Young Love

Sophie has a very good friend, Ethan, who she just adores. She chirps and goes totally bonkers any time she seems him -- Ethan also usually reciprocates with his sweet little smiles and claps. Since they've spent so much quality time together (and since we have so many pics of the two of them) I thought they deserved a good post. Ethan is about 5 weeks younger than Sophie -- starting early on the older women. We joke that Sophie and Ethan are dating and here are some pics of the two of them through the years - er, months.

Some background music to set the tone...

"Through the years... through all the good and bad, I've loved the life we've had and I'm so glad I stayed right here with you through the years..."

September 2006
Their first walk together - chaperoned, of course.
Don't they look just positively thrilled to be there?!

October 2006
Sophie shows Ethan her mad rolling skills... Ethan is not impressed.
Their first Halloween - not too sure how either of them feels about participating in the Halloween parade, but their moms sure thought it was the best. :)Ethan as frog and Sophie as ladybug
January 2007
One Boy...

One Girl...

Two hearts beating wildly...

February 2007
Eeeks! Attack!! Attack!!
Practicing their synchronized swimming routineHi Mom!! Aren't we so cute?!Are you surviving this photo shoot, Ethan? Don't worry, it ends at some point...

March 2007
So big and sitting up now!
Ethan pats Sophie's leg reassuringly

April 2007
Whack! Sorry about that, Ethan...!

The Happy Couple
(My fave photo of the two of them)

So there you are. Sophie and Ethan may roll their eyes some day if they see this but for now we sure think they are sooo darling and make the cutest baby couple! Who says arranged marriages are a thing of the past?? Sophie + Ethan = 4ever. ;)

School update

I finished my application to Dartmouth just as I was running out the door on April 4 (deadline was April 5). Actually, I was an hour and a half late getting to my campout because I had so much to do.

It's been over 3 weeks now since I submitted it and no word. Deadline to hear back from the school is May 14 (experience indicates that if I don't hear back until then, I didn't get in). But I really felt like I put together the best application I could (though it got a little rushed at the end), so I'll be content whatever their decision.


So all 18 you praying for BYU, here's your update. My interview with BYU was great because I was able to find out so much about the Center for Economic Self Reliance, which really interests me - they do a pre-internship where you are paired with an non-profit/NGO for the first 6 weeks of summer break to provide technical assistance. Also, I found out this week that I received at "baiter" scholarship for a substantial amount of the first year's tuition. Also, I mailed in my acceptance letter and deposit.

Hold on - that's to hold a spot for me (I would lose it next week otherwise). So no final decision yet, but I'll either make have a decision by May 14, or have it made for me!

Update

Hi Everyone -- thanks muchly for all your comments yesterday. Much much much appreciated. It's so nice to know you're not alone in the world of sleepless nights and crying kiddos. It's too bad there isn't some nifty little machine you can use and turn on when you're up in the middle of the night and then see who else is also up. Then if you're up, at least you have company! Anyway, reading all your comments as they came in gave me some hope for future sleep... even if it doesn't come till she's in college. :) For now we'll love having her small and cuddly and home.

So, we have an update!! Last night Sophie did SOOOO much better. She slept from 8pm-5:30am with only a handful of short wake-ups. And all the wakings were manageable. When I woke up at 4am and saw the clock I could have cried with joy. Six solid hours of sleep was a dream. This poor sweet little baby sitting on my lap here has this ugly cough and now a very snotty nose so I'm guessing that added into our equation the other night. I'm sure there are also teeth on the rise. When she last cut teeth it was a long painful experience for all involved, so perhaps we're just doing the teething thing again. Anyway, thanks again for all your thoughts. Sending good sand man vibes to all of you -- and especially to your children!!

Losing My Mommy Mind

For the last three nights, almost exactly three hours to the minute after we put Sophie down for bed, she has woken up crying. And then proceeds to cry for approximately 120 minutes. And I don't mean just little whiny cries. I'm talking full blown you'd-think-the-house-was-about-to-fall-on-top-of-us screams. We have no idea what on earth is going on with the child, but no matter what we do she seems determined to scream her lungs out for 2 hours before returning to slumber-land for the remainder of the night. Nothing works. We try putting her back to sleep the way we usually do, rubbing her back, rocking her, nursing her, singing to her, taking her outside - I even just let her cry for a while last night when I couldn't take it anymore (that only made it worse). She doesn't appear to be in pain, she's not wet (diaper), Tylenol does nothing, no hernias that we can find... I feel totally helpless not able to calm her down. She doesn't want to be picked up, but she screams bloody murder if you put her down. Sigh. At the moment it's 12:01am and she's been at it for about an hour. As you might guess, it's pretty much impossible to sleep when she cries like this, so as a result, both Bryce and I end up being awake with her until she f-i-n-a-l-l-y goes back to sleep. Someone help!!! It feels like we're locked in a bad dream! Really, though, at this point I think we'd all prefer bad dreams to none at all. Anyway, so Bryce is on duty at the moment and since I'd just be sitting in bed with my eyes wide open going crazy listening to these desperate screams that we can't make sense of... thought I might as well blog, right? What else do you do when sleep eludes you in the middle of the night? SO, anyone have some input for me???

Yours Truly,
Sleepless in Virginia

Say it Ain't So

I was in the bathroom and when I came out Sophie was gnawing on something. I looked in her mouth and there was nothing but a few little remnants on her lip... a few dark little somethings. Hmmm, very interesting. THEN, I looked on the floor where she had been and right next to her spot there was a very large beetle. SICK. Please please please please please tell me that there were not two beetles there before she put whatever it was in her mouth....!!!

