Daffodils at the Morton Arboretum

I absolutely love the Morton Arboretum, and when the daffodils burst into bloom every April, I can't stay away.  This is the second year in a row when my parents have been able to come help me take pictures of my little girl, plunked in the middle of those beautiful yellow blossoms.  Last year, we had a really hard time getting Sonia to smile for the camera, but this year, we had no such issues!

 

Grandma JoJo & Grandpa Spike had fun counting daffodils with The Great Sosini (who can currently count up to 14 fairly consistently).

Andrew and I love our goofball kiddo!

Pigtails and bunny ear ballet dancing

Will the Easter pictures ever stop?  Nope.  There's more fun to be shared!

Niki put Sonia's hair in pig tails for the very first time:

  Surprisingly, Sonia loved it!  She knew she looked ridiculously adorable in those paintbrush piggy tails.

 We told her to go over to where Charlotte & Peter were playing and show them her new 'do.  Sosini ran right over and touched her head to Charlotte's.  Goofball!!

When Sonia tried to "show" Peter her pigtails, the showing turned into a cousin hug.  Awww....

Then, we decided to throw tutus and bunny ears on the kids and have a dance party.  Hilarity ensued.

Eventually, the kids got bored of dancing and decided to cook an Easter feast for us.

Next up: daffodils!

More Easter fun

Peter thought he looked super-swank in Sonia's sunglasses.

He also looked awfully snuggly in Uncle Andrew's lap!  Peter really loved hanging out with the tall guy.

Who's taller?  Sonia, but not by much....

Lunch (and watching the cool but dusty train set) at the All Aboard Diner was a big hit with all three kids.  Their Grandpa Spike wanted to come back for dinner, too!

Look!  A picture of me!  And I'm with my ultra-handsome nephew.  Yay!

This is not me-- this is my sister.  But she's also with that ultra-handsome little Petey-Pie!  All the kids liked to wear their train conductor (engineer?) hats backwards, for some reason.

Cousin belly bump!

More cousin pictures to come in future posts....

Fun in spades

Sonia is in heaven-- for these few days leading up to Easter, we have Grandma JoJo, Grandpa Spike, Aunt Niki, cousin Charlotte, and cousin Peter visiting us.  The ridiculous amounts of fun we are having should be illegal.  Here's a chronicle of some of the fun so far....

Sonia and her Grandma JoJo love to snuggle!

Grandpa Spike, being silly as usual:

Fun with the red wagon:

Mozart hits a wonky note:

GIGGLE!

Measuring with Grandpa Spike:

Many more pictures to come....

Future Superstars?

Today, at Kidstown, Sonia and Max got a little cuckoo and had a blast "performing" on a little stage. It's so cool-- they have a video camera pointed at the stage, and you can see yourself on a flat-screen TV. Sonia and Max were transfixed, watching themselves dance on television. Then, they grabbed microphones and maracas, and they really got into it. The lighting was weird, and my camera was low on batteries, so these pictures aren't all that great, but you can get an idea of the hilariousness of their performance.





What a couple of crazy kids! They keep us entertained, that's for sure.

Keeping busy

I am slightly behind in posting about Sosini's adventures over the last couple of weeks. So here are a few pictures of the fun we have been having.

Playing at the park with Max.... They think the big kid swings are fun!


Basketball with toddlers takes one ball per kid-- that minimizes the whining.


At the All Aboard Diner with Ike and Max:




We're getting ready for visitors this week-- Grandma JoJo, Grandpa Spike, Niki, Charlotte, & Peter are all coming to see us! Let the pre-visitor cleaning blitzkrieg begin....

Buddies

Sonia loves her Murray buddies! Thanks for coming over to play, Sophie & Kieran!

23 months old: a state of the baby address

T-minus 1 month until The Great Sosini turns TWO YEARS OLD! Holy cow. I am not able to say "I just can't believe she's 2 already" because she is growing so fast.... There are some days I can't believe she's not two already.

Sosi's language skills are continuing to explode, and she seems to be working really hard to communicate. Her efforts to learn how to use prepositions like "on", "in", "out", "off" are giggle-inducing. This afternoon, when I put a Chiquita banana sticker on her shirt, Sonia said something like, "On sticker on shirt Sonia's on sticker." Hee hee! I love it.

Sosini loves to swing on the "big girl" swings!


Sonia continues to love showing off her fabulous hand-me-down jumpers from Sophie....


Our little bookworm got her first paper cut this evening.... She was so upset! But a band-aid and several kisses from Mommy and Daddy made her feel better.

As promised, here are a couple of pictures from our Mommy-Sonia picnic at the arboretum on Sunday morning. We had such a great time! She was sporting her brand-new Thomas shirt from Grandma JoJo, and every once in a while, she would look down, pat her belly, and say, "On Thomas shirt on Sonia."



One more month until your birthday, sweetie-pie! Enjoy your last month as Mommy's baby, because you're going to be Mommy's little girl come May 13th.

Mommy & Sonia

In honor of this Mommy-Sonia weekend (Andrew is in Texas helping his father celebrate his impending retirement), here are a couple of pictures that my friends have taken of me with The Great Sosini over the past week or so. If I don't get some more pictures like this, future generations might start wondering if Andrew was a single parent. Thanks for taking these pictures, Tracy & Toni!



Sosini and I miss Andrew terribly this weekend, but we're having a great time. I'll post pictures of our Sunday morning picnic at the arboretum a little later-- we had such a great time!

Language Explosion!

Sonia's language skills continue to blossom at a rapid pace. She speaks in full (albeit simple) sentences, loves to parrot every word we say, and has a pretty good memory for new phrases and words. Today, I noticed she is starting to use words like "the" and "and". Sosini is fascinated by adjectives and their meanings, and she has been trying her hardest to learn how to use words like "wet", "heavy", "hot", and "cold" correctly.

It thrills me to no end when she asks what something is called.... Tonight, I gave her a fig newton for the first time in 6 months or so, and she asked, "Muffin, Mommy?" When I told her it was called a fig newton, she repeated that back to me and then to herself several more times.

Along with her language explosion has come a goofiness explosion. My little chef was happily wearing the chef's hat that Grandma JoJo & Grandpa Spike got her for Christmas, and when I put on her coat and told her we were going to the store, she told me she wanted to keep her hat on.


Sonia, you can wear your chef's hat to the store, but you have to leave your oven mitts here.


Have I mentioned that she gives a very good stink eye?