sonja's birthday party

we had fun celebrating sonja's 1st birthday last week. on her actual birthday we had a family celebration at home. riley helped me make chocolate cupcakes, decorate the house and pick out a few small gifts for her. we had so much fun getting everything ready for our sweet sonja! she loved her cupcake and we had fun thinking about her birth just 1 year ago.

then on sunday we had a family party for her in seattle. my family and tyler's family were able to be there and we had a yummy lunch, cake and presents. it was so fun to celebrate with the whole family. (we missed you rachel and sarah!)

i took sonja to her 12 month doctors appointment on monday and i got some of her stats. she weighs 18lbs 11oz and is 27 1/2" long. both in the 20%...we have a petite one! her head, however, is in the 95%! she is wearing some 6-12 month and some 12-18 month sizes. her feet are tiny...she still fits into 0-6 month shoes.

sonja is such a delight. she smiles and babbles all day long. she loves her sister and is generally happy. she is a speed crawler and is walking along the furniture and when we hold her hands. she loves to climb and is starting to love to pull everything apart! she can sit and play for a while, especially in riley's room. it is so adorable to see the two of them playing next to each other. sonja loves music and has even started dancing and waving both her hands up and down when she hears it. she is still taking 2 naps each day, but seems to be transitioning into 1. she still just has two top and two bottom teeth, but is working on a few new top teeth. everywhere we go people stop and admire sonja and her bright white blond hair and big bright blue eyes. she really has a way of drawing people in and seems to be quite social.

we love you sonja! you have added so much to our life in this last year. we are excited to see you grow this next year into a toddler!

First day of Preschool

Riley had her first day of preschool this morning. She did about 4 months of preschool last fall until we decided to pull her out. It was pricey, got in the way of Sonja's sleep and I was not really wanting to start the whole school routine until we absolutely had to. I'm really glad I decided to do that. It's given us lots of time to just be at home playing this past year. It's amazing how much difference a year can make though. Riley has been really ready for school these last few months. She's needed something more than just being home with me. So today could not come soon enough! She just went for 1 hour, then Thursday she'll start in with her normal schedule. She was very excited last night, but definitely had a lot of nerves mixed in too. She had a little trouble falling asleep and we even had some tears (although the tears were mostly due to Tyler's travel schedule).

Both Tyler and I were able to take her to school this morning and she was all smiles. She was especially excited about finding her cubby and being able to put her sweater in it. She was very brave and walked right into her classroom to her teacher. We were very proud of her and all I could think was, "When did my little baby get so big?!" It's always a mixed bag of emotions, watching my kids accomplish new things in this world. But mostly just very exciting and fun.

She was excited to see me when I picked her up and the teacher said she did great. She complained of a tummy ache today, which I hear and read is normal for any kind of change in a kid's life. After an afternoon walk to the park, she told me her tummy was feeling much better. She crashed at 7 tonight, a sure sign of a good day.

happy 1st birthday sonja

we are so excited over here that our little sonja drew is 1 today! she is a true delight and this past year has been full of so much joy. more on her 1 year stats later.

we love you sonja. we can't wait to see what you do with your chocolate cupcake tonight!