Happy Valentine's Day!

Tim and I officially celebrated Valentine's Day on Friday but today was just as sweet. I'll be the first to admit that the next few paragraphs will be very sentimental and a tad bit corny I'm sure. First off, a topic you're not supposed to really supposed to talk about but hey, this is my blog and I need to vent. Sometimes it gets a little tough with Tim being in optometry school for the past four years and trying to survive on my salary plus Tim's student loans. Tim goes to school with a lot of very fortunate people who have houses paid for by their parents, nice cars, tuition paid for, no undergrad loans, and parents who will pay for just about anything/everything. This year has been especially hard for us with the cost of all of Tim's board exams and paying for Sofia's childcare which was an area where we were not willing to settle for something cheap that we didn't feel comfortable with.

With me being the bill payer and what Tim calls his "sugar mama" for the past few years I have to admit I sometimes find myself wondering why everyone else seems to have it so much easier. Tim and I struggle to make car payments on the cheapest car Toyota makes and when we bought a second car last May so we could both get to our jobs, we bought a 12 year old used car  :) It's stressful to think about how much we will be paying in loans each month for the next 10-25 years for both of our undergraduate degrees, my Master's degree, and the biggest ticket item of all, Tim's four years of optometry school. We hope that all of this money, hard work and sacrifice will lead to Tim getting a good job that he enjoys and hopefully one day a better future for our kids. My point is that it's really easy for me to let myself become consumed in fear and worry about our situation but this morning I had a nice little reminder to be thankful for what I do have. I have a handsome, loving husband who is an incredible father. We are both blessed with a healthy, sweet, adventurous and happy little girl who is the light of our lives. To quote one of my favorite sappy songs that is sort of an anthem for Tim and I, "Even though we ain't got money, I'm so in love with you honey". We will probably be broke for a long time with all of our school loans but we have enough to get by.

I woke up this morning to kisses from my husband and daughter before enjoying the morning chaos of trying to get three people and a dog ready to go before 7:00am. I couldn't wait to pick Sofia up after school today. I absolutely love picking her up. As soon as I walk in she gets the biggest smile on her face and then speed crawls over to me to give me a hug. Today she even had a Valentine and balloon for me. The balloon provided a lot of entertainment tonight. We picked up a very romantic pizza dinner that I had an old "Groupon" for and went home. For memory's sake I ordered one of the only pizzas my husband and I could ever agree on when we first started dating. He isn't a big fan of veggies and I love vegetables, olives and strange cheeses. So in college and after we would usually settle on a Hawaiian style pizza. Ironically we don't actually order it much anymore because we usually get pizza with other people who will generally split veggie/meat pizzas so both Tim and I can get our fix of what we like. The pizza definitely brought a smile to Tim's face. This was probably one of the most low-key Valentine's days we've ever had but one of the best. I love nothing more than eating dinner with my family which usually includes lots of laughs from Sofia, crazy bath time, and then winding down with some cuddling and reading books to our daughter. Tonight, Tim and I will play Carcassone (a game we love) and probably cribbage. We are both extremely competitive and have been playing those games for years. To some people our life may seem boring, but I feel pretty darn lucky.

Spring is here!!

Sofia at the park on Saturday enjoying the great weather.

We enjoyed a busy but fabulous weekend. Friday afternoon was Sofia's Valentine's Day party at her school. I was a little curious about what we would do with 6 kids between 10-18 months but it was actually quite fun and nice to spend time with the other parents. Interesting fact: I was the only parent there without a PhD :). Many of the kids who go to FLICC have parents who are researchers at St. Jude so we have quite an interesting and diverse crowd at school. The party consisted of the kids playing, dancing, eating their paper Valentines and just hanging out. Friday night was special because FLICC hosted their first "Date Night". The kids stayed from 6-10 so parents could go out on a date. Tim got out of clinic right at 6 and told me he would meet me for sushi. He showed up with flowers and a beautiful card. We had a wonderful dinner and then we went to the Grizzlies game. The Milwaukee Bucks were in town playing the Grizzlies and Tim scored some awesome tickets from one of his friends at the VA Hospital. We enjoyed an awesome game about three rows from the court.

The forecast was beautiful for the weekend so Tim and I were determined to spend as much time as possible outside. Saturday was spent doing some cleaning while Tim had a dentist appointment. He is so busy during the week in the clinic I try to schedule his appointments for Saturdays. We loved watching the Badgers beat the previously undefeated #1 Ohio State Buckeyes and then Sofia and I spent the rest of the afternoon at the park. I pushed her in the baby swing, I let her crawl around and climb on the jungle gym and then I decided to swing with her on the big swings. Lately Sofia is such a busy little lady exploring she will only really cuddle at night and sometimes in the morning. When I set her on my lap facing me to swing she just snuggled into my chest. It was an unforgettable moment. I just enjoyed the sun, breeze and the sweet smell of my little girl's hair while she snuggled with me. Sofia also showed off a new trick this weekend. She has figured out how to open the door to the porch if it's left unlocked. When she does this she speed crawls outside and pulls up to watch all the action. We caught a video of it that I'll try to upload below.

