Sophie is 4!

Here is the latest on my precious little Sophie, now that she is 4 years old!

Stats (at 4 years 1 month):
34.5 pounds, ~43thrd percentile
40.25 inches, ~64th percentile
vision- 20/25 in R eye and 20/30 in L eye

Motor skills:
Fine motor- Sophie can write her own name and her sister's- you'll see why momentarily:) She is also starting to get the hang of cutting. Sophie's drawing and coloring have also improved significantly- both her teacher and her Sunday school teachers remark at what a nice job she does with her coloring. Her drawings of people look quite similar to last year, but with a lot more detail:)
Gross motor-Sophie is a great galloper and somersaulter:) She can pump on the swings really well now and is quite proud of this accomplishment. She is also learning to ride her first bike (thanks, Grandpa Bill!). Once she gets the hang of the whole looking where you're going thing, she'll be great!

School skills:
Sophie is starting to put letter sounds together. In fact, she surprised even herself when she read the word 'me' the other day. However, I think her area of strength is with numbers, as she is catching on to some of the same concepts that Lily is learning in school, such as coin identification and counting by 10's- much to lily's annoyance:) She is also loving learning new bible stories each week in school and she is really absorbing what she is learning. For example, she often reminds me that God loves everybody so, so much even when we disobey. . .

Personality:
I would characterize Sophie mainly by the following: Strong-willed, persistent, determined, imaginative, inquisitive, creative, loving, sweet and cuddly. The first three traits have gotten her into a bit of trouble at school on a few occasions, but I must say I'm glad that she has the courage to stick up for herself. Unfortunately, school is not a democracy and I think eventually she will learn to pick her battles. I mean, having to sit on the potty when you don't have to go (even if it is just for your teacher's own peace of mind) is not the worst thing in the world;) Moving on. . .She is definitely a mama's girl; in fact, when we are home she somehow always seems to finagle herself so that she is either sitting on my lap, or at least leaning against me, as well as gives me countless hugs daily.What a lucky mom I am! She loves her daddy a whole bunch too- while she also gives him lots of hugs, she seems to think of him as a great big play structure- ouch! Not to leave out Lily, Sophie will also frequently say, "Oh, Lily. . . I love you" in the most sincere little voice- what a sweetie- a stubborn little sweetie:)

Favorite things :
Color: pink and purple  -Say what!? Yep, green is no longer number 1, but I can tell she still likes green quite a bit.
Food: Meal- macaroni and cheese  Dessert- ice cream and  Vegetable- broccoli
Song: Away in a manger
Book: Madeline
TV show: Mike the Night  -No longer, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!- Yay!
Movie: Cinderella
What she wants to be when she grows up: Dentist

Favorite activities:
1. Drawing and coloring and any type of crafting! On the weekends, Sophie usually wakes up early and goes straight to the toy room in which she will sit at her "desk" and draw or color various masterpieces for at least 1-2 hours! Lately, her main thing is to make a card for Lily. This involves drawing a picture, folding the paper in half, then writing Lily's name on the folded half with a heart underneath. We have countless examples, but here's one of her better ones:

The front of the card- night sky with crescent moon

Inside the card- Sophie, Lily and mommy in a tent and daddy coming with plate of cookies

Back of card- Lily's name with pink and purple hearts

and here's one more of her drawings:

(Members of the Mickey mouse clubhouse holding umbrellas underneath raining heart clouds)

Here is an adorable video I caught of Sophie in action while crafting one day. I call this video "Hidden Tiger, Crafting Sophie" aka Sophie crafting while wearing her Chinese dress and tiger face paint- and singing her little heart out to boot! (the banging you hear in the background is Lily deciding to add some percussion)

and finally here is an example of how creative she is. We have some square pieces of tissue paper sitting around and she used them to make this cute little creature early one Saturday morning:

*I'd say that this favorite of Sophie's is by far her strongest favorite and is what she spends most of her time doing. In fact, I had to sit and think for a while before I could come up with other favorites. I guess this goes back to her determined and persistent personality!

2. Singing and dancing: As I've written and posted video of before(and above), Sophie loves to sing and that she does quite a lot- along to the radio, songs she learns in school, and various songs that she makes up while playing. She also loves to dance to music. She loves to learn Lily's tap numbers and can do most of them right along with her when Lily is practicing at home- it is so cute to watch!

