to be able to say that Paul and I set firm limits with Sophia, that she respects our authority and that we tell her no when she crosses the line. These things are all true, to some extent. But from time-to-time I get the feeling that we are just trained monkeys, dancing to her tune and doing whatever she wants. This photo reinforces that feeling.

We've had a good few weeks. Uncle Pat and Aunt Meghan sent Sophia a new CD for her birthday. We've enjoyed dancing to it. When Sophia can't get us up to dance with her, she'll get her giant bear to dance with. It seems like only yesterday that the bear was taller than she was and she couldn't pick it up.

We try to read to Sophia as often as possible. There are times she isn't interested. Far more frequent are the times when she wants to read by herself. I fully expected that some day we would be kicked out of her reading life so she could go faster and be more independent. I did this to my parents and was much happier for it. I did not, however, expect that she would read on her own before she learned how to read! Perhaps she's going to learn to read really early or already has learned, and is hiding it by reading silently to herself and pretending she's looking at the pictures.

One of Sophia's favorite things in the world is being, as we call it, "little miss no-pants." I'm not sure where this title came from, but I suspect that I started it. In the evenings after going potty she will often ask for "no-pants." What is it with little kids that they prefer being naked? Would we all prefer it if we weren't so cold, conditioned to hide our bodies, or out of shape? It reminds me of a story I remember seeing Dana Carvey doing a long time ago about how after 7 pm was 'naked time' at his house and his kids would fling off their clothes and run about with great joy.

Earl and Darla say that Sophia has an "impish" sense of humor and I think that's the perfect word. She certainly finds funny mild disobedience and doing things - tickling, jumping on, putting her hat on - to us. Lately she's been playing with her hat a lot. She's wearing it around the house quite a bit, and keeps trying to get it on our heads. It doesn't fit well which she finds hysterical. One of my favorite things in the world is the sound of her laughing. I am quite willing to be made a fool - or trained monkey - of if she'll laugh.

Great pictures

2008-02-26T23:25:00.000-08:00

Sunday afternoon during the post-baptismal festivities a contingent took Sophia to the park. While there, Uncle Barry took some fantastic pictures of Sophia that he's shared with us. Thank you Barry!

Skiing and Baptism

2008-02-25T12:10:00.000-08:00

We've had a busy and interesting few weeks. Paul spent a week in Steamboat Springs, Colorado skiing with my father, 2 of his closest friends, and the son-in-law of one of the friends. I think it says something very nice about the relationship between my father and Paul that Dad wanted him to come, and Paul wanted to go. It sounds like they had a great time, although Paul seems a bit chagrined that the "old guys" had so much more stamina than he and Aaron did.

While Paul was gone, Grandpa and Grandma rescued me and Sophia by letting us stay with them 4 days. I had a medical problem that made it difficult to take care of Sophia on my own, and Earl and Darla stepped in. Sophia had a wonderful weekend with them, and they seemed to enjoy it too, but they looked a little tired by the time I was well enough to go home. The rest of mine and Sophia's week without Daddy passed uneventfully.

This past Sunday Sophia was baptised in our church. I am a United Methodist and while we practice infant baptism, with one thing and another, we never got quite around to doing it. So, she's almost two and we finally did it. It was a good chance for our closest family and friends to gather and have some fun. Our good friends, Christina, Peter, Miriam and Grace (who is just a few months old - in Sophia's lap above) came on Saturday. This was the first time Miriam and Sophia have both been old enough to really play together and they seemed to have a great time: there was a lot of running, shrieking, hiding under tables, and only minor bouts of disagreeing over toys. This was also Barry and Jess' first out-of-town trip with Lindsey and they all seemed to weather it quite well.

Sophia seemed to love the chance to dress up and had lots of fun in her fancy new dress. The baptism was quite nice, our pastor, Michael Powell, is a wonderful, kind man who we quite like. In one of those coincidences that seem to happen so often in Methodism, my father knew Michael's wife as a child, and Dad was at camp with Michael and Anni when they met in junior high. So Michael and Anni feel quite like members of the family. The baptism gave us a further opportunity to confuse all about Sophia's name. In baptism, traditionally you give the first and middle names of the child. Sophia's middle names are "Amy" and "Wittmayer." Thus, when we baptized her "Sophia Amy Wittmayer" it probably sounded like Wittmayer is her last name, when it is "Smith" like Paul. But, what's life without some opportunities to confuse those you love?

I'm hoping the next few weeks won't be quite as eventful as the past few. We need some rest!

Sophia gives Lindsey her bunny. Lindsey seems to feel she needs rescuing from Sophia's attention.

Our Duck

2008-02-10T18:29:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty sure we applied to adopt a baby. Somehow we ended up with a duck.

My mom came home from the hospital today. She's doing quite well and we're all relieved to have her at home.

Mom update

2008-02-08T15:40:00.001-08:00

My mother is still in the hospital, but she's getting much better and should be out this weekend. The infection she's got is called cellulitis and is common to people with diabetes. She's been in quite a bit of pain all week, but things are on the mend. The swelling is gone down, and while on Thursday she had a fever of 103.1, now she doesn't have any fever at all. Thank you all for your prayers and concern.

Fun with friends and a new family member

2008-02-04T22:47:00.000-08:00

We spent the weekend at my parent's house at the beach. I love the coast during the winter; it's a great time to sit and watch the wildness of the ocean. It's not so great, however, if you have with you 3 kids 5 and under who have lots of energy and want to get out and play. We made do the best we could, and the kids ran around the house a lot. At one point they got into running around the living room and through one of the bedrooms. They must have made that loop at least 30 times. It was great. I love a tired kid.

As always Sophia loved playing with Alex and Gabe. To her "GabeAlex" is almost one word, and she doesn’t always call them by their correct names, but she does enjoy them. She even did a decent job sharing her Legos with them. Now that's friendship! Alex had the joy/burden of being the big kid and did pretty well at being careful with the smaller kids. He even gave Sophia horse rides. Our time together wasn't long enough but at least we had it.

Sophia and Gabe pile sand on logs.

How many people does it take to play a video game?

Today we went down to Eugene to meet Lindsey. She's quite beautiful and Barry and Jess seem delighted and exhausted. Before she was born there were some concerns that she might have a heart problem. Now it is looking like all is well and we are all so relieved and grateful. During our visit, we were very impressed with how careful Sophia was with the baby. She got to hold Lindsey for a while and I don't think I've ever seen Sophia that still. She's not a still person, but she recognized that she needed to be careful of her new cousin. But she was also happy that she was still getting good attention from Uncle Barry, which I'm sure she feels is her right.

In less happy news, my mother is in the hospital for an infection in her leg. It doesn't seem terribly serious, but she's in pain and has a fever so we're worried about her. Please keep her in your prayers.

New Family Member!

2008-02-01T12:50:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, Paul's brother and his wife (Uncle Barry & Aunt Jess) had a baby. Her name is Lindsey Mae and we're all so excited. It sounds like she and Jess are doing well. Hurray!

In other news, we had quite a bit of snow this week. The schools were closed on Monday and Wednesday. This is not typical for Oregon. Sophia enjoyed the snow and got to play in it at home and at day care. Yesterday my father was supposed to go skiing, but he didn't because of the weather. He and my mom came down to be with us instead. My father tried to use Sophia as a pillow and she wasn't too happy about it. Other than that, she seemed to enjoy having them here.

Family Reuions

2008-01-29T09:41:00.000-08:00

Not too much as happened around here lately, until this past weekend, that is. My cousin Carrie who lives in Richmond, British Columbia came to visit. We hadn't seen her since our wedding, almost 8 years ago! (On a side note, isn't it amazing how you can still feel close to someone, even if you don't see them?). We had a wonderful weekend together. It was so nice to show off Sophia, and to talk about the strange things our ancestors did. (For example, my great-grandfather was once in a car accident turning left. So he never turned left again.)

Carrie proved to be a champion at Lego building and reading and was even willing to put up with the Wiggles both in the car and as a movie. Sophia took to her right away, and usually for Sophia, even did a good job at calling Carrie by name. We'll have to go see Carrie again soon.

Sophia loved to look at pictures, so she will often get out a photo album, saying "heavy" as she carries it. A few weeks ago she got our our wedding pictures and pointed to my veil and said "what's that?" I told her it was a veil, something some women wear on their heads for their weddings. While this is a perfectly rational explanation, it doesn't make sense to someone 22 months old. So I got my veil out and showed it to her. She wouldn't let me put it on her head, but was quite happy to play with it for a while.

Christmas continues

2008-01-10T23:50:00.000-08:00

Christmas continues for Sophia. Yesterday she received in the mail a package from Aunt Amy. The gift was packed in the same box we sent Amy's gift in, so perhaps Amy needed to wait for proper packaging to get it in the mail. Amy sent little wooden turtles and Sophia loved them, playing with them by herself quite happily while I fixed dinner. I also baked a cake tonight, and Sophia has learned about licking the beaters. As soon as she realized what I was doing she pulled a chair over to the counter and said "bite?" She was quite anxious until I was done and it was her turn.

A few days ago I realized how terribly behind I was putting our pictures into albums. So I've been working on that, and Sophia loves the results. She really likes to look at photo albums and name all our friends and family. We like it because it helps her remember those folks we don't see every day. She's not the most gentle with the albums, but they were meant to be looked at, so that's ok.

We miss Daddy

2008-01-09T19:35:00.000-08:00

During dinner tonight Sophia kept singing to herself, "miss Daddy, miss Daddy." It was cute, but also sad. Other than that, we're doing quite well on our own. My bath technique tonight was not her preferred (Daddy) method, she kept telling me I was doing it wrong, but she is clean and that's what matters.

Happy New Year

2008-01-08T19:46:00.000-08:00

I know, we're 8 days into 2008 and I'm just now posting about the New Year. That seems about par for the course these days. The weekend before New Year's we went to Roseburg to see our friends there. Sophia had a great time playing with the boys, and they ran around - and us ragged - and had fun.

When we got back we put together 2 of Sophia's 'big' Christmas toys that required assembly. One of them is an enormous green ball and the other is a basketball hoop. I keep expecting her to try put the green ball through the hoop, but since she can't pick it up very well yet, she hasn't tried. Of course, you get a kid great presents, and she plays, or in this case pretenders to sleep, on the box. It sort of argues against spending a lot of money on toys! She is also enjoying her tricycle that she got for Christmas, although it's been a bit cold for much outdoor time.

Grandma and Grandpa came down for dinner last Sunday. Grandpa being the careful, technical person he is, is a good lego builder. But I think Sophia's favorite part is knocking down what he builds. Luckily, he takes it with a lot of amusement - I'm less happy when she knocks over my buildings - but that's what grandparents are for.

In a New Year's fit of organization, I was clearing out old electronics we no longer use and found my old camera. I hauled this camera all over Europe with me 12 years ago, and tried to take good care of it. Now, of course, we've gone digital and this former companion is a toy for Sophia. It's a little strange to see her playing with it, but she loves having her own camera. I doubt the entertainment factor will last long, though, when she discovers she can't immediately see the picture she just took on the screen at the back of the camera.

Paul is in Phoenix for training this week, so it's just me and Sophia. We'll do our best not to kill each other and even have some fun while he's gone. In other news, I decided not go back to my job at the library, I'm just not well enough to be good at my job anymore. I'm pretty sad about that, but I think it's the right thing.

Christmas fun

2007-12-27T22:40:00.000-08:00

We are rested and recuperated from our 5-day Christmas extravaganza. We started Friday evening celebrating Christmas just the 3 of us. We opened presents and ate dinner on our special Christmas china. Sophia liked her horse, but she fell off the first time she got on it, so was a little hesitant after that. She was much more into the Lego's we got her. She also got to open the package sent from Aunt Meghan and Uncle Pat which contained a Wiggles movie. That was an enormous hit and she wanted to watch it immediately.

Saturday morning we went to Portland and stayed at my parent's house through Christmas. We spent the day preparing for the Wittmayer family (my father's siblings and their kids and grandkids) Christmas party. We also had a fun dinner with both sides of the family and Sophia loved having all of her grandparents together.

Sunday morning we went to my parents' church where they enjoyed showing off their granddaughter. It was nice for me to see so many of the people I grew up with. Then, mid-afternoon, the Wittmayers descended upon us. Sophia was hesitant in the beginning, reluctantly playing with Great-aunt Sue, but sticking pretty close to Mom and Dad. But when cousins Roya and Layla got there, she was off like a shot. This was really the first time she has been a full participating in their play, and they ran all over the house, jumped on beds, played dancing games around a foot-stool, and had a wonderful time. They were a little loud, but they were very well-behaved and were just having fun, so we didn't mind the din. There were presents for the little girls, and the adults participated in our usual exchange.

After everyone left, we introduced Sophia to Papa's hot tub. She called it "swimming" and seemed happy as a clam. Granny watched through one of the windows close to the hot tub, and Sophia said "hi Granny" over and over. Afterwards, she shared her bedtime snack with Grannie, although she mostly gave the broken crackers to Grannie.

Christmas Eve day we spent all of at Paul's parents house. Uncle Barry and Aunt Jessica were there too. We cooked, hung out, played games, read and Sophia played "boom boom" again with anyone she could talk into it. We had a wonderful traditional Christmas dinner with turkey and all the trimmings, and then it was present time! Last year Sophia found it stressful and overwhelming. But this year, she helped carry presents, opened hers with only minimal help and would say "more!" after each gift she opened. I think her favorite was a soft plush bowling set from Barry & Jess, although that may have been because it came in a plastic case with a handle and she could carry it around, and play the take-out-and-put-back-in game. We also spent some time tossing the ball around the room and she thought that was hysterical.

Christmas morning started bright and early with Sophia discovering her trike that Santa (Grannie and Papa) got her. It was a big hit as was unpacking her stocking to find treasures. She loved our traditional Christmas breakfast of scrambled eggs with ham, and then got into the general present-opening with great glee. She was happy to carry presents to people and wanted to help open. In the afternoon we visited my grandmother in the nursing home who was quite happy to see Sophia. It was also good that the rest of us came along. After that, we took Sophia to Darla & Earl's house and left here there for two days! Paul and I got to enjoy a couple of relaxing days on our own. We got her back today at my father's birthday dinner. It was great to have the time alone, but better to have her home with us.

We had a wonderful Christmas, which was much less stressful than last year's. Sophia scored big with presents, which made Paul and I feel good about only giving her 2 things. I don't think she got any sense of a deeper meaning of Christmas yet, but she certainly is now familiar with most of the Christmas icons, Santa, snowman, candy cane, and baby Jesus. Hopefully as time goes on, she come to understand what all of that means. I also hope that some day soon, she'll stop singing 'Jingle Bells' as I'm getting really sick of it!

Happy holidays all!

Christmas excitement

2007-12-25T20:49:00.000-08:00

We are home and mostly unpacked from our 4-day Christmas extravaganza. I'm posting this one picture of Sophia surrounded by her 'loot' now, and will post more soon. I hope your Christmas was happy.

Family Photo Shoot

2007-12-21T14:11:00.000-08:00

About 6 weeks ago we got new family pictures taken. We also had several taken of just Sophia. I keep forgetting to post them online, so here they are a little late.

Sophia's stranger anxiety came out full-force during her alone photos. Of 12 pictures of her alone, only 2 were any good. Not even the addition of bunny, her favorite toy, helped her smile. She just did not want to smile for that stranger who kept talking to her and making funny noises. In the photo where she's looking over her shoulder, I am just to the left, out of the shot. The photo with her hand in her chin was uncoached; she did it on her own and the photographer was quick enough to catch it. I think it's the best one of her.

Once we joined her, she was quite happy and we got some good family pictures.

Happy Birthday Grandma!

2007-12-18T23:57:00.000-08:00

Saturday we went to Battleground to visit Grandma and Grandpa for Grandma's birthday. Barry and Jess joined us too. Sophia had fun all day even in the car on the way up. She played with her sunglasses, very proud of herself when she got them on her face, which she could only do with them upside down. In Battleground we played all day, and cooked Grandma dinner, since I didn't think it fair to make her cook her own birthday dinner. (As Darla gets such pleasure out of cooking for others, she may have actually preferred to cook.)

As always, Sophia basked in the devoted attention of 6 adults. Boy is she going to have a rude awakening when Barry & Jess' baby comes in January! We've told her about the baby, and now when we mention Aunt Jess, she says 'Jessica, baby" which I think is toddler shorthand for "Jessica is having a baby." Lately we've been trying to teach her that when she eats food, it goes to her tummy. So on Saturday as we told her that Jessica's baby is in her tummy, Sophia looked both confused and concerned.

She had a great time playing with everyone, especially Grandma and Grandpa. She loved the Christmas decorations and spent a long time playing with long strands of beads. Yes, we know this is not the best toy for her to have, but since she was supervised full-time by 6 people, we thought it fairly safe. She enjoyed "decorating" Grandma. Later, she had fun combing everyone's hair. She's not very gentle at this process. She and Grandpa invented a new game Sophia calls "boom boom." She sits on the landing in the middle of the stairs, and Grandpa throws a ball up to her and it bounces around and falls back down. Sophia laughed, laughed and laughed until her face was all red.

She had a great time all day and was in one of the best moods we've seen her in for a while. If only we could give her this much attention all the time, she'd never be grumpy!

Time away from home

2007-12-11T16:32:00.000-08:00

Last week Paul attended a conference, so Sophia and I spent Tuesday-Saturday in Portland at Grannie and Papa's house. Sophia more commonly identified it as "Papa's house" and when asked who else lived there, would reply "Bob" (my father's cat). Only with urging would she say "Grannie." When we got there Tuesday, Grannie was the one she ran to first, so Grannie shouldn't feel too left out. She opened her special Advent box with Grannie each day, which they both seemed to enjoy.

We had a good time with them. Papa gave Sophia her bath on Wednesday, well-supervised by Grannie. Sophia was quite delighted with Bob and wanted to play with her (yes, Bob is a female cat, all questions on this point should be directed to my father). Bob, however, felt that the small, running, shrieking creature should go away and would hiss every time Sophia got close. So now, when you ask Sophia what Bob says, she will hiss in response.

Friday our cousins Kathy, Theresa and Elizabeth came to town to visit, and my father went to the beach for the weekend. These cousins come up every year and help my mother decorate for Christmas. They seem to enjoy it, and my father and I are grateful that we don't have to! Sophia tried to help with the decorating, but as Grannie's ornaments are more fragile than ours, didn't get to do too much. Sophia seemed to like the company, and took to Kathy particularly well. Saturday afternoon, Paul came and got us, and I don't think Sophia had been as happy all week as she was when daddy got there.

Last week she finally began to be able to participate in a conversation on the phone. Several times she said "call my daddy please?" so we called Daddy. She couldn't initiate conversation, but would respond to questions. This is the first she's been able to do that, so it's a good step. Generally she would yank the phone out of my hand and press buttons while talking, so she hung up on Daddy several times. Saturday she asked to call Papa so she did that with Grannie. I think she hung up on him too. She's got a ways to go with phone etiquette.

Friday we went to Lloyd Center with a friend of my mom's. It is too difficult to take Mom and Sophia out with just me; we tried by going to the grocery story on Thursday and it was exhausting, even though they were both quite well behaved. At the mall we took Sophia to see Santa. She was quite interested in doing this, but flatly refused to sit on his lap. "No lap!" she kept announcing. Pictures with Santa have gotten expensive, or perhaps we were at the wrong place. They only let you take pictures with your own camera if you buy some of theirs. Sophia insisted that sit with her for the photo, so I didn't get any digital pictures of the event. Maybe next year it will go better.

Now that we're all home we're back to our routine. Last night Sophia stole Paul's hat and spent some time playing with it. Then she asked for her picture to be taken. She's doing this quite a bit, and you never know what kind of expression we're going to get out of her when we do.

Christmas decorating

2007-12-04T12:38:00.000-08:00

Saturday we jumped into the Christmas spirit with all of our energy. We decorated the house, listened to Christmas music, wrapped presents, and even went to the Zoo with Grandma and Grandpa to see the zoo lights. I am not someone who is really full of the "Christmas spirit," in fact, I try my hardest to be a bit of a humbug. My favorite Christmas song is "Grandma Got Run over by a Reindeer", but it is true what they say: Christmas looks different through the eyes of a child. Sophia was very excited to help with decorating, and she keeps asking me to take her picture in front of our stockings. We put out our most kid-friendly decorations so there are lots of things she can play with, and left in boxes the things I would be most distressed if she broke. So we're having fun.

Grannie got us a beautiful Advent calendar and filled each box with a treat for Sophia. We're enjoying taking things out each day. She's also done a few funny things lately. A few days ago she took her bunny to the living room couch and said it had to go to time out (that's Sophia's time-out place). When we asked why bunny was in time out, Sophia said bunny was crying. Sunday when Sophia got up from her nap she brought all of her stuffed animals out of her room one-by-one and lined them up around Daddy. It was a great project, it kept her occupied and running for a half an hour. It doesn't get any better than that!

We'd never been to the zoo lights before, but since we have a membership we thought we'd try it. They were really beautiful and despite the cold and the rain we had a lot of fun. Sophia's favorite part, as usual, was riding the train. We took Grandma and Grandpa with us which really added to our fun.

Tonight Sophia and I are going to spend the rest of the week in Portland with Grannie and Papa. That should add to our Christmas fun. It's going to be quite an exciting month!

Angels

2007-12-02T21:46:00.000-08:00

We decorated for Christmas this weekend and began our family Advent preparations. I will post more about that tomorrow, but tonight I will simply share the funniest thing I've heard in this house for quite some time, the voice of Paul out of the living room saying in his most stern voice, "Sophia, do not kick the angel!"
Apparently she wasn't feeling as cuddly towards it as she was when I took this picture.

Bed Adventures

2007-11-26T09:03:00.001-08:00

The day after Thanksgiving we took Sophia's crib, changing table, and lots of other equipment to Eugene for Uncle Barry & Aunt Jess. Most of the equipment had been out of Sophia's room for a while, but the changing table we removed that morning. She was quite distressed asking "changing table? diaper?" which I think means, "if you're taking my changing table where will I get diapers from now on?" But maybe I'm reading too much into it. It is quite wonderful to clear out some of our baby equipment and clothing and to be able to help our family at the same time. Uncle Barry & Paul put the crib together in the baby's new room, supervised quite closely by Sophia.

