Liltte Drummer Girl

I swore I'd never buy a set of drums for my kid, but after only 8 months, I've already broken my oath! We went to a large consignment sale a few weeks ago and I bought a Leapfrog Learning Drum for Sophia. It has different settings so that when you hit it, it will make drum sounds, music sounds, say the letters of the alphabet, or count up to ten. The first time I put it front of Sophia, her face lit up and she grinned ear to ear. It has quickly become her favorite toy, and we'll often get bored waiting for her to finish playing with it so she'll play with us!

Bye Bye Baby

Today Sophia started waving "bye bye" to her reflection in the mirror, and it was nothing short of a miracle when she continued to do it after I turned on the camera! (I apologize because the angle is a little strange, but I needed one hand to hold Sophie and the other to wave.)

Happy Halloween

Sophia's first Halloween was so much fun. We started the festivities last week by taking her to a pumpkin patch just up the street from us. There were at least 25 other families there, which surprised us since it was a Wednesday morning. Sophia had fun picking out pumpkins, looking at the gorgeous sunflowers and watching all the other kids run around and play.


Here is Sophia and her Daddy proudly standing at the entrance of the corn stalk maze: I would have posted a picture of us at the exit, but we never found it! We truly got lost and actually had to cheat to get out!!
And here's our little baby bumblebee on the big day:

We went over to our neighbor's house for pizza before the trick-or-treating began, and we quickly realized when you have that many kids that are that excited, it's impossible to get a good picture!
Sophia decided to forego the trick-or-treating this year so she could help hand out candy. She loved seeing all of the kids in costumes, but she can't wait until next year when she will be able to toddle up to a few doorsteps with her buddies.

Jack-o-lantern Smile

For those of you who love baby teeth, I finally got some pictures of Sophia's toothy grin. Enjoy!

8 Months

Sophia is starting to make the transition from infant to toddler, and so far, this is my favorite age. She weighs 20 pounds 7 ounces and is 29 inches long. She has officially outgrown her infant car seat, which is a big deal because we can no longer tote her around in the carrier. That means she gets to sit in the grocery cart and get admired by every woman within 50 yards of the store. It also means she gets to sit in highchairs at restaurants, and she has somehow already developed an amazing ability to throw everything within arms reach onto the floor at a lightening quick speed!
Her tooth total is now up to eight ( 4 top, 4 bottom), which has helped accelerate the weaning process. She now just nurses at night and drinks out of a sippy cup during the day. You can see some of her teeth when she smiles now and it's really cute. Gramma calls it a Jack-o-lantern smile!
Sophia is beginning to communicate with us well by using her hands and body. She lifts both arms up when she wants up, and she started waving bye bye today. She babbles constantly and her favorite phrase is "goya goya." She still hasn't said mama yet, but hopefully that'll change soon. She still shows no interest in crawling and now won't even lay down unless she's sleeping. She LOVES to walk, but can only do it while holding our fingers. Her favorite destinations are to mommy and daddy, or to the windows. She likes to look outside, as does her brother Trent, and it's pretty cute to see them looking out the window together. Sophia is starting to develop some social skills as well. She always gets excited when she sees her neighborhood buddies Elizabeth, Ian, Shannon and Riley. I can't really blame her because she is definately the center of attention in that group. Whenever we step outside, we instantly hear screams of "baby Sophia!" coming from 3 houses down! She has also developed a sensitive side and will cry if you laugh or tease her too much. With the last name Skeeters, we're hoping she'll toughen up pretty quickly! Sophia has had a couple other firsts that we're not quite bragging about. She pooped in the bathtub for the first time (the picture can be provided upon request) and she also peed on me while I was putting her in the bathtub. With all the hollidays coming up quickly, I'm sure she'll have plenty of other firsts that we'll be more excited to share.

Fleet Week

Fleet Week has become an annual tradition for the California Skeeters clan, and this year Nana and Pops were able to join us all the way from Texas. Fleet Week is a celebration of San Francisco's naval history. There are several events that take place over the week, but the most notable are the parade of naval ships and an airshow held right over the bay. Sophia was excited because not only was this her first Fleet week (out of the womb), it was her first trip to San Francisco. She couldn't wait! We started the day by heading over to the Buena Vista which is an old bar made famous by their Irish coffee. Everybody agreed that there was more "Irish" than coffee, but Pops liked it so much that he decided he should start every day with an Irish coffee!


While we watched the parade of ships and waited not-so-patiently for the airshow to begin, we enjoyed the beautiful view of the bay and the gorgeous weather.

Once the airshow began, Sophia made it clear that she was not a fan of jet engines screaming overhead. We had tried to modify some ear plugs to fit her, and we tried to hold our hands over her ears, but I ended up having to take her back to the hotel. It was actually her nap time, so all in all it worked out pretty well. Here are the pictures the rest of the family took of the show.

Notice the Golden Gate Bridge in the background...


Can you spot the plane in this one? We met up after the airshow and despite our best efforts, we ended up at Pier 39 to eat dinner. The food actually ended up being amazing and we got to watch the sun set over the water. On our way there, we saw at least 10 police on motorcycles come flying by with their sirens blazing. We looked around to see what was going on, and noticed several men in tight blue flight suits waving from a rental car. It was the Blue Angels getting a police escort! I felt like that was a great use of our tax payer dollars because, as we all know, happy hour ends at 7pm!!

Sophia did not sleep well at the hotel (so neither did mom and dad) and at breakfast the next morning, she actually fell asleep while eating! Her eyes would open just a crack, she would put her cracker in her mouth, and then her eyes would shut as she lazily chewed the bite. Our waiter said he was jealous because eating and sleeping were his two favorite things, and Sophia somehow managed to do both at once!

Computer Games

When I'm on the computer and Sophia has tired of her toys, she has found a new game to entertain herself with. She tips over the trash basket, pulls out used kleenex, and sticks them in her mouth. It's so gross!
I gave her the kleenx box to see if she might find unused kleenex just as tasty.
Nope - she's got a distinguished palate and prefers the used variety of kleenex!