Back in Action

Well we've all been having a fabulous time over here seeing all the sights with lots of family visitors over the past 2-ish weeks. Bryce's aunt, uncle & cousin came to visit and we ran all over town with them. They had incredible timing and we lucked our way into all kinds of fun due to random coincidences. Example = the day we toured the monuments happened to be Jefferson's birthday so there was this big birthday thing going on at the monument. Then, the Cherry Blossom Festival parade was the morning we went down to get tickets to the Capitol. I actually knew the parade was going to be that day but didn't think we'd see it -- mostly b/c I didn't think it would be very big. That would where I would be WRONG. Holy smokes. It was HUGE!! Floats, horses, dancers, marching bands, clowns, etc... It was incredible! Anyway, the last coincidence happened when we got to Ford's Theater and it happened to be the anniversary of Lincoln's assassination so there was this cool program with people dressed up in costume, etc. Good times. Anyway, here are some pics of that party of peeps:

Kyle, me, Sophie, Bryce and Beejay in front of the Capitol

Sophie with Aunt Beejay

Bruce introducing Sophie to the joys of mint chocolate brownies.
Bruce is Sophie's new favorite great-uncle.

A few days after Bruce & co. left Bryce's mom, dad, and sister arrived! It was a total LaPierre party let me tell you! Bryce's sister, Lisa, and her husband, Jim, came the next day and we had all kinds of fun.

3 Generations: Bryce, Sophie & Grandpa at the Native American museum

Sophie loved getting down on the floor and doing exercises with Grandma - this was hilarious. :)

And one, two, three, four... Feel the burn!!

We also celebrated Dad's birthday while they were here. This is one of the greatest blowing-the-candles-out pics I've ever seen! Happy Birthday!!Sophie with her east coast grandparents :)...and with her parents...and with her aunts and uncle!Sophie was a little peach and provided much entertainment for all of us. She showed off how she likes to wrestle with her stuffed lion and chicken - hilarious. Here she is gnawing on her chicken's foot. With Aunt Laree
Cute little Laree and her carrots. :) It was about 10:30 at night and we'd already had this incredible dinner that Lisa & Jim made, birthday cake and ice cream and I think we were all about ready to call it a night. All of sudden Laree pops in with these two carrots in hand... it was so out of the blue it was hilarious. We love you, Laree!!

Our house feels so big and quiet now... who wants to come visit next??

Sophie Walks!!

Sophie hasn't really walked on her own yet, it's been "falling with style" (To steal a quote from Toy Story).

That is of course until this week. She's been getting really good at just standing on her own. So she was just standing unassisted in the middle of the living room with Aunt Laree and I, and then just decided to go for a stroll. She was at it all night - check out the video!

Now just for kicks and giggles - Sophie has her first go at seafood (i.e. starfish finger puppet).

Happiness is Sleeping Through the Night

For the most part Sophie has been a pretty good little sleeper, however, in recent months she has gotten into this frequent waking habit thing in the middle of the night. Most of the time it's not too difficult to get her back to sleep, but of course it would always be better to not wake up at all, right? Well, last night the darling baby slept through the night!! The whole night! Not even one little peep or stir from 8:30pm-7:30am. Such a beautiful thing.

Here's the little munchkin performing one of her favorite Pilates moves. She goes into the Down Dog position and then lifts her right leg in the air. It is hilarious and I finally caught it on film the other day.

Down Dog - also known as Peekaboo

Balancing on 1 leg!

From another angle

Hi Guys!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! We have had a lovely day reflecting on the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Such a wonderful reason to celebrate. Though I must say that weather-wise it has been anything but springlike -- it has been so cold it has felt more like Valentine's Day than Easter. Despite the cold, though, I couldn't resist putting Sophie in her little Easter dress. I am so in love with polka-dots these days - and everything is cuter in miniature baby clothes, so this dress is double cute!! Sweet little girl. :) This afternoon we pulled out my stash of plastic eggs and Sophie was in heaven.

This evening we joined our friends, Sherri and Jay R. for dinner and it was a feast! Sophie also had a blast b/c she got to play with one of her bestest buds, Ethan. More on Ethan & Sophie soon... Anyway, after dinner we subjected Sherri, Jay and Ethan to part one of our Easter traditions, a jelly bean hunt! Bryce and Jay R. hid the jelly beans while Sherri, Ethan, Sophie and I waited patiently to find the goods. Bryce is a MASTER of jelly bean disguise. It is seriously one of his great talents. He can camouflage them so well that you'll be staring right at one and not know it! Amazing. Anyway, so when they were done Sherri and I "helped" Sophie and Ethan find the beans. And wow, those babies did a great job!! ;) We did require a bit of you're-getting-hotter/colder assistance from the boys for some of the tougher hidden beans, but overall I'd say we were some seriously good sleuthers (is that a word??)! After finding all the jelly beans we placed them on the chocolate nest Bryce made (another great tradition we've picked up from his family), stuck a few chicken Peeps on the nest to keep the eggs warm, took a picture of the final product and then... ate it! Good times, good times.

Bryce playing with Sophie and Ethan

Sherri helping Ethan find a particularly sneaky jelly bean VICTORY!! Another jelly bean found!
Wow. Sometimes I am such a ding-dong.Sherri, Ethan, Sophie and I with our mugs full of jelly beans.Bryce and Jay R: Hiders of the the Jelly BeansLisa: "Ok, guys, act like you're being mischievous."

Jay R.: "This is my mischievous face. ...it's also my sexy face. And my mad face. and..."

Hilarious.Sherri with the Nest-o-EggsSophie and EthanBlurry-but-really-cute pic of Ethan
And a completely random picture from right after church....
Sophie kept grabbing my necklace and then diving backwards. Happy Easter!