14 months

Sophia, you are now 14 months!

These pictures were taken on Christmas. We had already opened presents and you were sitting in your chair so I figured I'd just take your monthly pictures then.

I didn't have you all dressed up but you still look beautiful as always.

At 14 months you still aren't walking but getting so so close. You have been walking with support of your toys. You'll stand on your own but when you realize that you are doing it by yourself you drop to the floor. I think you can do it, just scared.

You are sleeping so much better now. There will be some nights that you won't even week but if you do it's just you moving around and crying just because your uncomfortable.

You started waving and saying hi and bye this month. It's so cute! You eat EVERYTHING!! Whenever you want something you point at it now. 

Your grandpa has been watching you everyday wile we're at work so your starting to get very attached to him. 

You still love books. And you say Mommy and Daddy a lot now too. Your hair is getting so long and curly. You are wearing 12-18 month clothing and in size 4 diapers. You only drink from a sippy cup still but will have your bottle every once in a while. You take 2 naps a day. You are asleep around 9 every evening and wake up when we get up for work.

You don't like to sit and the same spot for a long time and you are pretty much everywhere. We have to keep our baby gates up all the time because you like to escape. You like to put your toys into boxes and you like to play with toys with wheels. You still love to dance you bust a move anytime you hear a song. You now give kisses when we ask. You just open your mouth and put them on our lips, but I count that as kissing. You hate to have your diaper and clothed changed. You still love bath time and you love to brush your teeth on your own. 

You still love cuddling and sleeping with mommy. You are growing so much and I love being able to watch all of it! Mommy loves you Sophia!

A year on Letters to Sophia blog

The Paper Mama did a post where she went through all her posts through out the year and shared memories from each month. I decided to try this out on the one of the last days of this year. I'm just going to add short sentences of what we did that month by quickly reading over posts. I haven't looked back through my old posts so this should be fun.

January

I wasn't blogging too much at this time. I actually only had two posts this month. One post even said I had forgotten about the blog .. {oops}. I was starting my second semester of my senior year and still traveling home to see Sophia and visiting Gary at his school. 

February

Sophia turned 4 months. She had her 4 month check up and weighed 15lbs and was 25.5 inches long. I was still leaving her with my mom while I was in class. My mom would send me pictures of her during the day. Gary started his baseball season and was very busy with that. I was busy with my broadcast class getting stories and interviews done on time. Sophia also won the cutest lil Valentine from a local photographers. 

March

I dropped my computer this month and my hard drive cracked. I ended up being without a computer for a month! I lost all my pictures and videos that I had on my computer. And I had none of it backed up :( I was devastated. I would go to the library to study, but write to you on here instead. This month I learned about Kellie Staats and her story about beautiful Maddie. Her story brought me so much tears but I now give Sophia an extra kiss each night. We spent my Spring Break in Buckhannon with Gary. We got to finally see Leah and Kinsley. On the 23rd of this month made it a year since I found out I was pregnant with you and one of my best friends Kayla found out she was pregnant the same day as me, just a year later. Sophia also started teething this month.

April

We went to Wolf Trap farms to visit Gary's family. It was a perfect, relaxing weekend. Sophia and I went to the park one warm day this month and she rode we took a walk with her stroller for the first time. Sophia got to meet the Easter bunny and celebrated her first Easter. Sophia turned 6 months! Gary's sister gave birth to Sophia's cousin Adrianna Faith. Sophia started sitting up by herself this month and started "talking". Sophia had a check up at the Dr. and weighed 18.5lbs and 26 1/4 inches long. 

May

Sophia and I went to one of Gary's baseball games and he ended up being on the news that evening. I started working on the weekends as a hostess at a Mexican Restaurant. Sophia started sleeping better through out the night. My sister had her 20th birthday. I moved out of my apartment of 3 years this month. I had my first Mother's Day and my 22nd Birthday on the same weekend. We enjoyed a sunny day outside just sitting on blankets in the front yard. My friend Kaylee had her sweet lil boy Jace and Soph almost ripped his new belly button clamp off. I turned 22 and graduated from college with a Bachelor's Degree. One of the top 5 happiest days of my life! Gary turned 23 and Sophia turned 7 months!