3. Cuddling with her blankies and stuffed animals: This has been fairly consistent over the years. She loves cuddling up with her favorite blankie (over her head) and her favorite stuffed animal at the moment, which changes frequently. She continues to love and nurture her stuffed animals and neglect her baby dolls- just like Lily did!- I guess it runs in the family:)

From the words of her new favorite book, "that's all there is, there isn't any more."

Easter Program 2012!

Resurrection Eggs

Sophie's Entrance

Song: My God is so Big

Song: How Great is our God

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJkte6wfxbk&feature=youtu.be

Interpretive dance performance by Sophie Hesselton:)

Hoolahoop time!

After practicing since last summer, Lily has finally mastered the fine art of hoolahooping! She's so proud of herself- take look:)

Poor Sophie still has some practicing to do. . . but she looks darn cute while trying!

Sophie's birthday party!!

Sophie had a wonderful time at her 3rd birthday party with her grands, aunts, uncles and cousins! Thanks, grammy, for sending me these awesome pictures of the party to share!

Here are a couple pre-party shots of Soph with her best bud:)

After the inevitable dress-up/runway show it was on to the presents- Sophie AND Lily's favorite part!

Yes, Lily may like this part just a little too much- just can't help herself;)

Sophie actually did a great job opening her presents by herself this year- she's growing up- sniff, sniff.

The gift bag was the hit of the night!

It's Santa!

Twister was fun, too. Do they know their left from their right? Nope.

What a ham!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SOPHIE!!!!

Sophie is 3!

Well, what can I say about my beautiful and very special 3 year old? A whole lot! She has grown and matured in a lot of ways this year, but she assures me that she will stay my little baby forever- Oh, phew!

Growth update:

Height: 37in: 47%

Weight: 29.5 lbs: 37%


New skills:

Sophie now knows her alphabet and most of the letter sounds too!- thanks to the Leapfrog Letter Factory dvd(Yes, I know many are opposed to the TV being used as a learning tool, but the combination of a visual combined with song worked very well for both of my children:)). She can identify and count with one to one correspondence for numbers up to 10. She knows all her colors very well including colors like turquoise, tan, and periwinkle! Also, she has recently begun drawing recognizable things (mostly basic people) and her attention span for drawing and coloring has increased tremendously because of this, I think. Her little pictures are so cute:

Not too much to say gross motor-wise. Sophie is running and jumping all over the place like a little monkey. She can pedal or steer her tricycle, not both at the same time- she’s working on it!

One of the biggest changes I’ve noticed is that Sophie’s language and listening skills have increased a great deal, making her seem more and more like a kid and not a toddler. She and Lily now chat (sometimes fight:)) away in the car on the way home from school. I even hear her asking Lily follow up questions to things Lily has said about her day at school. They are playing a lot, as well, and Sophie is really “getting it”-even coming up with some great ideas in the world of pretend play(although, often her idea is, “I know! Mommy can make it for us!”). Sophie is also learning a lot by watching and imitating her big sister; The why questions are beginning to sound all too familiar and the right color socks are also becoming important:)

Sophie’s favorite things at the moment:

-Color: Green is still #1(blue is a close runner up)

-Food: Ice cream, popsicles, ketchup, and french fries in that order

-Drink: Still love that “ju ju” and chocolate milk too!

-Singing: Loves to sing along to the radio (very funny to hear her sing the same song without the aid of the radio!), sings to her animals, sings random songs while playing in which the context of the song is describing exactly what she is doing (e.g.- “now I am putting the pot in the oven, pot in the oooooven and cooking my food lalala. . .”). I’ve gotta get this one on video:)

-Taking care of her baby animals: She especially loves to read books to her special baby animals and if you ask her what she is reading she will usually tell you her “title” without missing a beat. For example, the other day when I asked her what she was reading to her baby Ruff Ruff, she nonchalantly replied, “Cracker, Cracker, Rolled Away”- this one got Lily(literally) and me(almost) rolling on the floor laughing!

