Detour...

Alright, so I know I SAID the next post was going to be of the California trip. However, I forgot to post about Sophia's first hair cut!! After over 2 1/2 years of combatting Brian to let me take the girl for a hair cut, he FINALLY agreed that it was time. I must admit I was really nervous. She doesn't always take well to new situations and I did NOT want to scare her off!! I ended up being sooo proud of my girlie. She was very excited when I told her where we were headed. She had remembered me telling her I was going to get MY hair cut not too long prior and automatically grabbed at the chance to do something mommy had done!! The place we went to was awesome. It is designed for kids and caters to them in every way. She got to watch a special video, hold a princess mirror and even get a surprise from the "magic machine" when she was done. She sat very still, gave her opinions and politely thanked the stylist!! We didn't cut much of,f since she has such gorgeous hair. We did get a cute little trim though. Here are the pictures!!

Where has the time gone?

It has been quite a while since I posted on this blog...or my personal blog...or on anything for that matter!! I tend to go through periods where I just simply forget :) Many months have passed since fall (although I guess I never did finish my pumpkin patch post) and winter has been showing its chilly personality. For the very first time since we moved, this past week I was able to say "I am glad we don't live in Maryland anymore!!". They got hammered with loads and loads of snow. It did snow once here but all was virtually melted in the next 2-3 days. Good old southern sun :) Anyways, the most recent events that have transpired were of course Thanksgiving, Christmas and Sophia's 3rd birthday!! I'll just put up a few pictures from each. We were able to spend Thanksgiving here at our house with my mom and Brian's brother's family. Christmas we were so blessed to be able to travel to beautiful California to spend time with Brian's sister's family (and his parents and grandmother and aunt's family and again his brother's family!!). And for Sophia's birthday we played it low key with a few days of special birthday surprises and a mini family party. As we sang to her and cut her cake I was reflecting on how much my girls have changed just in the past few months. Sophia's most commonly used phrase has become "I do it a-self, mama" (aka "I'll do it myself"). I can't believe how independent and grown-up she is becoming. Although she can still be a bit hard to understand, she has amazingly intelligent conversations with me and just LOVES to play pretend. It brings me such joy to listen to her pray at night and to hear her new found excitement over going to church to play with the other kids. She has come a long way in the social sphere so thank goodness for that!! Autumn's new favorite past time (besides eating and mimicking all that big sister does) is taking off her diaper and declaring "No no diii-paa...pee paw-ee" (aka "No no diaper...pee potty"). She loves to say it but isn't so fond of actually following through haha She'd rather play with the toilet paper and flush than be productive with the process. Anyways, they have both been sick with colds and stomach bugs for about three weeks now. Today they are finally feeling much better and back to their usual energy level. Praise God for his healing :) Enjoy the pictures I will post more specific updates later today.

I apologize for the brevity of the account and images of each of these events...once you get this far behind in posting it's hard to catch up unless you just bundle things together!! haha

Happy 3rd Birthday Sophia!!

(We went to the build-a-bear factory as a special treat...she built a birthday bunny as you can see!!)

"Christmas" Morning in NC (we did our own mini christmas before heading out to California...I will document the Cali trip in the next post)

Thanksgiving festivities (Sophia really enjoyed making pies with us!!) :)

A Preview of Our Pumpkin Patch Visit...

I've been uploading and editing pictures all afternoon and therefore I am posting this mini collage as a sneak peak of the pictures and story to come.  For those of you with access to FB, I have more pictures up there if you can't wait!! Enjoy!! :)

"Mouse a scare you!!!"

So we decided to take Sophia and Autumn for their FIRST trip to the stimulating world of Chucky Cheese. Every kid HAS to go there at least once in their life right? I mean we all did it as kids. The rides, the tokens, the games, the tickets, the prizes, the pizza and THE MOUSE!! Well, we were excited but we performed the parental "no no" number one!! We went on a Saturday afternoon...haha What were we thinking?? Craziness ensued. That place was packed out!! Brian was a nervous wreck that we were going to lose the girls, older kids were pushing my poor Autumn down the slide and then there was our Sophia and her flair for the dramatic. I have never seen a child throw such a fit over an animated character!! She thought it was the devil (I mean literally). She saw him...her eyes became HUGE and glazed over...her mouth dropped open...her lip quivered...her knees buckled...and she screamed "MOMMMMYY!! MOUSE A SCARE YOU!! IT SCARE YOU!! IT GET ME!! IT SCARE YOU!!" Needless to say we left immediately in order to avoid any permanent damage to her childhood memories. Soooo these pictures are taken from two separate trips to Chucky Cheese. We had so many tokens left over from our first disaster that I took the girls up again (with a friend and her cutie kids) during the week when NO ONE else was there. As soon as we pulled up Sophia said "Uh oh Mama!! NOOO!! Mouse a scare you!!" So we had a long talk about how the mouse was nice and she didn't have to go see him if she didn't want to. I explained how she could stay in the play area and watch him dance and that Jesus and myself would protect her from anything scary. She finally agreed and actually had a fun time. I think her favorite part was the skeet ball!! That's my girl!! Anyways, enjoy these pictures I managed to snap and keep my sensitive little toddler's soul in your prayers...haha

This first one is my favorite...the little boy just popped out and Autumn thought it was hilarious...so glad I captured it!!

Cereal...

Sophia has recently discovered that her new favorite food is cereal.  She does not, however, like ANY kind of cereal.  It HAS to be Honey Bunches of Oats for the most part.  Every now and then she ventures to eat Kix or Cheerios.  As you can see she thoroughly enjoys this food.  It was too cute to not quickly share!!