fReE MovIE!!!

We went and saw Horton Hears a Who this morning for FREE!!! I just love free stuff. A few local theatres have been showing free movies for kids this summer, how cool is that? There were more of Sophie's friends at the movie with us, but these are the only ones that would stand in the picture. :) This is Sophie with Ellana and Allison, they are older than her but are so sweet to try and include her, Sophie thinks they are the coolest! She is lucky to have several good friends here in Denver. I only saw about 1/3 of the movie (sitting still isn't Sophie's forte) but I thought it was a cute movie and pretty funny too. Sophie fell asleep on our way home, and I just laid her down for a nap... but they just started cutting the concrete sidewalk in front of her window!! So that's pretty awesome.

a great movie

Dan and I watched one of my favorite movies of all time last night, Moulin Rouge!. I know lots of people hate it... too artistic for most, just comes off as weird to some people. If you haven't seen it I would recommend it!! Just keep in mind that it is about a courtesan (Nicole Kidman) so if that bothers you... maybe not; and her trying to get out of "the underworld" to be with a writer (Ewan McGregor). It's a beautiful love story with AWESOME music. Dan loves it too, I'm sure it has to do with how amazing the music is. I will also warn you that it's a tragedy and you will cry your eyes out!! (Especially if you are pregnant and very emotional already like me.) Here's a clip with my favorite song, it's the Elephant Love Medley just to give you a little taste. By the way, both of Nicole and Ewan did all of their own singing in the movie.

I wish there were more musicals coming out these days, they seem very few and far between.

bye bye binkers

I'm happy to announce that Sophie is officially BINKY-FREE!!! For those of you who don't have kids you're probably wondering why I am posting on my blog about something so small. First of all, this blog is the only place (unfortunately) that I document this sort of thing. But second of all, it's a BIG deal to us! Anyway, on her first birthday we decided that she could only use her "binkers" while sleeping but it took us until she was 17 months to take it away completely. The first night she cried for about 15 or 20 minutes, nap time the next day it was about 5 min of crying, the second night she didn't cry at all! She hasn't mentioned it since. We are so proud of you SOPHIE!! Just goes to show how we were worried for no reason. I'm glad that we did it before she was overly attached. We didn't do it earlier because we were planning on Sophie having her surgeries this summer and wanted her to have every comfort (binky included) while she went through that hard time. Now we don't know when or if she'll ever have surgery. I am going to have a hard time throwing them out of the diaper bag though, because it makes a great mute button when Sophie is throwing a tantrum in public. But I will.... when I'm ready. :) Our next hurdle will be the bottle, I anticipate that being quite a bit harder, but hopefully I am wrong.

By the way, we get to find out the gender of our baby (if he/she cooperates for the ultrasound) a week from Wednesday!! Four other things I am very excited about (not that they effect any of you at all, I am just very EXCITED): 1. I just found out my sister Jenny will be coming to Utah for the weddings while we are there in a couple of weeks!! Wasn't planning on that, so that's GREAT. 2. Also, my grandma who lives by herself in Southern Utah finally listened to my dad and is putting her house up for sale so she can move up by her grandchildren! She decided to brave the cold winters because she doesn't want to spend another Thanksgiving or Christmas alone (don't blame her). I don't live in SL but I do visit there often so will get to see her much more! 3. We got approved for the 3 bedroom, we move in September. 4. We have 8 young women coming to girls camp! This is pretty amazing considering last year at this time we only had 1 active young women and 0 girls went to camp. Hurray for good news!!! I hope that you all have a list of exciting things as long as mine.

Dan's 26th Birthday

Dan turned 26 and we had a great day! First of all he had the day off of work so he slept in until 9:00 (his choice, if I had my way we would be out doing stuff by then.) So Sophie and I went jogging like normal to let the sleeping giant lie! We just lounged around in the morning mostly watching cartoons, which is Dan's favorite thing (not the cartoons necessarily, just the lounging around and doing nothing part.) We had Sophie take an early nap so she'd be in a good mood to go out to lunch.

Dan's boss was nice enough to invite us all to come up and go out to lunch together! It was fun to see the beautiful court house where Dan works and finally get to meet the people Dan has been working with. We went to a yummy Italian restaurant called Gaetano's in North Denver. It is located in an Italian neighborhood where Judge Hoffman's grandparents used to live, pretty cool.

After lunch we drove down to the mall and REI so Dan could spend is birthday money, I'd like to say that he enjoyed it but I'm not so sure that's the right word. I think he likes having new things but doesn't like to shop for anything. I thought it was great, because it's like pulling teeth to get Dan to spend anything on himself! He deserves it. By this time we were all tired so we headed home.

I made Dan "a man's dinner!" As he calls it, of steak and potatoes which is a real treat for us, I don't remember the last time I had steak. It was wonderful. Dan chose to have cupcakes, and since they are so small I had to be creative and put 2 candles on one and 6 on the other for 26... okay so it's not that creative but I was proud of myself anyway. :) Sophie was very interested in the cupcakes and helped me make them. When it came time to finally eat one I thought she wouldn't be able to stand it as she waited for me to take the paper off! She stuck the thing frosting first into her mouth and proceeded to suck. It was really funny because as the pressed the cupcake against her face eventually, it started to fall apart and she started to panic. She was so unhappy when it fell and we couldn't get her to eat the pieces... silly girl.

