Sophie Gray: 11 month update.

11 month update

Weight/height: Sophie got her first cold a couple weeks after Halloween. I blame it on all the excitement 😉 But we did make a trip to the doctor and I was able to get an update on her weight/height. Her height is 2′ 4.5″ and her weight is 19 lb 4 oz – she is growing beautifully!

Hair: Sophie has very fine, very light (compared to Lyla) hair, which seems like its getting longer each day. I’m debating on whether or not to cut her bangs right now because they have gotten a bit long. Honestly though, I think it looks cute and will probably not cut her hair for awhile.

Diapers: Still in size 3 Huggies Little Movers. I actually tried Pampers because I had a really good coupon but it only confirmed that I really do like Huggies better. I had way more leaks and had to change her diaper more often with the Pampers. And this is so odd to me because it was the other way around with Lyla. The Pampers also seemed way thinner than the Huggies. I think I wanted to do a little test since I was a Pampers fanatic with Lyla but I have changed – go Huggies!

Clothing: Sophie is still in size 6-12 months for dresses and t’s but 12-18 months for pants, etc. It really also depends on what brand. The sizing is all over the map and I’ve found that I base her size on what brand I am buying. BabyGap and the brands from Nordstrom and Target run pretty true to size while anything Carters, Crazy 8 or Old Navy runs a bit on the small size.

Favorite things: She finally likes her crawling Minnie toy. My mom bought her this and I thought it was the cutest thing but it sort of freaked her out at first. She would just stare at it and then get all watery-eyed and start to cry. She loves Lyla’s baby dolls so much that I can’t wait to get her one for Christmas. She loves her LeapFrog learning table and her little walker. She is really starting to get more into her toys these days.

Likes: She is still majorly obsessed with Lyla. Most days, its the first word she says when she wakes up. I have to admit that I love this. It really makes my heart happy.

Dislikes: Getting her clothes and diaper changed!!! Ugh! It really has turned into such a struggle these days.

Favorite foods: Bananas, oatmeal cereal, greek yogurt, scrambled eggs, pasta with red sauce, grilled chicken, grilled fish, mashed potatoes, rice, the list goes on. I’ve really started to incorporate more of what we eat and she is doing great with it. She also does love Earth’s Best squeezy packs (that is what we like to call them). I’ve tried a couple other brands and she seems to really loves the Earth’s Best ones.

Milestones: Sophie has two teeth! And they are growing so you can seem them a bit when she smiles, its just the cutest. She has taken her first steps. She will stand up and take one or two steps then fall down and start to crawl. It’s never more than one or two steps but she is ready to walk.

Reflections: Ahhhh it’s starting to get close to Sophie’s first birthday. Around this time, I turn into a big ball of emotions. I’m not necessarily sad but I get really emotional. I still look at her and can’t believe she is here and she is ours and that we created this little beauty. She makes us all so happy and is a true angel.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! We are beyond excited over here and ready to start one of our very favorite holidays. I love looking back at old pictures of Halloweens past. We love to dress-up and of course Lyla adores this holiday. This is her first year celebrating it as a Kindergartner and her school has some really fun activities planned for today. Here is a look back at Halloween…

Pre-baby – October 2008

I got pregnant with Lyla in November so this was our last hurrah as non-parents out on the town for Halloween or at a house party. We went as Princess and Mario and had so much fun.

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1st Halloween – October 2008

Lyla was only three months old for her first Halloween and, of course, she had to go as a our little pumpkin!

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2nd Halloween – October 2010

Pottery Barn Kids had the cutest cat costume and I couldn’t resist! We are actually reusing the costume for Sophie this year. I can’t wait to take pictures of her tonight and compare them to Lyla. We had a blast visiting my work at the time for a party.

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3rd Halloween – October 2011

Lyla went through an obsession with the Monsters Inc. movie so when she saw this costume in the Pottery Barn Kids catalog, she had to have it. She called herself, Wazowski, as in Mike Wazowski and wanted John to go as Sully and myself to go as Boo, and how could we say no to her? This year was especially fun, I loved that we coordinated as a family. And I have to give myself a little shout-out on the bangs. I did not have bangs at the time and I watched a YouTube video on how to make fake bangs and I was really impressed at how they came out.