Sunday we had an awesome morning at church. I decided to let Sofia sit in on the kid's time today and it was adorable. She loved watching the older kids and today's kid's sermon involved her getting a party hat and kazoo. She happily wore the party hat but couldn't quite figure out the kazoo, it was fun to chew on though. Tim and I ran home to eat a quick lunch and then we went for a great walk on the V&E Greenline in our old neighborhood and caught up with some old neighbors. We ran home again to change and head to the park for ultimate frisbee. It's amazing how much our group of friends has changed. A year ago all of us would've been playing but now a lot of the girls sat out because we have babies :) The babies all had a blast exploring the grass and checking each other out. They don't quite know how to play together yet. It was so nice to catch up some girls I don't see very often and meet some other girls who are wives of third years. Overall, it was an awesome weekend and so refreshing to spend so much time outside. The winter weather really weighs me down.

The last video I posted is from tonight, we showed Sofia a video of herself on the computer and we were shocked to see her start laughing even harder watching the video.

Another snow day in Memphis...

This week we have been released early twice, and today was a snow day. I never expected to move South and have more snow days in 4 years that I had in my whole K-12 and college days in Wisconsin. Tim actually had the entire past two days off. We enjoyed sleeping in a little bit today, as much as you can with an 11 month old. She usually wakes up around 5:30 but today we gave her a bottle and she slept until about 7:00 so that was nice. We made a nice breakfast of banana pancakes, eggs, and fresh pineapple. Sofia has been eating all table food for about the last week and a half now. She really enjoys meal time and trying different foods. She LOVED breakfast today. Normally I don't put syrup on her pancakes but today I put fresh maple syrup from Wisconsin on her pancakes and she gobbled them up. She also loved having sticky hands and restyled her hair with maple syrup. It was hysterical. I feel like every month I say, "I love this age!".

I LOVE banana pancakes!

Maple syrup works great for hair styling.

Sofia is such an awesome kid, she has a fun, easy-going and adventurous personality. The rest of our snow day was spent playing hide and go seek, reading books, playing with toys, and Sofia's favorite....DANCING! She loves to dance and be spun and dipped. Sofia took a nice long nap and then we ate lunch and finger-painted. All in all, it was a great day. As long as my school district is open tomorrow, Sofia's school is schedule to have a "date night" for the parents. Tim and I are crossing our fingers in hopes that the weather cooperates and we can go out together. Without any family nearby we rarely get to go on dates outside of the house with just the two of us.

Reading books together on Tim's first snow day, Wednesday.

Our talented little artist.

She wasn't quite pleased with her work and ripped it up and the end :)

Super Bowl Champions!!

It's been a while since I've updated. Life has been busy lately and to be honest Tim and I have really been stressing out these past two weeks in anticipation of our beloved Green Bay Packers playing in Super Bowl 45. We decided to have a few friends over for the game so Sofia could go to bed at her normal time. We had a ton of awesome food and were happy to celebrate a victory for the Packers in the Super Bowl! Sofia stayed awake for all of the first half and loved having so many people around to show off for. She is also very interested in Jude, who is 5 months younger than her. What an amazing season, we can't wait to tell Sofia all about it when she's older. We only wish were were in Wisconsin so we could have gone up to Green Bay to welcome the team home.

Tim with Jude & Sofia

Super Bowl 45!!

I can't believe my sweet baby girl is 11 months old already! In the last two weeks alone Sofia has grown leaps and bounds. She is babbling a ton, especially when she reads books or we read books to her. She's funny because when we read to her she turns the pages, sometimes she is a very fast page turner. She basically walks around the whole house, as long as she can have one hand on something. We've worked on having her take a few steps on her own but it usually turns into a game of jumping into Mom and hugging Mom (which is a game I love and cherish). She definitely prefers to crawl and has become quite a little speed racer. Sofia can stand on her own for a few minutes now and easily walk around with a baby stroller or other walker. She is also pretty much completely off of pureed foods now. It's so fun to experiment with new foods with her, she eats pretty much everything we eat. She will even shake her head no if she doesn't like something or if she's had enough. We are working on her using a spoon to eat, she gets better every day. Sofia is not very interested in sippy cups, she prefers drinking out of a real cup. The only downside is it's a messy adventure every time but we always end our meals with laughter. I'd like to be able to use a sippy cup when we are out or about but I'm glad she's catching on to a normal cup so easily.

Super Bowl Bound!!

