Milestones - Sophie

1.  Potty-training -Sophie is fully potty-trained!!  After some setbacks and regression, I created a "No accident chart."  At the end of everyday, if Sophie did not have an accident, she would receive a sticker on "Sophie's No Accident Chart," which I put on the wall near her bed.  There were 12 boxes for stickers, and she filled the chart up in 15 days, finishing on the Friday before our San Diego trip.  She received the Dora "Dance to the Rescue" dvd as a result of her no accident efforts.  As we were working through the chart, Sophie would wake up in the morning and recite that her chart read "No accident chart," and she seemed very motivated to get her stickers.  While on our trip to San Diego, Sophie stayed with Jim and Charlotte and did not have a single accident.  Since we've all been back home, she's been accident free!  We even took a 4+ hour trip to the zoo this weekend, and she wore panties with no problems.  I think it's fair to say we've turned the corner!

2.  Pacifier - Sophie returned from Jim and Charlotte's a little more reliant on her pacifier than I would like.  Typically she only gets it to sleep, but I know she was getting homesick at the end of the trip and the paci was comforting.  But, by Friday afternoon (I picked her up on Thursday), she was still really whiny about the pacifier and I decided I had enough.  So, I told Sophie that we were going to pick out pretty ribbon to thread through her pacifier and that we would take her 3 pacifiers to the "Pacifier Tree" at the park to say good-bye to them.  Afterwards, I promised we would all go out to dinner and get ice cream to celebrate Sophie being a big girl!  Sophie seemed okay with the whole thing, and after Allen got home from work we headed out.  The pacifier tree is located in Northville near the castle park, and it's filled with lots of pacifiers.  Sophie bravely hung her pacis on the tree and sweetly waved good-bye to them.  Then, we took a walk up to Rebecca's for dinner and ice-cream.  (Oh, and apparently Northville High School had their prom on Friday night because there were lots of high-schoolers in prom attire at the park taking pictures.  Sophie really liked all of the girls' princess dresses, especially the purple ones!)

Since abandoning her pacifiers, Sophie hasn't really whined or cried for them.  She's asked a couple times, but each time I remind her that we left them on the tree with the other pacifiers.  And, she responds - "right, right, I said bye-bye to my pacis."  All in all, taking away the pacifiers proved to be less traumatic than I was expecting

Check out the pictures of our pacifier farewell below!  The plaque below the tree reads "The Pacifier Tree:  Grow, grow, grow-up with me.  It's time to leave your Binky on me."  Perhaps a bit cheezy, but definitely effective for us!

Here we are sharing strawberry ice cream to celebrate Sophie's brave act!

Graham's First Trip

Last Sunday, Allen, Graham, and I went to San Diego for a few days as part of Allen's trip to the Casualty Actuarial Society conference.  He, along with 60 other actuaries, was recognized as a new fellow of the society (achieved after passing all 9 exams)!  And, lucky for me, his company paid for me to accompany him on the trip.  Since I'm still nursing, we took Graham with us.  And, Sophie stayed behind for her own vacation with Grandma Charlotte and Grandpa Jim.

Graham did great on the airplane -- a perfect traveler.  He slept for most of the 4.5 hour flight out there, and did very well on the way back too.

Our trip was wonderful.  The conference was held at the historic Hotel Del Coronado resort in Coronado (an isthmus off the San Diego coastline).  We were lucky that we received a free room upgrade - we ended up with a full Pacific ocean view from our balcony!!  The hotel was gorgeous and we definitely enjoyed the sunny weather.  Plus, we were able to catch up with Sarah and Emily, two of my dearest friends from Duke!

Here are a few pictures from our brief, but very fun trip!

The Hotel Del Coronado -- a beautiful beach-side resort!

This is the view from the bedroom in our suite -- isn't it gorgeous?!

A view in La Jolla!

Here we are on an little hike through Torrey Pines State Reserve.

And, we met this little guy along our walk (and many more just like him)!

Happy Mother's Day

As Mother's Day rolls around again, I am so thankful for my two beautiful children. Some days I still find it hard to believe that I'm already a mom, but there is nothing in the world that I would trade for Sophie and Graham. Yesterday, Sophie was sitting on the couch with me and Graham, and she said, out of the blue, "I love you Graham... big sister loves you." My heart was so full in that moment. No matter what little trials we have throughout the day, I feel so lucky that Sophie and Graham have each other, and that Sophie has fully embraced being a sister. They truly light up my life.

I think these two photos tell it all -- just look at how much Sophie loves Graham. She is like this most days. She imitates what I'm doing with Graham -- she'll sing to him, play with him, kiss and hug him, hold his hand. And, today I noticed she's also very protective of him. We dropped Sophie off at the church nursery before church, and another toddler came up to Graham's car seat to look at him and try to touch. Very concerned, Sophie tried to block the other little girl from Graham.

And, because my mom has been requesting more photos of our growing boy, here are two from about a week ago. In the first one, we were outside playing, and Graham was hanging out in the car seat. How cute is that bucket hat??

I haven't quite caught a full smile on camera yet, but here's a very subtle smile. He's really starting to respond to our facial expressions with smiles and other cute faces.