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4th Halloween – October 2012

This year Lyla was obsessed with Jake and the Never Land Pirates on the Disney Channel so she went as Izzy. John and I didn’t really dress-up this year. I reused my ears from a couple years prior and went as a cat.

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5th Halloween – October 2013

I was thrilled to pieces with Lyla’s Halloween costume choice last year. She saw this in the Chasing Fireflies catalog and after a few weeks of going back and forth, she decided on the Fab 50’s girl costume. John and I coordinated with her and I loved out it turned out. These costumes were super fun to wear and I think Lyla just looked fabulous, Fabulous 50’s! I was pregnant with Sophie at the time (due in December) so this costumer worked well with my pregnant belly.

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I can’t wait to post a weekend recap to share what we all went as this year. It’s also Sophie’s first Halloween so it makes this holiday extra special – Happy Halloween!

Sophie Gray: 10 month update.

We’ve hit the double digits. 10 months old. Wow. I know parents say this all the time but it really does go too fast. And I swear it goes faster the second time around. Here is the 10 month update for our sweet Sophie girl.

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Weight/height: Like I said last month, Sophie doesn’t see her pediatrician again until she is 12 months old so (again) I’ll have to go with her 6 month weight/height because we don’t own a scale at home. At 6 months (her appointment was back in July), she was 17 lbs, 1.7 oz, which puts her in the 62nd percentile. Her height was 2’3″ which puts her in the 81st percentile. Honestly doing these updates has made me really curious about her weight and height right now. I’m not sure I’ll be able to wait until December to find out. Maybe her pediatrician will let me swing by to do a quick weight/height check, the curiousty is killing me!

Hair: Sophie still has crazy hair. It’s a lot lighter than Lyla’s, but very fine and thin, just like Lyla’s. Actually, I saw a picture of Sophie the other day and her bangs reminded me of how Lyla’s used to be when she was little.

Diapers: Still in size 3 Huggies Little Movers. It’s funny to me just how much I love Huggies now. Back when Lyla was a baby, I would buy nothing but Pampers. We tried other brands back then, we actually tried Huggies but I just didn’t like them four years ago, now? Now, they are awesome.

Clothing: Sophie wears size 6-12 months or if they don’t have that size, I’ve been buying 12 months. In some leggings and jeggings, I’ve been going bigger, like 12-18 months because some of those are just so tight! I’m still looking to purchase more fall/winter clothing for her and shoes, shoes! I don’t know why but lately I’m having a hard time getting both girls shoes. Lyla has just become super picky with her shoes and Sophie, well nothing seems to fit her except for her new Freshly Picked moccasins. I must say, I absolutely love these. They are so soft and look so cute with everything. I got her the platinum color but I’m thinking I may be buying another pair, they are that cute.

Favorite things: I felt we’ve been in a toy slump with Sophie lately so we ordered her a couple of new things that will be arriving soon. She still loves to play with her toy fruits and she really loves Lyla’s American Girl dolls. Lyla has two and Sophie loves to play with them. Another favorite thing is our EOS lip gloss. They fit perfectly in her hand and she loves the different colors.

Likes: She likes to say Dada all the time. She says it different ways, with different sounds, she whispers it, she yells it, she basically says it all the time. Its really cute though and I know my hubby loves it. She like to chew on my keys (ehhhh), my wallet, her pacifiers, anything she finds, she will put in her mouth so we are extra careful with what we leave out. She likes to pull open her cabinets in the kitchen and play with whatever is in there. I moved all the breakable stuff out to other drawers/cabinets and left her things in the drawers she was able to open/reach and she really enjoys that. She loves to play, “where’s Lyla,” – its a game where we try to find her older sister and she just loves it. She yells, “Lyla, Lyla,” and we go from room to room looking for her.

Dislikes: She still hates getting her clothes or diaper changed. Its so hard to get her dressed. She hates it no matter when I do it so I’ve learned to try and distract her in any way I can. I give her something to play with or chew on and it helps a bit but man, I truly dislike changing her diaper or clothes these days!

