Sophie Every Day

I'm trying to keep posting up now, and to that end, here's a brand new post - only ten days since the last one!



Sophie is a tech head already (so surprising considering her dad, huh?) and we have fun playing games together. Here we are playing New Super Mario Bros. Wii. She does do a pretty good job, and has no problems using normal controllers and pressing multiple buttons with her nubby - she's pretty adept at using it.



Again, Sophie takes after both of us, and she is becoming a good Ms. Pac-Man player (and still not 5 years old!). She can now get to the 6th board completely by herself (which means she has seen both the "They Meet" and "The Chase" intermissions). I am very proud! ;)



As I am the tech side, Stacy is the crafty side, and Sophie loves doing anything crafty with mommy. Here she's learning to use rubber stamps, using her own stamps and ink pads that mommy got for her.



I mentioned reading in the last post, and Sophie is learning to read very quickly. Stacy and I got a set of Usborne First Reading books at the Home Schooling convention a few months ago, and Sophie is now up to reading the 8th one out of 15 (they build on each other and get harder as you progress). Here she's reading that book, Moon Zoom, in Stacy's lap.



We like to get Sophie the crafty kits at Target or Wal-Mart, to help her develop her creative skills, and this is a sticker-based mosaic picture project that Sophie quickly picked up and enjoys.



Sophie still loves to jump and run around, and here she's showing off how high she can jump on the mini trampoline that we have in the house.



Sophie and her friend, Olivia, were eating giant marshmallows, and then decided it was more fun if the stuck the marshmallows out of their mouths while smiling. They could barely stand, they were laughing so much.



And to close this entry, here Sophie and Olivia are giving each other a big hug!

We have a lot of stuff happening over the next month or so, so I should post again in a week or so, and hopefully I can keep the pace, as there will be pplenty of material to work with. Later!

Larry

Sophie Episode IV: A New Hope (Spring 2011)

Alright, I've got the final of the four updates to get us up to date (well, within the last week or two)...



We had originally bought this whiteboard easel almost two years ago for Christmas, but it went unused until a few months ago, when Sophie wanted to learn reading. As you can see, she also does some artwork as well.



We're pretty proud - she's very creative!



Sophie graduated from pre-school just before Memorial day, and here is a picture of her with the two other boys who attended that day with her mortar board hat.



This is Sophie's pre-school teacher, Miss Krista - wishing Sophie a good summer.



Sophie is a big ham, as you probably know, and here she is licking a bowl clean just to get messy.



This year we had Easter with our friends Tim and Cassie at our house, so Sophie had a familiar place to search for her Easter eggs. As she was opening her eggs, Tim was re-closing the plastic eggs with nothing in them and putting them back in her basket - it took her a few to realize the joke he'd played on her.



Sophie loves rainbows, so after the last big rainstorm, I ried to get a semi-artistic picture of her and a rainbow. I'll keep working on it :)



Now that she's at an appropriate age, and to encourage her to play outside, we decided to give Sophie a playset for her birthday. As is standard practice, Sophie wanted to help me put it together.



I put it together about a month ago, and the day was both cool and extremely windy! Here Sophie is testing out the fort structure after it was halfway built (it still needs a roof and side panels).



It took me another day (and after 15 hours in the sun the previous day, I was exhausted and sick), but I got the set completed, and here Sophie is swinging on her swingset for the first time! The birthday present is obviously very early (by about two months), but we definitely wanted her to be able to enjoy it the whole season. She loves it, and plays on it nearly every day!



Last but not least, Sophie started playing soccer in May. Here Sophie is stretching with her teammate Hannah.



Here Sophie is practicing passing with Kyra.



This is the whole team from the first practice. The two teenagers with them were their coaches, April and Anna.



Here April is passing with Sophie before the first practice.

When I said "were" the coaches - it wasn't a typo.

At the second practice, we found out that they wouldn't be able to be the coaches for the Lime Tigers after all, as they were both on the Princeton High School traveling team.

Guess who volunteered when they saw the need for a coach of ten 4 and 5 year olds?

