The Truth About the Egg

Who needs school? Sophie has considered the chicken AND the egg, and drawn her own conclusions. Tonight at dinner she was snacking on a hard boiled egg and, completely unprompted, held it out to us and asked, "Baby Chicken?" And then answered herself: "yeah." So then I ran and got the camera to see if she would tell us more. She launched into this high-pitched, hilarious Sophie voice that is most often used to mock her mother (or when she is pretending to be a parent and tells her doll, "Come onnnnnnn!" or "Oh, man!") See (and hear) for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn8Y5DH-v-k

Then Frank "interviewed" her to find out more about her egg theory:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFp0rkAdttc

Sorry for so many videos in one post, but THEN she picked up the phone and started having a conversation with Mommy and Daddy (not the ones sitting in front of her, but the "others") so Frank decided to call her using his cell phone. She was pretty shocked to hear a voice coming from the phone when she thought she was just pretending. Hilarious:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo3cirhRUeA

Sorry they're not embedded. I used to know how to do that but I keep getting error messages about tags. Blogger pals, any ideas how to fix that?

Blue Girl Group

Sophie's a very serious (er...contemplative) artist:

She's getting quite good at declaring (accurately) her brush strokes: "Painting circles." or "I painting rainbows" (when making arcs). She's not so keen with colors yet. The entire time she was painting this masterpiece she was muttering, "pink, pink, pink."

And I call this one: Why We Don't Paint More Often.
Subtitle: Don't Touch ANYTHING, Sophie!

Happy Birthday, Laney!

Sophie has been practicing the Happy Birthday song for months, now. She finally got to perform it in public, at a real birthday party (instead of a Target aisle or a restaurant). Happy Birthday, Laney friend!

This was her cake CHOMP when she thought no one was looking:

What?! Of course I'm using my fork!

BOUNCY CASTLE FUN!!

Sophie loved playing with Laney's art easel, and that made us very, very happy because that's exactly what the birthday fairy stashed under our guest bed, waiting for Sophie's birthday next week! Dr. T, maybe you should get one for Jack, too!

Bouncy Movies

Laney had a bouncy, bouncy birthday party! Click on the links below to see some videos:

http://www.youtube.com/v/Q6JWhDoyG00

http://www.youtube.com/v/QI4heGrMSIk

Ditchdirt becoms Surfsand

A decade (or more?) ago, the Ditchdirt group of friends hit the beach. We were single then -- we stacked pyramids of beer cans and got sunburned and laughed at Matthew picking up girls with his "sin o con ropa!" invite back to the hot tub.

Last weekend, Ditchdirt returned to the beach. The group has morphed somewhat (with new faces and slightly older looking faces). Many of us are married with kids, now. Instead of beer cans we stacked dominos so the kids could watch them fall. No one really got too badly burned because we're all packin' 50 spf sunblock these days. We still laughed at Matthew, but he's not into picking up girls these days. And you know what? I had a TON of fun.

And this marks the end of our summer posts, I guess. Next Wednesday, Sophie starts school (GASP). The following Monday, Frank and I head back to school, too. Summer, we hardly knowed ya. Come again soon...

Click HERE to see more pics from our beach trip: DITCHDIRTBEACHTRIP

Chinese Torture

They don't use water anymore, they use lead. On Elmo. Sacrilege. And the Fisher Price website doesn't tell you how to explain recalls to a toddler. Elmo's going inside an envelope! Elmo's going on vacation! Elmo won't be coming back because Elmo was trying to kill you... (this is where my speech needs tweaking).

So...if you haven't heard yet, there are 80 or so Fisher Price product lines, which translates to millions of toys, that have been recalled. You may want to check the site if you've got little ones (or a Dora collection -- weirdo). Personally, I think Dora got what was coming to her. She's always yelling, that one.

Tea and Jam

The tea party was with Momma and Albert Cowmoo and Baby So-so (not pictured -- she's the baby that looks kind of like Sophie...she's "so-so Sophie."

The jam session was with our Laney friend. (The video quality is pretty low on this one because I had to brighten it up...just think of it as a bootlegged recording from a smoky bar and you won't mind the low quality so much.) I'm particularly fond of Laney's head-banging skills. The future girlband also wrote a song about applesauce (complete with harmonies), but I didn't capture it in its entirety and they've asked that it not be broadcast until we can tweak it in post-production.

