Hooray!

No 3am wake-up today!!!

Happy 11 Month Birthday, Sweetheart!!

Happy 11 Month Birthday Princess Peanut Butter!!!! We love you more than the all the stars in the sky, more than the oceans are wide, so much more than you can ever know! We're all getting pretty excited here for the big 1 year birthday coming up but not to downplay or in any way diminish the joy of the big 11 month milestone she got to wear her new "birthday girl" shoes and of course we sang to her and then we went to have a visit with GGMom. What fun!

Sorry you can't see the front of her but I just think she looks so cute toddling along in her little pink dress...

Laissez les bon temps roulet

Happy Fat Tuesday Everybody!! (Who you calling FAT??)

Busy Days

What an exciting couple of days we have had!! On Wednesday, we went out to Pottstown to visit with Nanny and Poppy and Aunt Pat. It was a short visit but lots of fun. Then, on Thursday Sophie and I watched the live stream of the 6th Annual Megaconference Jr global videoconference event all day until Comcast had internet issues and we got booted off the internet jut as the last presentation was about to go on. Then, Friday we went to the awesome Please Touch Museum with our good friends the Powells, the Bannisters and the Duskas. It was Beatrice's 3rd birthday so we had a little party while there. And, the REALLY EXCITING thing that happened (for Mommy at least) while there was that we saw Kate Gosselin and the sextuplets from the show Jon & Kate Plus Eight!! They were there filming and it was all so exciting. Too bad we didn't get more photos or get to talk to the kids but it was still very fun to know there were right there. Friday night, Dee Ree and Pop Pop came over and brought a delicious birthday dinner for a belated celebration of Jim's birthday (thank you, Dee Ree and Pop Pop!). And, Saturday we had Nanny and Poppy down from Pottstown for a nice visit and dinner. Whew! What a couple of days, huh???

Laughing with Poppy

Watching Megaconference Jr.

Birthday Party at the Please Touch Museum

Sophie and Lily playing with the golden eggs

Birthday Girl Beatrice

Sophie and Mommy on the carousel

Kate Gosselin and the sextuplets playing in the duck pond water area

Sophie with Pop Pop in her new monkey hat from Auntie Dee

Nanny and Sophie

Sophie having a bagel

Our Happy Baby

Sophie is such a happy little peanut these days. She finally has some control over her body after all these months and can get where she wants to go. She just loves the power of walking. You can see it in her eyes when she is walking all around. Today the distance of her walking without any help was just mind-boggling. She really is getting good at it! She seems like such a content and pleased with herself little being these days. So it just broke our hearts when sleep became such an issue yet again tonight. The child did not go to bed until almost 11pm. Do you believe it??? Yeah, neither do I. It broke Jim's and my hearts too cuz well, we were tired. She was just playing and playing and walking all around. Maybe it was the fun visit to Nanny and Poppy's today. Or maybe it was that new iron supplement we started her on but man, what a way to end a day. For the last few nights her sleep schedule has been a little off anyway. This is due to some late naps and also some late nights out socializing, which of course is great fun but also wreaks havoc on little sleep schedules. But, come on... Almost 11pm???!! That is just ridiculous, don't ya think?

These shoes are made for walking

Sophie has been really walking a lot lately. These videos are from last week and already by this week she needs much less "spotting" from Mommy or Daddy to make sure she doesn't tumble. And, she learned the pivot so she now will walk away from you and pivot turn around and come back! This is huge. Up till fairly recently she only would walk toward you and take a few steps. Not anymore... Watch out world - here comes Sophia!!!

Happy Valentines Day!

Wow! Can you believe this is my first Valentines Day??? I love all of my friends and family so much. Hugs and kisses to everyone!!

As my Valentines gift to you, here is a video of me cracking myself up last night in my bath. Hope you have as much fun watching it as I had making it!!

