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

Disney World 2010 Part 2

Good evening, again!

Well, I'll try to catch you all up on what we've been doing the last few days...

Because of the heat directly from Hades, we decided to try a water park on Tuesday. I don't have any pictures from it (don't want to kill another camera) - but we had a pretty good time, even though I hit my head very very hard on a roof of the kiddie water slide clubhouse type building (why yes, it was concrete!).

Yesterday, Alli and I took Sophie back to the Magic Kingdom. Stacy wasn't feeling very well, so we made her stay back at the room. It was a good thing, too, because it was insanely hot - Alli and I barely lasted 3 hours, and Sophie was actually sweating and had rosie cheeks. (Yes, we kept forcing her to drink water, and we all were staying hydrated).

Anyway, it was a good day for characters, because Sophie was able to get a few meetings with the ones she had missed on Sunday.



First and foremost, Daisy Duck!



Then we got in line for Pluto...





And then I took Sophie to Pinocchio (we didn't want aunt-aunt to skin her other leg).



We went on the Aladdin's Carpet Ride, which Sophie wasn't too sure about until we were done, ad we started making our way back toward the castle, with the intention of seeing the show that runs in front of it every hour and a half. We found Woody and Jessie from Toy Story, and got in a line that was longer than it looked, and we began baking...

Sophie did get her pictures and autographs, finally...





And then we decided that it was enough heat, and we managed to get back to the bus area and beck to the resort before we burst into flames.

Today we went to Epcot, because we had a reservation for Sophie's lunch with the princesses...

Funny story. I had in my head that the lunch with the princesses was on Thursday around 2:00 - maybe 1:30. We knew we'd check the reservation in the morning, so we weren't worried about the exact time.

Wait for it...

So I opened up my email with the confirmation information in it...

Wait for it...

And the time was 1:55pm - so I thought, okay, that should work just fine. Then I looked closer...

Wait for it...

And the reservation was for...

Sunday the 16th.

Yes, we had missed it by four days.

Because I am a moron.

I literally hung my head in both hands, and was about to cry. I managed to pull it together when Sophie came into the room, and asked me, "what's wrong, daddy?" I called the dining reservation number, in hopes that we could get squeezed in anytime before we left (i.e, today or tomorrow). They were very helpful and understanding, and we were able to get a new reservation at 3:20 today, so the day was saved!

It was a very very hot day today, and we clung to the shadows of the buildings as we got into Epcot. This was a very good thing, as it allowed us to run into both Stitch, and Daisy Duck again.



Sophie can't get enough Daisy, so we got more pictures, and another signature.



Aunt-aunt found the Character Spot, where they have five characters lined up, similarly to the princesses from Sunday, and you can get the autographs and pictures with all of them in one swoop.

It was very nice that it was inside, and air-conditioned. It was good and bad that the line took an hour to get through. Good, because we had time to kill, and it was way better to do it in air conditioning, like God intended, and bad, because it was an hour long line.

Sophie saw Mickey again...



And Minnie too - this time separately.





And here she is, dancing as she is waiting to see Donald Duck.



Here's Donald...





And the elusive Goofy!



Aunt-aunt wanted her picture with Goofy too! That is aunt-aunt, not a lobster-woman (hard to tell, I know).



Next up, we found Chip and Dale, just outside!



Chip is on the right, and Dale is on the left, in case you don't know which is which...



And then the time finally came - we went to the restaurant in Norway, and Sophie was greeted by Princess Aurora, who she happened to be dressed as...



Included with the meal is an actual photograph (hard copy) of the two together, and the princess was so impressed with Sophie, that she hand-delivered the picture to Sophie at our table. She didn't do it to any other girl that we saw... It was very nice!



After the meal started, we finally saw the other princesses start making their way around the restaurant, stopping at each table. All of the princesses were very kind, and were genuinely happy to spend a few minutes with each little girl.

First to visit was Jasmine...



And then the also-elusive Snow White...





And here's Sophie waiting patiently for her favorite to come...



Princess Ariel!



Sophie was so happy to meet them all, and she had a great time that I hope she remembers. At least she'll have a bunch of pictures and this blog to help...

Somewhere along the line, Sophie had a conversation with our server that we weren't privy to, and the server thought that Sophie was celebrating her birthday. She got a button, a cupcake, and a special card, signed by all the princesses. It was very very cool. We're calling it an early 4th birthday celebration...

Well, we have one more day here, and then we head home on Saturday. I'll possibly get another blog entry done before the end of the weekend, to wrap things up, but it may also take a week or so - please be patient!

Talk to you all later!

Larry