That's right, the geek who's never played soccer! Me!

Just as we expected, it looks like Sophie is going to enjoy sports, and her parents who don't really care for or even watch sports, are going to have to learn 'em!



Coaching them isn't about technique so much, as it is about herding cats.

The other parents appreciate it, and the kids have a good time, which is what is important.

We have two more weeks of Soccer, and just got the formal pictures, which I'll scan and post very soon.

That's about it for now, I intend to get some more stuff posted in the next week or two, and try to stay regular.

Have a good night!

Larry

Catsup Part III: The Winterer

Well, this is the final update for today, and it'll get us caught up to February of 2011, so that's a good thing.

Now, I know that this is much abridged from the old style, but I do only have so long to do updates, and, well, the memory isn't as strong a year later.

The good thing is, now that I've broken the streak, and caught up, then I will be able to go to more detailed and frequent updates of the site.

Without further ado, here are the things that happened last winter (2010 - 2011)...

We begin with sad news. Sometime around Thanksgiving (I can't honestly remember exactly when it was) our cat Teddy had a stroke and passed away. Teddy was Sophie's friend the minute that we brought her home, and they were very close. That made it even harder to explain to Sophie what death was, and that Teddy was gone. We were plain with her, no lying, and after crying for a little while, she accepted it.
Every once in a while, she will want to pray for Teddy, or tells us that he's with God. She remembers him, but has accepted that he's not here anymore.



Here's a great picture of Teddy and Sophie hugging / playing. He was always good to her, and let her do just about anything, even carry him.



This is the last picture I have of Teddy, laying on the floor near the kitchen heating vent with his "brother", Puddin.



Buddy has always been a watcher over Sophie, but after Teddy passed away, he started playing with her more, and she with him.

Now, let's move toward celebratory stuff!



For the first time, this year, Stacy and Sophie made a Gingerbread House. While I helped a wee bit with the lattice on the roof, most of the house was made by the two girls, and it looked very nice.



Of course, Sophie got messy, as well as a sweet treat out of the whole thing. This house lasted for about four months before we got rid of it - very sturdy!



This Christmas Sophie got her usual haul, but we didn't take a lot of pictures of every single thing. Here is the Strawberry Shortcake house that she wanted, and Aunt Aunt got her a remote control Strawberry Shortcake car that Sophie plays with to this day.



Sophie got this home version of the Build-A-Bear Workshop bears from grandma and grandpa Johnsrud - she had a lot of fun putting it together!



Every year, we continue the tradition of our grandma Ziegler, and make Christmas cookies together as a family. Sophie loves helping with everything, so she digs in. Here, everyone is turning my admittedly dry (I'll get it right next year) peanut butter cookie dough into balls for peanut blossoms.



Sophie loves spreading the frosting on the sugar cookies, almost as much as dumping a *ton* of sprinkles on them afterward.



You have to keep your nubby clean!



And what does everyone love the most about Christmas cookies? Eating them, of course!



As she did last year, Sophie helped decorate our small Christmas tree.



Like we do every year, we had our immediate family (Stacy, Sophie, and me) gift opening on Christmas eve. We knew she'd like it, but we weer very happy that Sophie immediately started role playing with her McDonald's cash register - even telling us what they were out of after asking us what we want - very cute and funny.



Sophie and grandpa Orsund seem to be in cahoots here - I'm guessing that they gave Buddy some table food...



This is a book that grandma and grandpa Orsund gave Sophie for Christmas, which has a recorder so that you can recite the book, and the child can then replay it as if you are there reading to them. Pretty neat.



As I said earlier, Sophie wants to help / do everything, and loves to learn and try absolutely anything (well, except for foods that she "can't like").

I am slowly teaching her some simple cooking, and this time she is helping me make a Mexican lasagna...



And here she is proudly displaying the finished product.



Sophie got a Fisher Price doctor kit from grandma and grandpa Gabriel (just like the old ones) and Sophie decided that she was going to play doctor with her Zhu-Zhu pets.



And the shot "is going to hurt a lot"...