Sophia is doing fairly well with her new bed, but has really embraced the concept of being able to get in and out of it. She comes out of her room a couple of times, spends time turning her night light off and on and plays with her menagerie of stuffed animals. Last night we heard strange noises coming from her room, but since it didn't sound like she was trying to leave the room we didn't check on her. This morning we discovered she had removed every book from one shelf of her bookcase and arranged them around her bed. We made her clean them up, which she didn't really mind as she takes almost as much joy in putting things back in as she does taking them out. It's hard to be too annoyed with a child who wants to surround herself with books. I'm sure if I think hard enough, that will remind me of someone!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2007-11-25T10:36:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration with most of the people we love most at our house to celebrate; although not all several usual participants in our Thanksgiving didn't make it this year and they were missed. One of the lovely things about our families is that my parents and I have been completely adopted by Paul and his family, so family celebrations usually include all of us. We've very lucky to have married into such a accepting, loving group.

We had 13 (plus two in utero) at our house for Thanksgiving. It was a little smaller that past years, but we made up for it in fun. Our friends from Roseburg came and Sophia had a great time playing with their boys. In the morning Sophia and the boys, both dads, Alex and Gabe, took a long trip to the park. They had a great time until Alex had an unfortunate incident with the pavement and they had to come home.

We all gathered about 10:30 and at at 2ish. Paul did his usual fantastic job barbecuing the turkey and all the food was great. Sophia liked it enough that there wasn't much of a mess under her chair! Earl gave Alex a chess lesson which Sophia couldn't resist "helping". While Alex is old enough to really play, she mostly wants to move the pieces around. But at least she can name most of the correctly, which is doing pretty well for 20 months.

Sophia really enjoys playing with Alex and Gabe. This photo of them on the couch was taken during their after-dinner movie. Sophia looked at Alex and said "Alex sit couch" and he very kindly got up and move next to her. I'm not sure it's a good thing that she already has boys dancing to her tune! My mother always has Thanksgiving gifts for all the kids. This year they all got books, so they each had to listen to all of them. It's a good thing a book is such an easy thing to share.

Sophia didn't take a nap at all, so by the end of the day she was exhausted, so we finished our fun day with a viewing of the Wiggles.

Sophia sleeps better

2007-11-20T08:49:00.000-08:00

Sorry, no new picture to post, but I am happy to report that Sophia went to bed quite easily last night. She cried "Daddy, are you?" (Daddy, where are you?) in her most pitiful voice, and then giggled with glee when he came in to check on her. Other than that, we heard her singing to her duck and all was quiet. I think two things we did last night helped. 1. We let her pick out her pajamas. 2. She got to choose her own blanket. I think those small pieces of control made her feel better about the process.

Big Girl Bed

2007-11-18T19:35:00.000-08:00

Friday evening, we moved Sophia into her new toddler bed. We sold it as big as we could, touting it as a "big girl bed" and how exciting it was. Saturday she proudly showed it off to her grandparents. She did fairly well Friday night. A few times we even heard her say "big girl bed" over the baby monitor. But last night was not good. Last night she figured out she could get out of the bed and try to leave the room. This morning she came to wake us up at 5 a.m.

Unfortunately, the introduction of the toddler bed coincided with the end of the pacifier. This was not our intention. Friday evening one of the times I went in to check on her I discovered she'd chewed off the end of her pacifier and swallowed it. Since it's no longer safe for her to have them, they had to go. I think if she at least had them, she'd be a bit more comforted. Paul put her down a few minutes ago and she's crying like her heart has broken. It's so sad. But, the crib needs to move to Uncle Barry & Aunt Jess' house in time for their baby, so it's a sad time for Sophia. We've had to go back to putting her "on the clock" and visiting to calm her down after increasing lengths of time. I'm quite sure that people promised me that after we did this to her as an infant we'd never need it again. I feel a bit mislead. But probably not nearly as betrayed as poor Sophia does, having lost the only bed she's ever really known.

Other things in her life continue to bring her joy. Lately she's been dancing with a bear a lot. Which is pretty funny because the bear is about her size. She especially loves "Baby Beluga" by Raffi and frequently asks for "Baby Buga" by name.

She has also grown enough that we had to change the strap size on her car seat. She was very concerned about Daddy messing with her seat, and kept a close watch on him the entire time.

Jumping on our bed seems to be about her favorite thing in life, at least now that it's cold and rainy and she doesn't get much outdoor time. Also popular is the "chase you" game.

She continues to enjoy watching us cook. Recently she got to stir and shake in herbs for a crock pot dish. She seemed pretty proud.

We've seen a lot of the grandparents lately. I took some funny pictures of her playing peek-a-book with Grandma and Grandpa. Sophia really loves it when someone hides with her. My parents spent the night last night which was the first time ever they've spent the night at this house, and we enjoyed all that extra time with them. Papa provided nearly constant entertainment, and even consented to be a horse.
Saturday my mother, Darla and I attended a lovely baby shower for Aunt Jessica. Sophia got to stay in Salem and entertain my father and Paul. When the women returned, Sophia was still bouncing off the walls, and Paul and Papa looked like they were about to drop.

My mother, who puts amazing effort into gifts had early Thanksgiving gifts for us. Sophia got a Fisher Price Little People Thanksgiving set, which was enormously popular. (I think it may be impossible for Grannie to visit Sophia and not bring a present.) Paul and I got a lovely statue of a Pilgrim couple, and the small Pilgrim child riding a turkey in this picture on the right. I think I can fairly say that this is about the oddest gift I have ever received. When I pulled it out of the box me, Paul, my father and even my mother, laughed as hard as possible. I had to stop because my stomach hurt from laughing. After seeing this post, my mother asked that I update to say that Sophia seemed to like the turkey, immediately taking it away to play with. I'm not quite sure why my mother bought it, but I do believe it will become one of those legendary family pieces that we pull out every Thanksgiving and have a good laugh over.

Shush!

2007-11-06T19:55:00.000-08:00

Today I experienced the wonder that is Cragislist. We bought Sophia a bouncy horse for Christmas. Now we just have to keep it hidden from her until then. Don't tell!

Seasonal confusion

2007-11-05T10:25:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what season we're having. Some days it seems like early fall or late summer, and other days like winter. This weekend we had beautiful weather and got into the mid-sixties. Sophia was able to spend a lot of time outdoors, and at the wedding I performed on Sunday we took a lot of outdoor pictures. This is not what one would typically expect in November in Oregon. Usually, we would have rain, rain, rain and lots of dark, cloudy skies.

This weekend we spent Saturday in Battle Ground with Grandma and Grandpa. Sophia enjoyed playing with their toys, which have the benefit of not being the ones she is used to. We all went to a playground, where Sophia convinced Grandpa to go down the slide with her. Unfortunately, I cut off his head in the photo (which should not be taken as a sign of how I feel about my father-in-law). Sunday, my parents had lunch with us, and my mother attended the Sunday school class I'm teaching, so it was a good grandparent-weekend all around.

Happy Halloween!

2007-11-01T08:04:00.000-07:00

Sophia had great fun with Halloween yesterday. She got to wear her costume at day care in the afternoon, and then I took her to Paul's work to trick-or-treat. We couldn't get her to say "trick-or-treat" but she would say "candy?" and then "thank you" so she did ok. I got her lion costume at a used kids' clothing store and it was warm enough that she didn't need a jacket last night. She loved it, roaring frequently to get into character. We only took her to a few houses. She showed great interest in acquiring the candy, but none at all in eating it, thank goodness. She also enjoyed helping pass out candy to the kids who came to the door.

Fun with family

2007-10-29T19:38:00.000-07:00

We had a busy weekend. Saturday evening friends came from dinner. They brought Sophia this new bunny. It has hardly left her possession since then. In fact, today when I forgot to bring it with us on our visit to my aunt, I heard about the bunny much of the way up.

Sunday we had brunch with more friends and then spent the afternoon at Grannie & Papa's house. They got down out of the attic the bouncy horse I used as a child (as I believe I've mentioned previously, my family has this problem where we never get rid of anything). Sophia was a bit hesitant with it at first, but after seeing how much Papa enjoyed it, she decided to try.

We went to visit my grandmother in the nursing home. It was the first time I'd been there since my other grandmother died, and it was a little strange not seeing her too. But we had a lovely visit with my grandmother.

Monday, Sophia and I took a big adventure trip up to Scappoose to see my Aunt Sue and Uncle Jim. We had a wonderful time and Sophia had great fun playing with Sue. Sophia didn't seem to be able to say "Sue" so called her "Soup." Considering what a great cook Sue is, that's not such a bad name.

It's also hat season and we recently got out Sophia's hat and mittens to see if they still fit. They do, and she's had a lot of fun taking them off and on herself. It's a good thing she's got mittens, because she can't figure out where the thumb goes. I think separate places for all the fingers would really confuse her! She's awfully proud of her hat, which is funny because last winter, we could hardly get her to wear it.

A few days ago I made brownies, and there is no point in making something like that, unless you get to lick the spoon. This was Sophia's first time enjoying such a treat, and she made the most of it! She also tried to make some sense of the cookbook. That's a way off, but she enjoyed the pictures. When we're cooking, she loves to pull a chair over to the counter to stand on and watch. Sometimes she gets to help and likes shaking spices into things, or putting ingredients into the bowl. I think this is something we'll be able to do together for a very long time.

Cheese!

2007-10-22T10:27:00.000-07:00

Sophia has learned to say "cheese" and pose for the camera. Unfortunately, her cheese smile looks a bit goofy. She also has a habit of rushing up to the camera when she notices a picture is about to be taken. We have a lot of extreme close-ups. Thank goodness for digital. Saturday Sophia wore the new dress Grannie sent her, so I'm posting pictures so Grannie can see. Last night, Sophia's big project was taking off Daddy's socks and shoes, and them wearing them herself. She worked at it steadily, with great concentration while Paul and I collapsed into helpless laughter. She never managed to walk, or even stand up, with the shoes, but she had the socks on for quite a while. You just never know what she's going to do next!

Pumpkin Fun

2007-10-18T14:45:00.000-07:00

Last weekend my father stayed with us. He was in town for a Willamette University Trustee meeting and got to spend two nights with us. Sophia loved it and even let him put her to bed at night. Sunday afternoon we went to a farm and showed Sophia the animals. Suburban kid that she is, she was fascinated by them. Ever since, she's been telling us all about animals, even telling us which ones she saw. It made quite an impression. We had a great time, riding in a wagon, going through hay and corn mazes, and looking at the fields of pumpkins. The best time was playing on a long slide that went down the side of hay bales. While sliding down, Sophia generally looked scared, but always laughed with delight at the bottom and asked "again?"

Show off

2007-10-11T16:45:00.000-07:00

In between tantrums, Sophia continues to entertain. A few days ago I made her a fort out of sheets. She was a bit confused by it but seemed to enjoy it. At one point she tried to crawl on top of it and was quite surprised when it collapsed under her! As we were taking pictures of the fort-fun she starting posing for the camera, and asking for more pictures to be taken of her. She isn't yet asking to see them, but I expect that will come. Children of the digital age.

Yesterday, Sophia received a new dress in the mail that Grannie Nancy sent her. Sophia was quite intrigued by the package and tried very hard to put the new dress on. She's not quite able to do that yet, and indignantly refused our help. So, she hasn't tried it on yet, but seemed to quite like it, calling it "soft."

Ocean

2007-10-03T19:02:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we went to the beach with my parents. We had a great time. It's amazing that one 18-month-old can entertain 4 adults full-time for 3 days straight. Sophia wore my shoes, Daddy's sweatshirt, and had lots of fun with Grannie and Papa. She especially liked climbing up on a chair next to Grannie and playing with her. (This picture was taken first thing in the morning.)

