Even Tiger Woods had to start somewhere....

Andrew: "All right Sonia, put both hands....  BOTH HANDS!... both hands on the golf club...."

Sonia: "I'm supposed to hit the ball over there?"

Andrew: "Swing the club like this...."

Sonia: "Hmm.  That ball is awfully small.  You got something bigger for me to aim for?"

Andrew: "Grip the club tightly and aim for the little green flag."

Sonia: "Which club looks better with my outfit, Mommy?"

Andrew: "You'll get kicked off the PGA tour if you try to use two clubs at one time! Now buckle down and let's work on earning your golf scholarship for college."

More fun in Nashville

Sonia and I took another solo road trip to visit Niki, Corey, Charlotte, & Peter in Nashville this past week....  My little buddy was such a great traveler!  She watched videos, sure, but she also read a lot of books, looked out the window, played with her trains and stuffed animals, and took a couple short naps.  Sosini is turning out to be a good car kid just like her cousins! 

We had a wonderful time, and Sonia is now even more obsessed with her cool cousins.  She begs to look at pictures and videos of "Petah-Chawlutt-Niki" all the time!  As usual, Niki beat me to the punch in posting pictures of our trip, so she stole all the best ones in this post.  But I think I found some other fun pictures to share!

Sonia and Petey share a love of cars and trains.  Sometimes that meant that they played together nicely, like in the picture below, but other times, that meant that they stole cars & trains from each other and whined about it.

Another shot of cousin love!

While Sosini was supposed to be going down for her nap, she got out of bed, grabbed a large plastic garbage truck, and took it back to bed with her.  She snuggled up to it and passed out cold for a nice, long nap.  Goofball!

Sonia's new cousin: Rocky Cat!!  Sosini didn't like how Rocky's little claws felt on her skin, so she actually left him alone for the most part.  But, she did think he was awfully hilarious.

Sonia loves Peter & Charlotte's slide!

Playing with Petey & Charlotte's fleet of rubber duckies

At the Discovery Center in Murfreesboro, Sonia and I played in a huge fire truck.  She thought it was hilarious!

Sonia, Charlotte, & Peter loved playing on these animal rocking horses at the Discovery Center.  I think Sonia rocked on that giraffe for at least 15 minutes, which is an eon in toddler time!

And lastly, a couple of gratuitous kitten shots.  Rocky and I liked to play and snuggle after all the pesky little kids had gone to bed.  He would be rolling around, chomping on my hands and being a little imp, and then suddenly, he would conk out and take a little cat nap.  Kittens are such little narcoleptics!

Big Girl Bed, phase II

On Father's Day, we put the box spring under Sonia's Big Girl Bed mattress.  It's getting closer to being a real bed!

We're waiting to finish the decorating until we can put the headboard on the bed and truly see what wall space we have to work with.  Also, Sonia's Auntie Niki is going to be sewing some curtains to match the bedding.  I can't wait to see how awesome that's going to look!

Happy Big Girl

The book worm, hard at work:

Wrapped around her little finger

I guess it's not that Sonia has Andrew wrapped around her little finger.... it's more like she has him on a leash.  Literally.

Father's Day 2011

Happy Father's Day to Sosini's beloved daddy and my fabulous husband, Andrew!  Sonia decided that her gift to her daddy was to help him wash his car.  Please don't ask me why we didn't put Sonia in a swimsuit for this activity, because I don't really have a good answer.

Sonia LOVED playing in the bubbles.

She decided to forgo the car-washing mitt and just use her hands.

I'm not sure why, but she started rubbing the suds on her face.

Happy Father's Day, Andrew!  Happy Father's Day to my dad, Spike, and Andrew's dad, Dick.  We love you!

Even more hand-me-down adorableness

My sister made this AWESOME pillowcase dress for Charbunkle (see the process chronicled here), and now it's Sonia's turn to sport the strawberries. Sorry these pictures aren't that great, but she was not in a posing mood this morning.

Sonia wore the dress to the Grounds for Hope Cafe this morning, and at one point while she was playing, one of the ribbons came untied, and she had a wardrobe malfunction worthy of being banned from the Super Bowl.  Maybe I better double-knot the bows next time!

More hand-me-down adorableness

How hilariously cute is this safari tank top & skirt outfit?  Sonia gets the coolest hand-me-downs.

(Sorry this first picture is a bit fuzzy, but I loved the expression on her face so much that I had to post it!)

Singing in the rain!

Just like her cousins, Sonia got to play out in the rain today.  It was just barely sprinkling when we went outside, so I was able to snap a few pictures before we went to stomp in puddles.

 

We found a fabulous puddle for splashing, and Sonia went to town.  Then she started splashing in the puddle with her hands.  Then she started rubbing the rainwater on her face (EW!).  Then she SAT DOWN in the puddle.  At that point, I decided it was bath time!

