Pick up who?

So last week I had the kids in the car on our way to pick up Julia to babysit for the night. Since Tricia, our other babysitter (and Julia's sister) drives to our house 4 days a week to sit for the kids, Sofia was a bit confused as to why we needed to pick up Julia. I explained that Julia can't drive because she hasn't gotten a drivers license yet.

So today, we were driving home from a FUN day at the Science Center when a fire department pick-up truck drives past us on the freeway. The conversation went like this.

Sofia: Hey mom, there's a fire truck.
Me: No, Sofia that's the fire department's pick-up truck. It's not the one that puts out fires.
Sofia: Is it going to pick up Julia?
Me: What?
Sofia: Is that fire pick up truck going to pick up Julia?
Me: (laughing!!) No, the truck doesn't pick up people, it's just the name for that type of truck.

SILLY GIRL!!

More new talents...Scarlett's

Scarlett's new talents were too cute not to record. They're self explanatory. ENJOY!! (Isn't she cute!!??)

Grayson's new talent

We had Grandpa George and Grandma Gay babysitting the little kids while we took Sofia skiing last Saturday. When we walked in the door to pick them up, Grandpa was quick so show us what he had taught Grayson to do. HE WINKS!! He's only 2, and he winks??!! It is still so funny, that I laugh my head off every time he does it. We're trying to make it cuter by getting him to add sound effects and pointing (he's trying to point in this picture), but he hasn't quite gotten the hang of it. Not to be outdone, Sofia is trying her darndest to wink too, but just hasn't gotten it together yet.

Our first baby turns 5

Our oldest baby turned 5 today (for party details, see the last post). I can't believe how fast she's grown up. It seems like just yesterday we were bringing her home from the hospital in a snowstorm (I guess January never changes). Oh, how do we describe Sofia? She is very sweet and truly appreciates beauty. She loves to make crafts, color, draw, and paint. She is really enjoying preschool and ballet, but loves to read books with us too. Her favorite color is pink and her favorite Disney Princess is Aurora. Sometimes we think she does everything she can to "make us proud" and rarely gets in trouble, though she does tend to excite easily and gets wound up quite often. She is very motherly to her little brother and sister as she teaches them to play games with her and helps them every morning to get their sippy cups from the refrigerator. She is a joy to have in our lives and we love her immensely.

January 2004

January 2009

... and the party goes on!

Sofia turned 5 today!! The party started yesterday with her family over for cake and ice cream. She loved visiting with Grandma Gay, Grandpa George, Grandpa Hardie (Grandma Hardie is in Disney World), Afton, TaTa, Uncle Chris, Amandine, Thierry, Uncle Gus, and Jess. She opened lots of lovely presents and ate lots of cake.

Today, we had a girls morning out. Sofia and I went to Lakeside mall (without the little kids) where she went to Teddy Bear Connection and made a cute little cat and picked out an outfit for her. She named her "Paradella" (?). She thought it was GREAT and even said "Mom, you have the BEST ideas!"... as if I invented that kind of store myself. Afterwards, we picked out a cute night gown and toy at the Disney store and had lunch in the food court.

Tonight, after ballet, we met Tadj at Red Robin for her free birthday dinner and ice cream. Lots of fun.

Sofia with her kitty... Paradella.

Lunch at the food court.

Dinner at Red Robin.

GO BOYNE!!

For Christmas, I surprised Tadj with a weekend getaway to Boyne Mountain to celebrate our Anniversary. We had a heck of a time getting there. Since Tadj's car was out of commission since the attempted larceny, we had his rental car to take on the trip. Once we were pretty close to Grayling, the right rear tire blew out on us. Tadj changed it, but we had to take it to a tire shop to get a new tire. Once we got back into the car, our oil light came on. Luckily, across the street from the tire repair shop was the Enterprise rental place. The lady did a little research and found that the car we were driving hadn't had an oil change in 9,000 miles!! We were pretty mad and so we made a switch with one of her cars. As we were moving all of our luggage and skis over to the new car, Tadj realized that we only had 3 ski poles! We must have lost one while changing the tire on I-75. By this time, it was snowing pretty badly.... good for skiing, bad for driving. We slowly made our way into town and found a little ski shop and bought new poles and were headed on to Boyne. We made it by around 7pm, had dinner and just relaxed.

Saturday morning, we woke up to fresh powder on the hill. As much as I wanted to sleep in, Tadj insisted that we get a jump on the great snow so we ran to the breakfast buffet right away (which was a good thing because as we were leaving, the line was HUGE). The snow was great and we skied all morning. I learned that a 12 hour ski pass is a waste on me, because I tire out pretty quickly, but Tadj skied all day. I enjoyed a lot of reading and relaxing in our room in the late afternoon. We went and had a nice dinner and relaxed in the outdoor hottub... nice while you're in it, but AWFUL getting to and from it.

Sunday morning, we woke up to a sheet of ice on the hill and could barely walk over to breakfast. YIKES!! We counted other lodgers slipping and falling all over the place. Thankfully, the groomers were hard at work during breakfast and we still had a great day skiing.


We saw a trail on the map named "Hemingway" and just HAD to ski over to it. It took a while to find and was surrounded by all green runs, but we thought it was cool anyway.
This was the lodge we stayed in. We were literally right on the hill... notice the chair lift. Tadj thought it was cool, so he took a lot of pictures of it....

See... another hotel picture.

...and another. Our room was right up that stairwell. Tadj took this picture while we were on the chairlift.

Christmas... I know, I'm late.

We had a really fun Christmas this year. We decided not to go anywhere, and instead we had the family come to our house. The kids got up super early. They got to look in their stockings and play with the toys Santa brought and then we had breakfast. I made the traditional sausage bake that Tadj's mom made every year growing up... yum. The kids got to open the rest of their presents after breakfast, and oh, what a mess.

Here they all are posing on their new little sofas that Santa brought so they can relax in the morning and watch some TV while mom stays in bed (...yeah right).
Grayson and Sofia opening up presents. Grayson got a Thomas train set and I think Sofia is opening a Barbie.

Santa brought both the kids little bikes to ride this Summer.

Grayson has STILL (2weeks later) not tired of this Thomas train set. He got one from Grandma Hardie too, and a cool Thomas rug and whistle from Nana Smith that house the town and tracks printed right on it. So far, the rug has been the easiest way to play with the trains. The track fall apart easily. On Christmas he played with the trains for 2 hours straight, took a nap and immediately picked up playing some more when he woke up. Does this kid love Thomas or what??

Scarlett didn't have much opinion about any of her presents really, but she LOVED the new pacifiers that Santa put in her stocking. She tried them all out individually and has already lost 2 of them.