She Can Hold Her Own

Her own bottle that is... This is such a relief for mommy. Not to discount all of her other accomplishments, but having Sophie be able to hold her bottle at any time makes life a lot easier. She's been holding it for awhile while lying down or reclining, but now she can do it while sitting. This makes meals, car rides, and those hunger fits right in the middle of cooking dinner a lot more manageable. Thank God for all the small miracles!

Practice Makes Perfect

In order to help Sophie practice walking, Andy bought her this great little toy. You can stand behind it and push it, or you can ride on it, and you can even turn it into a wagon and pull it! Sophie finds it much easier to push her truck on the grass, so we've been playing with it a lot in the backyard. We hope that practicing with her truck will make Sophie an expert walker before long, especially since it's getting harder and harder for her mommy to carry her!

9 months

Well it took her nine months to get here, and another 9 months to blossom into this! What a cutie, in my humble opinion. When she's not sick or cutting a tooth, Sophie is just about as happy as a pig in you know what. This is just a wonderful age, and mommy is having lots of fun introducing Sophie to new experiences as often as possible. Whether it's playing with rice or cookie dough, crawling in the damp grass, or reading a new book, the world is an exciting place for this baby!

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day at the Giesekes was not very exciting this year since we all had the flu. This morning though Sophie and I were feeling better so we went ahead and baked our heart-shaped cookies that should have been made days ago! Sophie had a lot of fun playing with the flour and squishing the dough between her fingers. When daddy gets home we'll frost and decorate the cookies. We'll be able to tell if daddy is feeling better by whether or not he wants to eat the cookies when they're done!

Caught in the Act

We keep a baby gate between the kitchen and the part of the house where Andy's office is and where the guest room is. It's also where we keep the litter box and cat food, which are fascinating to Sophie. On this particular day I forgot to put the gate back up, and Sophie decided to make a thorough inspection of the cat food. Can you tell which picture shows when she realized she was caught??

Hair Do

Now that Sophie's hair is getting longer, we've been experimenting with different styles. Daddy likes the rocker chick style with the mohawk, but mommy prefers the pretty girly style with bows and barrettes. Which do you like the best?