Happy 1st Birthday, Sophie Rose!

I can't believe that it Sophie is one year already!  You might want to only read this post if you have a minute (or more like 20).  I couldn't help it...I tried to narrow the pictures down, but it was too hard!  Here is a review of her first year! 



I was induced on January 17, 2011.  Ryan thought it was perfect...it was his half-Bday!

Sophie Rose came out with the chubbiest little cheeks ever. We didn't know if the baby was a girl or boy...it was a great surprise to find out the kids would have another sister.

8 lbs. 13 oz.

The kids were so excited, and we came home a few days later. 

We had lots of visitors!  Here she is with Aunt Jennifer and Isabelle.

We went and got her picture taken professionally.

We took lots of our own pictures pretending we were professionals!

 

This bouncy ball got a lot of use!  I would put the boys to work bouncing Sophie up and down.  We quickly discovered she was a tad bit fussy.

Everyone took turns! (Sometimes they were a little more excited than other times.)

Sleeping alone in the carseat was rare.

Sophie, Anne wanted to hold you ALL the time, you didn't always appreciate it.

When Sophie was almost three months she made the trek to California to meet Nana and Papa!

She even got to play cards with Great-Grandma Critchlow!

When we got back to Idaho, Grandma could not believe how much Sophie had grown!

Our little Sophie Rose...AKA the Easter Bunny.

Sophie's first Easter Egg Hunt...Brrrr!

Getting older...


Sophie took a trip to Park City in June...

 

and then it was to Bear Lake in July.  Here she is with Anne before Church.


Grandpa and Sophie at Bear Lake


Sophie laying out on the deck in one of the cousin's sleeping bags.

Sophie loves Dad!  She gets so excited when she hears his voice or sees him in the morning.  She will start breathing fast and bob up and down.  All those days and nights of rocking her the first half of her life paid off! 

I am glad she likes Mom too!

More love from Annie...

Here Sophie is on her six month birthday!  (Remember...she was born on Ryan's half-bday!)  Like how Ryan is holding her while she sleeps as he blows out his candle.


More fun at Nana and Papa's...6 months.


Spending time with Presley, Aunt Michele, and Nana.


Bath Time in Nana's Sink



 Family Reunion in August.


Hanging out by the pool with Grandma...


Laughing over Chloe's shoulder


Here is the whole family...Sophie is about 7 months here.



The boys all went back to school in September and then the girls took over the house!

Sophie is lucky to have so many cousins that love to hold her, sometimes she is too fussy, but it is fun when she is willing!  (Here with Emmaline)


I think this was one of the last times with the Binky..she won't take it anymore, and I was pretty sad about it! I know in the long run it is much easier that way, but I miss having something to give her besides me!

Sophie was able to go back to Bear Lake in September, at almost 8 months.  Here she is with Michael on his 8 YEAR birthday.

Sophie lent lots of support to James throughout his football season!

Sophie was a Bumble Bee for her first Halloween.  She quickly discovered that she liked the candy!

 

 Here I am trying to get Sophie to walk to me.  She starting taking steps around 10 months.

While in Arizona, Sophie got to visit with her Great Grandma Bogren down from Canada at Thanksgiving.  What a lucky girl!

Sophie had two dogs come and go in one year.

First Christmas...

Ringing in the New Year with cousin Chloe...

Here is Isabelle encouraging Sophie to walk.  Even though she knows how to walk, sometimes it is just easier to crawl!  (Especially when we are trying to get pictures!)

What a year it has been!  Even though it has flown by, we can't imagine life before little Sophie Rose!  What would we do without her? You would think by the 6th child we would have her on some sort of schedule...but nope, not so!  We hold her LOTS, and yes, she still sleeps with us and still nurses. But hey, she is walking and um, that is about it.  She is our sweetheart, and we love her to pieces.  They sure change fast in one short year!  We are happy she is still nice and chubby and we can squeeze and kiss her lots.

Christmas Eve

I am finally getting around to the holiday posts!  We stayed in Idaho for Christmas, it is getting too hard to travel with all the kids for the holidays.  We missed our other side of the family, but had a great time here too! Christmas Eve has always been my favorite since I was a child and we pretty much always do the same thing. We start off with our traditional dinner of fondue...steak, cheese, lots of hor dourves, and the best slush ever.

Starting at the top right and then going clockwise we have: Alexis (David and Melissa's oldest), Grandma, and Joshua...Sadie and Abigail, then Jennifer and Brett, and finally Melissa, David and youngest daughter, London.

Here is Ryan feeding some of that yummy slush to Sophie.  Do you appreciate her Santa outfit? 

After the dinner chaos (and it can be pretty chaotic) we move on to the Nativity.  As usual our costumes are top notch and very professional.  (Ha-ha) The kids act out the story in Luke and we sing a few Christmas Carols.  I think we need to figure out how to make it a little more reverent, and not so much comedy.  Any ideas?

Isabelle makes a natural Angel!

 Michael is taking his job as Joseph very serious.  Alexis is a sweet Mary, and then Luke, Emmaline, and Lauren are Shephards.  (Is that Michael/Joseph giving a military salute? He is like, "Don't worry Mary, me and my peeps have this whole thing under control.")

 

Annie, Eliza, and London starring as two sheep and a cow. 

Sadie, Joshua, and Abigail are wisemen...very appropriate since now that they are teenagers they really are SO wise. :)

After the whole Nativity we move on to singing the 12 Days of Christmas and I really wish I had this on video because you are really not getting the whole effect. We sing this every year and our vocal skills are pretty amazing! (Joking) We do have some great instumental talent that played that night and they really do have some skills.

The kids are so excited when after a long night they can finally pick a present under the tree from a cousin or Grandma and Grandpa and open it.  Even though the lighting in my pictures the whole night are terrible, I LOVE this picture of Annie.  She is so excited!  (She was even more excited when she opened it up and had a doll inside!)

Sophie was just content practicing her walking skills all night.  That practice paid off, because even though she had been almost walking for over a month, on Christmas she TOOK OFF!  She is standing on her new super soft and cute quilt from Grandma.

We all had a great Christmas Eve and it was nice of my Mom to host so we could come home and get ready for Santa to arrive.  The stockings were waiting and the kids went to bed with visions of sugar plums in their heads.  (James was up at least 5x until 3am trying to catch Santa!)

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!

Three silly girls

My brother David and his wife Melissa had twins back in May-which made six kids under the age of 8!  They are just opposite of us, they had four girls and the twins were boys.  I don't know how Melissa does it!  Eliza and London are the two youngest girls and Anne begs to have them over to play every day.  It works perfect for them to come play in the afternoon when the boys are at school.  It is fun having a house of little girls after years of boys. When they are over they always crack me up with all the things they come up with. Usually their play involves lots of changing clothes and usually swimming suits...oh, and guns too.

Now, back to cleaning my house!  Still trying to get all those Christmas Decorations away.  New Years seems forever ago, I can't believe it was only less than a week ago.  More on Christmas and New Years to come!