YEE-HAW!

TJ and I love the fair...Good ol' local fun! We entered a dahlia in the fair (thanks to my dad) so that we could get in free everyday. We ate dinner there almost every night...expensive and fattening, but worth it! (I know we're big dorks)

Sophia got a flower balloon in the pavilion and I enjoyed getting all the free stuff haha!
The animals are always a favorite. While walking through all the big animals Sophia had to be carried. She kept saying, "get me" or "scare me," but liked talking about them. The zebra is one of my favorites. Check out the "Zedonk" behind him (half zebra/half donkey).

Our good friend Kimberly came with us one of the days. Kim and I thought this guy was pretty hot, but Sophia thought otherwise, haha.

Yee-haw...RODEO!!! Sophia loved this (I think because the animals were farther away). She kept pointing and saying, "LOOK!" in her excited voice. She was quite the clapper and cheerer. I had to join her too:)

Talk about getting chills?! "I Am Proud To Be An American!"

Hold on! 8 seconds!

Family shot...

TJ has a new calling in life...to be a RODEO CLOWN, hahaha! This was their little "half-time" show. YMCA!

Until next year...

We Survived 2 Full Days

"Phew!" We got through 2 full days of Sophia's new "school!" Today and Thursday I had teacher days, so I wanted Sophia to go all day then, just in case she needed me I could escape out of my meetings! First of all I have to wake Sophia up to get ready in the morning (which I hate), but I do get an extra 20 minutes in the car with her. When I dropped her off Thursday morning, I was a crying mess all the way there and as I walked in. I tried to be "STRONG" mama, but wasn't doing a very good job. Sophia whimpered and wanted her blankets, but settled down. This morning I held it together a little better, but Sophia cried harder. Lots of reassuring of "mommy will be back!" Both days went better than I thought...not perfect, but better. She went through crying spurts throughout the days and asked for me about every 40 minutes, but the crying did not last more than 15 minutes. Both days when I went to pick her up, she would see me, then start crying...pretty funny! Here is her cubby:

Sophia did lots of art. She painted, made a name tag, and a bookmark for daddy. She loves putting on stickers.
Ms. Shelby (teacher) is VERY POSITIVE and fills out a "Toddler Times" for each child telling the parents about the kids day. It reports on their behavior, naps, potty, meals/snacks, activities, and comments. I appreciate that even though I make Shelby tell me everything when I get there anyway. TJ loves it too! Plus Shelby took pictures of Sophia on her cell phone all day and texted them to me! It was wonderful getting those pictures while sitting in oh so wonderful meetings!
Sophia enjoyed playing with the magnets. During the 2 days, she also: played with marbles, went on a walk to see the chickens, picked apples and blackberries, played outside in the swing, read books, painted a picture, made a bookmark, played in rice, made a fort, etc. Busy, busy!

This was an exhausting week...Sophia was extremely cranky tonight and was ready to crash (so am I), but we survived (thanks for all the encouraging notes)!!! I'm back to lovin' weekends:)

Back To School

Wait?? Did I have a summer? It went by WAY too fast because it's school time again!!! Every year my mom comes and helps set-up my classroom and if it wasn't for her it would not go as fast (thanks mom:)! Not everything is put up on the walls yet, but here is a glimpse. Last year my theme was Hawaiian and my 1st graders were "surfers," but because I'm teaching 2nd grade this year, we are going to be the second grade Superstars!

This is our Math area:

Here is Sophia being a great little student! She loved playing in my classroom. She would say, "HELPING!" as she pushed the chairs around. In my room my students don't have assigned seats. They get to choose where they sit based on their learning style, whether it be at a table with chairs, sitting on the floor at the low table, or around the room with a clipboard.
Over in the far corner is our literacy area with benches. I also use lanterns and lamps as the lighting to set the "calming" mood.

