Sophie is Officially Three

Some interesting things about Sophie:

1. She LOVES princesses. She calls me Princess Mommy and herself Princess Sophie. Also, to her, pink means good, pretty, all is right in the world. As in "Mommy, my teeth are pink" (after she's brushed them). She does have a tough tomboy side however. She loves to make mudpies and roll around and get dirty.

2. She wants to play at the park every day with her friends. Rain or shine. She can't wait to have playdates. Although she is still mastering the art of sharing.

3. This kid loves her some t.v., movies, that gray snow that's on the t.v. every once in a while. It's all good to her.

4. She loves Max, but does not want him touching her stuff. Or his stuff for that matter. As long as he's sitting quietly staring at her, she's happy. Otherwise she's calling him a bad baby.

5. She really, really likes sandwiches. She eats other food, but she is pretty happy with a sandwich and some water. She keeps asking me for a zebra sandwich. I'm pretty sure she means a sandwich in the shape of a zebra, but just in case I'm wrong I'm not questioning her too closely.

6. She's got the potty training down pat. I'm super impressed with her, and happy that I didn't really have to do anything but stock a prize box for bribing purposes.

7. She loves to read to herself or have someone read to her. During time out I find her sitting on the floor in her room reading.

8. She is the most stubborn person I have ever met. She gets that from Dave. She can also hold a grudge (she also gets that from Dave), she is still talking about the time I spanked her and it's been almost three weeks.

9. She tells me she loves me and she also tells me I love her. She tells me, "Mama, you miss me", even when I haven't gone anywhere.

10. She is fascinating and changes everyday. I can't wait for tomorrow (although I'm seriously apprehensive about 10 years from now).

11. She adores Dave. I mean full out ADORE, she thinks he hung the moon and can't get enough of her Daddy.

12. She has such a wonderful imagination, it is so wonderful to see her pretending to be a princess, monster, puppy dog.

Sophie on her second birthday. I can't believe how much she has changed.

Trying on her new clothes on her third birthday.

What Thanksgiving 2010 Taught Me...

1. Brining a turkey isn't difficult. It is however time and labor intensive. And you will need math skills. If you don't have math skills, you will need to borrow someone else's. However if you do need to borrow someone else's math skills there will probably be some mocking involved from the borrowee. ( I totally made that word up).

2. When you make your list for the grocery store, please take into account you are shopping with small children right before Thanksgiving. Bring snacks for the kids, and alcohol for you. Really, you'll thank me later.

3. Just because you spent a fair amount of money on coordinating outfits for your family to wear for the traditional Thanksgiving photo does not mean your three year old will consent to wear said outfit. In fact she will probably throw a major tantrum and insist on wearing her ratty old sweatpants and won't allow you to brush her hair either. This will be your punishment for refusing to change shoes for church as a child. Take it like a man.

4. If you are nursing your infant, you WILL NOT get to eat your dinner hot and while everyone else is eating their dinner. You should be used to this by now, if you aren't, well I don't know what to tell you.

5. If you are very lucky, your family will sit at the table and watch you while you eat (since you couldn't eat while they were eating due to number 4). Making you mildly uncomfortable, but also eternally grateful.

6. If you are making a traditional dish from your spouse's family and you substitute an integral ingredient... your spouse will notice... and remark on this substitution. You will not be able to explain your reasoning.

7. It's okay to ask for help if you have no idea what you are doing. It's like asking for directions, no one wants to end up in a different state because you won't pull over to ask for help.

8. I learned this last year but it bears repeating. Turkey's have TWO cavities that have stuff in them that should not be brined or roasted. Please for the love of all that's holy check to make sure you are not roasting a plastic bag of turkey stuff. I'm not really sure what's in that plastic bag and I've always been too afraid to open it and find out.

9. If you are cooking and are already wearing your pretty clothes... wear an apron. It's seems obvious, but I thought I should mention it anyways.

10. Be thankful Thanksgiving is only once a year.

The turkey hanging out in the brine. We filled juice jugs with water and froze them to keep the temperature low enough not to give us all food poisoning.

Here I am removing the turkey from the brine. We rinsed it really well after this and smeared it with olive oil.

Dave making the rub.

Sophie picking fresh basil for the rub.

Me calling Dave's Mom and Dad for turkey brining advice.

The kids watching while Dave and I prepped the turkey to roast it.

Sophie wanted a closer look at the turkey. I'm not sure why I had peanut butter on the counter. Can you imagine peanut butter turkey? Yum?

Mid-roast

Almost ready to eat

Our spread

Our traditional Thanksgiving pose.

Dave carving the turkey. Yum!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sophie's Third Birthday Party

We held Sophie's third birthday party a couple days ago. I'm getting tired just thinking about it. The house is finally clean again... just in time for Thanksgiving. We had so much fun at the party. So many of Sophie's friends were able to come and enjoy the day with us. We didn't have any party games, but we set up play tents in the backyard and had lots of paper and crayons for the kids to play with. We had a garden party theme this year, so lots of butterflies, caterpillars, and flowers throughout the house.
Sophie requested pink cake, but she had to make do with pink cupcakes and Chocolate Crunch Cake. Crunch Cake is the traditional Edgerton family birthday cake and it's so yummy. I was tempted to color the icing on the cake pink, but I got busy and it just didn't happen.


Here's Sophie in her birthday finery. I bought the pink pettiskirt for her when she was about seven months old and since it has a super adjustable waist it still fits.

You can see Max's new teeth in this photo. He was a great little guy during the party and loved all the attention he got from the ladies.

Sophie's birthday tutu didn't make it through the entire party, I was super glad I put leggings on her when she took her skirt off in the kitchen in the middle of the party.



She couldn't quite blow out her candles by herself so Dave and I helped.





Sophie received so many wonderful gifts. She is now enjoying serving tea on her new tea set to all her new dolls. She also got several new books. It's always nice to change out her bedtime story for something new.



Here are the favor bags I slaved over... kidding it really didn't take that long to cut out the green bags so they looked like grass. I got the idea from Martha Stewart courtesy of my friend Sherry.

In the favor bags was a flower hair clip for the little girls and a tic tac toe bag with felt X's and O'x along with a little wind up caterpillar.
Sophie had so much fun at her birthday party. We're also having a mini celebration on her actual birthday with more cake and more presents from her grandparents and us. I guess I better go through her toys and get rid of some of the things she doesn't play with anymore or all her toys are going to take over the house.

I'll leave you with an image of Dave after two and half hours of a three year old's birthday party...

From Sitting to Standing

Max hit the eight month mark a couple days ago and promptly pulled himself to stand in his crib. He had pulled himself up one time prior on a toy designed to encourage standing, but I was quite impressed when I found him standing up in his crib instead of napping. He can also scoot along on his tummy anywhere he wishes to go and he moves fast! I am vacillating between pride that he's growing and doing all this fun stuff and horror that he can get into anything he wants to. It illustrates that our house is NOT baby proof. You might have noticed a little bruise on his head in the second photo, that would be his first injury, he got that when he headbutted my dresser. He's a tough little guy though and barely cried.

He also has two teeth now. Other than some teething issues he is still a pretty happy little boy. Max loves that he can now eat real food and munches away on Gerber Puffs and Mum Mum rice crackers throughout the day.