To my little Sophie:

Sophie, I love the way you always accept apologies and say “Oh, that’s OK” (even sometimes through tears). I love the way you toss no longer needed items over your shoulder with reckless abandon. I love the way you HAVE to have your socks on to go to bed, but they always end up tossed overboard by the morning time. I love the way you pronounce your friend Sebastion’s name (panastion) and the word halleluia (halalula) and how you use double speak to address the people you love (Mommy Mommy, daddy daddy, and lily lily). I love the way you pretend like you are so concerned about giving me a special sweet treat while inconspicuously helping yourself to another one:) I love your tender heart and your sense of humor. I just love everything about you!
Love,
Mommy

Cuteness of the day (the Sophie edition)

While taking loving care of her babies (aka- throwing them out of her toy pack n play one by one to make room for bunny), I asked her what her baby's names are.
Without missing a beat she said, "This one is Kooky, this one is Sally, and this one is Poopa."

I'm not sure if she came up with this right then and there or had thought about this previously, but nonetheless it was hysterical!- to me anyway:)


Bonus cute Sophie statement: "Mommy, Mommy! Look I found my viotar! I was looking all over for it!"
Me: "Do you mean your violin or your guitar?"
Sophie: "Oh, yeah. My violin."

After reading this to Lily, her comment (after laughing like a hyena about the name Poopa) was, "Oh, that is so interesting, but that violin is not hers, it's mine."

Sophie's first haircut!

Sophie's very fine hair was looking scragglier by the day and the knotts were over-taking her life. As she is resistant (to say the least) to having her hair brushed and I was getting tired of fighting this battle, I knew the time was long overdue. The only thing holding me back was the fact the Sophie is the wiggliest little person I have ever encountered- literally is constantly in motion. Well, anyway, I finally determined to do it yesterday following bath time. After tackling that rat's nest once and for all in the shower, with many tears and hairs shed, I was ready to tackle the next challenge. Yes, she wiggled as much as I thought she would and it is not quite as even as it could be, but I think she still looks cute as a button!

I somehow forgot to post a picture of Lily's first haircut, so to not be remiss in documenting this, here it is:

Q & A interview (29 things you’ve always wanted to know about Lily and Sophie)

 Lily

What is your favorite. . .

Letter: O

Number: 12

Color: purple

Food: macaroni and cheese

Dessert: red velvet cake

Holiday: Christmas and Halloween (she couldn’t decide between the two)

TV show: Olivia

Movie: Peter Pan 2 (with Jane, Wendy’s daughter)

Disney princess: Aurora

Thing to do: Play in bathtub and painting

Season: Winter

Thing to wear: dresses with long twirly skirts

Place to go: kids n motion

Animal: deer

Name: Charlotte

Toy: hair salon with ponies

Thing to play with Sophie: [Toy] bricks

Sound: cats meowing

Smell: fresh roses

What is your least favorite food: fish

What is the best thing about you: That I am smart and listen to my teacher

Who is the funniest person you know: Paige

Who is the loudest per son you know: Sophie

What do you want to be when you grow up: a Snow Queen

What do you like better:

Morning or night: morning

Apple or orange juice: orange juice

Sweet or salty food: sweet

Breakfast or dinner: breakfast

Favorite breakfast: pancakes, eggs and sausage





Sophie

What is your favorite. . .

Letter: B

Number: 2

Color: green (likes blue a lot too)

Food: French fries

Dessert: cookies!

Holiday: Christmas

TV show: Team Umizoomi

Movie: Cinderella

Disney princess: Cinderella

Thing to do: Play babies

Season: Spring

Thing to wear: Cinderella dress (cuz I like blue)

Place to go: McDonalds

Animal: Simba (from lion king)

Name: Cinderella

Toy: tea party

Thing to play with Lily: tea party

Sound: radio

Smell: corn

What is your least favorite food: oatmeal

What is the best thing about you: I don’t know (Lily says: she is good at singing songs)

Who is the funniest person you know: me

Who is the loudest per son you know: me

What do you want to be when you grow up: Ccinderella

What do you like better. . .

Morning or night: night

Apple or orange juice: apple juice

Sweet or salty food: sweet

Breakfast or dinner: dinner

Favorite dinner: ketchup



If there’s something else you want to know, Lily and Sophie have agreed to take more questions- they’ll do anything for their fans

P.S.- Lily and Sophie would love to hear your answers, too!

random musings and conversations of lily and Sophie over the course of 24 hours

Friday 3:40pm Lily: "Mom, Mrs. Estevez was much nicer today!" Said right in front of Mrs. Estevez:)

Friday 4:00pm
Sophie: "Mom, why we wear underwear?

Friday 5:30pm
Lily: "Mom, will we eat dinner in heaven?"


Friday 7:00pm

Lily: "mom, are all people bigger than mushrooms?"