Sophia's vocabulary is increasing exponentially each day. This weekend she learned "ocean", "beach" and lots of other words. It's too hard to keep track of the new words now that she has such a large vocabulary. Her favorite thing is to ask us what we're doing "Mommy doing?" "Daddy doing?" is a constant refrain. She asks over, and over, and over, even when we're doing the same thing we were the last time she asked. It gets a bit frustrating some times, so we have an opportunity to practice our patience.

Today we played with Sophia's airplane. I like this toy much better since I took out its batteries and it doesn't shriek music at us any more. Sophia decided Mommy and Daddy needed turns riding it. We don't fit very well, but she thought it hysterical. Tonight she asked Daddy "chess please" so she got a lesson. I think she looks like she's ready to take on the world.

Events

2007-09-19T20:57:00.000-07:00

We have had lots of fun over the past few weeks. Labor Day weekend we went to Roseburg to see our very good friends who live there. Sophia had a grand time playing with Alex and Gabe now that she's just about big enough to keep up with their adventures. We took a lovely hike, and Sophia even walked some of it, and had fun in the wading pool in the back yard. We'll have to get one of those for Sophia next year.

We've had a couple of recent trips to the carousel, one with Grannie and Papa and another with some friends from out of town. One of these groups of friends has a baby a few months old. Sophia wasn't sure she approved of her Mommy and Daddy paying attention to another baby (despite the picture, she actually didn't grab the baby's face). We also went to the zoo with Peter, Christiana and Miriam. Sophia wanted to copy what Miriam did and we had fun seeing Paul's and Miriam's heights relative to the bears.

Since school time has started, Sophia has been getting some preschool activities at day care. Since all the big kids get to participate she thinks she should too, so she's coming home with art projects and other papers. She was especially proud of this crown she brought home recently. Other new skills include somersaults, which she's very happy to practice, even from the bed or couch (but we discourage those) and a growing sense of sharing. Recently she was 'sharing' her milk with her stuffed lamb, a project that required the lamb be thrown in the laundry fairly soon afterwards. She likes to hold out her food to share with us. She gets quite offended if we don't take it.

She's also practicing other new skills. Tuesday she grabbed the broom and started sweeping. She isn't doing much more than moving around the dirt, but I'm impressed with how well she's able to maneuver the very long broom handle. We also recently got out this drum and she's really enjoying playing with it. She mostly wants Mommy or Daddy to help, but I'm wondering if she's going to take after Papa and be a drummer.

Life

2007-08-29T19:57:00.000-07:00

It's been a few weeks since our last post. Mostly time has been occupied with living but there have been a few highlights, and frankly some low-lights too. I've had a bad migraine, and Paul and I both had the worst case of the flu we've ever had. We were sick enough that I had to get my parents to come take care of Sophia the first day, and the second day we took her to day care and then stayed home sick ourselves!

In between the health crises, we've been having some fun. We went to the zoo with my parents. Sophia especially loved rolling along in her stroller right next to Grannie Nancy in her wheelchair. Sophia kept looking at my mom and grinning, like she was enjoying having a buddy. She also insisted on petting every goat in the petting zoo area. (Which begs the question, why are there farm animals and a petting zoo in a zoo? Are they for the suburban kids who don't know any farm animals?) Aunt Meghan and Uncle Pat came to visit for Pat's birthday and Sophia got to spend the night in Battle Ground with her aunts and uncles, Grandma and Grandpa without Mommy and Daddy. We're sad to say that she didn't seem to notice our absence with all those folks to entertain.

We've also been having some fun around here. A brand new park recently opened near us, and it's the most amazing park I've seen. It has lots of slides, climbing equipment, and even water features. We love it. We've had a lot of fun playing with the kids in our neighborhood, especially our neighbor Emily who Sophia really loves.

You never know what Sophia will come up with to entertain us. She's figured out that if she holds the rail of her crib and jumps she can get a lot of air. Unfortunately, she's doing this for several minutes after we put her to bed at night. Recently, she put a blanket over her head and ran up and down the halls several times. Amazingly, she didn't run into anything. She never ceases to entertain us!

Water fun

2007-08-14T21:50:00.000-07:00

What do you do with a toddler when the temperature is over 90? You let her play with the hose, of course.

Then, since she's stripped down to her diaper anyway, and it's bath-night, you let her play with her pasta.

Ok, maybe you wouldn't do these things with your toddler, but we did, and we all had a wonderful evening!

Pottry Training

2007-08-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

Last night Sophia and I were playing when she marched to the door of the bathroom where her potty lives and started saying "potty, potty." I thought it was a game, so I tried to pull her away. She was most insistent, so I took her in, took off her diaper, and let her sit on the potty. She stayed there for several minutes, all the time I'm getting bored with what I think is a game, and she's saying, "potty, potty." Imagine my shock when I finally take her off the potty to find she's used it! She repeated the behavior again during dinner when she repeated her potty-chant, and Paul took her. To celebrate her milestone we took her out for ice cream, so I'm posting a picture of the celebratory ice cream, rather than the potty chair post-use. She continued to use the potty today at day care. We're quite proud of her. Certainly, we haven't had much to do with the potty training! I think she's been inspired by the other kids at day care, or maybe she's just potty training herself.

Potty

2007-08-05T21:18:00.000-07:00

Sophia had a good week. I didn't have a good week since I was down with a migraine all week, but at least Sophia's routines continued as normal. Last Monday, before the migraine got too bad, she and I went to the Zoo with our friends Therese (who gave me the lemon I posted a few weeks ago) and her daughter Ellie. Unfortunatley, I didn't get a good picture of Sophia with Ellie, so we'll have to wait on that one. Sophia had a fantastic time at the zoo, but she was primarilly interested in the other kids all of whom she calls "baby." It was especially exciting to her to have a baby traveling around with us all day and she was quite intriguted by Ellie.

We were at the zoo by 10 Monday morning, and I've never seen it so empty. When we went to ride the train, we walked directly up and didn't have to wait for it. I don't think I've ever done that in my entire life. Apparently that's the best time to go to the zoo. Sophia loved the train, eagerly looking around and making frequent train noises. The day was a lot of fun.

Today we had a couple of important shopping ventures. First we got Sophia's feet sized, she's now a size 7, and bought her new shoes. I confess, I subcumed to trendiness, and bought her a pair of Crocs. They seemed to me to be ideal kid shoes, since they're tough, waterproof and clean off easily. She wanted to wear them out of the store, and all day long she'd look down at them and say "shoes" or "new shoes." She also frequently held out a foot so we could admire the new shoes.

Also today we bought her a potty of her very own. She's not quite ready to use it, but at day care she's insisting on sitting on it after the other kids do, so she's showing quite a bit of interest. She also wants to get up close and personal when we use the potty, something that is a lot more funny to tell about than to have happen to you. After we brought it home she wanted to carry her new potty all around the house, and that's not a habit we want her getting into! So after posing for some pictures (that face she's making isn't a grumpy face, it's a pose for pictures face) we insisted that it return to the bathroom. She sat on it for a while before bath, but no use yet. We can't wait for the end of diapers, so we're encouraging her all we can.

Wedding!

2007-07-29T19:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Uncle Barry and Aunt Jessica got married. We're all very happy about that! They've been together for 9 years, so it seemed about time. It was a wonderful wedding; one of the few I've ever attended that felt like every part of it represented the couple. The wedding was at Mt. Pisgah Arboretum, outside in a grove. It was a beautiful ceremony, and Barry and Jess not only seemed to be happy, they looked like they were having a lot of fun, which is unusual for the bride and groom. One funny thing happened during the ceremony. The officiant asked everyone to rise as Jess and her father were walking down the aisle. Then he never told us we could sit back down. That meant, everyone stood the entire time! As those family members who spent the afternoon setting up said, if they'd know the chairs weren't needed, they wouldn't have wasted all that time hauling them around.

The food was great, barbecue, and the music was fun - Sophia spent quite a bit of time staring at the musicians, and dancing along. I think between Grandma and Grandpa, she ate an entire piece of wedding cake. Before the ceremony Sophia discovered that my dress made a great leash to drag me around. The night before at the rehearsal, she kept stealing everyone's sunglasses and playing with her skirt. She wasn't quite sure about why Barry wasn't paying as much attention to her as he usually does. At the end of the ceremony as he and Jess walked down the aisle, she reached out to him to pick her up and said "Barry!." Luckily, she had another uncle and 3 aunts to pay her attention, in addition to my parents being there. There was no lack of attention paid to her.

The best part was that the entire family was there - all of Paul's siblings and their partners. Sophia got to meet aunt Karen for the first time, and she took to Karen like she rarely does to people.

Fun was had by all, and we're so happy that these two people we care so much about are happy.

Daddy Bye-bye

2007-07-25T22:42:00.000-07:00

This week it's just me and Sophia (and of course our poor cat who I'm sure is thinking that she finally got rid of Paul and it's time to start working on getting rid of Sophia). Paul is attending a conference. It has been fun, but exhausting. I have a whole new level of respect for single parents. Sophia and I have been trying to have fun, last night we visited friends, and tonight we went to a new park near our house, but she really misses Daddy and knows her routine is off. She will spend several minutes saying "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy" and it's very sad. This morning when I went to get her out of bed, she refused to let me touch her for about 10 minutes, repeatedly asking for Daddy. She's just too young to understand that Daddy is coming back, or even that he's gone, not just in another room ignoring her. Poor Sophia.

As we were leaving day care today (at least that part of her life is functioning normally) she started pointing at things and naming their colors. I had no idea she knew colors! She correctly identified pink (Grandma Darla will be so proud!), green and black. Her day care provider, Karen, says she's also good at orange. We talked to Paul tonight and I reported this to him. He thought it was pretty funny, as the colors he's been working on with her are red, yellow and blue!

Karen often fixes Sophia's hair. Anytime you see a photo of Sophia and she has her hair in pigtails, or anything else fancy, Karen has done it. I have talents, but they don't stretch to hairstyling. The ponytail she had on top of her head tonight was pretty funny looking, as it flopped forward towards her face. At dinner I took a few photos of her, and for the first time she started posing for the camera. Her poses were pretty funny, but it's a start. At least with the silly grin she was giving, we finally have a good shot of her teeth. I've been claiming she has 12, now we can prove it! Actually, one of her eye teeth has poked through, so she's on her way to 13.

I'm really looking forward to Paul coming back tomorrow, and I know Sophia would be too if she could understand it. It's been fun to be on my own with Sophia, but I'm tired!

Grandma's Memorial

2007-07-22T21:03:00.000-07:00

Today we held my grandmother's memorial at Montavilla United Methodist Church. It was a lovely service, and the pastor (who has only been the pastor at that church since the beginning of July and never met my grandmother) did a wonderful job. You could tell that she really listened to what folks told her about my grandmother, and said some very accurate and wonderful things about my grandmother.

I was privileged to give my grandmother's eulogy. It was hard, I came very close to losing control and crying a few times, but I made it through OK. I even managed to help folks laugh a bit, and my grandmother did love things that made her laugh, so that was appropriate. During the eulogy, Sophia (who was sitting with Grandma Darla and Grandpa Earl) noticed that I was up front talking. She said "Mama, Mama, Mama! Most of the church heard her. It was pretty cute. I realized that she has never seen me up in front of a church, as its been so long since I've done anything like that, so she was probably very surprised.

All-in-all, the service felt like it accurately reflected my grandmother's life and faith. It was a good service. The manuscript for the eulogy I gave is below. It is not entirely reflective of what I actually said today; this is the first time in many, many years I've spoken at anything with a manuscript and I deviated from it some. You may not care to read it. That's OK with me. But I wanted to put it up.

