B-Day Party Time

Sophie with Nana

Paula's family during their visit.
Martha, Paula, Phil, Sophie, Matt, Nana & Pappy

Sophie's Noah's Ark Cake

Sophie getting messy while eating the cake

Sophie gets some assistance to walk from Mommy and Nana. Sophie on her new riding toy.

Sophie officially turns a year old on May 1. We celebrated with Paula's family and a few friends from church on Saturday, April 29, 2006. We had beautiful weather and had a great time, even though Sophie didn't get much of a nap before the party. She knew there was something going on with Mommy bringing in balloons and a cake and family visiting! Despite all of that, she was really good throughout the party. Once we fed her a few bites of the cake, she dug in on her own! She found out that it was OK to get messy on your birthday! This year just seems to have flown by! It's hard to believe. We are planning to celebrate with Matt's family in a couple of weeks so we'll just keep celebrating for a little while.

Sophie's first step

Although Sophie has been cruising on furniture for a long time now and is quite confident, we didn't see her take a step independently until April 24, 2006, just one week before her first birthday. We like to hold her hands and help her walk. She has great balance and we knew she could do it. However, she often gets down to crawl rather than challenging herself to walk where she doesn't feel quite comfortable. It won't be long though until she's walking everywhere!

Sophie's 1st Easter

Sophie woke up on Easter Sunday to find a basket full of little goodies left by the Easter bunny. She was not feeling well that day. She fell asleep as we drove to Carrabba's for lunch after church and slept halfway through the meal! When we got home she was awake for a while before conking out again for 2 hours! It was just as well that she went to an Easter egg hunt 2 weeks before since she didn't feel well on Easter Sunday.

Weekend at the Beach

On the weekend before Easter, we met Matt's parents and sister (Leia) at Myrtle Beach, SC. This was Sophie's first official trip to the beach. Although the weather warmed up a lot during the day on Saturday, it was still quite windy and a little cool. However, we let Sophie put her feet in the ocean to experience the COLD water and we let her experience sand firsthand. (Her Daddy and Grandpa enjoyed covering her up in the sand.) After spending a few minutes on the beach, we all enjoyed hanging out in the indoor pool which was nice and warm. We also enjoyed having a beautiful view of the ocean from our hotel room and doing some shopping. The hotel didn't have a bath tub so Sophie took her first shower (with both parents assisting) which was very interesting! One of Sophie's newest tricks is pointing at everything.

Springtime with Sophie

Sophie borrowed a car from her friend Hailee. Beep! Beep!
Sophie in a wagon.
Sophie with Charleston and the Harbor in the background. This picture was taken at the site of the Confederate Fort Johnson, the fort where the first shots of the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter. Fort Johnson is also the location of the laboratory where Matt works.
Sophie and Paula in our front yard with the beautiful azaleas.