Lollypops & Vampires

We took Sophie along to 'Lollypops' this afternoon. It's an indoor play-center for kids of all ages.
As the photo's show below, Sophie had an absolute blast!

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After Sophie stopped trying to stand up inside the tunnel and banging her head, she started enjoying it way more!

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Howzat!!! - Sophie dived out of ball-pit and caught the ball with one hand...you little beauty!

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Once Sophie found the little doll house...we couldn't get her out of there!
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More doll-house photos...and even more smiles!

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"Welcome to my little home...you wanna come inside?"

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10 points if you can find Sophie...
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We asked Sophie if she enjoyed herself at Lollypops today...what do you reckon she said?

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After Sophie's big day at Lollypops, we came home and played some more. I've taught her how to climb on my back and play horse rides around the house...It buggered me out but Sophie still had plenty of energy to go all afternoon! She eventually tired herself out and worked up such an appetite, she virtually demolished her mammoth dinner in record time!

After dinner and bath-time, we came out into the lounge and both Sophie and I were confronted by an evil (but very cute) Vampire...

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Ingrid heading out to her 'Vampire' themed work dinner tonight.

Brad

Sophie's P addiction

I know what you’re saying, I shouldn’t joke about a thing like P….but in all honesty, Sophie couldn’t care less about her little wooden S; O; H; I or E letters…the only one she plays with these days, is the letter P!

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It's getting bad, everywhere Sophie goes...she has to take her 'p' with her!

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She's finally got the hang of her blackboard

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The look of concentration on her face..."This is going to be a masterpiece!"

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I spent most of last week away with work on ‘market tour’ and consequently, have seen bugger all of Sophie this week which sucks. While I was away Sophie picked up another dodgy ear infection at Kids Klub, and what made it worse; Ingrid was told by the doctor that "kids under 4 years old shouldn’t go to Day Care because this is the sort of thing that happens to them"…and here I was thinking you had to be of some reasonable intelligence to become a doctor in this day in age…I guess not...

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Look at my new baby catwalk stroll...

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"Come on mum...give me a Hi-5!"

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Anyhow, Sophie is back to good health now, so we took her down to the park today to have a good play outside in the sun. She absolutely loves parks, and she ran around eating all the bark, swinging on the swings and sliding down the slides all afternoon!

Steve and also Maria popped around this afternoon, so Sophie got to enjoy an action packed day of outdoor activity and extra attention from the family. Needless to say, Sophie crashed out pretty early tonight and no doubt will be rearing to go again tomorrow…can’t wait!

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Give it back Uncle Steve!

-Chillin' with uncle Steve and Aunty Maria

PS. I fixed the Video Link to the right, Click "Sophie's Video's New" to see her dancing!

Brad

Sophie goes flying

My Grandmother had an 80th Birthday Party during the weekend and the relies were coming from far and wide to be there. We decided to fly down to New Plymouth this time, purely to avoid traveling 5 hours or so with Sophie in the car. Both Ingrid and I were a little apprehensive about the Sophie’s first flight, but in the end it was a breeze, all we had to do was read her favourite books over and over and she was sweet as!.

It was great catching up with lots of family I haven’t seen in years – and the 80th party went down really well, mum planned most of it and everybody seemed to really enjoy it.
Sophie had a great time hanging out with family and friends and had everyone in stitches while she danced to her new “Hi-Five” CD (new video loaded to the right of the page too)

Thanks again mum for having us and we’ll catch up with you next time!

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Sophie loving the tramp at mums place!

Check out Sophie's disapproval! - "You should be reading stories to me only mummy!"

Making new friends at the party

Storytime with Nana

Where's that Hi Five music gone!

Sophie and her Great Grandmother on her 80th

Brad

"What do you mean I've still got food on my face?"

Who me? I'm sure I wiped most of it off...didn't I?

At last....a sunny day!

We found a new park for Sophie to play at this weekend. It's only 5 minutes from home and best of all, it has Sophie's favourite new thing in the world at the moment...a slide! As you can tell from the photos' below, it's pure excitment sliding down, over and over...and over again.

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We've finally got a break inthe weather so we stayed outdoors for a while, as the poor little thing hasn't had much of a chance to get outdoors recently, so she really lapt it up at the park.

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We brought her some crayons and drawing pads too just in case we had to settle indoors for the weekend...it's about this age (or so the books say) that they start scribbling and trying to draw...but judging by Sophie's efforts, it may take her a littlle longer to get the hang of it, as all she really wants to do it's eat the bloody things!

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Wrapped up nice and warm and rearing to go outdoors

Swing time!

You beauty..it's a slide!!!!

Come on mummy - lets make it 57 times in a row!

One more swing for good luck too...