Emma Leona Dull Wittmayer was born December 5, 1914 in Burgin, Kentucky and died July 6, 2007 in Portland, Oregon. She had 3 children, 8 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.

She was born “Emma Lee” but she hated the name Lee and changed it to Leona when she was an adult. This does not explain why she gave my Aunt Sue the middle name “Lee” and she was never adequately able to explain it to anyone else.

Emma moved to Wyoming as a young girl, and later to Oregon while still in
school. From 1st to 8th grade, she went to school in Willamette. While living in Willamette her family lived in the woods in a log cabin belonging to a principal from Portland, and it did not have electricity.

She graduated from Milwaukie High School, where she was active in sports. She attended Milwaukie High School while her parents lived in Gladstone-she lived with another family at that time so that she was able to attend Milwaukie High School. She
lettered in both track and basketball. The story she told was that her dad was not going to let her play the next basketball game because he told her that her test score of 86 on a test was too low. The principal came to the house and talked to her dad, and he still wouldn't let her play, so Emma went to the church to pray that the team would do well without her.

She took sewing lessons while at Milwaukie HS. She later enjoyed sewing all of Susan's clothes, and baton twirling costumes. When she was over 50, she borrowed one of those costumes to wear to a Halloween party! Sewing was always very important to her. Many years the grandchildren would receive pajamas or nightgowns that she had sewn for them. There must be a dozen pictures of Cheryl, Lisa, me and Amy (in various groupings) in matching nightgowns.

She worked during high school and thereafter as a live-in maid in homes in Portland.

Emma met Calvin Wittmayer at The Oaks Amusement Park Roller Skating Rink, where
they participated together in competitive roller skating on teams called "The Red Mike's and The Blue Mike's" They were married in 1939 and the marriage lasted until his death in 1990 - 51 years, which, if nothing else would, shows her resilience.

She and Calvin moved to Washington, D.C., where Calvin worked for the U.S. Commerce Department but they returned to Portland in the early 1940s.

Larry was born in 1942, Susan in 1944 and John in 1946. She was a homemaker after her children were born, until John was in junior high school. Then she returned to work doing principally catering, cooking, and domestic work. She was especially proud of the years she spent cooking for the doctors at the Oregon Medical Association.

The family moved from Portland to Springfield in 1952 and later to Coos Bay in 1956,
both moves because of Cal’s job transfers. But they stayed in contact with the extended family in Portland, visiting for holidays. The family returned to Portland in 1960, and she lived in Portland the rest of her life.

Emma valued two things most: her family and her church. She gave whatever she had to give to each of them. She loved nothing more than spending time with her family. It made her happiest when all three of her children were together. She was proud of them and bragged about them as often as she could.

Emma was a life-long member of the Methodist Church, from early childhood until
her death. She was a member of Montavilla UMC from the early 1940s until her death,
except for the years 1952 - 1960, when she was a member of Ebert Memorial
Methodist Church in Springfield and Coos Bay Methodist Church. She was also a faithful member of the women’s society and had a good circle of friends there. When the United Methodist Women put out a recipe book in 1999, hers was the first recipe in the book, for “morning glory muffins.” That year many members of the family received the cookbook for Christmas. She was the wedding coordinator here for many years and found it a privilege and an honor to help people’s weddings run smoothly.

She also sang in the choir for many years. For a few years she continued to sit with the choir but did not sing. It made her very happy to be part of the choir. She would frequently bring “treats” for the choir at practice or on Sunday. One choir member once told me that they had to make her stop because they were all gaining weight!

She was also a member of Eastern Star for many years. I do not remember any time when she was not wearing her Eastern Star ring on her right hand. According to the Eastern star its purpose is to “build an Order which is truly dedicated to charity, truth and loving kindness.” These are good words to describe Emma. She was devoted to serving other people.

She frequently expressed her love for people by cooking for them. At Christmas each family would get the same thing as the others – she believed in treating all of us equally – homemade noodles, banana nut bread and other homemade goodies. Whenever there was a church potluck she had something to share and usually could be found behind the scenes setting up, cleaning and making things happen. She used to bring so much food to church potlucks that my grandfather Cal would ask her if she was trying to feed the whole church. She was so accustomed to this role that she had a hard time stepping out of it. When we threw her an 80th birthday party she really wanted to come into the kitchen and help get things ready, or at least tell us all how it should be done!

In the family, she was famous or perhaps infamous for her cooking. It was very important to her to cook for her family. She made birthday cakes for the grandchildren as long as they would let her. She had a mold to make a cake in the shape of a lamb. Then she would cover the frosting with coconut. I think that same lamb cake was my birthday cakes for years until I finally asked if I could have something different. She made chicken noodle soup, and even made her own noodles. It took her a long time to get on board with the “health food” craze. I can remember her putting an entire stick of butter into her chicken noodle soup until her family convinced her that it could still taste good without the butter.

She enjoyed her garden, and growing things that she could use in her cooking. She grew her own horseradish so she could make her own horseradish sauce. She enjoyed showing her grandchildren what was growing in the yard, and when she moved into her condo after Cal died, some of her granddaughters helped her put in a small garden in her new home.

She also loved cookbooks and she passed this love on to my aunt and some of my cousins. A cookbook as a gift would always make her happy. She also believed that they made good gifts. There were years that she would keep several copies of the “Joy of Cooking” on hand so she could give them as shower presents. I imagine there are many women here who received one of these from her at their wedding shower.

When I was a child I would spend the night at her house from time-to-time. My grandfather was there, but I mostly remember being with my Grandmother. We always made cookies. She’d let me help roll them out and cut them with her cookies cutters. While we waited for the cookies to bake we would sing “I’m a little teapot” and she’d do the dance with me. It is entirely due to her that I enjoy cutting out cookies with cookie cutters. I have all of her cook cutters and there is nothing I would rather have to remember her by.

She loved the Portland Trail Blazers and could be counted on to listen to all the games on her radio. She was a big fan and would watch them on TV whenever they were on, which wasn’t so often in those years. In fact, if there was basketball on TV, she thought it had to be the Blazers playing, and would identify other teams as them. It was a special treat the time my father took her for her birthday to see them live. After years of listening to them she got to see them once and talked about it, both before and after, to everyone.

Emma had a fantastic attitude about everything. No matter what pain or difficulties she experienced she was always positive. She always thought of people as kind, and nice. Each event she attended was a lot of fun. Her attitude, while sometimes entertaining to her grandchildren, was in fact inspiring. Most of us could stand to be a lot more like her. She had a classic expression that some of us came to call the “grandma grin” because her usual expression was a smile, no matter what was happening.

She was a person who never saw her own value. But she was a woman of tremendous value. She taught her children, kindness, hard work, honesty and respect. We all know my grandfather was not the nicest person in the world, and it is due entirely to my grandmother that Larry, Sue and John turned out to be the good people that they are. She was the kind of person that did not put herself forward, but just got down and did the work that needed to be done. She could be funny, she could be kind, she could also be stubborn and strong-willed, but no one with any relation to the name “Wittmayer” could claim anything else. We are a strong people, and while on the surface one might not have thought her to be the strongest of us, underneath, she was stronger than the rest. She retained her positive attitude all the time, as well as her devotion to caring for others. Nothing could make her change herself. She was a person devoted to making other people happy, her husband, her children and family, her church, her friends. We were lucky to know her, to be related to her, to be her friend.

Thank you for being here today to help us celebrate her life.

Bye Bye High Chair

2007-07-15T10:49:00.000-07:00

Since we returned from vacation Sophia has been asserting her independence in several ways. She does not want us to break off a piece of whatever we're eating, she wants the whole thing. She doesn't want us to get a cracker out of the box and hand it to her, she wants the box so she can do it herself. Most dramatically, she has rejected her high chair and bibs. All week she threw an absolute fit every time we tried to put her in the high chair, and ultimately wouldn't eat much once we were there. After several days of this, we finally got smart. We put the high chair away (which strangely, upset her) and got out a booster seat she can use at the table. She seems quite pleased about sitting at the table with us.

This week Sophia also noticed the chess table and frequently wants to climb into its chairs and play the with the pieces. Paul is teaching her the names of the pieces and I think she's saying "pawn" when she points at the table. But with her pronunciation, it's hard to be sure. At this rate, I think she'll be the family chess champion in no time.

A few months ago my friend Therese called me a "lemon" because things so often go wrong with me. Sometimes it seems like I lurch from one health disaster to another. She sent me this lemon. I think it will be my mascot. Thanks Therese, I think.

Big Family Adventure

2007-07-11T17:48:00.000-07:00

As promised, I'll tell you about our big family adventure. Unfortunately, I realized after we got home that most of the good pictures were taken on other people's cameras, so I don't have some photos to share that I want. At least the digital age means I'll get them eventually.

Paul's cousin Libby got married last Thursday the 5th in Chico Hot Springs in Pray, Montana . We drove out and took the opportunity to visit friends and have some fun along the way. Grandma Darla and Grandpa Earl went with us, which helped to share the driving and Sophia-entertaining responsibilities. Sophia did as well as could be expected. She got tired of the car, but the entertainment, which included a new toy, books and a DVD player, made it possible.

Before we went to Grandma & Grandpa's house we went to the Oregon Zoo for a few hours. It was a big hit and Sophia loved wandering around. She got a little nervous at one exhibit where there was a bear pressed up against the glass, but other than that, loved it. We spent the first night of our trip at Earl & Darla's house and they had a tricycle for Sophia to ride. She thought she'd go all the way to Montana on it, but we had other plans.

On the drive out we visited our friend Laura in Jerome, Idaho, and our friends Dan (who is the pastor who performed our wedding), Laura, Matt and Phillip in Idaho Falls. Since these are not folks we get to see very often, it was wonderful to spend some time with them. We also spent part of a day in Yellowstone. I think Sophia was too young to appreciate it, other than liking seeing the water (currently one of her favorite words) and hearing the birds. But the rest of us had a good time.

Then we spent two full days and three nights at Chico. It was quite a treat because all of Paul's siblings were there, Barry, Pat & Amy, along with Jess and Meghan. Our entire family hasn't been together since Memorial Day of 2006 and we had a lot of fun hanging out together. All the aunts and uncles did their job of paying attention to Sophia quite well, and she adores them all. It did, however, take her a little while to warm up to Pat. We think that's because the first day he was unshaven, and she didn't know what to think about that. After he shaved, Pat was a big hit.

The only major problem we had on the trip was the heat. It was in the mid-90's in Chico and none of the rooms were air conditioned. This meant that Sophia did not sleep well, and when she doesn't sleep well, nobody else does either. The last night we were in Chico she was up, crying, screaming and whining, for about 4 hours in the middle of the night. This was the reason that we decided to drive all the way back to Grandma & Grandpa's house on Saturday, spending about 16 hours in the car. It was exhausting, but great to not be in a hotel. During the time at Chico it would have helped if we could have cooled down in the pool, but since it's fed by mineral hot springs, it was over 100 degrees in the pool. Sophia enjoyed the pool, but we could only stay in it for limited times. She did play in a sprinkler some one evening, soaking herself completely, but looking quite happy.

It was wonderful seeing so many of Grandma Darla's siblings, their spouses and kids. All of the kids of Sophia's generation were there, and Sophia was most fascinated by cousin Lucia, who is 4 months younger than her, and cousin Ellie who is less than 3 months old. "Baby" is one of Sophia's favorite words and she used it a lot. Sophia also got to meet Great-Grandma Beste (Darla's mother) for the first time, and see Great-Grandma Lael (Earl's mother) again. She was not quick to warm up to anyone, but eventually she got comfortable.

