Happy Birthday!!

Last weekend, we surprised my parents for their 60th birthday! (Mom turned 60 on the 21st and Dad turns on the 30th).

They knew we were coming down to visit, but I arranged it with their best friends to drive up from Virginia and show up right after my mom got home from work on Friday.
We arrived Saturday and it had been previously discussed that Sophia wanted to take Nana and PopPop out for a birthday drink at the restaurant down the street. We strolled down there around 5 so we could make it back for dinner (My poor mom had a big meal planned at home to cook!!) Little did she & dad know, until they walked in, that 15 of their friends and family were waiting to celebrate! (excuse the Blair-Witchiness of the video - I'm not the best videographer!)



Sophia entertained herself by looking at the birthday banner:

A great time was had by all - Happy Birthday Mom & Dad/Nana & PopPop!

Sophia at 21+ months

The big news here (besides the ridiculous height growth!) on Sophia is words. She's getting a lot of them. Some kids have more, some kids have less, but she is definitely mastering language left & right.

We hear a new one close to every day - and it's so much fun (albeit a little scary) to see what she picks up.
Newest include:

• Sit (which the first few times sounded shockingly like something else!!)
  
• Poop
• Mess
• Up
• Off
• Hat
  
• Hiss (like a snake - which sounds a bit like buzz from a bee)
• Coco (our neighbor's dog, which Sophia proudly announces every time it yaps.)
• Bike
• Hat (often said together, as one wears their hat - helmet - while on the bike)
• Door - which she has been saying for a bit, but definitely with more emphasis now

She will repeat most any word we say for her, but this list is what she will come up with on her own.
She also will repeat the alphabet - each letter after you say it to her. She gets probably 23 of the 26 letters - the tough ones are g, q, w.

She likes wearing any piece of our clothing she can get on. Example A (Dave's pants):

And even some of her own:

All in all - she's doing great. She loves running and jumping and has no fear when it comes to climbing. She'll hike up the green chain climbing thing at the park without any help. It's pretty amazing...we've been so lucky to have a great summer for her to enjoy a ton of time outside.
Here's the latest of her and Frances on the horses in Newport together - pure enjoyment!!

Sophia on a running spree!

A quick video I took of Sophia running around our courtyard, with a quick fly-by for kisses. :)

Canoeing in Concord!

The post got started awhile ago, but has been awaiting pictures!!
At the end of July, we had a great summer weekend in Boston - it was a busy and fun one!
Dave had the brilliant idea we should take Sophia canoeing in Concord and do some exploring around the Old North bridge. We invited our friend Mark, Morgan and Frances to come with and it was an awesome day!


We rented 1 big canoe for the 6 of us and the boys did all the paddling at the front and back end while Morgan, the girls & I sat in the middle. We qualified the day as a success, being that no one fell out of the canoe!
The girls loved seeing all the birds (herring, geese, and the scariest looking turkey ducks I've ever seen!), turtles and of course, fish (most of which were being caught by fisherman, but it was still cool!)Despite her dubious look, she really was enjoying herself!!

We paddled (a collective we!) up to the Old North Bridge, parked the canoe on the shore and went exploring up to the Old Manse which was very cool to walk around. The girls were mostly excited by the stones and pebbles in the lane, but it was all good.
Of course, there was snacking and running too!
Then we all walked across the Old North Bridge. On the other side were some beautiful gardens where we stopped for snacks and diaper changes (hey, when you gotta go...)

After all the excitement, we headed back to the canoe to round up some lunch. Sophia decided she had kind of had it with sitting in mommy's lap, so she and Frances got to sit on the edge of the boat (yes, they were wearing their life preservers) and dangle their feet into the water. No pictures were taken as both Morgan and I were holding on rather tightly so they didn't fall in!

Lunch in town afterwards was a great free for all of french fries, sandwiches and Mac and Cheese. Great discussions were had and a lovely car ride nap home.
All in all - quite the success!

July and visit to CT!

It's been a busy month - despite the fact we weren't trucking to Newport every weekend, we still did plenty of traveling. Down to CT to visit Mom & Dad (where Sophia got spoiled rotten :) ) and Dave & I got some much needed downtime, including a trip to see the latest Harry Potter on opening weekend! We showed up about 90 minutes early for the film and it was well worth it. What a treat for us...I think we last saw "The Town" in February on the last day it was at the Capitol Theater in Arlington...

Sophia got lots of beach time, including playing with Grandpa
Playing at the water table Nana made sure to bring over...


And of course, stopping for some hydration! :)

One of my favorite parts was her getting to ride my old tricycle. My mom has been amazing about saving old toys of mine and we pulled this out for Sophia to ride. The horn even still worked, 30 something years later!!


Fun times for all. Thanks Nana and Pop Pop!

It's July!

...and I'm averaging barely a post a month - things have been quite busy here at the Ahouse house. I've just finished a certificate class at BU (it met two nights each week for 6 weeks - quite happy that is done!) so it finally feels like I can relax and enjoy summer.

We made it down to Newport every weekend in June and well, truly enjoyed being homeowners. Exciting things like wet basements (we're at sea level at low tide, forget high tide and rain storms!) loose wires 20 feet up the side of the house and odoriforious ants (don't ask. harmless but yucky).

But the good news is, we get outside a lot and Sophia had her first beach experience of the year. Sadly, I didn't have the camera with me, but she did enjoy watching the water move in and out over her feet. You could literally hear her brain working trying to figure it out.

Running is her new most favorite thing to do. This is a favorite shot of mine:

And here she is at the playground checking out the ship - Ahoy matey!
We managed to have a BBQ with some friends - Sophia thoroughly enjoyed the fixings!

More to come on Sophia shortly! Lots going on in the world of an almost 20 month old.

Learning and doing more every day

It's been about a month since I've blogged and we've had a lot going on!

I'm back to work full time, which is an adjustment for all of us, but one that we seem to be navigating successfully. I am still working from home 2 days a week, which allows me to use that time I would be commuting to spend with Sophia.

We've also been traveling a lot, between our new place in Newport (more on that later) and a wedding in Buffalo on Memorial Day Weekend.

Sophia got to have a vacation at Nana and Pop Pop's (two new words she's acquired in an ever-growing vocabulary!) for the weekend, receiving more attention and spoiling than one could even imagine!

Playing with Nana in the sand:

Hanging with Grandpa:

Fun at the beach:
Unfortunately, all this working and such has really minimized the amount of pictures I take of Sophia these days, but here's a fun one from the park today:

Peak a Boo

As I mentioned earlier, her vocabulary is growing so much every week. New words and phrases include: "No No Dada" "Yes Dada" "Bus" and my personal favorite "Uh-Oh" (which, happily, is not always used when something is an Uh-Oh!) .

We missed out on the touch-a-truck this past weekend, but the other day we spent about 30 minutes outside of Porter Square watching all the "Buses" or "Toot-Toots" (as she often refers to them as) drive by. She climbed up and down the black and white stairs constantly, but would stop every 3 or 4 minutes when a "toot-toot" went by. It was classic.

Tomorrow is her 19 month birthday - Time really does fly!