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

Catch-Up Part 1: The Summer of 2010

Wow!

I said it would be a week, and it's been a whole year since I last updated Sophie's blog.

Well, I've been very busy and all that, so let's just take the apologies as read, and take a look at what Sophie's been doing the last twelve months (quite a lot, as it turns out).

I'm breaking up the posts into manageable sections, mostly so you don't have a ton of pictures in one shot, but also it allows me to keep the posts manageable from a writing and saving perspective...

Here we go, we'll pick up where we left off, in Disney World...



On our last night at Disney World, we went to a midway style area, which had more of a carnival style to it, but also had plenty of shopping. This is a Winnie the Pooh diorama for pictures, so we indulged and had Sophie sit with the characters.



Near the entrance to the area, they had a water fountain play area for the kids (the bursts of water come out of the ground at random, and the kids can chase after them). Sophie loved it.



At the Disney Lego Store, they had a gigantic Woody from Toy Story made out of Legos.

We returned home from Florida, and our normal days picked back up.



Sophie is helping Stacy put frozen (don't worry, I made the dough) cookie dough on a pan for a treat.



Stacy and Sophie have started to do crafts together. It's really neat for them to have a special thing that they do together, and Sophie is learning a lot.



Here is the finished bouquet that they made.



Sophie finally got the hang of pedalling in the early summer, and was riding her tricycle very well. She eventually applied the movement to her bicycle a little later in the summer, and started riding it by herself. She still had trouble going up hill, but we told her that practicing will not only give her better motion, but also strengthen her legs.



We bought an inexpensive pool for her to play in, and Sophie, like always, demanded to help. She started by playing with the hose, of course.



More playing...



And finally, getting down to business. How many times did she go in the pool? Twice, I think.



Grandma and Grandpa Ziegler came over for a visit, and here she is getting a nice group hug.



Here's a cute picture of Sophie eating a cupcake.



And this is a cute picture of her taking a nap (a rarity indeed) after apparently crashing while playing on her V-Tech game.



We were putting together a book of Sophie pictures that was going to be a Christmas present for our family, and we wanted something current for the back cover. I asked Sophie to do some posing for me out on the grass, and this is (I think) the picture we put on the back of that book - I think she looks awesome.

Okay, that about covers the summer, so the next post will be fall...

See you then!

Larry