Our Anniversary Weekend

Our 12 year wedding anniversary is today, Sunday, August 29th. We celebrated it on Friday by going out to Pappaedeaux and letting my parent's babysit Sophia overnight. It was nice to relax and eat with just the 2 of us, although, we did miss our little angel.

The next day, Sophia and I went to the Splash Pad to meet up with Tricia and Atticus. For some reason, Sophia did not want to leave my lap. She wanted to eat her cookies and sit in my lap. We were finally able to get her to go play by telling her to chase Atticus.

And boy did she chase him!

They were also all about hugs. It was so funny to watch because they'd start out hugging and it will eventually develop into a wrestling match.

See! Hugs!

Wrestling Match!

And so on!

And so on!

Later that evening, we headed over to Nana and Paw-Paw's house for swimming. The husbands had gone to my parent's church for some "manly" gathering so we ladies decided to hang out together. Sophia followed Jack everywhere!

This little guy was trying to join them in the pool.

Today, we went and bought Sophia a new pair of shoes since she's outgrown her tennis shoes already. Now she's into an 8 1/2. This time though, we actually went to Payless and had her measured and let her run around inside the store with them on to make sure they felt good on her feet. Then, we went to Barnes and Noble for some new books for her. Then back to the house for a nap. Tonight, we're grilling steaks, having bacon wrapped shrimp, baked potatoes and asparagus (to celebrate the whole anniversary thing...one more time). Happy anniversary Russell!

What a Week!!!!

These are pics from Sophia's first day of PK which was on the 16th.

You can see her friend Brody waiting for her inside.

Ms. Melanie is helping her find the right cubbie to put her shoes in.

The seconda week went great except for the fact that she cries every morning before we go. But as soon as Russell drops her off, she's off and running to play.

She did much better than I'd anticipated. I expected more "bad" reports maybe of her not sharing or being aggressive. But she's really improved in those areas. What she needs to work on is using her words. She gets so frustrated when she can't do something or something isn't going exactly her way, so she'll throw a mini tantrum. We're working on that.

This past week was also my first week back with the kids. It went really well, crazy, but I enjoyed it. Here's a current pic of my face without makeup. Makeup really helps cover the pinkish, redness. So unless it's swollen, you can barely tell.

Here are a few pics of Sophia swimming last Sunday. We'd gone over to my parent's house for a swim in the afternoon. The water was so warm, I felt like I was swimming in bath water.

Updates

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted anything. Things have been hectic over here. As you all know, I had surgery on my face to remove a cancerous spot. So, I've been healing from that. Plus, I started back to work on Monday. And more importantly, Sophia has moved up to Ms. Melanie's PK program. So she's officially going to PK now. What we love about this is that it's very organized and structured. They have an art teacher, a Spanish teacher, computer teacher, music teacher (and piano teacher), and a PE teacher that all come in periodically and do special lessons with them through out the year. Plus, she'll be going to gymnastics at Sunbelt Gymnastics in Grapevine. Ms. Melanie uses a great curriculum that really prepares the kiddos for kindergarten (and she's a certified teacher).

She is adjusting quite well. She didn't even cry at all the first day. The 2nd day was a different story but I think the problem is that they are sooooo active all day long with different activities that she's just worn out. At night, we can start to see her fading fast around 6:30. In fact, Ms. Melanie was quite surprised that Sophia takes such long naps, 2-3 hours. The kids there average about an hour and half nap.

Wednesday - Friday, she was fabulous! She shared. Went without accidents. And most of all, she's excited to go each morning.

On Friday, Sophia and I attended the graduation ceremony of all of the kiddos going off to kinder. at Ms. Melanie's PK. Ms. Melanie does a ceremony with actual cap and gowns. We sat through a 30 min. slide show and Sophia started getting restless. I tried to get her to settle down by telling her that we'll be having cake in just a minute, thinking that there was cake in the kitchen. And it worked. She was so great the rest of the time. However, when we got to the kitchen, there was no cake (which was smart with all those kiddos), just cookies. You should have seen the look on Sophia's face. You'd have thought I'd just taken away her birthday or something. So before she went into fit mode, I promised her we'd make a cake at home tomorrow and she could help me make it. Crisis averted.

The next day, when we were getting ready to go grocery shopping, she kept saying cake, cake, cake. No, my little darling did not forget my promise of cake. So needless to say, we made cake that afternoon (cupcakes that is). She chose chocolate, of course. She was also a really good helper and helped pour the ingredients in the bowl and even cracked an egg too.