June

We went on a trip to VA Beach to visit Gary's family. Sophia started clapping! We started fixing up our new home. Sophia started holding her bottle all by herself. We celebrated Father's Day and made Gary a custom card. I got my wisdom teeth out and started a new job at the same job I have now. Gary finished with summer classes and moved to Parkersburg with us {finally}. Sophia rolled over for the first time. We got to move into our home the middle of the month! We started taking walks to the river that's walking distance from our house. Sophia also got her first tooth this month.

 July

We celebrated 4th of July and Sophia wore the cutest lil romper. Sophia finally started sleeping in her crib this month. Sophia got her second tooth! Gary and I started playing on my work's softball team. Sophia and I played around with photobooth on the computer. Sophia became obsessed with The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Sophia started saying MaMa and turned 9 months. And she also attempted to crawl this month.

August
Sophia started to army crawl. We celebrated our cousins Cole and Emma's birthday party. Sophia started feeding herself with finger baby foods. We spent an afternoon in our yard picking pears and apples from our trees and took some cute pictures of Sophia in a cowboy hat. We met Blessing and her daughter Camille this month and spent a day at the Marietta Water Park!

September

Sophia stood up by with the help of chairs and other things by herself this month. We went to the pumpkin patch to take your 1 year birthday pictures. I think this is the month that Sophia really started crawling too. And we made yummy pumpkin muffins. I didn't blog too much this month. :(

October

I was busy getting everything planned for Sophia's first Birthday party. I wrote to Sophia on her first Birthday about our year together. We went to dinner on Sophia's actual Birthday at Texas Roadhouse. Sophia's Birthday party turned out great. My friend that I haven't seen in a long time came to Sophia's Birthday and I got to spend the day with her! My other friend Kayla had her baby shower. Sophia was a cute lil cow for Halloween and we went Trick or Treating. 

November

Sophia danced to Rhianna. Sophia had some more teeth come through. Sophia started drinking from her sippy cup and started saying "Hi". We spent an evening at Stephanie's house and you played with all of her old toys. My friend Kayla gave birth to her beautiful baby girl Zoey. Sophia turned 13 months! I saw Breaking Dawn and got the new iPhone 4. Sophia started to really try to talk this month. We celebrated Thanksgiving and made a handprint Turkey shirt. We bought our first Christmas tree and put it up. Sophia got her new little chair that I will be doing all of her monthly pics in. Sophia got to meet Zoey. 

December

I attempted to make Christmas Cards to send out this year. We took our family Christmas pictures. Sophia dressed up in a cute gingerbread outfit. We bought a new washer and dryer. We went to a birthday party and took pictures with another little boy. We did a lot of shopping this month. I started working out, but that only lasted 3 weeks. My grandparents came in from NJ to spend Christmas with us. They took care of Sophia while I was at work. Santa got her picture with Santa. We celebrated Christmas and Sophia had a good time. 

Well, that was fun to look back at quickly read over most of the posts for each month. There is def. a lot more that I could've added but those are some of the highlights.

2011 has def. been a great year. We got to watch Sophia grow from a baby to a lil girl. We have learned so much from her and are still so blessed to have her. I can't wait to spend another year with her watching her grow and enjoying every day with her. 

Goodbye 2011! 

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Everyone! I hope everyone is having a great day!! We had a great Christmas with our family here. Sophia actually got to open presents this year so it was fun to watch her. Everyone has left and Sophia is staying with her grandparents tonight so mommy and daddy are having a relaxing evening. Gary got an Xbox for Christmas {from me} and he's been playing around with it. I decided to use this free time to actually update my blog. 


We woke up early this morning and saw that Santa had left presents for all of us under the tree! She was so excited and kept saying "Ooooh" we ate breakfast really fast and then it was time to open up presents.

Sophia got the most presents. We bought her lots and lots of books, a few clothes and some DVDs. My parents got her this car that you can push her around in. She LOVES it!

We all enjoyed our new gifts and played with Sophia and all her new toys. Sophia and I ended up falling asleep and taking a nap. My sister captured this picture of us. I love cuddling with my lil girl.

