Saturday, April 19, 2008





Is our child normal? Sophia's natural, self-taught (and sometimes overwhelming) affinity for peek-a-boo seems to have morphed into a general desire to cover her face. We often find her contentedly playing peek-a-boo with herself by pulling a dishtowel, burp cloth or whatever is handy over her eyes and kicking her feet for several moments before pulling it away and laughing. However, on a few occasions in the past couple of days, Tina has caught her putting herself to sleep using the same face-covering technique. She does it without complaining one peep, usually while drinking her bottle, or shortly thereafter. Who knows? maybe she just likes it to be dark while trying to sleep!

Oh, and one more tid-bit about Sophia's personality: she loves to see and play with other children, but she is absolutely smitten with herself - her favorite thing is to look in the mirror and giggle herself silly. Hard to blame her, though, for enjoying the company of such a happy baby!

Monday, April 14, 2008

Musical Prodigy?


This weekend we went with Jamie and Steve to see and hear the BYU-I (as in, I wish I could get into the real BYU) Symphony Band, as they passed through town on their 2 week tour of the southern gulf coast. Pictured to the left is Sophia just before leaving, all dressed up in her new sun hat. In case you wondering, let us assure you that taking a six-month old to see the symphony might not be the brightest plan we've ever formulated. The band played great, at least that's what Jamie and Steve told us. They sounded alright from outside in the foyer, but I think we may have missed some of the evening's musical magic.

In other news from the Nuge', Tina has for the past week been living the American dream: house in the suburbs, one beautiful child, one perfect husband, and a mouth full of straight, pearly whites to compliment her fantastic post-baby physique (she is actually in better shape than before Sophia!). Last Monday, after 2.5 years of soreness, pinching, cutting, cleaning, picking, and general suffering, she flew down to San Antonio to have her braces removed. With transportation assistance from her Aunt Dina, Tina made it to two appointments with her orthodontist - the first to remove the braces in the morning and get fitted for her retainers; the second in the afternoon to pick up her retainers and receive final instructions. The retainers are a minor nuisance, but she's wearing them regularly and continually becoming more comfortable doing so. Keep up the good work, T!

I spent the week in Birmingham, Alabama learning how to optimize a crushed stone plant. On Saturday, after returning, I mowed the weeds in our backyard, then spread some Weed'n Feed. I'm pretty certain that stuff will end up doing more feeding than weeding, and more than likely it will feed the weeds more than the grass (since they occupy a proportionally larger area than the grass), making them even more difficult to remove. Maybe our backyard was destined for a swimming pool anyway. Or maybe just a trash pit.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Grumpy v. Sophia look alike



Many people have told us that they think Sophia looks like my father. So my mom found a photo of my dad at about Sophia same age (6 months). What do you think?? For an easier comparison, I tried to get a photo of Sophia with her mouth shut but I couldn't. We hope Sophia grows up to be a cuter girl than what Dad would make!!! :) I love you Dad!!!