The wedding itself was lovely, and blessedly short. It was on top of a hill, in about 95 degree heat, but happily there was a strong breeze to keep us all feeling somewhat cool. One of the great things about the wedding was that the reception was in an air conditioned building! I was very sad when I had to leave the reception early to take Sophia to bed. But she's in charge of the schedule.

In the last week Sophia has really improved her vocabulary. She has started to be willing to repeat words when we say "can you say ..." to her. That's new. She is putting two word phrases together, although most of them involve "hi." "Hi baby" is one of her favorite things to say, even when there is no baby in sight. She and grandpa developed a fun game where she would say "hi baby" and he'd respond "no baby" and they'd go back and forth dozens of times. It got a bit old for the rest of us, but she seemed to like it. Sophia has also started counting, although it appears she can only count to two. She would put things on a table, or move them from place-to-place saying "one, two" as she'd set each one down.

Sophia really did very well in the car and around all the new people. It was also great fun for all of us, not just her, to spend so much time with Earl and Darla. We were pretty tired when the trip was over, but it was wonderful.

Grandma

2007-07-09T15:31:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, June 30 we left for an 8-day trip through Idaho, to Chico Hot Springs in Montana where we attended the wedding of one of Paul's cousins. I have all kinds of pictures and stories to share. It was a good, but difficult trip.

While we were in Montana, however, my grandmother Emma Wittmayer died and I just don't feel like posting a cheery update of our vacation right now. So, instead, I'm posting a picture of her, my father, Sophia and I that was taken over a year ago. It's the only good picture I have of the four of us. I'll try to post a happy, cherry blog about our trip another day.

Temper, Temper!

2007-06-27T19:49:00.000-07:00

Sophia continues to be quite strong-willed. I'm guessing she'll grow out of this one about never. Oh dear. She has learned where the cookies (actually rice cakes, but it's all in the name) live and frequently points to the cupboard demanding one.

She also prefers to hold her own books, often picking it up and throwing them on the floor when we try to hold them for her. Aunt Meghan and Uncle Patrick sent her a wonderful Baby Einstein book for her birthday that she never lets us read to her. She looks at it all the time, but only by herself.

One of her favorite games is finding Daddy's belly button. Generally, any mention of "belly button" will cause her to start tugging on Paul's shirt.

Tonight she had a massive, 10 minute tantrum. She was angry that Paul wanted her to sit next to him to read a book; she wanted to sit on his lap. So she screamed, and screamed, and cried. When he left the room she followed him so she could continue to scream out us. We had to remind ourselves the inspiring words of our friend Derek, "I will not negotiate with terrorists."

Frequently as Sophia has started to talk more I have quoted to friends and family a passage I once read in a book about baby babble. I thought it would be funny to share it with you. It's from The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde. (Fforde is one of my favorite authors, although I admit I don't like this book as much as his Thursday Next series). The Big Over Easy takes place in a world where nursery rhyme characters and ancient Greek gods live among us. The main character, Jack Spratt, has invited Prometheus (yes, the Titan) into his home where Prometheus encounters Stevie, the one-year-old, and they have the following conversation:

Stevie then stared at Prometheus with all the serious that one-year-olds can
muster, with is quite a lot.
"Da-woo," he said at length.
"A-boo," replied Prometheus with a large smile.
"Da-woo!" said Stevie with a shriek of laughter.
"You speak baby gibberish?" asked Jack.
"Fluently. The adult-education center ran a course, and I have a lot of time on my
hands."
"So what did he say?"
"I don't know."
"I thought you said you spoke gibberish?"
"I do. but your baby doesn't. I think he's speaking either pre-toddler nonsense, a form of infant burble or an obscure dialect of gobbledygook. In any event, I can't understand a word he's saying."

I think it expresses how many of us feel about speaking to a toddler. Sophia clearly knows what she's saying, and most of the time we understand her. Certainly other toddlers understand her quite well. I think toddlers speak their own language that we then train out of them by teaching them our language. I wonder if toddlers speak the same language all over the world, or if it's different in each country?

New Pictures

2007-06-22T00:48:00.000-07:00

Not much is going on at the moment. Life is slowly returning to its normal schedule as I get better. I don't have much to report, but I have Sophia pictures to share, and I know that's what many folks come to our blog for!

We went to Portland and Battle Ground for Father's Day. On the ride up I took a picture of Sophia sleeping in the car. I think every child does this, but it's still funny to see her contort herself into what appear to be agonizing positions while sleeping soundly.

While in Portland my parents gave us the rocking chair that was my mother's. It was repaired and cleaned up by my family's good friend Bob who builds beautiful furniture. (He built the end table behind Sophia in the photo to the right.) Sophia loves her chair and sits and rocks in it quite frequently. She also climbs on it and this frequently results in her being tipped out onto the floor with the chair on top of her. We tell her no, and she does it even though it makes her cry every time. I'm hoping sometime she'll learn from experience and stop doing it, but I think there's a good chance she'll learn from experience and do it better so the chair doesn't dump her onto the floor. (Try clicking on the photo of Sophia and Paul so you can better see Sophia's expression. She's giving him quite a look of mischief.)

This week has been fairly warm, and one evening I gave Sophia her first Popsicle. She was quite entertained by it and ate about half. She was also quite a sticky mess afterwards, but she's a toddler, she deserves to be a sticky mess from time-to-time.

Life Goes On

2007-06-15T19:43:00.000-07:00

I continue to heal from my surgery, albeit more slowly than I'd like. I went to work today for the first time, but, sadly, did not make it the entire day. Hopefully next week will be better.

Sophia has handled the change in our routines the past few weeks quite well. She's been a bit more whiny and grumpy than usual, but that's to be expected under the circumstances. We saw Grandma Darla and Grandpa Earl last weekend and Sophia had great fun stealing Grandpa's glasses. Tonight Uncle Barry is here and Sophia, after taking a while to warm up to him, happily climbed on the playground with him, and brought him books to read. When it was bath time she had a massive tantrum until Uncle Barry came to entertain her. We think that she was upset about missing Uncle-Barry-fun!

Recently she has become quite excited about taking things out of drawers to play with them. We try to limit this fun to the drawer with the plastic storage containers. It's currently her favorite game.

Adoption Day!

2007-06-07T22:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the first anniversary of Sophia's adoption day - the day we went to court to finalize her adoption. This is a date that many adoptive families celebrate, in one way or another. June 6 will always be a special day to us, the day our family was made permanent. This year, to celebrate, we got Sophia a balloon which was a big hit.

My surgery went quite well, and I'm not in too much pain. It's certianly much better than it was after my hernia surgeries! They did discover that I have endometriosis so there will be continued treatment for that. So we'll have to see what happens.

My parents were here most of the day that I had surgery. Sophia discovered that Grannie's wheelchair is very climbable. Grannie didn't seem to mind! Also, Sophia is now saying "Grannie" and sometimes "Grandpa," but she still mostly calls my father "Ba-Ba." Boy did they like hearing her call them by name! She also enjoyed having them there. Grandparents are always a big hit with Sophia and Paul and I appreciated their help.

Fun with Daddy

2007-06-04T11:20:00.000-07:00

I took some funny pictures of Sophia and Paul yesterday and had to share them. Yesterday, Sophia found a golf ball and discovered that it and Daddy's pocket made for a fun game. She must have played the put-the-ball-in-the-pocket-then-take-it-back-out game for about 20 minutes. Every time she'd drop it in Paul's pocket, she'd make a very surprised face as if she wasn't expecting it to disappear.

Also yesterday, she stared a new game of pretending to be asleep. I think this game has real possibilities!

Finally, yesterday she stared saying "Barry" when we point to a picture of her uncle. It was pretty cute.

Memorial Day Weekend & other excitement

2007-06-01T10:06:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry it's been so long since my last post. There is more about that below.

We had a good, if very busy, Memorial Day weekend. I had to work on Saturday but Sunday, we were all quite busy. Paul went golfing with a friend, so Sophia and I went to Portland to hang out with Grannie Nancy and Grandpa John. Sophia has named him "Ba-Ba," much to his chagrin. While in Portland we got out of the attic this wonderful toddler-sized rocking chair that belonged to my mother as a child. Sophia loved it. It's being repaired by my parent's good friend Bob (who builds amazing furniture) and soon it will come down to live with Sophia.

Sunday my mother, Sophia and I went to the cemetery where my grandfather and other members of the Slayton family are buried. When I was a kid we went up there every year on Memorial Day. Every year we'd have the same conversation. We'd mark where my grandfather is buried, show the places where my grandmother will go when she dies, and then indicate where my mother and I would be buried someday in plots my grandmother owns. (Yes, I know this is a strange conversation to have. My family has always had an unusual way of dealing with death.) One year, I got very upset and wondered where my husband and children would go. So, my grandmother bought me four adjacent plots. I was the only kid in my grade school who owned burial plots. This year, for Sophia's first trip to the cemetery I was going to give her the whole speech, ultimately indicating where she would be buried someday. (I know she couldn't understand it, but it's good to start early). But, the best-laid plans are often ruined by toddlers, and she slept through most of the time at the cemetery. The speech will have to wait for next year.

In Portland, Grannie Nancy - the expert shopper - gave Sophia some beautiful new clothes. Sophia loved them so much that as we were showing them to Daddy that evening, she had to run around the house carrying them.

The other exciting thing we did Sunday was together with our friends the Maddox family, who have a little girl just a month older than Sophia. We played at a park and then had dinner together. It was a lot of fun. I think the cutest thing that happened was when Bailey went over to Sophia and gave her a hug. Sophia seemed a little confused, but all the adults were mushy about it.

Monday afternoon we had all the grandparents down for dinner, to share in a beautiful Copper River salmon one of Paul's law school mentees had give him. Sophia provided ample entertainment for the gathering. She even mooched some of Grandpa Earl's cobbler and seemed quite pleased with herself.

Tuesday, May 29th was my 33rd birthday and Aunt Amy's 30th. We send Aunt Amy this picture of Sophia and a short video. I hope Aunt Amy's birthday was better than mine. I celebrated with incredible abdominal pain. Wednesday I went to the doctor and they first thought it was appendicitis. As they were looking for that, they discovered a softball-sized cyst on my right ovary and the doctors (all of the 3 I've seen this week) are pretty sure that is what was causing the pain. So, Wednesday the 6th I'm going to have the cyst and my ovary removed. I'm sure it will be great fun! It's a laparoscopic surgery which should be easier to recover from than my previous hernia surgeries, which should be good.

So, it's been a long and crazy week. Next week doesn't look to be any less crazy. This will probably be the last post to the blog for a while.

Sophia on the Road

2007-05-22T23:55:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we took Sophia on her first real vacation since the beach last summer. The three of us went to Seattle with my parents to celebrate my mother's 60th birthday. Happy Birthday!! Sophia did as well as could be expected of her on the road. She got tired of the car, and needed some outdoor time which wasn't possible due to the rain. But she slept well both nights, ate well, and made my parents very happy which was her real job for the weekend.

Amazingly, due to Paul's and my father's packing talents, all 5 of us and our equipment (stroller, crib, Mom's lift and all of our luggage) were able to fit together in one car. It was a little cramped, but Sophia loved having someone ride with her in the back seat.

