T-shirt Recycling

A little break from the FL posts:

I found a great tutorial on a blog for making toddler dresses from old t-shirts, so I've been making Sophie some play clothes from stuff I have lying around. Usually when it comes to dresses, she wants them off as soon as we get in the door from church. But these she seems to really love. The white one is more of a night gown because it's a little big, but we have to peel it off of her by force. Yay for cheap clothes!

She keeps telling me, "I have a 3 on my back. I play baseball like Mr. Ben"

I had to show her some "McGee & Me" clips on YouTube to convince her that he really is super cool.

I had to include this one because she looks so much like my brother here. And, of course, she's modeling her "monkey helmet" that Gigi brought her.

Florida Part 2 - Downtown Disney

We went to Downtown Disney with my parents and Aaron and Laura. Sophie thought it was magical. Although she's never seen "Lilo and Stitch" she was obsessed with this huge Stitch that would spit out water. She also enjoyed "meeting" some of her favorite characters, riding the carousel with Aunt Laura, and sharing a Ghirardelli milkshake with Gran.

Waiting for Stitch to spit again

Cuddles with Aunt Laura

Building a Mr. PotatoHead

Meeting Buzz = a dream come true

Hugs for Mickey

More building fun with Daddy

Her two favorite ducks

Trying to cheer Donald up

A little rest in the Hundred Acre Wood

We went back later in the week to check out T-Rex again - this is a huge dinosaur in a restaurant and Sophie couldn't stop talking about him.

A happy, sugar-loaded kiddo after another Ghirardelli treat (at Daddy's request)

Florida Part 1 - St. Pete

A couple of weeks ago we drove down to Florida for a little family vacation with my (Catherine) parents and brother and sister-in-law. My dad had to be in Orlando for the Southern Baptist Convention, so we just made a week of it. We drove down (with multiple potty stops - not sure who had to go more frequently, me or Sophie) on a Friday/Saturday and went to St. Petersburg with my parents to see the Rays play, and win, a close game against the Marlins. It was great to see Ben and Julianna, and Zion of course. Sophie was kind of over the game, so when Zion joined us she was really excited. I will say, though, that watching him climb on the back of the chairs must have put some ideas into her head. She has never been a climber, and after that she seemed to want to climb on everything. So thanks, Julianna :)

Oblivious to the fact that a game is going on.

Ben on 1st base

With Julianna and Zion

After the game Julianna took us down on the field to wait for Ben - it's dark because there was a Dierks Bentley concert going on.

It was 10pm but Sophie was running like a crazy child. People watching probably thought her parents kept her locked up all the time and this was her first taste of freedom. There were some other kids running around, but Sophie took off down the first base line and I freaked out, thinking it wasn't allowed. Apparently it's fine, but we had one tired little girl after that.

Sophie, Erik & Ben

The next morning we went to the beach for a few minutes to give Sophie a chance to see the ocean and play with sand. Love the white sand beaches.

Girls' Weekend

A couple of weeks ago my husband gave me a great gift - a weekend away with 4 of my best girlfriends from college. He and Sophie spent the weekend at home, and I drove to Knoxville to see these girls. We hadn't all been together for girl time in 4 years, and it was such a great, refreshing time with some incredibly godly women. There is just no substitute for face-time in this age of technology. I am so thankful for my college experience and these amazing friends. We spent some time the last morning praying for each other and I look forward to seeing how God works in all of our lives in the years to come. Hopefully it won't be 4 more years until we're together again.

Jenny (yes, that's Aunt Jenny), Randi, me Abigail and Becca

My college roommate, Randi

Jen, Beccs and Abs (Abby is pregnant and due with a little boy the same date as me)

Video Fun

So once again it's been awhile, and I thought the best way to update people on Sophie's life would be to post a couple of quick videos of her. The first one shows her singing a little. She loves to sing, and lately has been making up a lot of songs. Usually they start out with "Jesus Christ our Lord" and lead into something reminiscent of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. You can also see that she is not exactly a girly-girl. A friend from church said it was a good thing we're having a boy because Sophie needs a brother. I may have posted that already...can't remember.

Speaking of memory loss, the pregnancy is going well. I had a check-up with the cardiologist today and everything looks good. I'll have an echo-cardiogram done on my heart in a month, when I'm 35 weeks. I do have to see my OB every 2 weeks now because I'm measuring about 7 weeks behind where I'm supposed to be, but we're not alarmed. The same thing happened with Sophie - I have the longest torso of all time, so it's hard to get a good measurement. But we had an ultrasound a couple of weeks ago and Micah looked great.

And here is the best pic they got of him during that ultrasound. This is at 28 weeks. And his profile is a good mix of Sophie and Charlie Brown.

Pregnancy Progress

I'll be 27 weeks pregnant on Monday, but here is a pic we took a couple of weeks ago. Sadly, this is only the 2nd time we've taken pics this pregnancy. But I'll be honest, w/ Sophie we decided to take pictures of me in the same clothes from beginning to end, and these are not pics I enjoy looking back on. If you ever decide to do this, choose something that is a bit more flattering than a tight white camisole and velour yoga pants. By the end of the pregnancy, I just look like a woman with a big gut coming out of the bottom of my shirt. So we're going for something a little different this time. These pics make the baby "bump" look more like a baby "poke." Not sure what's going on, but I do seem to be carrying lower this time. The bottom pic is from 25 weeks w/ Sophie. I don't have a good profile shot, but you can at least see how young we used to be :). Oh, and peek at pic #2 for the big name reveal.

Meeting Sophie's "Boys Cousins"

A few weeks ago we went to Erik's grandmother's house about an hour from Nashville to see some of his extended family. Sophie also got to meet 5 of her boy cousins, which was so much fun. She's the only girl and seemed right at home in a boy's world. Thanks to Jack and Luke (the 2 oldest boys) she has learned quite of bit of Taekwondo, although it looked a little more realistic when the boys did it. It was great to see the mommies and kiddos (and Aunt Lee), and Jen and Pete were there also, which is always a treat. Somehow we didn't manage to get a pic with Granny and the kids, which I was pretty bummed about. But here are some others:

Sophie was pretty sure that a baseball mitt needed to go on her head.

And while the boys played baseball, she played with dandelions.

A little playtime with Uncle Pete

Clearly Sophie is missing something about the rules of "Wall Ball"

Playing with Reed - she's going to be a great big sister!