Stacy and I aren't outdoor people, by and large, but when the weather cooperated, I went out with Sophie so she could enjoy the classic wonder of winter in Minnesota.

Of course, the snow angel is a must.



And here Sophia is trudging though the back yard, next to some deer tracks.



This is a really nice picture of Sophia kissing her mommy. I really like the more candid look Stacy has here as well.



Sophie is famous for her looks, and she's been working on a few that make you bust out laughing. I believe this one is her coy look.



While playing checkers with me, she pulled this look out while literally saying, "Let me think."

She is too funny, and too cute.

Of course, that what keeps her alive - she *is* a four-year-old ;)

That's all for now, I plan on doing spring with the next post, and I might need one more to bring us into June.

Talk to everyone later!

Larry

Ketchup Part II: Autumn 2010

Howdy!

Welcome back to the cathing up style posts. I expect there to be four posts in toto, to catch us up with Sophie for the past year, though there may by more, depending on how I break things up as we get closer to May 2011, which is still a long ways off at this point...

We begin with Sophie's 4th birthday, which was August 6, 2010...



Here is Sophia with her grandma and grandpa Gabriel...



Here she is proudly displaying a new shirt that she received.



Sophie is putting a pretty bow on her head.



This is Sophie opening up a gift from us that is from one of her favorite cartoon movies (at the time - Wubb-Idol, a take-off on American Idol with the Wubbzy characters).



Here's Sophie eating a plain english muffin (she is weird) while wearing another gift from her birthday, a towel with a crown on the top, so it's kind of a dress-up thing, too.



We have started a tradition, of sorts, of traveling out to Virginia every year so that Sophie and Stacy can visit Stacy's dad, Cal, and step-mom, Julie. Sophie's uncle Cory was helping her play basketball in their driveway.



Here is Sophia and uncle Cory taking it easy.



Sophie loved giving big hugs to grandma Johnsrud...



...and grandpa Johnsrud.



This year, they took us to what was billed as a children's museum, but was really more of an indoor play area. It was pretty cool, with a lot of different things for kids to do. Sophie had a great time, and not surprisingly, didn't want to leave.

Here, Sophie is inside a tube in the giant gym set that they had. She loved climbing.



Sophi also liked riding the sring animals, and I showed her how to do the "no hands" move.



Here's something else she came up with, the "freeze game" - where she would be frozen, then we'd have to thaw her out with heat from our hands. Dispite not having seen Star Wars yet, she looks just like she's mimicing Han Solo in Carbonite. Thats my girl!



A few weeks later, we had friends over, and during their visit, we had a major thundertorm, and lost power to the neighborhood for the first time. After the storm passed (we went down to the basement to be safe, as their were tornado warnings) we went back upstairs, found some candles, and played Yahtzee in the dark. It's not that easy, to be honest.



Late August bring the Minnesota State Fair, and this was Sophie's first visit. She loved the animals, as we knew that she would, and got to take a picture with this cute sheep.



Right after the State Fair, comes the beginning of school. We enrolled Sophia in a local preschool, and here she is on her first day, ready to go!



Stacy and Aunt Aunt (my sister Allison) took Sophie to a pumpkin patch in October.

Here she is with mommy in one of those picture stand-ups.



The Pumpkin patch that they visited had a petting zoo, and Sophie loved feeding these goats.



Here's my cutie taking a quiet picture in a field with some pumpkins...



And here she is with Aunt Aunt at the store.



Sophie and I then went to work on the pumpkins that they brought home.



Sophie liked the messiness of the whole process - look at her smile while holding the pumpkin guts!



Here are the finished Jack-O-Lanterns, a traditional face, and a silly face.



Right before Halloween, Sophie's preschool class had a party where all of the kids could dress up. It's cool to see her having fun with the kids.

Once again, that's all for now.

I'll be following up with at least one more today to cover winter, but spring won't get done until this weekend, as I don't have any pictures with me after February.

I'm going to go get some lunch, so I'll post the rest that I have this afternoon!

Later,

Larry