I'll probably get back on here and add more Christmas pictures. I'm going to get off here and watch Glee. We have Netflix now so I'm able to watch all the shows I haven't been able to watch! Sad that Christmas is over but I'm so thankful to have spent this Christmas with my family! Hopefully this week I'll be able to post lots. I have lots to share that I've been slacking on. Good night everyone! Leaving you with this picture of my happy, silly girl eating crackers after opening presents.

Favorite Photo of December

Entering in The Paper Mama's photo challenge.

This is my favorite photo of December.

My lil Gingerbread baby eating a cookie.

Santa Baby

I have a little bit of time to blog before I have to get ready for work. Sophia and I woke up early today so I have a little bit of time to do whatever while she's playing with her books and watching cartoons.

I know I've said I'd try to update more but I really don't think I will be able to until after the holidays. It's been crazy trying to accomplish everything in the short hours I have after work. I haven't been getting home until after 9 each night this week. But I've enjoyed all of it. I'm so excited for Christmas.. 2 more days!!!

We went to see Santa last night. We've been planning on going the past couple of nights but Sophia has been skipping her naps bc of all the family here. But she got some in yesterday so we headed to the mall. 

The line wasn't long and Sophia did a good job sitting on Santa's lap. I figured she'd cry but she just sat there kind of frozen. We got one lil smirk out of her and that's the picture we bought. I think they are kind of pricey, but I felt rude taking my own on the side and not buying one from them. This picture is a picture of the picture, if that made sense ?

It's kind of dark but I'll add the actual photo and the others I took last night when I have time, which may be AFTER Christmas :(  It's crazy to see how much Sophia has changed in just one year. 

Time to get ready for work. I just have to make it through today then it's a three day weekend. Def. needing this. I'm ready to relax and enjoy Christmas with my family! I'll try to get on here and update during those days but if not I hope everyone has a great Christmas! 

Christmas Quiz

Christmas Quiz

Found this quiz here :: 

1. Egg nog or hot chocolate? Hot chocolate {with whipped cream}
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? wraps them, duh!
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? we did just white this year
4. Do you hang mistletoe? yes, ours is real mistle toe too ;)
5. When do you put your decorations up? This was our first Christmas in our first home together and we put it up Thanksgiving night. I want that to be a new tradition of ours.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish? i love it all!
7. Favorite holiday memory as a child? listening to Christmas music all day Christmas Day while playing with all our new toys.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? One of my teachers told me, in the first grade :( !!!
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? We opened one when we were younger. I haven't decided if I wanted to start that with Sophia.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? this year we decorated us with baby blue and silver ornaments. even the wrapping paper matched.
11. Snow! Love it or dread it? love it ONLY on Christmas or if I don't have to be anywhere.
12. Can you ice skate? I've only done it once, and I'm not too bad.
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? My MacBook
14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you? Spending time with family of course.
15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? all the cookies!!! and pumpkin pie!
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Watching the Christmas Story all day Christmas Day and listening to Christmas music.
17. What tops your tree? A pretty, big ribbon.
18. Which do you prefer: giving or receiving? Now that I have a job, and money I have had so much fun buying for everyone this year. I'm so excited for everyone else opening their presents than I am.
19. Candy canes: yuck or yummy? mmm, yummy!
20. Favorite Christmas show? Hmm, show? I don't know of any Christmas Shows but my favorite Christmas movie is Elf!!
21. Saddest Christmas song? I've never heard a sad Christmas songs.22. What is your favorite Christmas song? Baby It's Cold Outside

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Christmas Time is Family Time

I can not believe there are only 5 days until Christmas!! This month has flown by. I have been extremely busy. I think I may have only blogged about 4 times this month. I need to start back up. I know I'll look back and wish I did. I enjoy looking back at older posts and reading what we were up to at the time.

I've been trying to enjoy my very short evenings after work just spending time with Sophia and my family. They are what's the most important to me and I want to look back and remember all the memories we share during Christmas time. 