While in Seattle we did all the usual touristy things: saw the Space Needle (we were there for their 45th million visitor, but alas, it was none of us), wandered the Seattle Center, spent the morning at Pike Place Market. Saturday evening we had dinner at Ivar’s Salmon House where we had an amazing salmon dinner. We ordered the family style salmon, and the 5 of us ate our fill and had left-overs for 2 days! The Pike Place Market was hosting a cheese festival while we were there, so everyone sampled free cheese and Sophia's snack for the morning was free. (She did not enjoy the pepper jack cheese, spitting it out of her mouth all over Paul's neck and shoulders.)

Sunday afternoon we went to the new Seattle Public library, a very cool, very modern library with enough staff to make me jealous. Sophia loved the children's area where she played and read books for about an hour.

Our hotel had an enormous atrium with lots of stairs for Sophia to enjoy climbing, and a pool for us to play in each evening. Sophia got a ride on the luggage cart as we were packing to leave, and distressed to have the ride over, tried to ride Grandma's lift. It didn't work which made her very confused.

It was a fantastic weekend and a wonderful way to celebrate a birthday.

In other Sophia news, she is working on feeding herself with a spoon. Sometimes the food even makes it to her mouth! She also can now cock-a-doodle-do, quack and baa like a sheep. Her favorite animal noise is roaring like a lion. She seems very proud of herself. Her favorite activity is still going on a walk and will try several times a day to pull us to the door.

"Ta-da" and other adventures

2007-05-08T19:18:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was full of adventures for all of us, especially Sophia. Saturday we all traveled to Portland where Grandmas Darla & Nancy and I went to a ceramics show. We three have attended this event many years together and it's always a lot of fun. Paul had two oral arguments in Oregon's Supreme Court on Monday, so he needed to work a lot of the weekend. So, Sophia got to stay with her Grandpa John for the afternoon. They seemed to conspire together quite well.

After that fun, we went to Battle Ground to have dinner at Earl and Darla's. Sophia really loved rampaging in their newly remodeled backyard.

Sunday was a quiet day around here. Sophia had a cold so we took it easy. In the afternoon she had a tragic accident with playground equipment, resulting in her first black eye. In doesn't show up too well in the pictures. That evening she invented a new game, climbing on the wagon Grandpa Earl built her and saying "ta-da" while holding her arms in the air. She played this game for about a half an hour and even two days later she's still enjoying it.

Sophia has also learned to ride her airplane that she got for Christmas. For a long time this was a toy that caused great trauma, including tremendous tears when she first rode on it in December (see here). But now she can climb on it herself and push it around the house. The only problem is, she only goes backwards!

New words: "cat," "kitty," "bounce," "mine,"

"football," "grass," and "ta-da."

Crayons

2007-05-01T10:53:00.000-07:00

I introduced Sophia to crayons. It was relatively successful. They only went in her mouth a few times and she colored the table just twice. She seemed very intrigued by them!

New words today: "fish," "banana," "bucket," "circle" and "button."

No!

2007-04-29T20:43:00.000-07:00

As Sophia develops her sense of self, and command of language, we are hearing "no" from her more often. She's no longer just babbling it, but using it as a response to questions or commands. "Sophia come here" is increasingly being answered with "no" and a dart in the opposite direction while giggling. I know that every child and every parent goes through this, but it's not a lot of fun. Oh well, I guess I wouldn't want her to grow up to be a push-over. (I'm sure my parents are reading this and are thinking that I'm finally getting what I deserve. It's a good thing we don't allow comments on this blog!)

Despite my needing to work yesterday, we did manage to squeeze some fun into the weekend. This weekend Sophia learned she can bounce on the couch. It was lots of fun and prompted much giggling. Today Uncle Barry and Aunt Jess came up for the afternoon and we went to a park and then had dinner together. Uncle Barry wore the Sophia backpack, commenting that even at 26.4 lbs, she weighs less than he carries when climbing or hiking. We're hoping this was the first of many outings Sophia will take with her aunt and uncle. They're pretty special and always a big hit with Sophia.

Development of language

2007-04-24T19:49:00.000-07:00

I know, we've fallen off the blogosphere again. I'm sorry. A few weeks ago Sophia had double ear infections, and those were followed by me having a bad migraine for several days, so I haven't been too inspired to post for a while. Tonight I figured I should before I start getting "concerned" emails from those of you who just want new pictures of Sophia.

Sophia's most interesting developments of the past few weeks have been in the realm of language, and that's pretty hard to capture on film. She's much more verbal than she was a month ago, even if most of it is nonsense, and she has a real sense that what she is saying should be communicating something to us. She can become very angry and frustrated when we don't understand what she is babbling. These are the times I think we should have taught her baby sign language. But her verbal capabilities are advancing, if not as fast as her comprehension. Every day it seems she is able to know what we mean by saying the name of an object. "Sophia, bring Mama the bear," was tonight's and she brought me the bear. Last night she did a star and a triangle before she got bored with the game we try not to call "fetch." In addition she has figured out her first body part: toes! We ask her where her toes are, and she points to them. She also will point to them on her own and say "toes."

The other funny thing she is doing is making animal sounds. "What does a cow say?" always elicits mooing, and roaring for the question of what a lion says. She only has lion and cow down so far, but she can recognize them in photos and make the appropriate sounds. We continue to work on other animals more relevant to a child who lives in suburbia.

Tomorrow is Paul's birthday and yesterday Sophia got the party started by bringing Daddy a balloon (which she calls "ball") and playing with it herself. She also stole my coat right out of my hands yesterday and tried to put it on. We thought that was too funny to miss, so we put the coat on her and made her take pictures. You can practically see her thinking, "I'll never do that again!"

So life continues unabated at the Paul-Bryn-Sophia house.

New Portraits

2007-04-12T21:09:00.000-07:00

Monday I took Sophia for 1-year-old portraits. Although we don't have the physical pictures yet, due to the miracles of technology, we already have the digital images and I'm able to share some of the best ones with you (a few of which I didn't even buy).

Post-Easter Fun

2007-04-11T19:41:00.000-07:00

The Easter fun kept coming on Monday our friends Christina and Miriam came for a visit. Many Easters in the past they, along with husband/father Peter, have celebrated Easter with us, at least in the afternoon. But last summer they moved an hour further away and now it's too far to get to Salem on Easter. So, Miriam and Christina came for a visit on Monday. We also took the girls for pictures. I think they turned out well; I'll post when we have them.

The visit with Miriam, and with Gabe over the weekend certainly brought home to us the difference between 2 and 1. Gabe and Miriam are much more steady on their feet, have a greater command of language, and a real sense of shared play that Sophia does not yet have. While Miriam and Sophia are about the same size physically, that year of intellectual and emotional growth does a lot for a kid! I think it was a little frustrating for Miriam that Sophia wouldn't really play with her, but eventually Sophia will get there.

Second Easter

2007-04-08T19:10:00.000-07:00

This is Sophia's first holiday that we are celebrating for the second time. We have now started round that part of the year that she experienced last year as an infant. Of course, it's all a lot more fun now that she can participate! This year we returned to our Easter tradition of hosting a casual celebration at our house. But we started the party off on Saturday with the arrival of our Roseburg "family" who spent the night. This morning we all went to church together. Then mid-afternoon, two sets of grandparents and one set of aunt and uncle came to enjoy the day together.

The three little kids, Sophia, Alex and Gabe had a great deal of fun running around together, and we're especially grateful to Gabe and Alex for wearing Sophia out so effectively. As usual, we ate good food, read books to the kids, talked about all sorts of things including current events and the problems of retirement and health insurance, and the legal system (with 5 lawyers in the room, that one couldn't be helped) and had lots of fun. Strangely, my father showed up wearing brand-new cowboy boots and tried to pass them off as "orthopedic" but no one was buying it. The kids made out like bandits with Easter baskets. Happily, Sophia's had no candy in it and she was just as happy. It appeared that a good time was had by all.

Happy Easter everyone!

We ditch the kid!

2007-04-01T19:57:00.000-07:00

This weekend Paul and I got away for some much-needed time alone. Paul planned a wonderful weekend away and I did not know where we were going. He took us to the Channel House in Depoe Bay, a town on Oregon's Coast. It was a lovely hotel where each room had jacuzzis on the balcony and included amazing breakfasts with home-made pasteries. We slept-in, relaxed, wandered around the town, read, played games, and talked about Sophia only part of the time! We also noticed that we take a lot fewer pictures when she's not around. I've included one very bad one I took of him in our room and one of the view from our room.

Sophia, the lucky girl, got to spend the weekend at our house with Grandma Darla and Grandpa Earl getting spoiled like crazy. She got to play at the park, ride Salem’s Carousel, and Grandma even bought her fancy, sparkly new tennis shoes. As you might guess, they took a lot more pictures this weekend than we did, and I've included some of theirs.

As a gift, we brought Sophia a sand-bucket. She's not quite yet up to playing on the beach, but she likes to take things out and put things in containers so a bucket was a good gift. As we discovered when we got home, it also made a good drum, hat and toy. She had great fun when Darla and I put it on our heads and she would bend down to peak up under the edge to see our eyes.

For all of us it was a wonderful weekend and it worked out well for all. Sophia got spoiled. Grandma Darla and Grandpa Earl got to spend time with Sophia and we got time alone. A win-win-win!

New Toy!

2007-03-28T20:08:00.000-07:00

Our cousins Lisa, Roya & Layla gave Sophia this lovely top for her birthday. Monday I was making it spin and she took it away from me and took over. I was surprised that she was able to make it work but she did a pretty good job. It was a really good present and Sophia loves it.

Also for your entrainment is this photo of a post-spaghetti Sophia. Doesn't she look like she's been enjoying herself?

Sophia's birthday Party

2007-03-25T20:43:00.000-07:00

This is the first of two posts. Please scroll down to see pictures of Sophia's birthday cake and it's consumption.

Sophia's birthday party was a big hit and a good time was had by all (or at least, all who write this blog). 14 friends and family members attended and Sophia made out like a bandit in the present department. The cake, made by my friend Santos was wonderful and featured Sophia's favorite things, ducks. Photos of the cake and Sophia's tremendous enjoyment of it are in the second post below.

Today is Aunt Jess' birthday and our anniversary (#7!) and we shared those celebrations with Sophia, but the party was really all about our little girl, who loved the attention, the food and the presents.

I do want to single out one special present sent all the way from Washington D.C. that came from Sophia's Aunt Amy. Apparently Amy is concerned about the music we are inflicting upon Sophia so she made Sophia a compilation CD to rectify that problem. It is called "A Musical Intervention for Sophia, Volume 1, Because there's no excuse for bad taste." It includes music by Catie Curtis, Jack Johnson, India Arie, Brahmas and others. In the accompanying letter Amy writes:

If you lived in DC (or I lived in Oregon), you would no doubt have been carted off of dozens of rehearsals and concerts and hopefully would be exposed to more interesting music than what your parents can provide. Perhaps your first word would have been “harpsichord” rather than “duck.” There’s really no way of knowing. Don’t despair! I’ve complied a CD of a variety of music for your listening
enjoyment!

There are thousands of styles of music out there, form classical to hip-hop. I
have my own preferences, of course, but ultimately there are only 2 major
categories:
1) Good
2) Bad

My favorite part is track #1 which is a rendition of the Happy Birthday song which is a Sophia-specific version. My original assumption was that this was custom produced for Sophia. Amy updated us (3-27) that you can find name-specific versions of Happy Birthday on Itunes. But it still is pretty special. It really touches me that Amy would go to the effort of trying to overcome our music education deficits, so I will try not to be insulted by her disparaging our musical taste! I would much prefer to concentrate on her implied offer of free babysitting ("carted off to dozens of rehearsals" sounds like free babysitting to me!)

