Sophia turns Two!

Hello friends and family! Last Sunday, as you may know, we celebrated Sophie’s 2^nd birthday -which is actually today, but we didn't make a big deal about today. This week Dan is flying in the Outback, and today he visited Uluru, or Ayers rock (the big red monolith in the middle of the country - famous postcard stuff.) So we had the party early. It was a small-ish party at home. Sophie had a blast! For weeks leading up to the party, she could name for you every person who was coming, and now everyday afterwards she tells me something that happened on the day. When I asked her that night what her favourite thing about her birthday party was, she answered without hesitation – “Cake! Elmo cake!” She loved the part where everybody…. “Sing Happy Day Soshie!” She also remembers playing outside, running, making cookies (just with play dough), colouring, balls, balloons, pizza, strawberries, and of course, everyone who came. She also likes to talk about Papa and Grama their gift and card and phone call – oh, and the other day she got Noah’s card and she loves to read that. (She tells stories about the photo of Noah, Aaron and the other “Soshie” too.)

Here are some photos to help tell the stories (Most are taken by Dominika). Enjoy!

First gift- from Dom & Dom & family. A realistic baby doll, complete with a dummy, a potty, a nappy and a change of clothes. You can turn her on and she tells you what she needs. Sophie calls her Missy, and really loves to play with her!

Nana and Grandy arrived with many gifts – Here you can see Nana giving Sophie the bandaids featuring Pooh Bear and Barbie. One of those went on straightaway - suddenly she had an “owie” on her hand. (Play Spot-the-bandaids in upcoming photos.) This baking set got played with right away. The kids set to work using all the tools to make cookies and cakes out of play dough.

This kept them happy for ages: the highly-technical toddler art of breaking a piece of play-dough into several tiny pieces, throwing them onto a tray and calling them “cookies.”

Who will be...the next MasterChef Australia?!

Oskar

Sophia

Sebastian (Bo-Bo)

Zuzia and Olivia (Livi)

At the moment, Sophie calls her "Baby Lizzie." They adore each other! Sophie kisses her on the head, tells her stories and makes up songs about her. Livi gets so excited when she sees Sophie that sometimes she just screams and squeels at the top of her very strong lungs!
She also does an excellent serious face.

Brothers.

The gift from baby Livi and co. ABC puzzles (Or "ADC's" as Sophie calls them!) At this stage, they're great fun to empty out all over the floor, name the pictures like flash cards and put them back in the box. Good times!

Just a few of the birthday cards. She loves the princesses from Papa and Grandma! She likes to talk about all of the dresses and who likes which dress best! But the cards didn't actually last up there very long. As you can see, they are fascnating reading material! They then get marched around the hous and discarded somewhere on a floor :)

Gift from Great Nanna and Great Granddad ("Big Nanna and Big Grandy") - a gorgeous waterbabies doll. She calls her Gracie, and she loves to walk her around in her new doll stroller (from Nanna and Granddad), and feed the baby milk. She also loves to give directions, and at the party she happily insisted that Sebastian sit beside her on the couch while she opened a few gifts. "Bobo sit here!"

Bubbles! All together now...

Bec and Jeremy and Ryan are here! Let's open this box, since the present is trying to escape. We'll go over there and open it. Sophie takes charge - "Comeon Mama! This way!" This is one of her favourite phrases these days.

PUPPETS! These are awesome - a whole collection of hand and finger puppet animals - including a moose! I don’t know who enjoys them more – me, Dan, or Sophie.
All the kids had a play.

After playing outside, we went back in for food.
(Dan was an incredible help in the kitchen all this time!)

Ok, I got a bit silly and took some photos of the food. I just love Strawberries in the winter here! I had fun prepping the fruit before guests arrived and snapped these shots. I'm such a wannabe foodie!

The cake! Just a simple box mix – tasty, and none leftover. The best part for Sophie was the topper toys. She likes to name all the instruments and pretend to play them. Oh – did you notice the bandaids? Yeah, they were a big hit!

We didn’t get the actual blowing out of the candles on camera, she was too quick! But she did wait until we finished singing to her. She loved that! It’s one of her favourite parts that she likes to tell me about: “People sing happy day me!”

That’s pizza above her eyebrow. I think she was trying to talk with her hands while eating. Imagine that!

We ate on the floor - picnic style.

There was a LOT of excited toddler squealing.

Artwork …a nice calming end to things.

A cheeky smile for the camera, from a sweet and happy two-year-old.

On the 3rd of May, Sophia got baptised

You may have already seen these photos, as they are also posted to my facebook photo albums, but I know that some of our dear family and friends are not big facebook-ers, so I'm putting them here as well.

