Atticus's Airbending Birthday Party

As you all know, Sophia's best bud is Atticus and this past Saturday was his 3rd birthday party. It was at the new Mayfair park (which is totally awesome by the way). They did a theme based on the cartoon, The Last Airbender (which Russell is now searching for on our cable...he didn't know there was a cartoon).

Once we arrived, Sophia was all about the playground.

 Especially this slide. She loved that she had to climb the stairs to get to it.

 Here's a few of the other attendees. Some came in costume but Sophia refused to wear her pig costume (which is probably for the best. I'm not sure how it would have affected her ability to slide). But once she saw the other kids in their costumes, she was totally whining for her costume, which was at home.

 There was a little sword fighting. Although Sophia steered pretty clear of that. She was way more interested in the playground.

 Sophia is actually riding this see-saw with Atticus but you just can't see Atticus.

 There he is jumping off the wall!

 Then Sophia discovered the swings. And she had to try each one. Even though two of them were the same.

 This was as close as Sophia got to the swords. I was kind of surprised because she loves hitting. So maybe she needed to warm up to the idea of using an object to hit rather than her hand? Hmmm....

 There's the birthday boy! He's pretty quick!

 Sophia finally warmed up to the idea of playing with her flying monkey (a party favor).

 And then there was the water balloon toss. Sophia did not have a clue of what to do but it sure was fun to watch all the kids toss them.

 There's little Ella, Dyana's baby girl (a former co-worker of mine).

 Finally, Sophia decided it was time to decorate a shield.

 Then it was time for cake! I didn't get a good picture of his cake but it was this cool dragon.

 Tricia's sister dressed up as Princess Leia (spelling?). Very cool. Her kiddos were dressed up like Star Wars action figures.

 After Sophia saw Ella wearing her crown, She decided she'd put on hers. And it matched her outfit perfectly.

 There's Auntie Leftee, the cool lady who taught me how to crochet and to love Big Brother.

 Then it was present time. Of course, Sophia wanted to be front and center.

 Then it was back to the slides.

 I think Sophia had warmed up to Ella a little and wanted to play. But unfortunately for us, it was almost time to go.

 Then it was off to say good bye to Atticus. Dang camera! I brought my small one and not Big Bertha. I missed them hugging good bye.

What a great party! Thanks for inviting us!

What I found most hilarious about the whole day was every time I introduced ourselves to the family members or guests, they'd say "So this is the Sophia". So funny.

That, and every time I'd say how old she was, they couldn't believe that she was only 2. They thought she was 3 or 4.

An Eventful Weekend

I had been meaning to pull the plug on the pacifier for a while. I was going to do it during the summer but then I thought I'd wait until after she started her new daycare and was fully adjusted. She'd been paci free during the day forever but we'd still continued to use them during nap time and bedtime. She'd stopped using them at daycare for naps back in January. I was going to start with her naptime on Saturday but then the big rains hit and I wasn't sure she'd sleep without it and I needed my nap time too. :)

So, on Sunday, we finally did it. We gathered her pacifiers up and put them in a pile for the pacifier fairy to come and get them. She knows what fairies are from watching her Tinkerbell movie. I explained that the pacifier fairy would come and take them away to give them to the little babies that needed them. In return, she'd leave her a toy of her choice. Sophia had picked out a Tinkerbell action figure and animals.

The nap time was a little rough. She cried for about 30 minutes and finally fell asleep. She still slept for about 2 hours.

 Even though she was excited about her toy, she was still sad about having to give away her pacifiers.

 After that, it was pumpkin carving time.

 The pumpkin carving was a nice distraction from missing her pacifiers.

 There were times when she got bored and needed a break.

 But overall, she was way more into it than last year. She kept wanting "her turn".

 Running break!

 And she was especially excited about the candy corn we'd bought earlier in the day.

 Candy corn induced dance.

 This is the design Sophia picked out for Russell to do. An owl. It was the only one she liked. Good thing it was only a level 2 design.

 Then it was time to move the pumpkin out front.

 After bath time, we lit it up.

Turned out pretty cool. Good job Russell!

The bedtime withdrawls went even better than nap time. She whimpered for a little bit but fell asleep about 10 minutes later. She slept through the night, like normal. Yea!!! So I'm hoping tonight goes even better.