We stayed so long the sun starting going down too


I don't know what I'm supposed to do with these things...but they taste pretty damn good!

Brad

Sophie goes Shopping

We let Sophie run rampant around the shopping mall in the weekend. She's getting far too heavy to carry around all the time and she now hates being stuck in her stroller when she can clearly see everyone else around her walking and having fun..
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Sophie reminds me of a cartoon character at times when we're out - soon as you pick her up or get her out of the stroller, her little feet start kicking frantically in the air and when she finally touches the ground and we let go...bang!- she's off at 100 miles an hour!

- Look - there's some giant mummy's over there!

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Wicked...there's a shop with lots of food in it...I'll be there shortly!
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Yo Mum!, I'll hook up with you later, I'm just off to grab a quick feed...
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Daddy put this photo up - caus he says I look like a little cutie in it....and he's right of course.

Feeding ducks in the middle of winter

Sophie gets a bit bored staying home in the weekend so we try and go out as often as possible. Yesterday, the Auckland weather was up to its usual tricks and was all over the show.
We did manage a brief break in the weather early afternoon, so we wrapped up Sophie nice and warm and headed down to the local park to feed the ducks. The park was freezing and the grass was sludgy due to the constant rain lately, but Sophie didn't seem to mind - as soon as we got her out the car her eyes lit up, her mouth opened wide up and she started squealing with excitement.

We fed the ducks and seagulls until the bread ran out...we could have been there longer if Sophie hadn't tried to pick up and eat everything we threw to the birds...

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Hi birds...come and give me a hi-5!

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Running like the wind

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We finally got around to putting up some art in the lounge this weekend too, we thought it might be cool to make our own...not sure if it came out like we intended, but if people laugh at it, we will simply say "Sophie painted it and we're so proud of her we decided to hang it up in the living room!"

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Isn't Sophie clever aye!

Brad

Ouch!

Sophie got her first award today...pity though it wasn't under better circumstances...

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Poor little Sophie got sent home from Kids Klub yesterday because the care-givers noticed a bunch of red spots had developed and had covered her arms and legs. The spots weren't bothering Sophie too much or even itching, but we had to get them checked out of course as they believed it could be a case of 'hand, foot and mouth' disease.

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Both of us are pretty full on at work, so I took the morning off and then we swapped over at lunchtime today and then Ingrid took her along to the docs (again). They weren't positive if it was indeed hand, foot and mouth, so she had to get a dreaded blood test...I wish I could say that it was painless for Sophie, but that would be lying. Ingrid said the poor thing was beside herself as the useless nurse fumbled around trying to find the little vein in her arm to draw the blood from.
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We get the results back tomorrow; it's measles, or ‘hand, foot and mouth’. I don't know enough about the later so am about to do some research online - apparently it's a related to conjunctivitis in some way and you simply have to see it through. Ingrid will be taking the next couple of days off work as Sophie can't go back until she's clear.

It's a fine line knowing if she is better off going along to day care, on one hand she is developing quickly and learning new things every day and really loves the place, on the other hand, there’s the constant barrage of bugs and virus's she's picking up...

Brad

Sweet Child 'O Mine

She's got a smile that it seems to me

reminds me of childhood memories

where everything was as fresh as the bright blue sky

now and then when I see her face

she takes me away to that special place

and if I stared too long I'd probably break down and cry

Sweet child o' mine

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Bath time on Monday night

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As you can probably tell from the lame intro at the top of the page, Ingrid and I went along to the very cool GNR concert this weekend. Nicci, Ingrid's mum stayed on Saturday night and baby-sat for us, and we headed off to the sold out concert around 10pm...and even then, the gig didn't start till close to bloody midnight!

The gig was great though, a little cheesy as you would expect at times, but we both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Sophie was on her best behaviour for Grantz while we were gone too.

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Axl Rose in fine form on Saturday night

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Ingrid getting into the groove at GNR - showing off her goats!

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We got home from the gig just after 2am (which is bloody late for us these days, especially Ingrid) and Sunday morning was her turn to get up for Sophie....so needles to say Ingrid wasn't looking forward to it too much, but Sophie must have known we'd had a late one and slept in herself to after 9am!!!!...that's almost unheard of for little ones., but to be fair, she has a little cold and didn't sleep much Saturday and must have needed a monster sleep overnight.

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Grantz and Sophie reading her favourite book...over...and over again!

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Sophie is becoming a right little book worm (as the photo above shows), she has a couple of favourite books that she brings over to us all the time and then plonks herself on our laps, waiting for one of us to read to her...it's very cute...but my god...you can only take so much of 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' every single day!.

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It was good catching up with Nicci again this weekend too, and Sophie absolutely loved the extra attention she got, so thanks Grantz for all the baby sitting and coming up and we'll see you next time!

Brad