Christmas Day!

Twins!!

Daddy and Sophia both have on a hangin' with my gnomies tee! Too cute!

I love Christmas day brunch...it is most definitely one of my favorite things all year long! This year brunch was held at Charlie's brother Leo's house. As usual it was a full house and full of little ones running about and celebrating. Although Sophia didn't know this day different from any other, she really raked in the gifts!

She got lots of useful things like some rattles that make noise and are easy to chew. She got lots of clothes, which she needed and even some toys! Many of her toys she'll have to grow into but I know they'll be great when she gets to them!

Molly got a beautiful new play kitchen and her brother Nick got a Wii and Guitar Hero. I must say I tried my hand at each and I can really see how this Guitar Hero phenomenon has struck the nation! It is fun, although I am really terrible! All the kids, including Julie, entertained with real musical instruments too! Molly and Julie played piano and Nick demonstrated some songs he learned on his real electric guitar. We have a family of talented musicians...I hope Sophia becomes part of that group too!

Christmas Eve

Sophia kicks back while Mommy and Bama prepare dinner.

My little koukla (doll in Greek)

This was too cute of an opportunity and I couldn't pass it up! It reminded me of the stuffed animal scene in ET!

We had a cozy family get-together on Christmas eve at my mom's house. Stacy had to work Christmas day, Shelby was with her mom, and without Dad and his Christmas pants it was a different and difficult holiday for me. For those of you who don't know, my Dad was famous for his "Christmas" pants. They were some of the loudest plaid you've ever laid eyes on and boy, were they festive! For as long as I can remember, Dad would wear these green, red, yellow, and blue plaid pants every year on Christmas morning. We all made fun of him but I think we all secretly loved the pants and they helped everyone to celebrate. Strangely when we cleaned out his apartment nobody could find them. Maybe Dad took them with and entertained everyone up there with his pants this year...I hope so!



Charlie's sisters Cathy and Anne came over too, along with my cousin Dean. We had a FABULOUS dinner prepared by mom and we played a mean game of boy vs girl Trivial Pursuit. I hate to admit that the boys did in fact win, but we were close behind! It's those damned sports questions that get us every time!



Sophia had a great time and basked in the warmth of love, but I think by the end of the night was a little over-stressed and over-stimulated and was just happy to watch everything unfold from the comfort of Daddy's arms.

Grandma's Christmas

Which reindeer is this one?

Aunt Chris won't have too much longer to wait for her next baby fix!

Big Cousin Molly proudly holding Sophia!

Grandma Sue and Baby Girl

The "complete" picture of all the grandchildren in attendance!

From left to right: Julie, Nick, Sophia, Mira, Molly, Anna, and Henry

God love Nick! He is doing exactly what he's told: hold the baby and smile...too bad his cousins just wouldn't cooperate! I guess being the oldest is sometimes difficult too!

We had so many Christmas celebrations this year that we were really merry! We had a special celebration on the Sunday before with Charlie's grandmother. She turns 90 this coming February, on our anniversary actually, so she wasn't sure she would want to brave the elements and venture out on Christmas.

Sue's brother John, his daughter Tiffany and husband Dennis all arrived with their kids in tow too! It was so much fun to have a house full of kids celebrating Christmas. It made me thankful for the cousins Sophia has and brought back fond memories of all us getting together on holidays too. Of course I am the youngest and so I was ALWAYS the one picked on and made to do the dirty work, but it's all just fun memories now! It was good to see what future Christmases may be like with Chris's newest on the way and more children in our future (not yet, but future!!) too.

Grandma really raked in the goods and got plenty of snacks for her junk food drawer! We all know her love of candy and insatiable sweet-tooth, so we stocked her up good!

Sleepin' Like a Baby

Okay, so I realize this is a totally unflattering picture of me, but I had to do it. This is just one of a few pictures Charlie has taken to illustrate how much alike we are. Notice the way we both throw our arm out to the side? Scary. There's another one that just didn't make the cut that shows both of us with our arms thrown above our heads, sound asleep next to each other...too cute.

