March Madness

This weekend, we were out and about, enjoying the beautiful weather, visiting with friends, celebrating the arrival of new babies sand watching basketball.

Friday night, we headed to the all too classy, Hooters, to meet up with the Tichenor family. We had a wonderful time, the men were focused on basketball while Meredith and I talked...we just talked and talked and talked some more. The main focus of our conversation was on what we love most, our babies! Her son, Carson is 11 months younger than Sofia but somehow, they are the same size. He's such an adorable baby and we look forward to spending more time with their sweet family. We just love them!

Saturday morning, Sofia and Syd made Dutch pancakes and played outside. They picked flowers and collected leaves, fun times! Sofia and I were at a baby shower all afternoon. We were supposed to go to a 2 year old's birthday party after the baby shower but Sofia was so tired after shower, she dozed off in the car and we decided it was better to let her sleep so we nixed the birthday party. After Sofia woke up, we went to visit Aunt Nessa at her parents' house. We had fun visiting with her, it's always nice to see my little sunshine. We ate dinner at my mom's restaurant and Sofia enjoyed a huge dinner. Her menu included fried tortellini, gnocchi marinara, fettucini alfredo and swiss chard. She is such a good eater! After Thanksgiving dinner, we headed back home and Sofia fell asleep in the car.

Today, Sofia, Isabella, Missy, Aevary and I went to baby Noah's baby shower. We had fun playing at Trey and Cat's playhouse. Delaney kindly shared her toys with the girls and Sofia fell in love with the baby doll stroller and carrier. She happily pushed it around the house while we opened gifts and talked. The girls played while the mommies shared advice. As we talked, the subject of sleeping came up and Cat recommended a book which she says helped her tremendously when Delaney was a baby. The book, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth, outlines how many hours of sleep babies need each night at each stage of development. According to Dr. Weissbluth, I need to be putting Sofia down for a 1-2 hour nap in the afternoons so this week, we will be facing yet another hurdle with the little princess: the daytime nap. I will update you all this week to let you know how she handles this adjustment. Mer, I'll be passing the book along to you after I'm done with it if you're interested.

After the shower, Sofia, Syd and I had dinner with my parents. She was happy to see Nana and Abuelo, who had just returned from Venezuela.

Our weekend was almost perfect, the only thing that would have made it better would have been if the Horns had beaten Memphis! Oh well, there's always next year.

One last thing before I forget: April 11th, I will be hosting Bunco at my house so if anyone is interested in coming, and I mean anyone, please let me know. You don't need to know how to play, this will only be my 3rd time so come one, come all!

Peace, love and longhorns.

Girly girl

Sofia is developing into quite the little princess. She is all about her accessories! Sofia has been very picky about what shoes she wants to wear and won't leave the house without her purse. It's quite a sight to see because she's only 16 months!

Monday, Sofia and I went to the doctor for her 16 month check up. I am glad to say that she is just perfect; 23 lbs, 30 inches and doing great as far as her development is concerned. Sofia is ahead of the game with her speaking abilities and the doctor said that she is showing no signs of being a premature baby. She has caught up on her height and weight and she is right on schedule with her motor skills. The reason I mention the doctor's appointment is because Sofia HAD to carry her huge pink purse that she found at my mom's house with her into the appointment. She was walking through the doctor's office with a purse the same size as she is and wobbling because she could barely keep her balance. While the doctor evaluated her, she clung to her purse and wouldn't let it out of her sight.

She has even realized that purses are meant to be used to carry things. Today, she hid my cell phone in the purse and carried it around, all the while I was searching for my phone, not knowing that she had hidden it! Oh, what a sweet baby I have.

Sofia also has a favorite pair of shoes, she is bringing back patent leather! The past few mornings, Sofia has brought me her dressy black shoes and insisted that I put them on her before we leave the house. Although she lacks the vocabulary to give me instructions, she is good at communicating what she wants with her oohohhs and ahhahhs.

I look forward to the day when Sofia and I can go shopping together since share the same passion for fashion but I know one person who is dreading the day and it's probably because he'll be footing the bill...ha! Sydmil, get ready!!

Easter Weekend

What a wonderful weekend we had celebrating Easter! Sofia, Syd and I all slept very well last night, here's what was on the agenda for the weekend:



Saturday morning, we went to Hosanna Church for a 12,000 Easter egg hunt. That's right, I said 12,000. Little Sofia enjoyed herself and grabbed 10 eggs on her own! She participated in the birth -2 yr. old category which was interesting because all the 2 year olds were hustling and bustling to get the most eggs possible while the littler kids were just walking aimlessly, shaking the eggs that they saw and if they were lucky, one or two would end up in their basket. Sofia did a great job! Syd and I kept her focused on picking up eggs but she liked to admire the eggs she picked up before dropping them in the basket. After the egg hunt, Sofia played in a moonwalk for the very first time. She had a wonderful time jumping around and loved being able to fall down without hurting herself.