All our Christmas are bought and pretty much wrapped. We still need to go see the christmas lights and take Sophia to see Santa. I think we will do that tomorrow. I want to start traditions and do them every year. I plan on doing the ones I did when I was a child and maybe add some new ones. 

My grandparents from NJ are in for the holidays. They came in last night! I love having them year for Christmas. I hardly ever get to see them and it's perfect having them here during Christmas.

I've been horrible at taking pictures. I've barely brought out my DSLR and I've just got a few on my phone. Starting tonight it's going to be out every evening so I can capture all of our Christmas memories. Here are a couple pics that I took a few days ago.

Her hair is messy and she's got food on her face but she's still beautiful. My lil girl is actually 14 months today! How is that possible? After work today we went to dinner with my family and they asked if they could keep her tonight. I figured I'd get on here while I had time to. I'll have her monthly pictures and letter up soon. 


Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays! Lots of holiday pictures and more posting coming soon! 

Red

Entering in The Paper Mama's Red photo challenge this week. 

I have a lot of "red" pictures this month because of all our Christmas pictures.

But this one is my favorite!

Check out all the other entries!!

Oh, and sorry I've been horrible at blogging this week. I promise I'll be back this week!

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Tis the Season to be... Freezin!

So, I've been horrible at updating my blog this week. I'm a busy woman. This post is going to be another random one recapping everything that's been going on since the last time I posted.


First thing I wanted to share is that I started working out. Wed. was my first day. Tuesday night I posted on my FB asking if anyone wanted to start working out with me before I had to be at work at 8:30. Having someone go with me is my only motivation to go. My friend Julie msged me and said she'd do it. So we started the next morning. I couldn't keep up with her! It's sad how out of shape I am. I'm not doing this to lose weight, just trying to get in shape. So we're going to work out every morning before I have to be at work. 


It is officially freezing here in WV. I get cold so easily so I've been freezing the last couple of days. Soph hates wearing clothes so she hasn't been too happy about being bundled up when we leave the house. It hasn't snowed yet but it's cold enough to snow. 

Another reason why I haven't had time to blog was because Sophia got sick on Wed night with a fever. She was miserable. She couldn't sleep and just kept crying. She didn't want anyone but me. She also didn't want to sleep anywhere except for on my chest, when she did sleep. It was a rough end of the week. I had to cancel working out on Friday morning bc I was just so exhausted from getting hardly any sleep and taking care of my sick girl. She's feeling better now and I caught up on sleep the last two days.


This weekend was the first weekend Gary and I actually got to watch a movie in a long time. This happens once every other month. We watched Friends with Benefits and The Help. I liked em both. 


Saturday morning Soph and I went to Wal Mart with my grandma. Santa was there and Soph got to sit on his lap. She got to meet Soph last year for the first time but she was only 2 months old. This year she acted the same as last year, she didn't seem to care. Just sat there and looked at us. They took a picture for us there but I forgot to pick it up. I plan on taking her to the mall to see Santa and get her pics there.


The rest of the day we went shopping with my mom and sister. I wanted to buy stuff for Gary but the mall was SO packed. I usually don't get frustrated about crowds but it's diff now with a baby. We didn't stay too long. We ate lunch at Panera and stopped at Old Navy. I ended up buying a ton of clothes for Soph. It's so easy to buy for her. Sophia decided to be goofy while we were shopping.

I'm having a hard time this year buying stuff for Gary and Soph. I feel like they have everything already. Every time I ask Gary what he wants he can't even think of anything. And it's the same for me. We don't have any presents under the tree yet. I think we're going to write lists of stuff that we need or want, even if its less than 5 things. And for Soph, the girl has everything.. and more. There are toys from her Birthday that we haven't even opened yet. She's got tons of clothes. I really don't know what to get her. We'll see how my shopping goes, I still have a few days.


My sister stayed with my last night while my mom kept Sophia. Gary had to work until late so me and Corina got to be lazy all night. I miss having my sister all the time. She is currently at West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV which is about an hour and a half from Parkersburg. She is thinking about coming home and taking online classes. I really hope so because she might stay with us. We have a spare bedroom. That'd be wonderful.