Big Rock, mosquitoes, and two crazy kids

Poor Emma & Ike....  I had the bright idea to hike to Big Rock (at the Morton Arboretum) yesterday, and I invited them to join me & The Great Sosini.  Even though the weather was dry and the temperature was perfect (high 60's), I failed to take into account the recent rains.  As a result, we were almost eaten alive by mosquitoes, and the area around Big Rock was too muddy to hang around for long, anyway.  I didn't even get any very good pictures of the kids at the rock.  Argh.  But after we escaped back to the non-mosquito-y picnic area and had a spot of lunch, the kids got in giddy moods, and hilarity ensued.

Sonia & Ike stood for a long time in these branches, shaking the leaves and laughing hysterically for no reason. 

They gave each other several cute hugs, but I missed each one when I tried to take a picture.  The last hug ended up with the kids falling over and Sonia getting a bloody lip.  Love hurts!

I did get a couple of pictures of the bestest buddies holding hands!

Sorry you got chomped by a million mosquitoes, Emma & Ike, but we did end up having a great time anyway!

Husky Grad

Congratulations to my brother, Jordan, who just graduated from the University of Washington yesterday!!!!!!!  We are all so proud of you, and I really wish I could have been there to see you walk across the stage in that sharp cap & gown.

Sorry I totally copied you, Niki.

Daddy & Sosini weekend

Last weekend, for the first time since I flew to Nashville to meet 5-week-old Peter in January 2010, I spent a weekend away from The Great Sosini.  It was liberating and heart-wrenching at the same time, but I knew she was in good hands at home with Andrew.  Plus, I had plenty of distraction; I helped my mom's side of the family celebrate the high school graduation of my sister-cousin, Abbey.  Unfortunately, I have no pictures to share from my trip because I forgot to get a copy of them from my mom, and she is currently in the midst of moving from LA to Dallas, so I don't really feel like I can bother her for them at the moment. 

Just like the last time Andrew had a solo-parenting weekend, he proved that he is a fantastic father, great housekeeper (the house was sparkling clean when I arrived home!), and the best husband I could have ever imagined.  Although he seemed a bit on the exhausted side, he claimed to have had a lovely weekend with The Great Sosini, and Sonia was happy as a clam.

Here are the awesome pictures that Andrew texted me while I was away.  He did such a great job showing Sonia a good time and sending me the occasional picture to keep me from suffering too greatly from Sosini-withdrawal.  This first set of pictures is from a playgroup outing to Cantigny to check out the beautiful park grounds and awesome tanks.

Of course, Andrew had Sonia reenact a famous scene from the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.  I mean, who wouldn't?

When he sent this next picture to me, he entitled it "Indiana Jones": 

His caption for this next picture was "Dr. Strangelove".

Sonia and the boys were preparing to hijack this tank and take over the western suburbs of Chicago.

Sonia on a Panzer:

I'm not sure why Sonia looks so dour in this next picture, because if Andrew surprised me with a candle-lit dinner of take-out from Bavarian Lodge, I'd be ecstatic!

On Andrew's second day of solo parenting, he proved he is the coolest dad ever by driving Sonia all the way downtown to go to the Shedd Aquarium.  Seriously.  How awesome is that?  Predictably, Sosini LOVED the aquarium a ton.  I was so jealous that I had missed out on going to the Shedd that we went back this weekend!

Sonia was so wiped out from the Shedd adventure that she slept 30 minutes on the drive home, and then she let Andrew take her upstairs to her bed, where she proceeded to sleep for almost 2 more hours!!  Amazing.  This is practically unheard of for our child.  When Sleeping Beauty woke up, Andrew busted out the water table and let Sonia happily splash to her heart's content until dinnertime.  After dinner, Andrew decided that Sonia hadn't had enough of a wonderful day, so he took her out for ice cream after dinner.  DADDY OF THE YEAR!  Nay, THE DECADE!

Andrew had just 2/3rds of a day more to go, but he wasn't content to rest on his laurels.  Sunday morning, he brought Sonia to the Children's Garden at the arboretum to run amok.

When I got home from the airport that afternoon, Sonia was up from her nap and again happily splashing in her water table.  Sure, she was happy to see me, but I got the feeling that she hadn't missed me all that much.  Sosini was too busy having fun with her fantastic daddy! 

Thank you again, Andrew, for being so amazing.  You may not be Sonia's primary care-giver, but you have the incredible ability to step into that role with no problems whatsoever.  I wish I could clone you and sell you-- I would be a billionaire!  And, then you could retire and we would have fantastic adventures with The Great Sosini every day.  For now, trust me when I tell you that Sonia is the luckiest little girl on the planet to have you as her daddy.