Saturday 8:03am
Sophie: "Lily, you still sleeping?"
Sophie: "Liiiillllyyyyyyy- you still sleeping?"
Lily: "Yes"
Sophie: "Lily, why you still sleeping?"
Sophie: "Lillllllyyyyy, its morning time. Its not nighttime anymore. Its daytime outside."
Sophie: "Liiiiillllllyyyyy. . ."
Lily: "what?"
Sophie: "you still sleeping, Lily?"
Lily: "No, you woke me up!"
Sophie: "No I didn't!"
Lily: "Mooooooommmmmmmm"- and so my morning begins;)

Saturday 8:15am
Sophie: "Mom, why I cute?"

Saturday 2:00pm

Lily:"This is nice"
me: "what's nice?"
Lily: "clipping coupons is so relaxing don't you think?"

Water breakthroughs!

Wow! We had an amazing evening at the pool!! First of all, Sophie actually got in the pool!!! She started out on daddy's lap (screaming at the top of her lungs at first, of course;) ) and then was so proud of herself that she even wanted to wear the water wings to "jump" into Will's arms. Take a look:

Onto the next amazing order of breakthrough business: Lily swam without her water wings on in 3.5 feet deep water for the first time ever! Though she has been able to swim in very shallow water, until today she was too afraid to attempt this in the 3.5 feet deep water at our pool. BTW- Bebop you were right, peer pressure did the trick!- Cousin Paige visited yesterday and her fearlessness in the water totally inspired Lily (more pictures of their day to come soon). Here she is swimming from ledge to ledge in the 3.5 feet deep:)

This is one very determined little girl! Not 10 minutes later, here she is jumping into the water and swimming back to daddy:) *notice how she breaks into a little doggy paddling briefly during her swim- you have no idea how hard that has been for her to get, in terms of coordination(remember that one legged kick from last summer:) )

Lily the fish

A lot has changed since last summer for Lily. She went from being petrified of the deep end of the pool(anything over 3 feet) to swimming happily around the entire pool with her little water wings.Oh yeah, she also kicks with both legs now. Phew- that was a bit worrisome. Here's a video of her enjoying a leisurely swim on her back.

(Notice Sophie sitting poolside with her feet in the water. Yep, that's about as far as she'll get into the "big pool". Oh well, maybe next year!)

 

and here is Lily's latest achievement: jumping into the pool!

More playtime at the Hesselton's!

Here's what Lily and Sophie have come up with during playtime in the past few months. Its been quite cute to watch, especially since Sophie is getting more involved these days:)

1. Library

Here Lily is pretending to work the library counter. Jingle the horse is being used as her desk, Bob the builder computer subs for the real thing, a toy scanner was used to scan the barcodes of the books, and I even let her stamp the books with a real stamp pad- it was almost all dried up anyway, so I figured it couldn't cause too much trouble:)

Sophie, the new employee was in training here.

2. Restaurant

Waitress Lily

3. Dress up

Most recent Disney princess costume: Aurora from Sleeping Beauty

4. Lite Brite (remember those?!)

Now they have the flat screen version, but they are not nearly as bright as they used to be- darn those safety regulations!

5. Mommy and baby pretend play

Sophie is very big into taking care of her little baby monkey, Bum Bum. She's giving him a ride in a "boat" in this pic:)

6. The fortress!

7. Books

They still love them just as much as ever.

8. Conducting an orchestra

(jingle again comes in handy, as he makes a mighty fine music stand)

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (accompanied by daddy)

I forgot to include this video with the previous post about Sophie. It is a great example of Sophie being her sweet, loving self:)

All about Sophie at 2 years old!

As promised here is Sophie's age 2 update:

Stats:
Height: 33.5 in - 40th %
Weight: 24.5 lbs - 25th %
(Here is how Lily compared at age 2: Height: 35 in - 75th %  and  Weight: 26.25 lbs - 50th %

Behavior:
Sophie is generally an easy going kind of a gal- except for when she gets shy or embarassed (In those instances she becomes very obstinate). She is also very loving and showers her family and her stuffed animals/baby dolls with hugs and kisses. She is very observant; further, she closely watches every move her big sis makes and tries to do the same. In addition, she is keenly aware when something is not as it should be. For example, she has a cow if Lily walks outside without her jacket on! She was also greatly disturbed the day that Lily wore two different shoes on Wacky Tacky day at school. She kept bringing Lily the matching shoe and saying "here you go, Lily- put this one on!"