Play With Your Food

One piggie tail went to market; one piggie tail stayed home. One funny kid sang a song about her brussel sprout turning into a bunny. We call this one: Sing for Your Supper!

Creative Math

Sophie has been able to count to ten for a while now. Yesterday she took a few steps towards twenty.

Sophie: ten...eleven...twelve...thirteen...(long pause)
Frank: What comes next? What comes after thirteen?
Sophie: Um. Yellow?

Did I mention that both of her parents are English teachers?

Surf and Sand

More Myrtle Beach Fun

We explored a pier after a seafood dinner in Murrel's Inlet:

Here's our little family (stretched-out arm pose):

Sophie's reaction to the Japanese Steakhouse show ("It's interesting, but not good enough to put down my soup spoon."):

Running through a field at Broadway on the Beach (where she tasted fudge, saltwater taffy, an Icee, and yes...built an animal at THE build-a-bear workshop). Here, we're trying to run off some of her sugar high:

Beach Bums Again!

I've been a little behind on posting because we've been driving across the country to South Carolina. I was a bit nervous about the 24 hours we'd be in the car, but my brother's portable DVD player and a little friend named Elmo came to the rescue whenever the whining started.

Now we're in a giant beachhouse with the entire Webster family -- Sophie gets to play with her six cousins all week and love on Granddad and Mamaw! The cousins dug a hole in the sand that Sophie then proclaimed as her personal wading pool:

Wallowing like a rhino in the mud:

She tried a few dives (really!) but the cannon balls were more successful:

Here are six of the seven grandkids:

Rain, Rain, Go Away

We want to go swimming. We want to ride bikes to the park and then swing, swing, swing. Every now and then, we want to go to the wildflower center or to the farmy marky. It's summer and we live in Texas!!! Sheesh. But if we can't beat you, rain, I guess we'll join you.

Sophie's First Snip

I've been putting off a haircut for the girl because:
1) I want Sophie's pretty blonde hair to grow out and look natural and
2) it hasn't really grown out very long, so why cut it yet? and
3) there is some weird Samson mystique to toddler hair. Like...God created this little being and he thought she would look great with muppet bangs, so why mess with his vision?

But that's precisely why I finally broke down and took Sophie for her first haircut. It was messing with her vision. And it wasn't really a cut...just a snip. In fact, I think the stylist was annoyed with me for wasting her time. And apparently "wispy" is not a term widely used in kiddie salons.


Oh, and to document history correctly -- it was technically my sister-in-law Claudia who gave Sophie her first haircut. But that was a three second "wispy bang" trim (Claudia gets me) and was over before we had time to whip out the camera. So we have documentation this time.

The BEFORE shot:

The salon, complete with trainsets, toys, fun barber chairs, and Elmo rather than the standard stylist gossip:

And the AFTER shot, with ever-so-slightly shorter piggies and just a dusting of bangs:

Sophie-neers

Well, we took our first "sans Sophie" vacation this summer -- just a three night jaunt to Playa del Carmen, Mexico -- but it was only the second time I had ever spent the night away from Sophie and the first time that we had BOTH left her overnight. She did great, of course. Nini stayed with her at our house for two nights and then she spent the night with Laneyfriend on Saturday. All reports indicate that she hardly noticed we were gone, but I have noticed an increase in long, fierce hugs since we've returned.

Our photos from Meheeeco aren't that great because we spent most of our time relaxing and saying, "Hey...it's naptime and we don't have to leave the beach and go inside!" or "Hey, it's 10 o'clock at night and we're eating dinner out!" But there was a little bit of documentation. You can see it if you go to http://www.frankandstacy.net/ or click on PLAYA PICS. We don't have any pictures of our two favorite adventures -- swimming in an underground river and snorkeling for hours. It was so peaceful.

We also spent a few hours away from our hotel pool (and bar), shopping in Playa del Carmen for Sophie souvenirs. We brought back marionettes, flutes, wooden bobble-head animals, a doll, and a pretty dress. See below: