Recently in Sophie Category

Ok, this one is just a bit overdue but I have a great excuse.... actually, I don't.

Sophie celebrated her 5th birthday surrounded by family in Reno during our trip to the States in December.  She had requested a Hawaiian birthday so my mom and I stayed up the night before making her cake.  It was a really easy and cute plumeria that I had seen in Women's Weekly.  

Mom and Grandma Mary decked the whole table out with leis and golden necklaces, foil garland.  It was after all, Sophie's Golden Birthday.  My mom planned a treasure hunt for the girls and they had clues as to where to find everything.  They really enjoyed running all around and finding the treasures.  The Birthday Fairy (something created by Mom) hid all of the presents and the very last one was The Golden Necklace.  Sophie was enraptured that a fairy had come with everything for her.  

Sophie was showered in presents and love by all the family who rarely get to see her.  It was really a special treat being able to celebrate with all of them together.

Here is the dream Sophie had this morning, as described by her:

"Jessica was swimming underwater and was trying to find a key to Voltron and when she found it she flipped it up in the air at night and all the roofs on the houses became all Christmasy and when she threw it up in the sky it was Christmas. And it never came down again. Actually it came down again and then haha-hmhm-haha" (starts humming).

I escaped last weekend with two wonderful friends to a spa in Martinborough, the wine region near Wellington. It was wonderful, relaxing, healing and full of laughter. All made even better by the fact that Jake had an entire weekend off (GASP!) and spent it with the girls so I could get away, anxiety free.

Everyone had a great time free of separation anxiety and full of Star Wars! I came back to a Star Wars focused family. Many discussions were being had about "RDD2", "the guy in the tree with the pointy ears", "the two guys fighting with flashlights", and "the walking guys getting closer and CLOSER AND CLOSER!".

Jake had apparently been searching around town to get the girls some action figures that would work for the girls. R2D2 was specifically being sought. Sadly, we couldn't find him anywhere. Josie picked out a Clone Wars cell phone which I think is totally lame. Not one authentic Star Wars sound effect included! Josie however, is in love with it! Sophie scored a C3PO figure and instantly made a bed for him in a paua shell, complete with tissue pillow and blanket. She took him to nap with her, happy as a clam, er, paua. ;) When she woke up, she staggered out, forgetting, I think, that she only had her pull up on. This is what was written on her leg.

 

In case you can't make it out it says "Sophie loves C3PO". I called Jake and we both had a good chuckle about it.  

We've been sick and stuck inside these school holidays so among other things, we've been crafting. Here's some of our handy work.


This owl was from Kids Craft Weekly. Sophie had a great time putting him all together.

  The bags for our owls were a little too long so we hacked it off and decided to make a crown.  Josie enjoyed gluing the jewels on.


I tried to tie a little letter lesson in to our crafts. I asked Sophie if she knew any other words that started with O. I love the two she came up with. One is our dear friend, the other a veggie she's never tasted. 

And, um, that's my handwriting and art skills.


Here's the crown being modeled. PS. I got this smile by telling her NOT to smile.

  We repeated the system again the next day with stellar results.


A little princess.

Again, my favorite part are the words Sophie came up with. Sadly, I had to coax her into the last "M" word.

Sophie loves pretending that she is various things.  She also loves to include Josie and I in her pretend worlds.  Here are a few of the sessions from this week.

Lets pretend...

We are a family of ponies.  I am a golden pony with super powers.

We are a family of super hero tigers.

We are a family of spider super heroes. (Josie got tied up in the web, aka Jump Rope during this little session)

We are a family of fairies.  I'll be Silver, you can be the Fairy Godmother, and Josie can be Tinkerbell.

We are a family of lions.  Let's eat our meat like lions.  Get your claws out.  I caught an antelope.  Lets rip the skin off and eat the meat. (uhhhh)

We are a family of magical kittens.

It gets pretty interesting trying to remember exactly who you are at various times of the day.  I'll be flying around the living room only to find out we are now the hunting tiger family.

The girls and I were enjoying some dinnertime conversation today while Jake was working late.  We were recounting the day when Sophie told this story, which will forever be one of my favorites.