I love you honey!!! Hope you had a good birthday.

Sophie loves watching America's Funniest Home Videos with her Dad.

a reason to smile

This is Sophie's new favorite word...

She was feeling so happy because she knew we were about to go swimming. While I was doing her hair in the mirror she just started signing and saying "happy" over and over again. I couldn't help but laugh (and pull out the video camera.) She's getting so smart and learning new words everyday. I guess she knows that repetition helps and practice makes perfect!

miss independent

Let me start this out by saying that I really LOVE this age, Sophie is a lot of fun these days. She's so talkative, and playful! I really think she has gotten more fun everyday since her birth.

But Sophie wants to grow up, and won't let me feed her anymore, she is becoming so independent! It tries my patience but I let her feed herself yogurt most mornings. She won't eat any of it if I try to spoon it to her. But it takes her FOREVER (about 20 min) and she makes a huge mess. Yogurt's her favorite because she can't keep the spoon level enough for anything else, that could slide off. She pretty much just dips it in the yogurt and licks it off, dripping yogurt and getting it all over her chin along the way. But she likes to hold a spoon no matter what she's eating so she can pretend she's using it. She will pick up rice, for example, place it in her spoon and while still holding it she puts it in her mouth. She just wants it to touch the spoon before she eats it... funny girl. Sophie also enjoys reading to herself. We got some new books from the library the other day and I noticed that she wouldn't "read" them on her own until I had read them to her once, I guess she wants to get the story right.

Other places she wants to be independent are more dangerous, like at the swimming pool and at the playground. She is definitely a thrill seeker and is always looking for something new and crazy to try in those arenas. Let's just say she keeps me on my toes!

I think I will appreciate her doing things on her own more once the baby comes, because I'll have less time to help her. The real problem is that she doesn't have the patience for me to teach her how to do things and I don't always have the patience to watch her struggle while she's making a mess and/or putting herself in danger. In some ways it's hard to see her grow up I suppose, but she's going to do it whether I like it or not! :)

matching toes

Today after Sophie and I got all dressed and ready to go to the pool we found out that it is closed until the afternoon. So I decided to paint my toe nails... this happens about 2 or 3 times a year (sad, I know). Sophie hadn't ever seen me do it before and was VERY interested. So I decided to do hers too. They are both pretty messy but hopefully the polish on our skin will wear off soon.

In other news: We found a nice 3 bedroom apartment over the weekend but are still waiting to hear if they will approve us with the majority of our "income" coming from student loans or not. (If you can call that income... it's really the opposite of revenue, it's debt!) I am looking more pregnant everyday and am starting to wear maternity clothes already! But I'm feeling great and we get to find out the baby's gender the day before we leave for Utah on August 6th. I don't dare guess what it will be, all I can say is that this pregnancy is different than with Sophie... we would love to have a boy but would be equally happy (and better prepared for) a girl.

belly shot - 17 weeks

It looks a lot bigger in person, trust me! I need someone who lives in Denver to vouch for me, it looks much bigger in person!! Tell them! I don't know what's with the picture but people at church are starting to ask me if I'm pregnant, so I am definitely showing... ok!

Independence Day

We had a fun holiday weekend. We started celebrating on the 3rd by attending a free concert in the park put on by the Colorado Symphony Orchestra with our friends the Lawrences. They played all patriotic songs, which included "Battle Hymn of the Republic." I was surprised to hear a hymn in a non-church setting... especially in Denver. I really enjoyed the music, Sophie was a bit bored on the slow songs but danced to the songs with a beat. It was really great until it starting pouring rain. We ran under a tree and held the blanket over our heads. We left early so we could drop the Lawrences off at the airport. Sophie slept on her way home, you can't see it in the picture but she was drooling quite a bit. Oh and by the way, the thing on Sophie's head is my camera bag.

On the 4th we went swimming at our pool in the morning. Sophie has because quite the little fish and was excited to show off her new tricks to Dan. It was too hot to go out in the afternoon so we got things done around the house. We went to a park in the evening and had pizza. Sophie enjoyed playing in the sand with Dan. He would build little sand castles and she quickly smashed them. It was a lot of fun, just to spend time together as a family. We don't do that very often. Sorry the picture of us is so terrible, I should have checked it before I let Dan and Sophie go back to playing. I had just propped it up on the diaper bag and used the timer. Oh well, you get the idea!

Here are a few random pictures from the last week. Dan likes to do Sophie's hair in crazy ways in the bath. Sophie and I shared a blue Dum-Dum the in the morning and we enjoyed showing each other our blue tongues. This afternoon she pulled my clunky boots out of the closet. I put them on her and she laughed like crazy as she tried to walk around.

Sophie's got the hops

Yesterday on Sesame Street Elmo talked about jumping and Sophie was trying to do it all morning. When Dan got home we got it on tape.

Ok, so I know she doesn't actually hop but she sure tries!!