The Funny Things She Says and Does

This kid makes us laugh every single day.

Sunday night, we had the end of year English Dept. party at our house. There were a few speeches from folks leaving the department, and as we clapped, Sophie stood in the middle of the crowd and clapped and squealed. Then she did what her Daddy has taught her to do: twirl and bow, twirl and bow, twirl and bow.

Frank brought her to me in bed this morning and when I said, "Hi, baby," she answered back in this groggy little voice, "Hiiiiii, baby."

Instead of "I did it!" Sophie shouts, "I dig it!"

I dig it, too, Soph.

Mother's Day Weekend in Ft. Worth

As Stacy and I headed north with Sophie and Callie in the back seat, we were drawn to a spectacular roadside attraction. Well, actually the little fuel light came on, which attracted us to a Kwik Stop for gas, and there, spinning in all its glory, was a small electric carousel. And for only 25 cents I couldn't pass up the opportunity to explain hybrid elephant/ducks (is that an elephuck?).

The real roadside attraction was in Weatherford at the farm. The wildflowers are spectacular this year, so we strolled out into the meadow by the lake for some obligatory kid-in-a-Texas-field shots.

Tragic Mistakes of a Young Mother

Sophie has these two little baby dolls that fit nicely in her hand. She likes to hold them and rock back and forth saying "Sssh ssh ssh ssh." She's attentive and loving and nurturing...but not so big on infant safety. Today she was in her room reading a book to one of the babies, and I left her there to go make my bed. She came rushing in saying, "Uh oh, baby! Uh oh, baby! Help! Help!" I followed her back to the scene of the crime:

Yep..Timmy's down the well, alright. Here's Rescue Attempt #1:

She was none too happy that I was photographing the event instead of helping, so before MY baby got stuck (and I really did have a quick image flash through my head of hauling her into the emergency room with this toy stuck on her elbow), I leapt into action and "delivered" both babies. Sophie was SO relieved and lavished them with kisses:

Sophie's First Pony Ride

Sophie's no priss

She's willing to get a little dirty for the sake of her art. And if snack time happens to coincide with art time, so be it. Blue lips.

She saw Momma eating a salad and wanted "bite bite bite!" I popped a crouton in her mouth so she wouldn't touch the food herself with her rainbow-colored fingers, but she'd never had a crouton before so she had to reach up, take it out of her mouth, inspect it, pop it back in, then show it to Daddy:

Sophie's fingerpainting skills transferred nicely to the garden later in the day when she painted her face with mud. When I told her she was a messy little garden gnome, she picked up some gravel and pretended to wash her hair. She LOVES getting dirty!

Garage Sale Mania

Our neighborhood hosts two garage sale weekends a year. I am always torn about whether to clean out the garage and make some cash OR to go hit up all the sales and fill our garage with more junk. I finally decided that I was going to pull out two pieces of furniture that we had in the garage and see if anyone driving by would make an offer. But to GET to those two pieces of furniture, it turned out that I had to drag a whole bunch of crapola out into the driveway. Frank added a couple of guitars (don't worry -- he still has ten), and the result of our spring cleaning? $900, baby! We have some free airline tickets to Mexico this summer, and that just paid for our hotel in Playa del Carmen (and a really big margarita). Bonus, we are really, really close to being able to park a car in the garage again.

While we were cleaning out the garage, we ran across this antique car (found in an abandoned farmhouse on land near my grandmother's place). We thought we would clean it up and repaint it -- maybe for the next kid. Instead, Frank attached a leash and entertained Sophie for a while:

When things hit a lull on Saturday, Sophie and I headed out to see what was left at the sales and bought ALL of these dollhouses for just $30. I only wanted one because she was playing with the little schoolhouse and bus and I thought that was cute, but they wanted $8 for one house or $30 for all. Who could pass that up? We're going to share them with Laney and Lucy, because NO little girl needs NINE dollhouses:

Sophie also got this cute doctor's kit for FREE. (Because it was actually in our garage with some school props and we didn't know it.)

The best "find" of the weekend was on Sunday, when we were driving around after church trying to get Sophie to fall asleep. Only a few stragglers were still selling, and they were all willing to drop their prices to get rid of the stuff. Frank found this great bike buggy, quite the step up from hauling Sophie with a leash. He took Sophie and CreepyBaby on the maiden voyage Sunday afternoon:

Maggie found adorable matching bike helmets for the girls, and every day this week Frank has come home, loaded up the munchkins, and gone on a ride around the neighborhood. Now they never want to take the helmets off: