Sonia versus Santa, round 5

Another successful year!  Sosini thinks lap-sitting is not for her, and I can't really blame her.  Once again, we went to Bass Pro Shops for our Santa picture, and once again, we loved the whole experience!

A walk down memory lane:

Preschool Pictures!

I kinda wish I had remembered to get Sonia's bangs cut before picture day, but oh well....

It almost looks like she's wearing lip gloss, but I think she had just been running around and playing right before the picture was taken.  I love that the picture background is the playground at the preschool!!  Adorable.

The teacher on the left is Sonia's beloved Mrs. O, and the teacher on the right is the aide, Mrs. Tomchek, whom Sonia also adores.  I seriously love this picture-- the kid to the left of Sonia is crossing his eyes, the little boy in the front row all the way on the left looks asleep, the boy second from the right in the front row apparently has a migraine, the boy standing on the far right is studying his toes....  Classic.  Fabulous.  Preschool.

First Day of 4's Preschool!

First day of school.... Sonia got all gussied up in her gorgeous first-day-of-school outfit (courtesy of Grandma JoJo-- thank you!!!) and happily posed by her daddy's crops (peppers, basil, and parsley).

Sonia, your sunglasses are upside-down!

She caught sight of a roly-poly and forgot all about preschool for a moment.

Ok, back to posing!

Now back to the roly-poly.

C'mon, Mom! It's time for school!

Meeting up with her buddy, Riley! Bummer that Riley is in the other MWF 4's class.

Found her cubby!

Mrs. O and Sonia.... Ready for learning!

Sonia marched right into class after I took this picture (I had to call her back to give me a smooch).... Such a difference from last year! She had a rough time at drop-off last year for the majority of the year. I hope this easy drop-off behavior lasts!!

Summer 2013

I haven't been all that great at updating this blog lately (all of my extra energy goes into crocheting and blogging has taken a serious backseat!), so here's a mega-post filled with snippets of activities Sonia has done this summer.

Palling around with BFF Sami (If you look closely, you can see the owie on Sonia's bottom lip-- she took a header into a nightstand while horsing around the night before.  OUCH!!):

Fishing at the Lakeview Nature Center with Emma and Ike while I was at work (This summer, I started a part-time job doing the books for a tiny architecture firm-- it's about 8 hours a month!):

Seriously, Emma is the coolest babysitter EVER!!

Destroying the basement with her BFF, Ike:

(Why was the coffee table upside-down?  WHY?!?)

Snuggling with her godfather, Gonzo (he and godmother Emily came to hang out with us over the 4th of July weekend):

Being a really brave girl and doing the zip line at Blackberry Farm about 100 times:

Having a complete blast at our third annual neighborhood picnic (well, 4-5 families in our neighborhood, anyway).... Here are the moms:

Here are the dads (and one kid who crashed the picture):

Here are some of the kids (there was no way we could get them all together for a group picture!):

Riding the carousel at Brookfield Zoo:

Being a complete nutter butter at Dragonfly Landing Park:

Loving her playgroup friends (holy cow, she has known some of them for almost 4 years now!!):

Having a lovely time with my Aunt Kim and cousins, Abbey & Cady Lane, when they came through town on their way to drop off Abbey for her junior year at Indiana University:

Going to her very first baseball game!  We saw the Kane County Cougars and she got this awesome foam cougar paw (which she calls a "monster claw"):

School starts in 4 days.... Goodbye summer, hello school year!  This year, Sonia will be taking gymnastics at the Downers Grove rec center and jazz dance at the Lisle Park District.  Stories and pictures to come.....

Glamping with Daddy

Another Genius Daddy moment: taking our daughter camping on the deck outside our house.  Sonia has been dying to go camping ever since she found out it meant sleeping in a tent (boy, do little kids love tents!!).  So, Genius Daddy bought a tent and the adventure began.

The view from inside our master bedroom:

Andrew chose a 6-man tent so he could fit our queen-sized air mattress inside.

Because they're camping just a few inches from the house AND sleeping in comfort, I am referring to the exercise as "glamping" (glamorous camping).

So that the rain cover didn't completely cut off the air supply (it's pretty humid and in the high 70's, which results in a steamy tent within minutes unless it's vented properly), Andrew tied it to the posts on the deck railing.

Sonia is IN LOVE with the tent!

Maniacal camping grin!

We'll see how it goes....  Andrew just put Sonia down to bed (it's 8pm) and he's going to sit outside and read until he's sleepy enough to go to bed himself.  Me?  I'm going downstairs soon to watch Project Runway and enjoy the comfort of air conditioning and a nice couch.

Genius Daddy

Sonia and Andrew love to "play" golf together.  A couple of years ago, I bought Sonia a plastic set of golf clubs out of the Dollar Spot at Target, and she's been in love with them ever since.  Andrew has played mini golf with Sonia twice now, and they had so much fun that he went out and bought her a real putter (kid-sized, obviously).  At least once a week, I find the two of them downstairs in the basement, putting golf balls (plastic ones and real ones).  But, Andrew confided in me, it drives him nuts that Sonia will only play for 5 minutes at a time.  She has the attention span of a typical four-year-old, that's for sure.

Sonia also loves Angry Birds and Angry Birds Star Wars.  She's been amassing a small army of Angry Birds pencil toppers for the past 8 months.  How does a Genius Daddy like Andrew get Sonia to play golf with him for longer than 5 minutes?  Combine golf and Angry Birds Star Wars.

Sonia and Andrew took a bunch of the bad guys (such as the Stormtrooper Piggy and Jabba the Hut Piggy above) and set each one on top of a gorilla block (cool lightweight lego-type blocks that Sonia and Andrew also love to play with).  They then placed all the piggies in a line.

Then, they putted golf balls at the gorilla blocks and considered it a success if they were able to knock the piggies off of the blocks.

Notice the tail end of Margie cat in the bottom left-hand corner of this picture.... She loves her best friend, Sonia.

They played this funny game for 20 minutes!  That's an eon in little kid time.

Oh, Andrew.  You are awesome.