The funny thing is, she was more about the icing than the cake. I was icing the rest of the cupcakes while she ate hers and she kept asking for more icing. In fact, I ran out and couldn't ice all of the cupcakes.

Also, as far as updates go, here are a few new things Sophia has started doing:

She's learned how to lock and unlock the front and back doors. In fact, she locked Russell out one night when he went to move a sprinkler.

We've started using a mat and an egg timer for time outs and it's working great. She actually sits there and waits for the timer to go off. It's kind of ironic with all of the crosses and the rosary beads (one of the crosses is from St. Patrick's in Ireland and the rosary I got in Rome and was blessed by the Pope).
But it was the best place with little distraction and nothing to play with.

She said what I consider her first "real" sentence a couple of weeks ago, which was " Can I get down please?". She's said fragmented sentences before but this one was enunciated crystal clear and is grammatically correct.

She can count to 3 for sure but then will throw in random numbers like 6 after that.

Her potty training is back on track. She's even doing it at home regularly again. We're still not in big girl underwear yet but I have a feeling she will be very soon.

Well, that's all I have for now. Need to go get caught up on all my blogs. I read them from my phone but have yet to figure out how to comment on the from the phone. :(

Pass the Sunscreen, Please

As most of you already know, I was diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma (skin cancer) on my face recently. And because the spot was located on my face, I had to go to a specialist who does a special procedure known as Mohs Micrographic Surgery. They basically shave a thin layer of the spot off at a time, they test each layer after it's removed, to see if they got all the cancer. They will keep removing layers, one at a time, until they get all of the cancer. They luckily got mine in just one layer.

Here's what the spot looked like before. See the red dot right along my nose. That's not it. But move to the left a little. See that sunken, circular place. That's it! It started out looking like a broken blood vessel but later turned into a blister-like spot. It's kind of sunken down because they shaved the top off to biopsy it the first time.

Here's what I looked like when I got home.

Here's what it looked like the day after.

The following day

Yesterday

Of course all of this means that I'll now start wearing sunscreen religiously. The dermatologist I switched to said that since they'd found 1 basal cell spot that there would be more to follow if I'm not careful.

Of course I didn't let a little surgery get in the way of texting and surfing Facebook.

Now Sophia, when I drive you crazy about putting on sunscreen, you'll know why. Don't let this happen to you.

Speaking of Sophia, I was really worried about how she would react to my "owie". She gets scared so easily, I thought I might scare her. But when she saw it, she said "awwww", touched my bandage and said "Owie"and "I sowwy (sorry)". She's been really sweet and I never did scare her.

Thanks for all the support, thoughts, prayers, and encouragement from everyone. And especially the chocolate mousse cheesecake from my mom and dad. :)

Happy Birthday to My Mom (Nana)!!!!

August 5th was my mom's (Nana's) birthday so we celebrated it this past Sunday.

That morning I iced the chocolate cake that she'd requested. Sophia was so excited when she saw the cake and wanted a piece immediately. I told her no, that she could have a piece at Nana's, but I promised that she could lick the knife that I was using to ice the cake (which she loved).

Once she had licked all the icing off, she wanted more but we didn't have anymore. I was turned around (away from her) doing dishes and when I turned back around, this is what I saw.

She'd gotten more icing...but from where?
Oh, the cake. That's right! She dug the knife right into the cake. Stinker!

I couldn't help but laugh and it was so cute, she kept saying "I'm sorry" over and over again. But I knew she really wasn't.

So after everyone got ready, we headed to Nana and Paw-Paw's house for Nana's birthday party.

It's hard to believe my mom turned 58. I think she looks way younger than that but maybe I'm partial.

And Sophia was happy because she finally got a piece of cake and some ice cream.

For some reason, my mom broke out the cowboy hats they had leftover from Vacation Bible School. So we all put them on. What's a party without a party hat?

Whenever anyone opens presents, Sophia loves being front and center.

Then it was time for the pool (with loads of sunscreen). The good thing is, my parent's pool is usually shaded on at least one side. By 3, it's entirely covered in shade.

Sophia managed to get ice cream from Paw-Paw.

Then she wanted some of his.

And eventually, took it over.

Happy Birthday Mom (Nana)!

We love you!