Welcome to the World, Sophia Claire

Our friends, Ryan and Melissa, welcomed their new little baby girl into the world this week.

Sophia Claire was born January 30th and weighed in at 9 lbs 2 oz.

Mia is looking forward to playing with Sophia at the River this summer.

Life is Good

...when you're surrounded by your favorite toys.

Happy 7 Months, Mia!!

Mia is a solid sitter, scoots around on her tummy or rolls around and around to play with her toys, and easily rocks on her hands and knees. She's also made one or two "formal crawls" with forward motion. Since Mia's getting very good at going where she wants to, we've started putting up some gates at the stairs so we won't be caught off guard by more mobility than we thought she was capable of.

Mia also started swim class today. She had a great time playing in the pool, singing songs, and watching the other kids.

Lounging With My Girls

Mia spent Wednesday night hanging out with her girlfriends. The series of pictures below really show each of the girls' personalities.





Emma has a great smile on all the time. Anna loves to explore (especially others' heads). Mia, typically happy to flash a smile, will be very serious and stick her hands in her mouth just because you have a camera out. Any guesses on where her stubborn nature came from?

Mia Has Babies!!!

Baby fish that is! After laying dormant 3 1/2 years, the fish tank is back in action. We're doing a live bearing tank, which means we only have fish that birth live babies or that won't hurt any of the babies born in the tank. At the moment, we have Swordtails, Platys, and Guppies. Since the tank has only been up and running about 2 weeks now, we had a pleasant surprise this morning when we saw some baby fish hanging out in the rocks and grass.

Mia is very excited about having new pets and especially that she is no longer the youngest in the house.



Look about 3/4 of the way down and right in the middle of the picture below. See the orange dot on a green rock between two red rocks? That is a baby fish. We're not sure what kind yet, but probably a platy.

Sorry about the blurriness of the picture, but these guys are hard to catch on camera. We've seen at least 3 different babies, but there are probably more that are less adventurous and hang out only in the grass.

When Mommy's Away, Daddy Will Play

Mommy had to go back to California Thursday night, arriving home very late Friday night. Mia and Daddy had a great time together and even got a mini photo session in Friday night.

Mia goes to SF

Mia took her second cross-country trip to San Francisco. This time, she was escorted by her grandmother who came along to take care of her while Mommy worked. We got to see Susan and Matt on Tuesday night and Alex, Erin, BB, and James on Wednesday night.

January 2 recovery...

New Year's 2008

Mia trekked up to the Sheldon Farm in the mountains north of Scranton, PA.  We got about 6 inches of snow both nights that we were there, so the scenery was great and Mia was able to have some real fun in the snow.  We tromped through the woods, did some sledding and sat in the snow.

Christmas Day

Mia enjoyed lots of quality time with Uncle Allan and Tia Raquel.  This trip was their first time meeting Mia as she was born 3 days after they were married in Zamora, Spain.

Mia exchanged funny faces with Cousin Gregory.

Practiced her spanish with Raquel's sister Paloma.

Enjoyed seeing Aunt Mary Beth

And even helped Grammie open some of her gifts.

She particularly enjoyed drinking water from glasses, pictured here with Grandpa and Grandma.

Christmas Morning

Mia got to be Santa's Helper Elf on Christmas morning.


She enjoyed talking on her new phone with Grandma.

And playing with Aunt Kate.

Christmas Eve

Mia got all dressed up for Christmas Eve dinner.

Mia's First Solids

Since Mia turns 6 months on Wednesday, she got to try solids for the first time this week. She enjoyed finally getting "real" food (if you can call rice cereal mixed 1:4 with breast milk real food).

Mia waits in anticipation while Mom prepares the food.

She was very interested in the plastic bib.

Her First Bite!

"Hey, give it back!"

"Oh, some rice cereal got on Mom's hand. Mmm, mmm good."

"Let me try this whole spoon thing."

"Dad, will you be daring enough to feed me next?"