Favorite foods: I bought some YoBaby yogurt squeeze packs for her on a whim and whoa, she really, I mean really likes them. Like so much so that she started screaming when one pouch was gone and I had to give her another one just to calm her down. That is by far her favorite food right now. We are also starting to incorporate more of what we eat, ground turkey, pasta, etc. because it just seems like she wants something different than the purees she has been getting. I was so hesitant to give her a lot of foods because she didn’t have any teeth yet but as of this week, she finally broke a tooth! Just one, you can feel it coming through her gum.

Milestones: Sophie can clap now and its the cutest thing ever. She has also learned to wave and is adding more words to her vocabulary. She likes to say “uh oh” when she drops something from her stroller. She is standing all the time and many times on her own. I know she will be starting to take steps soon. And big news, like I said above, she finally has a tooth! The other night she woke up at 12 and 3 and was just upset. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong but the next morning, I felt a little tooth on her bottom gum.

Reflections: I always say this age is the best but then it just keeps getting better. Every age is the best right now. It’s just so amazing to watch her discovering everything around her, seeing her learn something new every day is a gift that I do not take for granted. I feel so grateful that I get to be home with her every day. It is something I wished for when Lyla was younger and I feel so happy that my wish came true but also so guilty that I wasn’t able to be with Lyla like this. That is motherhood for ya, a tidal wave of every emotion in the book but I would ride this wave forever if I could, I just love it.

 

 

The pumpkin patch.

We love us a good pumpkin patch but I can’t remember going before I had kids. Did I go to a pumpkin patch growing up in Florida? I mean I’m sure I did but I have no idea! I’ll have to ask my mom. Anyways, since Lyla was born, we’ve visited a pumpkin patch every October and it’s a trip I look forward to every year. I love the colors, sights and sounds of a pumpkin patch and it seems that Northern California has some pretty amazing patches or farms rather. We have plans on Saturday to visit Dell’ Osso Farms to check out their pumpkin patch. In honor of that, I thought it would be fun to take a look back at our pumpkin patch visits.

Our first official pumpkin patch visit was in October of 2010. In 2009, we went to the Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin festival when Lyla was only three months old. I think that counted for our pumpkin patch visit that year. We decided to head back to Half Moon Bay for our first real visit because on our drive up the year prior, we saw several farms along the way and knew we had to come back to check them out. We went to Pastorino and Lemos Farms and they were awesome. I love the weather up in Half Moon Bay. October is usually one of the hottest months in the Bay Area so its nice to get away from that and it just makes it feel more like “Fall” – plus you can wear cute sweaters and boots, you know the important stuff.

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In October 2011, we headed back to Half Moon Bay and went to the same two farms, Lemos and Pastorino. We had such a great experience the year before and again this time around. Our baby was getting a little bigger making it a lot harder to get her to stand still for pictures, check out our family pic, what a great memory!

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In October 2012, we thought it might be fun to check out a new farm. Plus, the idea of driving to Half Moon Bay with a toddler didn’t sound all that appealing (it can be a long drive). We decided on Uesugi Farms pumpkin patch and it was amazing. The weather was a tad warm for my ideal (meaning the idea in my head) pumpkin patch outing but it was beautiful none the less. Now we were dealing with the terrible three’s this go round and boy can you can tell from the pictures. Lyla threw a little temper tantrum for the first half of the visit and wouldn’t smile for any pictures. I actually love her little pouty face in these pics, that’s a typical three year old for ya! She came around after being there for about an hour and we had a blast. This place was awesome!

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In October 2013, I was very pregnant and Lyla was in preschool. When I saw that she had a field trip to Uesugi Farms in October I was so excited. I immediately volunteered to chaperone and that counted for our trip last year. I didn’t take many pictures – I actually can’t even find the two I did take as I write this post – but we had so much fun. It was her first offical field trip. We rode the bus together, had lunch together, it was a great day.

I’m really looking forward to tomorrow. This will count as Sophie’s first official pumpkin patch trip and I can’t wait to see her reaction to all of it. Of course, I have two cute outfits already picked out and ready to go for my girls, remember, the important stuff 🙂 Happy Friday!