Sophia is successfully sleeping through the night...hooray! This has truly made the last two weeks so much better! She goes down about 10-11 and usually sleeps until about 6 am, although it is now almost 7 and I'm still waiting for her to awaken! Hooray! The best part, I didn't even have to do the whole "let her cry" thing. Once we started waking her to eat every three hours, she gets enough food and she's tired enough that she just sleeps. We've had a bump here and there when she might have been starving and we put her to bed early, she wakes up early, but overall this is just so nice to move to the next level! Hopefully she will move into sleeping just a bit longer and I can finally start getting back to the point where I feel somewhat rested...we can only hope!

All Thumbs

The play mat is the place to be for fun!

Have you seen my awesome Taggie?

Those hanging animals are really fascinating!

Sophia has officially found her thumb and loves every second of it! She has always been inclined to suck it when it grazed past her lips, but now she knows where to find it and often uses it to fall asleep or comfort herself. Charlie is all about it, as the pacifier is prone to fall out and she can't replace it, the thumb is a different story. Honestly, I don't know how I feel about it. I mean, you can cut up and take away a pacifier, not so with a thumb. Plus, I've seen too many kids pass through my classroom still sucking their thumbs. I of course vow never to be that parent, but I've already discovered sometimes things don't go according to MY plan!



Her two favorite toys right now are her play mat and her Taggie. She loves to wiggle and play on her play mat. She will giggle, kick her feet and bat at the little animals all day long! She is so cute because she makes little squealing noises and wiggles and giggles the whole time, it is adorable! The lights are her favorite part, she will stare at them all day long! She also uses it to practice rolling over. She is getting closer every day after our one false alarm. She just can't figure out how to get her arm out of the way to make the final descent onto her tummy, and quite frankly, I'm quite happy right now with her NOT knowing!



For those of you not familiar with a Taggie, it is apparently one of those crazy baby crazes! Jill and I found one on one of our many shopping trips and truly, we mocked it. It is a little blanket that has "tags" sticking out all over it for kids to grab, etc. Well, her mom who is super crafty made Sophia her very own Taggie. It is WAY better than any store bought one because it has her name on it and of course it was made with love! Anyway, I must admit I should eat my words because my child loves this thing. It's perfect size for her to grab and chew and she can hold it. She is really into grabbing but because she's still learning she can't hold onto anything that is too thick or heavy. So, Taggie to the rescue, I guess!

sick!

Well, thankfully it's me that's sick and not Sophia. AND...we hope to keep it that way! Unfortunately I woke up early Sat. morning with quite the flu bug. It was then I realized I neglected to get my flu shot like the pediatrician suggested...whoops. I'm not really sure where I got it, I don't know anyone who's sick and obviously Sophia doesn't attend day care, so it's curious. I have been going to Baby Boot Camp, so it's quite possible I picked it up from one of those people, but I'd sure like to give it back! It's day three and I'm still not back up to par. Thankfully Sophia doesn't yet show any flu symptoms so we're keeping our fingers crossed.

Charlie looked up on the Internet about breastfeeding while sick and it turns out you should keep it up. Those antibodies sure are magical! The article also went on to say that often the breastfeeding baby is the only one in the house who doesn't get sick. Again, we're keeping our fingers crossed!

Needless to say we were not able to get our tree this weekend, but Charlie got to spend LOTS of quality time with his baby girl! He has been so helpful and generous with his time and not complained at all about his virtually 48 hours straight of Baby. Although, I will say that I think it gave him a new perspective on my day-to-day. If I'm not better by tomorrow, I may actually have to call the doctor...yikes!

Scheduling

Mmmm, babies taste gooooood!

Proud Pappas!

Well, we've been working on her schedule for the better part of a week. The doctor said to wake her every 3-4 hours to eat. Well, this continues to be a challenge. I thought that maybe since she wasn't so tiny anymore, it might be easier to wake her up. Oh how I was wrong! Unfortunately, like her mother, this child will choose sleep over all else. Yesterday was a particularly sleepy day for Sophia and that resulted in her NOT sleeping through the night. However, the night before she did in fact sleep from 10:30 pm to 6 am. The funny part is she probably would have slept a little longer but paranoid me got her up anyway (she was wiggling and making noise, I didn't wake her up) and she barely ate! She took 2 oz and it was a struggle to get in two more!



Last weekend we went to see our friends Greg and Julie in Lawrence. Their Justin just turned one and was very fascinated by Sophia as demonstrated in the above pictures! We had a great time and we love having play dates because right now they're really more for us. We hope to get our Christmas tree up this weekend and that means adorable pics of Sophia and the tree are sure to follow!