Other presents were also special and included a ladybug ball, new clothes, blocks, books and a Sophia-sized picnic table. All should be fun and well-used! Such loving friends and family Sophia has.

Sophia's Birthday Party Continued

2007-03-25T20:36:00.000-07:00

1 year old!

2007-03-22T19:50:00.000-07:00

Today Sophia is one year old! We tried to give her some birthday hoopla despite her not really knowing the difference between this and other days. Her first real present was the turning around of her car seat. Paul did this last night so it would be all ready for her morning trip. She seemed quite happy about her new view on the world and we're hoping that it will make car rides more fun.

We took cupcakes to daycare for her to share with the other kids. Apparently Sophia had a hard time with the concept of sharing. She was served her cupcake first and eat it as fast as possible. Then she attempted to raid the other kid's food. She finally succeeded when one girl left the table with a cupcake unfinished.

After she got home she had some quality playtime with Daddy, and after I got home we read some books and let her have half another cupcake. We also gave her a birthday present, a ball. It was a bit hit.

After a bath and her night-time routine, she's in bed. It was a wonderful birthday and we are so lucky and grateful to have her in our lives. She is the best thing to have ever happened to us and we can't believe that a year ago today she was born.

Pre-birthday Fun

2007-03-20T15:26:00.000-07:00

Sophia's birthday present from Mommy and Daddy (other than finally getting to turn around in her carseat which we're looking forward to) is a red wagon. We bought it this weekend and Sunday she and Paul put it together. Sophia's part was mostly about trying to push it before there were wheels and then stealing all the parts. She enjoyed it. She had a lot more fun when it was all done and we took her for her first ride.

Sunday was also her first introduction to the glories of mashed potatos, one of the world's great foods. We feed her the classic dish of mashed potatoes and chicken and she loved every bit of it. We also discovered last night that while she hates most vegetables, she loves broccoli, even igorning her other food to eat the brocoli. It's just another example of her being a strange kid.

We're all looking forward to the big birthday bash just a few days away. We can't believe she'll be one on Thursday!

St. James Day--2007

2007-03-16T19:49:00.000-07:00

Today is St. James Day! More importantly it is Sophia's first St. James Day. For those of you who don't know all about St. James Day, please visit the office web site of St. James Day at www.stjamesday.com. In short, St. James Day is a holiday that Paul and his good friend Derek created in 2001 to celebrate the start of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Each year, on the first Friday of the NCAA Tournament, Paul and Derek (and their children and other invited guests) get together to watch basketball, grill kielbalsa, curse their brackets, and have a great time. This year, Sophia joined in the fun.

This year, we had a great turnout with 13 celebrants at various points in the day (some people have yet to get into the full spirit of the holiday and don't yet take the full day off...we're working on them). At the start of the day, Grandpa John read stories of great basketball games of the past to Sophia, and Derek's kids, Alex and Gabe.

Later in the day, Bryn--who was home recovering from a bad headache--also shared in the St. James Day revelry by reading a story to Sophia and Gabe about the mighty Oregon Ducks basketball team. (Well, at least the book was about ducks, if not the mighty Ducks).

As the day wore on, and as our favorite teams (Kansas for Derek and Oregon for Paul) clinched their first round victories, Sophia and Gabe decided to share an afternoon snack.

All in all, it was a great St. James Day. This is the 7th St. James Day. And, this is the 6th time Derek and Paul have gotten together at one another's houses for the festivities (last year, Derek had to be in Kansas, and Paul and Bryn were nervously awaiting Sophia's arrival, so St. James Day festivities were a bit more subdued). We are looking forward to the rest of the NCAA Tournament, and I will post more St. James Day pictures when I get them from Derek.

Happy St. James Day everyone!

Door Opening

2007-03-14T19:30:00.000-07:00

For quite a while Sophia has been playing with doors, opening and closing them and acting quite delighted with her ability. Tonight for the first time she used the door knob to unlatch a door and let herself out of a room. I think it helps her that the handles on our doors are ADA-style levers and not traditional knobs.

I must admit that my initial reaction to this skill was to utter an expletive thinking of how much harder it will be to limit her access to the house. But, she seemed very proud of herself and I must reconcile myself to her growing independence and abilities. Plus, now we won't have to worry about her screaming when she accidentally shuts herself in a room.

As Paul put it, she has now officially advanced beyond the cat; Abby can't open doors.

Sophia in the box

2007-03-11T19:40:00.000-07:00

We could buy Sophia a fancy playhouse and spend a few hundred dollars. But why would we, when I can get large cardboard boxes for free from work and they’re just as fun?

Talking

2007-03-06T09:43:00.000-08:00

Sophia is increasingly vocal. Most of what she does is babble nonsense, completely typical of her age. But from time to time she says things that are inteligle and she has a small stock of actual words, or at least specific sounds that she only uses for particlar objects. These include: duck (her favorite) which comes out more like "du," "Aba" for Abby our cat, Dada of course, shoe, buckle (no, I'm not kidding about his one, it doesn't come out quite right, but it is definitely buckle, and she uses it when we are buckling her in her carseat), no, ya, uh-oh, and woah. Please note that "mama" is nowhere on that list. A few months ago she said it quite a lot, now she never says it. I try not to be insulted.

This past weekend we had grand plans to meet Paul's parents for lunch in between our two houses and then do some shopping at a mall. Sophia's plans, however, included a massive attach of diareah on the way up to Portland that managed to spread from her armpits to her knees. We noticed a foul odor on the drive up and pulled off the road, luckily we were taking the senic route, to change her diaper, and discovered the biggest mess we have had in months. We quickly exhausted all our wipes, and had a squirmy, naked, hysterical baby getting poop all over the floor of the van. It was an unbelievable mess. We had back-up clothes with us, but we were unable to entirely clean her up and everything else was a mess too. So, we called Paul's parents and turned around, putting her straigt into the tub as soon as we got home. Paul's parents joined us soon after and we had lunch at our house, then took Sophia to the carousel and finally out to desert. It eneded up being a great day, but what a mess! I guess that's what we get for slacking off in the supplies we carry with us. It has been so long since we've needed much, that I've gotten a bit lax, so Sophia provided a big, messy reminder of why the Boy Scout motto is so important.

Mail Call

2007-02-26T07:59:00.000-08:00

In our Saturday mail we received a very misplaced letter. It is addressed to someone who lives in "Hahm, Wisc 54632." As far as I can tell with a very cursory check online, Hahm, Wisconsin does not exist and the area code 54632 belongs to Genoa. The addressee shares our house number, which is all I can figure about how it ended up in our box. We don't even have the same name. The letter was mailed from Minnesota. It was heading from Minnesota to Wisconsin and took a very wrong turn to Oregon. I could understand getting a piece of mail from one of our neighbors. This happens from time-to-time. But for this letter to get to us required repeated mistakes from an impressive variety of postal employees. It almost makes me want to save it as a souvenir. But It appears to be a Christmas card and Mr. Huther probably wants his mail.

Our weekend

2007-02-25T23:48:00.000-08:00

We saw some of our family this weekend. We hadn't seen any of Sophia's grandparents for a few weeks, and they weren't going to let us get away with that for much longer! We had dinner with my parents last night, and brunch with Uncle Barry and Aunt Jess this morning. We scheduled Paul's parents for next weekend so we didn't overload ourselves. As always, we had a nice time with all. It was a special treat to get to see Jess and Barry's new home which they are slowly but surely making their own. It is really lovely and Sophia thoroughly enjoyed exploring it.

Sophia has finally taken an active interest in books. I was a bit worried for a while, but figured she'd catch on eventually. When we were in the home study process for adoption the representative from the adoption agency actually pushed me on this point, wanting to be sure that I'd be ok if a child of mine didn't like to read. I told her that as long as the child had some hobby that was good for her and she enjoyed, I'd support it. But to see her happily bringing us books to read is a joy. Of course, it only took her a week to move into the phase of bringing us the same book to read over-and-over, but periodically we hide them and read others, so that's ok. Her current favorites are Doggies, Diving for Numbers in Hawaii, and Mog in the Garden.

Sophia continues to enjoy her adventures in eating. This morning at brunch she ate a piece and-a-half of toast (she loves toast and would be on an all-toast diet if we'd let her). Tonight for dinner she had pork chops, cut into small pieces of course. They were an enormous hit. Last night at dinner she had cod which she also quite likes. Unfortunately, nothing we can do can get her to eat fruit. Even fruit she was eating for a while, like bananas, are no longer acceptable to her. Sometimes she's just an odd kid. But we love her and think she's lot of fun!

Weekend at the Beach

2007-02-20T13:54:00.000-08:00

Every winter we go to the beach with our friends the Simmons family. I am not sure if this is our 4 or 5 trip together, but it is nice to have such traditions with friends who have become family. Over time, we have added numbers to our ranks, their sons Alex and Gabe, and this year, Sophia! We were there together this year for President's Day weekend which gave us a nice chance to stay 3 days.

It was a wonderful time together, although not exactly restful. 3 children under the age of 5 are not quiet or calm, but they are a lot of fun. Gabe is almost exactly a year older than Sophia and the two of them played fairly well together, except for the frequent toy theft. She found him quite fascinating and followed him around a lot. Alex at almost 5 was a little left out, but he had us grown-ups to entertain him, and we did our best.

I love winter on the Oregon coast. The ocean is very rough and stormy and the tides are quite high. It's great fun to sit and watch the ocean. This, however, is not very conducive to kid-fun as they want to get out and do something active. The weather and tides were not helpful to a lot of playing on the beach, but we did our best. We also took them on a hike at Oswald West State Park, to the Tillamook Cheese Factory and to the tide pools. Although we were pretty tired at the end of the weekend, it was a great time and I'm looking forward to next year.

Sophia also achieved a milestone this weekend: the end of baby food. Her level of frustration with mushed-up food has become pretty high and meals have become quite a war. She is clearly ready to feed herself, although not yet with a spoon, and eat regular food. So, we've started feeding her cut-up portions of what we're eating and suddenly she's having fun at meals again. Over the weekend we added ground beef and turkey, bell peppers, french fries, fish, saltines crackers, and (her favorite) cheese to her diet. Cheese seemed an especially appropriate thing to add to her diet when we were in the land of Tillamook Cheese. Plus when at the factory we bought cheese curds, which have a lovely mild flavor, and she adores. She is a much happier baby and dinner involves a lot less wining which is good for all of us.

Joy of Spaghetti

2007-02-14T21:36:00.000-08:00

Tonight for the first time we cut up our dinner into small pieces and gave it to Sophia to eat. We were having pasta, so to prevent stains on her clothing, we stripped her down to her diaper first. She was as happy eating as we have seen her in months and made a colossal mess. I'm not entirely sure how she managed to get pasta in her hair, but she didn't mind at all. We're going to have to do more of this because it was a lot more fun for us too.

New Shoes!

2007-02-13T19:38:00.000-08:00

Now that Sophia is walking outside a lot, we need to get her good outdoor shoes. I'm not sure that we have so far done that (it was more complicated than I thought it would be) but tonight she and I went to Target to look at shoes. We came home with two pairs that hopefully won't soak rain right through to her socks. She very proudly carried them around the house until it was time for her bath. Either she was proud of her new shoes, or she thought they were toys; she did try to put them in the bucket with her blocks.