After the Easter egg hunt, we met up with my parents for the Easter service at River Pointe. Can I just take a moment and shout out to the worship band because they were AMAZING!!
I loved the service, the pastor did a great job, reminding us all the real meaning of Easter. The final song, 'Redeemer,' was so appropriate for Easter, I have to share some of the lyrics: Now I know my Redeemer lives, I know my Redeemer lives, let all creation testify, let this life within we cry, I know my Redeemer He lives To take away my shame And He lives forever, I'll proclaim that the payment for my sin was the precious life He gave but now He's alive and there's an empty grave.

Beautiful Sofia enjoying the beautiful day God made.

Sofia enjoyed herself at the nursery. Her Sunday school teachers even left a report in her diaper bag saying she was in a pleasant mood and behaved well. Yeah baby! She was pooped after all the day's activities and fell asleep early on the way home.

Sunday we spent all day with my family, enjoying delicious food from the Italian Maid Cafe and relaxing. After brunch at my mom's restaurant, my dad decided that we needed to head to PG Country Club for a photo opp. so we dragged all 15 family members with us to take advantage of the beautiful day. Sofia and her cousins took some darling photos.

a

Our Easter Sunday ended on a sweet note. As I have been saying, Sofia has been doing great with her bedtime routine. Last night, Syd lay Sofia down just as her music was turning off so what does she do? She sat up, gave her daddy a good night kiss, turned her music back on and laid back down to get some much needed rest. How precious is that baby?

Dance dance revolution

Anneke, Lizzie and my mom came over to help me babysit my cousins and Isabella requested that we play Sofia's favorite jams, the Fisher Price tunes, of course. As the music began to play, the babies began to jump around and let loose, meanwhile the adults were doing the very same thing. It was hilarious to watch both the babies and the adults cause they were all dancing as if they didn't have a care in the world, the funny thing is that I caught this all on video so here it is for all to see:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2974828070696354913

It's for the kids!! Promise, yeah right, Anneke.

Busy bees

This week, Sofia and I have been very busy. It was spring break for all the elementary schools so that meant that Missy, Isa and Aevary were around to play all day! We hung out with the Nass girls practically everyday and we also got to hang out with Fabianna who didn't have school either, so needless to say, Sofia had a blast with her friends.

Yesterday, we all went to childrens' time at the library and the girls had a blast. We sang songs, danced, and then checked out some books for storytime of our own at home. After the library, we came back to our house and painted.

Today, Sofia, Fabianna and I went to the Aquarium. I had never been so getting there proved to be a challenge...it wasn't so much getting to the Aquarium as it was getting onto the HOV lane to avoid all the morning traffic. Can I just say right now that I hate I-10 and think that it is way too confusing to drive on. Well, back to the Aquarium, after a much too long car ride, we arrived and headed inside. Sofia was fascinated by the fish and bright colors that she saw. We even got to see white tigers, which by the way, Sofia loved.

Sofia has been repeating things more and more. For those of you who don't know, Fabianna is from Venezuela so we were speaking Spanish and Sofia would repeat everything we said: she can say 'agua, abuelo (which sounds more like bullo), mas, hola' and the rest of her Spanish sounds like tickatickaticka blah blah blah.

Just to update everyone: Sofia is feeling so much better and the doctor called yesterday to tell me that her urinary tract infection test was negative so she most likely had a little virus which has been going around. She is back to her joyful self and enjoyed an eventful week with her mama and friends. Thanks for all your prayers!

I want to say again how proud I am of my little girl. She has been doing great with her new nighttime routine and the past 3 days, when Syd put her in her crib, she stayed asleep and continued to sleep until 9:00am. We couldn't ask for anything more!

We look forward to this beautiful Easter weekend and wish you all a blessed Easter!

Break through!!!

Sofia has had a major break through in her daily routine. As I have mentioned before, every night before Sofia goes to sleep, Syd rocks her for 30 minutes and then places her in her crib and no matter how deep of a sleep she is in, she always wakes up at this point and cries for him to pick her up. Sometimes she would cry for 10 minutes, other times, 40 minutes. No matter what, it was always a hard time for both baby and parent.
Well ladies and gentlemen, Saturday night after rocking Sofia, Syd placed her in her crib expecting her to start the tearful good bye but instead of crying, Sofia sat up, waved to her Papa and then laid back down and went to sleep. Yes, she was actually saying to him, "Ok Papa, see you tomorrow. I've got this covered, you can go now." If Sofia hadn't been sleeping, I'm sure Syd would have started jumping up and down, screaming 'hallelujah!',
After Saturday night's bedtime events, we thought that Sofia's behavior might have been a fluke and we prepared ourselves for the worst on Sunday night. Wrong! Again, Sofia fell asleep on Syd's shoulder and when he put her in the crib, she got up and waved bye bye. Monday, she had a repeat performance so I am willing to bet that Sofia has overcome her hatred for her crib and being left along. We are so very proud of our little girl and can only pray that she continues to sleep so well.



