A week ago, Stacy and my sister Allison went out of town for a girl's weekend, so Sophie and I had some extra time to spend together. On Saturday, I took her to Chuck E. Cheese (CEC for short) for the first time.
Things have changed alot in the last decade - places like CEC are not everywhere like they used to be, and they certainly don't have 3 Pac-Mans, 2 Donkey Kongs, and all of the other machines from my youth. Things are now aimed squarely at redemption games - the things that give you tickets and then you redeem the tickets for prizes. That is fun for little ones, though I miss the days where you could go to the local 7-11 and play a few games of Mr. Do!
Sophie and I played a bunch of games - all of which Sophie really enjoyed...
She did have a couple of favorites. The first one, shown here (kinda) had her pushing buttons to launch balls into a frog who would open and close his mouth, so you had to time the launching. Kind of like a Mr. Mouth game from wayyyy back.
Her favorite game, though, was this one - it had a bunch of moving things, and a conveyor belt that took plastic eggs around a farmhouse, and if you hit the button at the right time, it would knock an egg into a chute and score points. I think we played this one for ten minutes solid.
CEC also has kiddie rides - some of which Sophie was okay with...
Some she liked...
Some she loved...
She actually had her one melt down when I had to pull her out of the bus so another girl could ride it. She did not want to leave, she really loved it.
That same weekend I was scheduled to work in the cafe at church, so Sophie came with me to help me for both services.
First, she had to say hi to her friend, Emma:
You may recall the she went sliding down the inflatable slide with Emma on Halloween...
And of course, she wants to "help" with everything. She helped us to put donuts onto plates for the families going in and out of the children's area...
Sophie has finally started playing Play-doh with us. She really enjoys it, and it's helping her to build her dexterity.
Stacy was playing with her the other day, and they were making animals with the Play-doh and some pumpkin adornments Sophie got from her grandpa Cal and grandma Julie.
They then switched to making bracelets...
Another thing to note - Sophie now has a big girl bed! We bought a Cinderella toddler bed for her, and it finally arrived a couple of weeks ago.
We haven't had any problems switching from the crib to the bed - I guess the only thing is that she can now get out of bed and play when she should be sleeping. That's mostly an issue at nap time, but she hasn't tried to leave her room, and we have always found her in her bed when we wake her up, so I call that success!
I'll get some pictures up of it soon - I just need to find the pictures I took of it.
Our social worker came over last Monday for our final visit. Everything went well, and we have no further documentation to provide to China!
That's all for now, talk to you later!
Larry
The other "princesses" at our table, Rebecca and Claire. 