Catch up

Life has been so busy around our house these last several months! With me and Nick back in school, life has provided some challenges to say the very least.  Raising a rambunctious toddler while tackling homework is a rough combination! Nick and I always try and have some fun in between school nights. 

One of the things Nick has been doing to get rid of his stress is experimenting with BBQ and making his own BBQ sauce.  Ribs have been his first challenge; he's found his meat market, he's almost perfected his sauce recipe and he has his preferred method of cooking down.

Saint Louis style ribs

This is just one ingredient in his secret spice rub

 

I think he's gonna take over my chef position!

Rubbed and ready for the HEAT!!

Ready for the BBQ

Smoaked to perfection!

Here is Sofia and her Uncle Ryan playing blocks.  Its too cute hearing Sofia call for Uncle Ryan- When Sofie was a baby, Ryan was affraid to hold her.  He would just look at her! And now he really enjoys spending time with her.

It was Nick's birthday a while ago and the one thing he wanted to do, was go to the Renaissance Festival. 

The Renaissance Festival is always fun..people watching, turkey leg eating and joust cheering- FUN!

We took Ryan with us and he really enjoyed himself too! He thought it was funny that the sign was in Spanish!

These are the people that roam the dusty pathways of Renaissance Festivals all over the place.  Too funny!

Perfect birthday lunch! All he was missing was his beer!

Our Knight won the battle! YAY!!!

All in all, it was a really fun day!

As another birthday gift for the birthday boy, I took Nick to a really cool Comic book store in downtown Phoenix.  He loved to show Sofie all the different comics and share his passion with her.  Nick bought some really cool vintage comics and a few to add to his collection.  And, Daddy bought a few "books" for his Sofie-girl!

For his birthday dinner, Nick's parents took us out to dinner at one of Nick's favorite restaurants. Here is Sofie with her "Ba-Pa" and her Daddy.

Happy Birthday to the best Daddy!

She's becoming a total Daddy's girl!

I love my family!

This month was also time to celebrate Valentine's Day.  Being parents, the meaning of this holiday like many other holidays takes on a new meaning.  Nick and I still found time for ourselves but were thrilled to do new little things like attend Sofie's Valentine's Day cookie party at her daycare. 

 

I baked some yummy cookies and cupcakes for her and her class and made some frosting for decorating.  It was too cute seeing Sofia and all her friends.

She enjoyed her sweets!

I love seeing Sofie hang out with all her little friends!

This is one of Sofie's friend, Catcher.

 

We've been preparing for Sofia's upcoming birthday.  We are planning a small party in the park that is going to be themed about her favorite show...YO GABBA GABBA!  So we decided to have some pictures taken for her big 2nd birthday! We've found a photographer who has done an AMAZING job in the past and LOVE her work.  Here are few samples.

This Nick's FAVORITE!!!

Here is Sofie trying on one of her birthday gifts.  Nick and I are planning on getting her one of many bikes...horn and streamers and all! We could not get her to take this helmet off! She is gonna love her birthday gift~!

Stay tuned for pictures of the big day!

Lost Comments...

Hey faithful blog readers and blog peekers!
I just noticed I had a back up of blog comments dating back to October!!! I did not realize I had to "publish" them?!?

Well, their published and I wanted to thank all of you for the great comments and for all the thoughtful messages. Nick and I love being able to share with all of you Sofia’s little adventures and milestones. It's amazing to look back at my previous posts and see the transformation that she has made. We can hardly believe that she will be turning two in just over a month!! We are really excited to start planning the big birthday bash! So far we're thinking of a Gabba themed wonderland!

YOOO GABBA GABBA!!

Sofia has been doing so well in school! Her vocabulary is expanding with such speed, she is putting together more and more sentences and wants to repeat EVERYTHING!! Nick is really excited because she is now able to say all of the DC Comic characters from Flash, Green Lantern, and Batman to Nick's favorite, Aquaman! He's a proud Daddy! She is still a faithful fan of Yo Gabba Gabba but has added a few others to her list of favorites. Backyardigans and SpongeBob Square pants are now right at the top of her list. Our DVR is now filled with unwatched episodes just waiting for her to enjoy em'!  It's so cute to watch her enjoy her shows...she is totally into them. She laughs, sings along and dances to them all!

Well, stay turned in for the next blog update...and we would love to continue to read the comments so, keep em' coming

We love you!

New Year and Old Friends!

To kick off the new year, we headed up north to Idaho to visit my cousin and her family.  Nick and I had never been to Idaho and we were so excited to see the green trees, snow and nature!  After living in Arizona the muted colors of the desert begin to all look the same and the cactus and shrubs can't compete with the mile high pines found in the north!

Excited to get away and for Sofie to take her first plane ride, we could not pack the bags fast enough and say so long to the work week and 2009! Leading up to the trip we kept telling Sofie that she was gonna take a plane ride and point out the plane in the sky.  The flying Gods were shining down on us the day of the trip, we only bought two seats and Sofie was supposed to sit on my lap.  Well, it turns out that Idaho is not the hot spot for ringing in the new year...so our flight was not full and Sofie scored her own seat! She was able to sleep for most of the flight and was ready to go as soon as we landed!

Here is Nick and Sofie as we touched down in Spokane. Coure d' Alene is only about half hour away.

To help us celebrate the new year, we decided to make a stop at the STATE ran liquor store.  It was so weird, you can only buy liquor at these designated stores.  The employees are even state employees.  Nick made some friends and found out that it is a small world...turns out the two people that were working in the store were at one point from Arizona?!

I was so happy to be there~! Thanks Emily, Alex and Fisher!

Here we are on Lake Fernan.  It was frozen when we got there, by the end of our trip all the snow had melted!!

Living in the desert, I rarely get the chance to use some of my Minnesota weather gear, I was excited to dust off my down vests, jackets, scarves and gloves! This place is BEAUTIFUL!!!

Here is Alex getting ready to sabor the New Year bottle of Champagne

Here is Alex saboring the bottle...I was suppose to join him but my bottle was opened and enjoyed!

These are some of Alex's trophies!

Proud hunter!

Here is Nick showing off an elk jaw bone..

I LOVE HIM!!

Waiting for the New Year! 2010 is lookin' good so far!

It was so nice to ring in the new year with family! We had good food, yummy drinks and tons of laughs.

I was so excited to finally meet Fisher!  I've seen so many pictures of him and we've done numerous Skype calls but still meeting this extrodinary little man was so nice.  I immediatly fell in love with his squeezable cheeks and his laugh!  He is so adventurous and daring...he even taught Sofie a few new tricks!

(Thanks Fisher, Sofie is now trying your sofa acrobatics)

Fisher was too heavy for Nick...he's use to his little feather!

We took the kids to a children's museum in Spokane and Sofie and Fisher had a great time!

Fisher enjoying himself!

Sofie really enjoys painting!

After we explored downtown Spokane, we enjoyed some local food as we often do. Alex took us to one of his favorite places to eat while in Spokane

This was in the parking lot of Dick's- This "warning" was on the window of a car in the parking lot...we took a picture of it because it was just too weird! We decided not to test it!  

Sofie and Fisher were excited to enjoy thier "Whammy" burger!

After seeing all the sights of Coure d' Alene Nick and I decided that we want to live there- at some point~

We strolled along the longest floating boardwalk in the world- Also looked at the Coure d' Alene Resort

The trip was amazing and we plan on going back in August for an extraordinary camping trip and to look at some properties!

We love you guys and can't wait until the summer! THANK YOU!!!