First night

We took sophie to see the kids fireworks for first night in Pittsburgh. We also took her on the incline for the first time.

Gone camping

For christmas, santa brought Sophie a tent in which to go camping. Tonight in her never ending quest to make us nervous, and have fun doing it, she brought it all down on it side, and laughed for 5 minutes straight.

Oh yeah

These puppies are ready to carry me my last 10 pounds :) that = 3500 miles @ 100 calories a mile. Better get running!

Middle class meets the titled class

I don't know if it is apparent from the picture, but soph has combined her middle class family dollhouse with her new princess castle. It is sort of too realistic in that the family dollhouse was obtained second hand. They have a baby and furniture is a bit dirty and has been chewed on by the dog. The mom looks like a mom and the dad looks like he worked all day. Meanwhile the princess looks rested and has a pony and a wasteline. Too funny and too real! At least the royals invited the smiths over for dinner.

Merry christmas!

We are starting to recover from our griswald style christmas. We hope yours was wonderful!

The pic show that one can make gnocchi out of leftover mashed potatoes. Yum!

Christmas baby

Sophie is getting into the christmas spirt.

Hot chocolate

After a buzy day of playing outside, I made hot chocolate. It is a bit messy but I am pretty sure she likes it.

Can't be all baby all the time

So after the past few months, I have been assembling a guitar in my (haha) free time. Last night I strung it up for the first time. I need to make a ton of adjustments, but here's a picture. I am very proud of it.

Sleigh ride

With all the snow outside, Sophie had a tantrum about wanting a sleigh ride. When we went outside, I gave her an improvised sleigh ride. She had a good time.

fun @ Auntie's house

I have a 2 hour conference call (YIKES!) today and auntie k is watching the babes. Apparently, they are having a good time with old Halloween costumes.

When I dropped her off, I told her that there would be no hitting or biting, only hugs and kisses. When I was getting her settled there were hugs and kisses all around. We'll see if that lasted...

play dough family

How cute is that?

Play-ta-to

Sophie got into the 10 lb bag of potatoes, running around doing all sorts of interesting things with them, as evidenced by the pics.

Erock made some great potato stamps, I think he could get a second job at a kids summer camp.

Yes, those are play-ta-toes (dan quayle, help me with the spelling on the plural) in the potty. Rest easy family, those won't be part of Christmas dinner.

Freezing rain

And a warm comfy couch. Zig is the biggest member of our clab, paws down.

Holiday fun

Things are returning to normal a week post op. We had a cookie bake a thon with auntie e on Friday. Sophie was very helpful sprinkling powdered sugar on the rum balls. Though the rumballs were made with a good pour, the adults managed to abstain from toasting early.

Nana nancy bought this elf for sophie, and it is her bff at the moment. It is cute, but makes me think I should try harder to find her a playmate!

The biggest change since the last operation is a strong anxious streak about being w/o mom. Even for 2 minutes. She is having sleep issues (wait, did she ever stop?) And is acting like a newborn in the middle of the night. This has been landing her in 'mamma's bed' and mamma landing on the futon in the spare room. Thankfully eric is a deep sleeper so he can rest with her in bed with him.

By the time we are 40 we'll have our bed back, right? Some new monkey jammies and slippers have been tried as bribes...

We're off to do the last of our shopping tomorrow! Yay for the holidays!

God bless the ever patient ziggy

Sophie tucked him in for a nap and counted to 8!

Dog food

As a parent you come up with a lot of tricks to get kids to eat. I remember when I was a kid, I would tell my pareant that there was too much food on my plate, they would then take all the food, put it on a smaller plate, and I would eat it all.

Taking this approach kind of, for lunch Sophie informed me she would like to eat dog food. I did the next best thing, and convinced her the couscous she didn't eat last night, was in fact, special dog food.

It was so special in fact, she ate it all.

one handed blogging

The fact that I am blogging one handed means sophie is holding my other hand, and we are on the way home!!

The forehead expander and port were replaced, an 48 mL of saline were added. No infections going in, let us hope it stays that way.

We are all pooped but together, ang nothing beats the feeling of taking your baby home.

Thanks to all for the prayers and good wishes, it helps to know we have support.  Now here is to an uneventful 86 days till these suckers come out.

Raining

Hopefully the rain will lull me to sleep. We leave at 5 am for cleveland.

The hilarious rediculousness of it all

While walking the dog today my mind started wandering down the dark tunnel of worry, self pity and what if's. Suddenly, I sort of sensed more than felt a splat on my head and chest. It couldn't be, but yes! A bird pooped on my head and chest. I started chuckling at the rediculousness of the situation.

In psych talk, laughing like this for no apparant reason is called 'reacting to internal stimulus'. Which what is the UPS driver and neighbors must have thought of me while I was walking zig.

My chuckling turned into laughter when zig started trying to board the UPS truck and make out with the driver. There is one guy on our route who gives out treats, but zig thinks it is EVERY large brown truck. I couldn't budge that dog for the life of me. Until the truck started to move. He dragged me after that truck for 4 blocks, stopping and sitting obediantly every time the truck stoped for a delivery.

So the picture...yeah, that's from the bird.

Confirmed for Thursday

She'll be having surgery this Thursday morning at the Mentor Surgery Center. Pray for no complications!

Complications

Unfortunately, the deflated basketball feeling in Sophie's forehead port was not my overactive imagination. She will have it replaced Thursday, if the OR and supplies are available. We'll find out later today for sure when surgery will be.