In other news, Sofia has been running a fever the past 2 days. I took her to the doctor yesterday and she thinks Sofia has a urinary tract infection but the results won't be in 2 days. Please keep our girl in your prayers, that she may fight off the infection and return to good health for Easter weekend.

Love you all!

Pre- Easter weekend!

My girls. Love you Aunt Liz and Lala.
The beautiful Nass family.

Sweet Isi-pisi.

Check out Sofia in action.

As we are preparing for our big Easter weekend, Sofia needed to brush up on her egg hunting skills so Saturday, we participated in an Easter egg hunt at my cousin's neighborhood. Sofia had a blast running around with her cousins and Syd and I had a great time catching up with our wonderful friends and family. Being such a beautiful day, Saturday we had an impromptu photo shoot at the Easter egg hunt so here are the latest and greatest photos of the Harris family and our entourage.

Easter Egg Hunt take 2. Sofia had a whole basket of eggs she picked up on her own.

Best friends forever.

The loves of my life.

Sofia baby.

The Easter bunny!!

My family.

Picture time!

Sofia and Mama playing the "piano." I think this child is destined to do something musical in her future.Look closely and you'll see Sofia took it upon herself to do bicep reps with the 1lb weights in the gym. She is so strong, she picks up everything as you can see.

Truly the fashionista, Sofia put on my sunglasses and posed for this shot.

Somebody loves chocolate!

Check out Sofia's bite sized fork, spoon, plate, bowl and cup. She loves it!

Last but not least, here's a video of this Italian princess enjoying some fettucini alfredo:
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3277988542615442152

March of Dimes

Monday I had the opportunity to attend the March of Dimes Neiman Marcus Fashion Show. It was an amazing event which benefited a great cause and Monday's luncheon raised an incredible amount of money all going towards research and education of mothers to ensure that all babies are healthy babies.









While I was pregnant with Sofia, I was told by the doctors that Sofia might have complications at birth because she was so small in weight. There were days on end when I would research possible side effects of having a low birth weight child, what was causing her to have such a low weight, the list went on and on. My original doctor here in Texas told me that if I went to Holland to have Sofia, I would be doing what I wanted, not what was best for the baby and I was selfish for ever thinking otherwise. He told me I had a placental malfunction. I went for ultrasounds every 2 weeks, was on bed rest for the last 2 months and went to every other day to monitor Sofia's heart for the last month of my pregnany. Turns out, my original doctor miscalculated my due date by 2 weeks and that is why she was premature.





During those days, one of my favorite websites was marchofdimes.com. I found it to be a great help when I was looking for answers and I am glad that there is an organization like March of Dimes for pregnant women and new mothers. AND, being the mother of a premature child, I am even more appreciative of the work March of Dimes does. I can remember those long 2 weeks Sofia sat in the NICU, it was very difficult for both Syd and I and we were there 7 times a day, exhausting ourselves. I am grateful to have a beautiful, happy, healthy 16 month old and am happy I got to participate in an event with such a worthy cause.

15.5 month update

Our almost 16 month baby is growing up so quickly! She is already starting to look like a little girl and it's unbelievable how fast time has flown by. I feel like just yesterday we were celebrating her first birthday and watching her take her first steps.

I am proud to say that Sofia has cut her 9th tooth. She has her front 2 teeth which are quite clear from all the pictures I have been posting, her bottom two front teeth, her back 4 molars and she just got another top tooth. Teething is such a painful time, both for babies and parents. I didn't know much it affected babies sleeping patters until I did some research after Sofia's change in sleeping patters. It seems like when babies are teething, they are exhausted by the pain they are experiencing but won't go to sleep because want to be comforted by their parents. This poor baby would not go to sleep without some baby Orajel and a 30 minute rocking session from either mama or papa.

Not only was Sofia teething but she was also adjusting to a new routine. After hearing the Super Nanny speak, I realized that Sofia had running the show around here when it came to bedtime and we couldn't have that anymore. Since we had moved back from Holland, Sofia was on no real schedule. The time change was hard enough to overcome so we thought it best to let her fall asleep in our bed and then put her in her crib after she fell asleep. Hmm....convenient, yest but not practical. The Super Nanny influenced our decision and also, talking to a friend whose 7 year old daughter STILL sleeps with them.

For the past 2 weeks, Sofia has been getting to bed at 9:00 and waking up at 9:30am. We are blessed to have a child who sleeps so well at night, her nap schedule on the other hand is very erratic and some days, she skips naps completely. Since she has learned to walk, she prefers to stay awake exploring the world.