Speech:
Sophie is talking up a storm- spouting out full sentences left and right(albeit, not always grammatically correct). She generally seems to understand most things that you say to her or ask her. My favorite right now is how she seems to answer every WHY question with either "cuz, it's good" or "cuz, I don't like it". She also loves to experiment with words that she hears her big sis using. For example, right now she is very keen on saying "look mom, it's perftic"(perfect), while holding up any random object of interest.

Knowledge:
Sophie generally knows her colors the majority of the time now and most of her shapes. She can name certain letters (B, M, K, F, E, H, I, L, O, S, Z to be exact) and can count to 10 and sometimes a little beyond. She is definitely different than Lily in this area, who could consistently name all the letters, colors and shapes well before the age of 2, but this just doesn't seem as important to her as it did Lily at the same age.

Motor skills:
Sophie can draw a somewhat horizontal line, vertical line, and a circle (or I should say lots of circles at once:)). She, however, does not have a very long attention span for coloring, so does not practice this as much as Lily did at her age. She's also pretty good with simple board puzzles, shape sorters, and stacking blocks- although she usually knocks them over before she's finished, just for the fun of it:) Sophie can run and can walk up and down steps with one hand on the railing (closely guarded of course). She has jumped a few times, but generally not quite confident enough to take off with two feet simultaneously.

Sleep:
Finally, Sophie is a very good napper. She will sleep for at least 2 hours any time I put her down during the day, or if for some reason she does not get a nap, she is overall fine until bedtime. Its wonderful that she is so flexible. Unfortunately, she is not so easy to put down at bed time. She often sings, yells, and/or jumps around, keeping Lily awake until sometimes as late as 8:30 or 9pm. -and this happens regardless of whether she takes a nap or not!

Sophie's favorite things:
-anything soft: loves to cuddle with soft things and say, "ahhhhh- its so soft!"
-pretend play: cooking in the kitchen, taking care of her dolls and animal friends, having tea parties, etc.
-dancing ballet with her sister
-hugs and kisses (both giving and receiving)
-favorite drink: juju (prune juice): she asks for this first thing every morning
-favorite food: does ketchup count? Basically, anything that is heavily dipped in ketchup pleases her palate. She also loves popsicles and ice cream.

My favorite things about Sophie:
-Her compassion: For example, she's always happy to kiss other's booboos and give a hug and seems truly concerned when Lily is sad and crying. It is so adorable to see her pat Lily and then say "All better now, Lily?"
-the way she happily sings to herself, (somewhat intelligible songs like the ABC song, twinkle, twinkle little star, or rockabye baby) while she is playing
-how she attaches the word honey to the end of her sentances, just like her mama:)  ie- "You all done now, honey?"

2 years old birthday celebration for Sophie!

Sophie had a wonderful birthday party at Grandma Darby's house last Saturday! In addition to her sister, Will and I, she celebrated with both sets of grandparents, aunt Amy, cousin Paige, aunt Laura, and uncle Chris this year. I think she had a very wonderful time!

What a lovely spread that Grandma put out for Sophie. It was a Hello Kitty theme:)

Sophie is reaching out for that little doggie in the pink purse across the table that was given to her by Aunt Amy. She absolutely loves this!

Sophie got embarrassed whe everyone sang happy birthday to her. Hence the face:)

Notice the finger held up to her lips. After the singing she announced that it was "too loud!"

A trip to the play park finished up the party:

The myriad of hair clips that Lily is displaying came from the Easter eggs gathered earlier at the Easter egg hunt in Grandma's backyard:) Unfortunately didn't get any pics of this:(

Yes, she has been cursed with the static electricity gene- inherited from her mother.

It was a very amusing ride home after Sophie's very fun and tiring birthday party. Lily was complaining about every little ailment both real and imagined and Sophie decided to join in too:
Lily: I've got a very big bruise on my knee- oucheeeee, mommy, said very pathetically
Sophie: I've got a booboo on my knee too, whaaaaaa, mimicing Lily's pathetic tone of voice.
Lily: My nose keeps running and running and won't stop!
Sophie: I've got boogies too! tissue please! etc etc etc. . .
It is so precious to me- how Sophie strives to be exactly like her big sis. Unfortunately, Lily doesn't find it to be as precious as I do:)

Stay tuned for more about my big two year old coming soon!