Sophie: "Today I was telling Penny and Mavis (both teachers at her Kindy) that Daddy likes to wear dresses sometimes to be funny.  Mavis said she didn't think she wanted to hear any more about that and then laughed so hard that tears came out of her eyes."

I laughed so hard that I choked on my dinner.  I still can't stop cracking up.  It's just awesome that the teachers at Sophie's school think Jake is a closet cross dresser. 

The school system here is a quarterly set up.  It really reminds me of the year-round system we had in the states.  The kids go for a term then have about a 2 week break before heading back for the next term.  Sophie is currently on holiday, as they call it here, and Josie and I have really enjoyed having her home.  More Josie than me, and you may think I sound cold but hey, I can't compete with 41 four year olds.  I just don't have it in me.  Josie on the other hand is more than happy to try and keep her sisters attention all day long.  

Sophie has gained enough independence that she's fairly self entertained.  She's been trying to manage Josie into doing everything she wants her to do.  And also getting her to do it the way she wants her to.  What can I say, the girl knows what she wants.  Josie has been a good sport and is the perfect counter to Sophie's bossiness.  If Josie doesn't want to do it the way Sophie is instructing, she just won't.  Does it sound like a recipe for disaster?  Surprisingly, it works out 99% of the time.  The girls have really started playing well together.  Both coming up with ideas and having equal parts in the game.  It's amazing how long they can be entertained by seeing which things they can pull with a jump rope.  

I took the girls to a play last week as something to do.  It was really funny how Sophie was curled up on my lap during the parts with the villain while Josie joined the other kids and shouted at him.  The story was quite cute and at the end the cast came into the audience and asked the kids if they'd like to dance.  The king asked Josie and Snow White asked Sophie.  Their faces were priceless.  Josie looked like the happiest girl on earth and couldn't wait to come over and tell me about her dance.  All afternoon they reenacted different scenes from the play with each other.

It's been nice to have them with each other and give them a chance to reconnect.  I think Josie really misses Soph when she is at school.  Oh, today I caught them kissing for like 10 seconds.  Sophie was saying, "No Jose, let's kiss for a long time like this (press mouth to Josies face)".  It was pretty cute.

Good ones! I put a  bunch of new pics up tonight for your enjoyment, including some superheroes, more slip'n'slide, a new visitor, our visit to Isengard and more peanut butter chocolate cake.

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

Back in early November, Sophie shared with our part time Manny her hopes for the perfect birthday.  He shared the info with us and we tried to work the details (we took a few liberties) into her party day.  Rainbows were the main theme which seemed pretty easy.

After lots of online research and questioning of other moms, I decided on the multi-layered rainbow cake, over the regular cake with a rainbow on top.  Then there were the streamers, a rainbow skirt, a rainbow shirt, rainbow play dough as favors, and bubbles.  LOTS of bubbles.  We're talking, this baby advertises 4000 per minute.  We were skeptical but when put to the test, I think it actually delivered.

Since we're on the bottom of the globe, Sophie was blessed with a Summer time birthday this year.  We have basically a plug and play party yard with the trampoline, playhouse and many outdoor toys our landlord kindly included in our rent.  We had 7 kids in total and everyone had a blast.  The weather cooperated and we enjoyed heaps of sun, NO wind and lots of good food.  

A big, huge thanks to our friends Nadine, Lindsay, Meagan and Big D for turning up early (or at all considering none of them have kids) and helping out with everything, including (but not limited to) decorating, entertaining, music making, cleaning, cooking, picture taking and babysitting.

Sophie had a wonderful time with all of her friends and was sad to see the day end.  Thanks to everyone who could make it (and to those who were there in spirit)!

Our little girl turned 4 today. She's been counting down the days and asking every morning for the past month "Am I four?". She was ecstatic this morning when she spotted her birthday banner and presents on the kitchen table. She came running back to our room to ask Jake if she was four today. A couple things Sophie has decided turning 4 means.

She is now too big to be picked up. (I have completely vetoed this one)
She needs to wear underwear with four princesses on it AND the number 4 on it.
She will now eat asparagus. (cause that is what 4 year olds do)

We're having a rainbow themed party for her tomorrow and will be sure to post pictures of Sophie's first summer time birthday!