The Family York: Our Growing Girl, and a Growing Mommy!

We have been busy with our house expansion since the beginning of the year, and things have been a mess around here! We are managing to go about our lives as best we can with so much change happening and living in a constant mess. Keeping Sophie busy during heavy construction days has been interesting. She has made friends with all of the people who have come to work on the house. In fact, she asks about them by name. Who can resist our sweet little girl? Once our contractor introduced her to his new puppy, they were soon all considered chopped liver until she was able to pet the puppy. A similar situation to that with her Grandma and Grandpa. When we Facetime with them, the first thing she asks about is seeing their dog. As a matter of fact, it's one of her first questions for most people that she meets. "Do you have a dog? What's it's name?" After the questions she goes on to tell them she has a dog named Lucy Boots. A statement that always makes me smile and pulls at my heartstrings. I usually don't have the heart to tell her new friends that Lucy lost her battle with cancer three months ago. I am amazed and thankful for her memory!

18 weeks

Sophie and her future best friend

We found out a few weeks ago that we are expecting a baby boy! Sophie is aware and let's everyone know there is a baby brother in mommy's belly. She frequently hugs and kisses my belly, and sometimes puts her ear to it to listen for a minute. She tells me that she can hear him kicking inside. She does some of the sweetest things sometimes. We have talked a lot about the permanence of this baby brother. I don't think it's a concept that she fully understands yet. She knows there is a little baby in my belly, but she doesn't understand that he will be a part of our family in our home forever. Boy is she in for a surprise!

I have asked her if she will take care of her new brother and of course she responds with an excited "Yes"! She has also told me a few other things that she will teach him. Three things that she mentioned one night were to teach him to read, go pee pee on the potty, and how to get the mail. The important things in the life of a three year-old!

Sweet baby boy!

22 weeks

Date night with Dan, almost 23 weeks

24 weeks

Mother's day with my girl!

Our big girl paints her own nails! She's getting pretty good at it!

On a water ride at Universal Studios

Grandma Elaine came to visit in April! We had a wonderful, relaxing weekend. Grandma played with Sophie, read her books and tickled her for as long as she could stand it. Our little girl loves to be tickled and could probably stand it for a hours at a time! Another thing she loves to do is whistle. Sounds crazy, but if I can recall, I think she's been whistling since she was two. One time at dinner I told her to blow on her food to cool it off and out came a whistle. We were both surprised by this, and she has remembered how to do it ever since. She just goes around whistling every now and then. While Elaine was in town, Sophie worked hard on teaching her how to whistle. It was a funny sight!

Playing with our farm animals

Teaching Grandma how to whistle

Grandma and Sophie relaxing on our new back porch

Selfie with the girls

I love her face in this picture. A puppy loves to chew on anything!

Playing in the rain

This girl loves the dirt. Wonder what she will do when we put sod there...

Sophie read to mommy this evening

We have found something fun to do for the next few weeks! Florida is home to some beautiful blueberry patches come to find out. We have already made a few trips to our local patch. We have saved some in our freezer, made some yummy muffins, and have mostly eaten them right out of the container. They are delicious!

Sophie has a fun time finding the berries and picking them off the bushes. One of the ladies that worked at the patch instructed us where to get the sweet berries and said we could taste them right off the bush. Sophie heard her loud and clear! I think half of the blueberries she picked went into her belly. Before Dan left for work that morning, we mentioned that we were going to pick blueberries. He told us a story about going to the strawberry patch when he was younger. As he left the patch one day, someone told him that they should weigh him before and after picking berries to see how much they should charge for all the ones that he put in his mouth! Just another way Sophie is just like her Daddy!!

We had gone back another time to pick some more blueberries. We had been at it for about ten minutes and I saw a nice layer of berries in the bottom of her bucket. We kept going and she searched on for the yummy ones. About 15 minutes later, I looked in her bucket to see that it was empty! She had polished off the ones she picked! I giggled and encouraged her to put more in her bucket than in her belly.

We made blueberry muffins!

Fist time on the swan paddle boats at Lake Eola downtown Orlando

The City Beautiful

We found some hungry ducks on our morning walk one day. We had been out to this lake the day prior and found ducks with their babies. Sophie quickly picked some grass to throw in the pond which encouraged the ducklings to come closer. I told her that we would have to bring some bread with us next time we came to the pond so we could feed the hungry family. So, we decided to come back the next day armed with some bread. The ducklings were the first to arrive followed by their mommies. They were very interested and didn't hesitate to come right up to Sophie.

A few busy momma's, I counted seven ducklings between the two of them!

Sophie's friend Sloane came over one night so her mommy and daddy could go on a date. Sophie reminds me all the time that Sloane is her best friend! They have such a fun time together, I can't imagine the good friends they are going to be as they grow older. When it was time to go to bed, we got a little taste of what it's going to be like as they get older. We laid a sleeping bag down on the floor and gave them some books. They read to each other, tickled each other, and giggled a little past their bedtime, but it was really sweet to see.