It was a really fun night, and Sophie did really well. Father Michael is lovely, and he led the whole ceremony in a really personal, unfussy way. Everybody gathered around the alter, the kids ran around a bit and talked and played, Sophie was happy and Dan and I felt very blessed to have so much love and support surrounding us. She didn't even fuss when she had water splashed on her head and oil rubbed into her hair. She looked a little bit confused, but didn't cry. Ah...good times :)

(One of three busy tables at dinner after the ceremony). Thanks Dominika for the gorgeous photos, and Pam for the beautiful dress. I decorated the candle....I really liked it, but as you may notice, the little letter "i" in Sophia Michelle's name came off. oops. Guess I didn't get sticky enough stickers. :)

Conversations with Sophia

I've told these stories many times in the last few months, but I never can remember who has had to listen to them 3 times already and who hasn't got to hear them yet! So it's time to write some of these down, before I forget them. These are some of the stories that make me proud and make me giggle. Stories that cheer me up on days like today when my little girl is not-quite-herself with a low-grade fever and she's mostly just miserable. This is who she usually is when she's feeling well - happy, curious, and very chatty!

Oh, I should probably explain- she does this thing a lot lately, where she's trying to put together these complex sentences. She knows that certain little words go places, like prepositons and question words, but she doesn't quite grasp which word she's supposed to use there yet. So instead she just puts this little space into her sentence where she knows a word should go. It sounds a bit like "uh" so that's what I use in my transcriptions of her speech. That's what it means when you see "uh..." She's not really pausing to think (I don't think), I think she's substituting a word with that sound.


Sophie (looking at a picture in a magazine and pointing): Man!
Mama: Yes, that's a man.
S: I uh....man.
M: No Sophie, you're not a man. You're a girl.
S: (Rolls her eyes, sighs at me, and says in a slighty exasperated voice as she explains to me) I KNOW! I LIKE man!
M: Ohhh. right. of course. I like men too :)
S: Yes.


S: Uh...is Daddy? (shrugging shoulders, palms up, indicating "where?")
M: Daddy's gone to work.
S: I go work? I uh.. I go Daddy's work.
M: When you get bigger, do you want to go to work like Daddy?
S: Yes. I go work... I uh p(l)anes! I work P(l)anes, uh..Daddy, uh Mama!
M: Ok, you're going to fly planes when you get big too?
S: Yes!
M: And you want to fly the planes with Daddy and mama?
S: YES! :)
(She gets very excited when we finally seem to 'get' what she's talking about!)


Sophie's been very pre-occupied with the idea of going to work lately. She likes to list off people and where they are at the moment -"Daddy work. Pete work. Bec work. Grandy work. etc." and then she has to name who is at home at the moment. "Mama no work. Mama home. Zush home uh baby. etc.." If she's not sure about a particular person at any point in the day, she will ask me if they are at home or at work. "Papa work? Bittney home?" etc.
So anyway, the day following that last conversation, she had a new set of career goals!

I was buckling her into her carseat to go out for the day.
S: I go work?
W: Well, not today. Today we're going to the park (or the shops, I can't remember exactly.) But when you get big and you grow up you can go to work.
S: Yes. I big...I go work.
W: When you grow up, where do you want to go to work, Sophie? You could fly planes at work like Daddy, or you could be a teacher for children at a school like Mama, or you could be a doctor and help people who are sick to feel better...
S: I work..I people's doctor! uh...better!
M: That's a great idea Sophie. You would be a very clever doctor.
S: Yes!

Oh, and the first long sentence I remember hearing her say - on the day of her baptism we were all getting ready. I did her hair and we talked about her pretty new hairclips and new dress and pretty new shoes - all for this very special day. We talked about going to church and then having a special party for Sophie and dinner. She walked up to our full-length mirror, admiring herself and having a chat to herself.
S: Hello Soshie! I uh.. two hairpicks uh...my party!

I'll leave you with a few of her latest, surprising new words! octopus (aw-pus), jellyfish (jay-pish), chimp, tricky

May your week be joyful and free from illness :)

Another movie of the chatty Miss Sophie

A few weeks ago, we visited Anaconda - giant camping store. Sophie and I explored and played while Dan wandered the store drooling over toys and picking out a birthday present. Sophie and I had some interesting conversations on the little set of steps by the emergency door - here is one of them that I got on video.

Oh, and at the end of the clip, where Sophie is naming friends (as she loves to do lately - big long lists of everyone she knows. She's much better at it since this film was shot) I missed one of the names at the time. She says "Gandy" which is her name for Granddad, but I didn't figure that out until watching it a few times. Also, at the end she names Nikita (Kitty is what she usually says), and then I switched off the video. So you just missed the next word she said after the camera was off, which was Bobo - her cousin Sebastian.

Enjoy!