Our little Packer backer is already in bed for the evening so I had to use an old picture to celebrate the fact that the Packers beat the Bears today and the Pack are headed to the Super Bowl!! We are so excited!! Tim and I are die hard Packer fans and I think Sofia has caught the bug as well. We watched the game with our friends Sam, Lea, Dave, Rachel, and their son Jude. The game was mentally exhausting to watch, especially with the events that took place the night before.

Saturday was the night for SCO's annual formal dance, the Eye Ball. We decided to go out to dinner with our friends but not to the dance. Tim and I didn't want to spend 50-60 dollars on a babysitter for an event that is usually full of wasted first and second years acting ridiculous. We had an awesome meal at Bosco's, a local Memphis restaurant/brewery. It was so nice to catch up with some friends that we haven't seen much lately. Sofia came with us and was awesome, especially considering the fact that we kept her out an hour and a half past her bed time. She went to bed easily and Tim and I thought we would get our normal night of uninterrupted sleep. We are very lucky to have such a great baby, she has slept through the night since she was about 3-4 months old. Around midnight she started crying so my awesome hubby let me sleep and tried changing her but she only started screaming more, with no fever, this is extremely odd behavior for Sofia. She hasn't really been sick since before she had her tubes put in and had regular ear infections. We assumed that she was cutting a new tooth but she had no fever and we couldn't feel anything but we gave her some Tylenol and Oragel just so we could cross that off as a possible problem. We tried feeding her, rocking her, and the only time she wasn't screaming was when Tim was moving around with her. Tim was a trooper and kept this up until 5:00am with a few breaks from me. Finally I think she feel asleep from pure exhaustation and slept until 7:00am. With the daylight I was able to notice clear fluid draining from her right ear. I called Sofia's ENT (who is an awesome doctor by the way) and we were able to start drops right away and give her Tylenol for the pain. I just feel awful that she was in so much pain throughout the night. Overall she had a pretty good day with a long nap in the middle of the day. Hopefully we have an easier night. Tomorrow morning I have to bring her in to the ENT so he can check out her ear and make sure everything is ok. So much for getting ahead on sick days at work. Last night gave me a new appreciation for people with fussy babies or babies who don't sleep well at night. Tim and I have felt awful today from getting so little sleep, but we really can't complain about one rough night in the past 6 months.

10 months old!!

It's amazing how quickly Sofia is learning and growing. I just had to write a post about all of the new things she has started doing in the past month. She started "officially" crawling about a week after Christmas. I say official because before January she would crawl around backwards or find other weird ways to move her body around or grab something she wanted. Now that she is crawling, she is a very busy girl. She literally does laps crawling around the apartment. At first she would only crawl far enough so she could still see me. That stopped quickly, now she will go off on adventures by herself. Her favorite destinations include the pantry, Frodo's water bowl, and her bathroom (if there's water running she pulls herself up on the tub and starts screaming and clapping, she LOVES bathtime). Speaking of bath time, Sofia is a wild lady in the tub. I'm convinced she would do back flips if I'd let her. It's actually a little scary giving her baths now because she climbs all over the tub and wants to stand in the tub. She loves to splash, play with bath toys, and is always disappointed when it's time to dry off.

Sofia loves to play, dance, and be active but she still loves to snuggle. She gives great hugs and is working on kisses. Tim and I play a sneak up game with her and I just love it when she screams in glee and nuzzles her head into my neck. Sofia also loves to read on her own and be read to, she will sometimes even babble as if she is reading. She is so sweet when we read to her, she snuggles in our laps, points to pictures and babbles, and even turns the pages.

Other random information about Sofia at 10 months

• Wears 18 month clothing
• Eats a comination of pureed food and table food
• Sleeps from 8pm-6am
• Wakes up with a smile and cooing most days, morning are very busy but a ton of fun
• Still doesn't nap, we're lucky if she'll take a 30 minute nap during the day. Although this can be frustrating, Tim and I are happy she usually sleeps so well during the night and she is just a kid who doesn't need much of a nap during the day.
• Is totally obsessed with Frodo
• Uses Mama and Dada, we think she's starting to figure it out because sometimes she will specifically use one or the other for one of us. However, she will also say Dada when she sees Frodo so who knows :)
• Just started wearing her first pair of Keens since she is really starting to cruise around on furniture and she needed big girl shoes since she moved to the Infant II room at FLICC

Snow Day!

We are lucky to be in the midst of our second three day weekend. Last Monday we woke up to a few inches of snow and in Memphis, that means total shutdown. All of the school districts within about 50 miles were closed and I think everyone enjoyed a great snow day. Tim is currently at his school's clinic which meant that he also had a snow day. We inflated our pool rafts to take Sofia sledding down by the Mississippi river. It was a decent sized hill, probably the biggest you could find in Memphis. The only downside of the snow day is that my school district will require us to make the day up.

Tim and Sofia after their first run down the hill.

Getting ready for another run.

Even Frodo got in on the action.

I LOVE snow days!!