Sofia is also making strides with her talking. She says 'more' when she wants more food, 'no no', 'ruff ruff', 'moo', 'agua.' She can definitely understand alot more than she actually says but she is repeating everything she hears. We have to be careful with what we say nowadays. Just last week I was on the phone with Syd and I said 'No, no I don' think I'm going to the gym" and all of a sudden I hear, "no, no no". Ahh, so cute!

She is eating everything and anything she can get her hands on but rather than sit down and eat one big meal, Sofia prefers to snack through out the day. She is also a big fan of what I like to call 'smoothies' which is just Yo Baby! and whole milk. I add the yogurt for some flavor.

We are also trying to introduce a plate, bowl, fork, spoon and glass to Sofia. Up until now, we were afraid to use real plates for fear of Sofia breaking them but she has her own plate that she can use now as well as bite sized utensils. She is catching the drift and enjoys the challenge of actually getting the food onto the fork.

And, as I'm sure you all have heard, Sofia is now dancing. She is a dance fanatic and I'm pretty sure she and her 2 year old cousin, Isabella, would win America's Next Dance crew, hands down. So to celebrate my sweet baby's 15.5 month old birthday, here's a video I made of her doing what she does best...among other things.

www.video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7735092515587106206

Sunny Days

Enjoying the warm weather and our wonderful neighborhood parks!


No matter what, there's always time for a phone call.



This past week, Sofia, Carsley (Syd's brother), Celia (Carsley's girlfriend) and I enjoyed the beautiful weather. We explored our new neighborhood and found some really great parks that Sofia loves. She loves to swing in the baby swing and go down the slides. I try to take my little lovebug to the park once a day or at least let her play outside on our swing set so she get some stimulation.



So, Wednesday me and 'the gang' went on an afternoon stroll, unbeknown to us that our lovely walk would end in potential disaster. We left our house at around 12pm and headed to Starbucks for coffee and then decided to go to the park near our house. We stayed there for about an hour, Sofia enjoyed the jungle gym and the swings. She was having a great time but I could tell she was getting tired so we called it a day after about an hour. I gave Sofia her bottle and some snacks hoping she would fall asleep on the walk home but nope, nothing. When we arrived home, she was hot, sweaty and sleepy. Not a good combination.


This was us at the park, giggles and grins all around.

As we get to our house, I open the garage door and tried to open the house door which I thought we left UNLOCKED but came to realize that no! Celia had locked the door, thinking I had the key, and now we were locked out. Not only did I have a tired baby on my hands but I didn't have a clue how to get into the house. Syd had BOTH sets of keys to the house and he was at work...in the Galleria area. We could have gotten in the car and driven to the office to pick the house keys up from him but oops, just our luck, that morning, my sweet husband had left me the car but no car keys. Great, we were stuck outside on one of the hottest days of 2008.

I called Syd to fill him in on our predicament; I thought I would just vent to him about our day but he started to tell me about his day and lucky for us, he was having an equally bad day. Apparently, the power at the office kept going on and off. Their laptops batteries were very low and no one was able to work SO he told me they were going to wait 30 more minutes to see if the power would come back on but more than likely, he would be home within the hour.

I was ecstatic to hear the bad news Syd shared with me because this meant that we wouldn't have to pay the $200 for a new window that my helpful brother-in-law had offered to break, nor would we have to pay the $60 a locksmith would charge to break into my own home. Yes! Our day had taken a turn for the better and thankfully, we were only locked out of our house for a mere hour.

In the time it took for Syd to get home from work and let us back in the house, Sofia and I took a walk and she fell asleep which is a miracle in and of itself. What started off as a disastrous day had a beautiful ending, we got back in the house just in time for Jeopardy! and I had a sleeping baby. Life is just plain wonderful.

San Marcus, some say San Marvelous

This weekend, we took a quick trip to San Marcus to visit my brother. He and his girlfriend were the best hosts, Sofia enjoyed herself immensely. She loved their dogs and constantly wanted to watch them and every time she walked off, she would say 'dog' and laugh to herself. It was so cute!

While we were out to dinner, Sofia did the most amazing thing. I ordered her finger foods but she decided that today, she was going to use a fork so she grabbed mine and very intently tried to feed herself french fries and chicken strips with a fork. She worked really hard to get them onto the fork and once she did, she would use the wonderful hand eye coordination that God gave us to get it into her mouth. That seemed to be the hardest part for her but she got it a few times and now she prefers using forks over fingers.

The part that is hardest to believe is that no one taught her how to use a fork, it's amazing how babies learn by observation! It is truly a beautiful thing to watch your child grow up and Syd and I are absolutely in awe of our sweet girl.

Check out Sofia go!





Victory!