Let it Snow!

What a fun weekend! After all the Santa visits on Saturday we went to church that evening so we were able to wake up Sunday and go straight out to play in the snow. Sophia and Daddy built a cute snowman and had a couple rides on the sled, then we finally went and cut down our Christmas tree. (A little later than usual this year, oh well.) After the tree was up in the house we headed up to our ballet studio in Olympia and watched their Winter Wonderland performance. It was cute, and we all had a great time.

Christmas Cookie Party

For the past three years, my Aunt Carol & Uncle Des have hosted a Christmas Cookie Party for my Dad's side of the family at their home in Port Orchard. It's always nice to see my Grandma Rotter, my aunts, uncles, and cousins and their children. Santa always makes a stop and delivers a toy to each of the kids. This year Santa was really great with a real white beard and all! On the way up to the party, we stopped off at Tacoma Mall to get Sophs' picture with Santa at Nordstrom's. The Santa at Auntie Carol's was actually much nicer looking!

Here is the Nordstom's Santa.

Sophia told him that she would like Percy the

Train and that she had been a nice girl.

Santa at Auntie Carol's

All the kiddies anxiously awaiting their turn for a gift.

Santa & Lauren

Santa & Sophia

Funny Pictures and Video of Sophs

The weekend after Thanksgiving we went to play at Auntie Kora's house. Sophia was pretending to make cookies for everyone with her Play-Doh. So Aunt Kora, being such the fun auntie that she is, found an Easy Bake Oven for Sophia to use... I love it!

Here she is making Papa Dan's birthday cake - well, I guess cleaning up after making it.

We had the carpets cleaned a little over a week ago and Sophia was in heaven with no furniture in her way!

A Little Cowboy Room

Well, as many of you may know - for some reason, I am quite picky about things. So for the last month, and specifically the last 4 days during nap time (very valuable time for those of us with toddlers...), I have been scouring the Internet trying to find the perfect little cowboy bedding. I found a lot of cute ideas of HGTV.com, but not a specific bed set that I liked that much. So then on to fabric browsing... Needless to say I'm about blind from staring at the screen, BUT I found some very cute fabrics and ordered them today! I will make a blanket, window valance, crib skirt and bumper. Hopefully I don't mess it all up! As far as accessories go - I don't want it over the top. But Sophia's red boots that are now too small and red cowboy hat, and the little brown plush rocking horse she's grown out of are a good start.

What Am I Thankful For?...

My little helper. :o)

What to Wear?

Sophia and I decided to organize her closet and drawers today. We pulled out a lot of things that were too small and we also decided to figure out which swimsuits she will take with us on vacation in Florida this January!

View Album

Get your own

While in Florida, we will be staying at the Liki Tiki Village in Orlando. I'm so excited to have the opportunity to do another warm weather vacation in the middle of winter like we did last year. I don't think we'll do DisneyWorld this year either. Our resort will have a lot to do, and it's so great to just relax. Sophia wouldn't even remember DisneyWorld at this age anyway, so I think we'll hold off on it. We just signed up for an Alaska Airlines Visa card so we can earn a $50 travel companion ticket each year. We really want to try to earn a lot of airline miles and take advantage of all the aspects of being a resort owner. If anyone has any suggestions for better ways to earn air mileage please let me know. I'm just learning.

Here's a link to the resort if you want to check it out!
http://www.islandone.com/ior/likitikivillage.html

Dancing Queen

Last Saturday we attended my friend Dana's wedding. Sophia loves to dance - so she had a great time! Here are some of our pictures.

Twirling

Toe Tapping

Jumping

Ballerina Arms

And the Happy Couple

Apple Cup Prediction

Our Little Photographer

Sophia loves taking pictures with the camera! But - she tends to drop it a lot! So Santa will probably bring her her own Fisher Price digital camera for Christmas. But in the meantime she can still use ours. She gets her scene all set up and then will come tell me (boss me, actually) to find the camera so she can take a picture. It's hilarious. Here are some of the pictures from her portfolio. As you'll see - she is very busy with all of her projects. She barely has time to play at all!

Her Thanksgiving Little People all in a perfectly straight line.

As many Little People as she could fit into the airplane.

This was hilarious to her.

Her new toys from the movie Madagascar 2.

Grandma & Grandpa took her to see it.

All the different types of mushrooms we could find in the yard.

It's Official - It's a...

BOY! We are 100% sure that the little baby on the way is a boy. We had quite a few spread eagle shots during our ultrasound on Tuesday, so there is no doubt about it! Kyle and I are so excited for this new experience, and Sophia is excited for a baby brother. The due date is still April 6th, and the doctor said everything else looks great. I'm feeling pretty good and showing now. I'm excited for the next couple months of all the fun parts of pregnancy. We'll hopefully be able to decide on a name we both like, I'll get to redecorate the nursery, and we'll get to start looking at boy stuff!

Here's a little profile shot.

Here's the spread eagle shot. The "goods" are right below the word MALE.

Two Little Ballerinas

My niece, Lauren, came over to play yesterday. Sophia heard some ballet music and wanted to dance, so I got them dressed appropriately (and luckily had an extra pair of ballet slippers to fit Lauren). It's so cute to listen to their little conversations with each other now that Lauren can understand what Sophia is saying. They crack each other up! ...And boss each other around. It's so funny.

In other news, I have my next ultrasound scheduled for Tuesday, November 11th. We should be able to determine the sex of the baby! Very exciting.

It Was A Happy Halloween

Sophia went Trick-or-Treating with her cousins this year and had so much fun! They were all cow-folk. Carson is 1, Sophia 2, and Lauren 3. It was very, very cute. Check the October photo album in my list of albums for more pictures from Halloween and the rest of the month.