Tribute to Virginia Burton

Sophie's great grandmother (Paula's last surviving grandparent), Virginia Burton, passed away this afternoon in Nashville, TN. (Paula and Sophie had already planned to be in Nashville during this time.) Matt was able to drive down in time for the family visitation and funeral. Grandmother Burton lived a long, full life, and she was always glad to see Sophie when she came to visit. We'll be sure to tell Sophie how wonderful her great grandmother was as Sophie grows up. She was always such a generous and wise person who was glad to do anything for you. She loved the Lord and she loved her family. We're glad that she's free of pain now and we look forward to seeing her again in heaven someday. Below is the most recent picture of Sophie and her great grandmother, taken at Christmas last year.

Sophie blogs

Nana gave Sophie a "laptop computer" a while ago. Sophie loves to blog with her daddy. This week some of our friends from Nashville came and visited us-Jenny and Jason Davis and Laura and Ben Byars. They had a lot of fun seeing the sights around Charleston, and the Davis' wrote about the trip in their blog. We had fun going out to dinner a couple of times, hanging out, and going on a Ghost Tour while a babysitter kept Sophie.

We pulled out a rocking horse that another family gave us. Sophie loved rocking on it, but after a few days we had to take it away from her because she kept standing on the seat and falling off. She would also get mad if you told her she couldn't climb all over the horse. We will pull it out again for her to play with in a couple of months.

Road Trip

Our little future virtuoso bangs on Grandma and Grandpa's piano. For the weekend before July 4th, our family drove up to Richmond, VA and visited Matt's family including his parents, sister and aunt and uncle. We all had a nice 4th with a cookout. On Wednesday, our immediate family drove on up to Maryland where we used to live. Matt did some work there while Sophie & Paula were able to meet up with some friends during the day. We all enjoyed seeing some of our old friends. Sophie was a good little traveller during the long trips in the car. We can't believe how much Sophie's walking has improved in the last 2 weeks. She wants to walk just about everywhere!

Mommy & Sophie on Independence Day
Sophie in her watermelon dress kept walking towards Daddy as he took this picture of her.
Sophie met her friends, Anna & Sidney, at the park. Sophie and Anna liked driving the car best.
Sophie met Nelson for the first time and they hit it off!

Boone Hall Plantation

Sophie in the butterfly house at Boone Hall. Our family in front of the Boone Hall plantation house and the line of oaks in front of the house. During the last week of June, Paula's mom and sister, Martha, came to visit. We had a great time visiting the beach, the waterpark, playing tourist downtown, and visiting this plantation!

Just 'Jammin'

OK, here's Sophie with the wild new 'do' that Mommy had fun creating during bath time. She seems to love it, right?! =) This week, Sophie's been spending a lot of quality time with her Nana and Aunt Martha who have been visiting. Nana gave Sophie this cool new outfit and she actually wore the bandanna for a few hours! Amazing! Especially since her sunglasses come off in about 2 seconds flat!

We went to the beach twice this week and to the pool once. Sophie is such a beach girl! She loves the whole experience. We'll try to get some pictures up sometime if possible. Have a great 4th! We're headed to Richmond, VA and then up to MD for a few days.

Oh, the big news here is that Sophie FINALLY started walking independently last week. Yay!!

"Little Mama " Sophie at play

Sophie loves to take care of her dolls. She sometimes carries them around and then frequently drops them on the floor and forgets about them. She's very cute with her dolls! We now have a fence in our backyard so that when Sophie becomes more proficient with walking, she can't run out into the lake behind our house! We've been impressed with Sophie's eye-hand coordination. She will often roll a little ball right to us! Hopefully, she got her athletic ability from someone other than her Mom & Dad!


This summer has been a lot of fun so far. We've been to Splash Zone several times, a nearby water park which is perfect for little kids with shallow water she can walk in, little slides, etc. We have also been to the park in general to go for walks, visit the playground, and take bike rides (with Sophie behind her Mommy or Daddy). We've been to the beach too and
Sophie loves it! We'll have to take pictures the next time we go!

Picture time!!!

Saturday morning, we took Sophie for some portraits at Portrait Innovations in Mt. Pleasant. She had a great time posing and smiling for pictures. The photographer took 72 pictures, and we had a hard time narrowing down the selection to a manageable number. Choosing pictures took longer than posing for photos.