Sophie.

Have you met Sophie? If your children are in their 30s, you probably have not, though allegedly, Sophie has been around since the 1960s. But up until recently, she lived exclusively in France. She's supposedly the most amazing toy for babies, because she's easy to grip, she has contrasting colors that catch a baby's eye, and she's delicious to chew on. Since Sophie costs about $25, she better be the most amazing toy ever, amirite?

Ellie LOVES her Sophie. She likes to chew on the legs, or stick Sophie's snout in her mouth for some French kissing action.


They are true loves. It especially makes me laugh because when I'm out with my mommy friends, someone always comments on how their kid doesn't go to town on Sophie the way Elizabeth does. I have to remind them that their kid takes a paci. When my kid gets fussy in her stroller, I can't stick a binky in her mouth. Instead, I jam a giraffe leg into her pie hole.

Tim took the day off today (and tomorrow too) because our friends Cory and Natalie and their son Logan are back visiting California while Cory's on leave from the Marines - normally they're all the way in Japan. We'd hoped to meet up with them today but plans did not come through (understandable, as both sets of grandparents are just meeting Logan for the first time - Natalie's parents flew all the way from Scotland!)

This morning we had a professional photo session with a local photographer, thanks to a gift certificate from Don and Eileen from Christmas. I'm glad we waited so long to use it - at Christmas time I did not have my bananas together enough to do a good photo session, and now that Elizabeth is big enough to sit on her own, it gave us a lot more options for photos. We did a lot outside, we did some in her bedroom, but it turns out our bedroom had the best lighting. We did some cute family shots of all of us sitting together in bed, and then a lot of our little sweetiebean alone, including some of our little roley poley in the buff. Is there anything cuter than a baby butt? It was funny - the photog asked if we wanted Elizabeth's strawberry mark airbrushed out of the photos (it's a little red splotch on her back) to which we said of course not! It's her cute little birthmark (though it's allegedly going to go away as she gets older.) I cannot wait to get the photos back and see how cute she looks. It'll also be nice to finally have some great photos of the three of us as a family, and some of the baby and I together. I feel like I catch a lot of good moments between Elizabeth and Tim, but there aren't very many between the two of us together. Mostly because I look so dang haggard all of the time!