My mom brought Sophia back to me this morning before Gary had to leave for work. I hate that he works 7 days a week :( Sophia and I miss him during the day, esp on the weekends. Sophia and I have had a lazy day today. We took a 3 hr nap together, that NEVER happens. We're just going to continue being lazy until Gary comes home. 


I don't want it to be Monday tomorrow. I'm excited to work out but not excited about working 40 hrs :( I wanna spend those 40 hrs at home with my baby. Maybe one day. Hope everyone had a good weekend. I'll try and do a better job at posting this week.

Wordless Wednesday {4}

These pictures were taken on Saturday after our Christmas pictures. I haven't posted them yet and I figured I would today bc I haven't taken any pictures this evening and I probably won't this momma is exhausted. Hope everyone's having a good week!

linking up with: and, then she {snapped},the paper mama, live and love out loud, jenni from the blog, and baby baby lemon. 

My Gingerbread Baby

I know that I've already posted tonight but my baby is sleeping and I'm actually not extremely exhausted like I usually am at this time of night. AND Sophia and Gary are sleeping. Time for ME TIME {blogging}. If I have time then I'm going to post as much as I can because during the work week I'm lucky to get one post up. 

I decided that from today until Christmas all my blog posts will have something Christmas-y to it. I'm also going to try out some of the fun recipes I found on Pinterest. I'll have to share everything on here. One thing I do want to share is how cute my baby looks in her Gingerbread cookie outfit. I could eat her up.

We had a good weekend, it just went by too quickly. They always do though. Friday night Gary and I met up with our couple friend and ate dinner at Applebee's then ended the night going to a small bar here. It was a good time.

The next day we waited for our new dryer to get here and our baby girl. They both arrived. We took some of our Christmas pictures. Check them out here. Gary had to work that evening so I met Jesseca at the mall and we did some Christmas shopping. I got Sophia some new Christmas outfits from a new store that opened up here. I also got Gary one of his Christmas present. He is such a kid when it comes to presents. I told him I got him something and he asked where it was and then started guessing. He actually guessed it but I told him yeah right, that I didn't even know where to get those with a smile on my face. Ha. I'm horrible at lying.

We had a lazy Sunday morning the next day. Then we headed to Taryn's Birthday Party. Sophia got to meet another baby there. He is the cutest. Meet Isaiah.

Only 20 more days until Christmas. I'm getting super excited. I know that each year is going to get even better as Sophia grows. I'm excited to be a kid with her again. I remember believing SO much in Santa and everything. Oh, how I miss being a kid sometimes. But Sophia will bring all that happiness back to me. I'm excited to go see lights. I haven't went in for so long. I kind of lost my Christmas spirit while I was in college so this year I'm going to make up for all the Christmas's I was a grinch ;)

Tomorrow is my grandma's birthday. We're going to surprise her with cake tomorrow after work. My grandma is the best ever. She has helped me with so much in my life. She's also a fabulous cook, but I think all grandma's are .. mine's just the best.

Today went by super fast so hopefully the rest of the week does. I need get some laundry in before I got to bed. I get to use my dryer for the first time! Good Night Everyone. ❤❤❤

A Taste of Christmas {in pictures}

We decided to try and take some Christmas picture of Sophia and the family this past weekend so we can send out some Christmas cards. It used to be so easy to take pictures of Sophia when she was a little baby. Now that she's mobile it's so hard to capture anything. I have to bribe her with bulbs and candy canes while my mom sings and does crazy dance moves behind me. But we got some cute ones. I took a bunch but these are my favorites .. 

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Holiday Photo Challenge

This year I'm going to send out Christmas cards for the first time.

My first plan was to take some cute pictures, find a card online and order em.

Well I got some cute pictures... not the best ones bc it's so hard to take pictures of a 13 month old. Then I got onto the internet and started searching different websites.

I'm very cheap, so everything I looked at seemed too pricey.

I decided to make one myself. I found some websites that were offering free backgrounds. 

The ones I used I found from Paint the Moon and Shabby Princess.

I used other random images I have downloaded before and had saved on my computer.

Here is what I came up with:

Also entering this into The Paper Mama's holiday photo challenge.