Sophia's First Easter

Yesterday, we got up early and hunted for Easter eggs. Sophia actually crawled around the floor of her nursery and found them herself! We were so proud. Of course, the candy inside was for Mama and Daddy, but Sophia still loved shaking them to hear the jelly beans rattle around and, of course, gumming the papier mache eggs in her mouth.

After that, we went to church, where everyone commented on how pretty Sophia looked for Easter. The dress she's wearing was actually my dress as a little girl, which my mother saved for when I had my own children. It's in pretty good shape for being 23 years old and having survived no less than a dozen moves!

Church was lovely. Our worship pastor, Mark, put together a beautiful program of traditional hymns, and one of our teenage congregants, a very talented musician, played his electric fiddle, which is just so evocative. Our pastor gave a decidedly "unoriginal" Easter sermon--his joke about how you simply can't improve on the message of Easter: "He was crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered, died and was buried. He descended into Hell. On the third day, He rose again from the dead. He ascended into Heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead." Amen, indeed!

After church, we went home, and Sophia took a brief nap. Then, we spent some time dying Easter eggs together, which was a lot of fun. Brian had never done it without an "egg dying kit," and he got such a kick out of the fact that we could dye the eggs with just a few things that were already in our pantry. If you've never dyed eggs "from scratch" before, you just put 20 drops of food coloring into 1/2 c. boiling water with 1 t. vinegar.

In the afternoon, we headed down to Federal Way to have Easter dinner with some dear friends. It was such a wonderful time, and Sophia was even pretty cheerful for the most, though her lack of sleep did catch up with her by the end of the visit, and she was pretty cranky.

Just before we headed home, the sun came out; all morning it had been gray and pouring rain. Seeing the beautiful gray sky and the brilliant sunshine after such dreary weather was an awesome reminder of the message of Easter. I hope you all had as memorable and blessed a holiday as we did.

Oh, and last but not least: Sophia pulled herself up to standing on the couch yesterday! It didn't last long, but it seems that she's quickly progressing toward walking. We can hardly believe it, but we're so excited.

A bit of wisdom from Benjamin Franklin

Hello there family and friends!

While I haven't posted in awhile (Brian here), I was reading a book on Benjamin Franklin yesterday and came across a great little fable which illustrates a great point in a humourous way - I thought I'd share it with you.

"A certain well-meaning man and his son were travelling towards a market town, with an ass [donkey] which they had to sell. The road was bad, and the old man therefore rid [rode], but the son went afoot. The first passenger they met asked the father if he was not ashamed to ride by himself and suffer the poor lad to wade along through the mire; this induced him to take up his son behind him. He had not travelled far when he met others, who said they were two unmerciful lubbers to get both on the back of that poor ass, in such a deep road. Upon this the old man gets off and let his son ride alone. The next they met called the lad a graceless, rascally young jackanapes to ride in that manner through the dirt while his aged father trudged along on foot; and they said the old man was a fool for suffering it. He then bid his son come down and walk with him, and they travelled on leading the ass by the halter; till they met another company, who called them a couple of senseless blockheads for going both on foot in such a dirty way when they had an empty ass with them, which they might ride upon. The old man could bear no longer. My son, he said, it grieves me much that we cannot please all these people. Let us throw the ass over the next bridge, and be no farther troubled with him."

And the moral of the story is... you can't please everyone!

Our Little Girl is Growing Up!

Sophia has made all sorts of new developments in the past few weeks. She is babbling quite well now, and is starting to really resonate in her speaking range, which is allowing us to hear what her real voice sounds like, as opposed to the previous assortment of baby coos. She is using multiple syllables of gibberish, though no words yet. She can say "mama" and "dada" but has not yet connected those with Mama and Dada. We can't wait for that to happen!

As her language skills have been progressing, Sophia is a lot more interested in storytime than she was previously, as you can tell from the pictures below. She particularly likes Rosemary Wells' Max & Ruby books, Beatrix Potter, Maragaret Wise Brown, and the Brothers' Grimm fairie tales.

Sophia is also crawling! She took her first "crawl" on her 7 month birthday (February 15th), and she's quickly gotten quite mobile. She is also enjoying her toys a lot more. Currently, her favorite ones are her Haba wooden rattle, which she loves to bang on anything in reach, her amber teething necklace (below is a picture of her crawling around with it dangling out of her mouth like a puppy dog with a bone), and her board books (she is definitely her mother's daughter).

Last but not least, the foray into solid food world has begun! Sophia now eats 2-3 meals a day of real food. She is not at all fond of rice cereal, so we've given up on that; I'd imagine it's pretty bland for her. Her favorite food is sweet potatoes. She also likes winter squash, peas, and applesauce. Today we had a bit of an adventure with finger foods. We cut her up tiny, tiny pieces of a very ripe pear and she managed to gum and swallow three pieces! Then, of course, Mama got worried about her choking since she was coughing a bit, so we stopped. Still, I think you will agree from the photos that she is really enjoying her newfound abilities.

We hope you enjoy the photos, and we look forward to documenting more of our beautiful daughter's growth for you all at a later date. Until then, God bless!