Happy days at the zoo

It's been so nice to have a couple of warm days (and days of good health) that I just had to take Sophie to the fabulous Philadelphia Zoo. We went on Sunday to get out of the house and had a fantastic time. Then, we went again yesterday and it was just a blast. Sophie is at such a great age for the zoo. She just points at everything and gets so excited to see all the animals. We had sooooo much fun - both times!!! Some highlights of yesterdays trip include Sophie walking on the ground outside in front of the hornbills, having lunch in front of the geese running across the frozen lake to get bread that folks were throwing (it looked like they were ice skating!), and Sophie trying to chase a peacock - just wait till she can actually run! I can't wait to take her again soon, hopefully with Daddy this time.

Come back soon, Grammy

Grammy and Sophie playing ball

Grammy reading to Sophie

Grammy is off-camera playing peek-a-boo with Sophie


Well, we were hit pretty hard with the stomach ick last week. First Sophie got it. Then Grammy, visiting from Arizona, got it. Then Daddy got it. Poor Grammy probably had it the worst having to spend Thursday night and all of Friday in her room (um or the bathroom) trying to get through the nasty bug. Then, we had to put her on a plane on Saturday and send her back home to Ariozna. It was just awful that she got so sick and we're sorry that happened. But, before she got sick we were having a really fantastic visit. She is so sweet, she even called after she got home to Arizona to check on Jim and she ended her voicemail by saying "Thank you for a wonderful visit." Isn't that amazing??? Grammys are so resilient!! Grammy please come back and visit us soon - when the weather is warmer and the nasty evil stomach virus is not rampant. OK? Come back soon, please!!!

In other news, Sophie is walking. I can't recall if I blogged about this at all yet but in early January while she was sick the first time (of 3 times so far this year), she started standing on her own. Then she took her first steps. She has been taking "baby steps" - about 4-5 every once in a while but it seems like last week and this week she is really balancing well enough to be taking steps on her own a lot more. It's so much fun and so exciting to watch!! Hopefully, we'll have a video of it to post soon.

Feelin Groovy

Whew! That was a close one... Sophie knocked that stomach bug right out and seems to be nearly 100% better. So, we are all enjoying the rest of our time with Grammy during her visit. Hooray!!

That was a close one...

On the swing yesterday before the stomach bug hit

So today after sending off Grandpa and waving goodbye, Sophie took her morning nap. When she woke up, she started projectile vomiting in the bed. Lovely. Never happened before so I wasn't sure what to make of it. I took her downstairs and changed her and was thinking ok, maybe this was a fluke (knowing of course that it wasn't) but then, she did it again. All over her new clean outfit, her shoes and of course, me. Oh boy - here we go. So, I took her and changed her (into jammies this time) and I called the pediatrician. Turns out there was a nasty nasty stomach bug going around and 75% of the calls to the pediatrician's office were about this. They told us to expect vomiting, diarrhea, and possible fever. We had to feed Sophie a special reduced diet and tried to keep her calm (by watching lots of videos and reading books). She threw up again (after I gave her a piece of bagel unfortunately) but then after that she didn't throw up again all day. She was quiet mostly for the afternoon and we tried to really keep her still and keep the food intake to a minimum. It must have worked because she was like a different child tonight. By the time we were having dinner and after dinner when she was playing, you would never have thought she'd been sick at all. Fingers crossed that she stays well and has a good sick-free day tomorrow with me and Grammy.

Visit with Grammy and Grandpop

Wow - four generations of MacDougalls all in one room! What a great visit we have been having with Grammy and Grandpop. Today we are sad to have to say goodby to Grandpop but are thrilled that we get to have Grammy here for the whole week still!! We are looking forward to a good week with her and wish Grandpop a very speedy and safe return home to Grandma Kathy.

ARMS UP

Sophie's cleverness continues to astonish us daily. Today, her daddy asked her "where's the swing, Sophie?" and she turned and pointed that little finger of hers right out the back window at her baby swing hanging in the swing set outside. Now you might not think this is such a big deal *except* that she has only been in that swing twice. TWICE. And not very recently either. And, there are only three other times she has been on a swing (at daycare or a playground) so you wouldn't think it'd be one of the main words she would recognize. Stunned we were. She also does "Arms Up" as you can see her in these photos.

We're having a wonderful visit with Grammy and Grandpa so far. We are missing Grandma but sending her our love and hoping she feels better soon. We'll post pix of our visiting fun soon.