This is a board to show off their work:

Bare with me as I get a little emotional!!! This year will be the first year Sophia will not be watched by family, so we have been adjusting to her new preschool (we call it her "school" and talk about mommy's "school") a little at a time this week. It is a great place and all the teacher's kids go there. Ms. Shelby (the teacher) does very cool things like: mud day (where they play in mud), Mother's Tea, Christmas program, fall pie making, Picture day, etc). I knew it would be hard leaving Sophia but I had No idea that it would be this hard. I'll just say that the past couple days have been filled with random tears at random times. Yesterday Sophia and I went to play together at "her school." Today I played with her for about 20 minutes and then told her I was going to go to "my school" and I would be back. She started to cry a little and asked for her blanket. Of course I started to cry, so Ms. Shelby took Sophia and went outside to swing. Shelby called 20 minutes later and told me she wasn't crying, but still adjusting. She reassured Sophia that "mommy will be back!" She did a little craft and played some more. When I came back, I snuck in to see what she was doing and she was sitting on the floor with another little girl and Shelby was reading a story to them. She looked like such a BIG girl:)! When she saw me she gave me a sad lip like "How could you leave me?," sat on my lap for 1 minute and was off to play again. phewwww...better than I thought and way better than nursery! We're going back tomorrow and I'll leave her again for just 1-2 hours for consistency. Gamma bought her a cute little backpack to put her things in and to continue to excite her about "her school!" Isn't her craft beautiful???

By the end of the week Sophia will be at "her school" all day because I have "teacher days!" Oh man...even more crying! I am grateful for my job, but can't Sophia come with me to teach???

On Your Mark, Get Set, Go!!!

On Saturday, my Aunt Sarah and Craig (who live in Seattle) invited us over to do a practice triathlon (smaller version of what we're actually going to do), so that we could get a feeling of the transitions and doing the swim, bike, and run one right after another. We met at Madrona park. It was beautiful! You could look out over the water and see Bellevue on the other side! We arrived and Aunt Sarah and Craig had goodie bags for us with different energy items, water bottles, and more...very nice:)

Here we are getting ready to take off on our swim...

Look at that form! I did pretty good tracking myself in the water (staying in a straight line), but my dad and Craig took a little side trip a little off course. Boy was I laughing!!!
Getting out of the water I was a little dizzy, but ran back to my transition area and got ready for the bike...Dad and I are off and ready! It's so nice riding bikes over there because the cars are so polite. There was actually a sign that said, "Bikes have the right away!" Why can't B-town be more like that?

The bike was a nice ride. I don't have clip-in pedals, so I didn't have to worry about changing my shoes. I took a couple drinks, put my hat on, and started jogging (not fast, haha)...Don't worry those with clip-ins caught up to me!

My mom made star "finisher" medals. As we finished the run, the kids put them around our neck. Sophia had mine and put in on me:)!

After we all finished we had a BBQ. Aunt Sarah had her friend make special cupcakes for us to celebrate us finishing in one piece and to celebrate Nolan's (nephew) birthday. Aren't they cute?!!!

Sophia played hard and earned her cupcake.

Here are all the participants. It wouldn't be like my mom if she didn't make us shirts. The T-shirts said, "Uffens, Pitt, Brown....Practicethon"

Doing our "Practicethon" gave me more confidence for our upcoming triathlon and I wasn't even sore the next day. HOLY COW, IT'S IN 2 WEEKS!!!

Point Defiance Zoo

I have been wanting to take Sophia to the zoo ALL summer and we finally made it there on Friday...Better late than later seeing as though school starts next week. I was telling Sophia about the zoo and that we were going to see animals prior to going and she kept saying, "get me!" She thought the animals were going to get her.

We headed for the playground first and the long slides were a favorite...
After the playground, we went to watch the "outdoor" show. I think Sophia liked it because the animals were farther away.

After the zoo I asked what animal was Sophia's favorite and she said the "roar!" As we looked at the tiger she roared the whole time.

Another favorite was the elephants (as long as I was holding her). We waved and said "HI!" to them.

Sophia enjoyed all the animals that were not behind glass. I don't think she grasped the concept that they couldn't "get her" because the glass looked deceiving to her. In the aquarium she wanted to ride in her stroller (which is not always the case) and she held her hand on her face the whole time. It was like, "I can't see them, they can't see me" type of thing. She would also say, "scare me!"

Whoa! Not too close Auntie "Teen"!

Once again, pointing to the animals, but not TOO close! She likes them from a distance. Notice she is out of her stroller when we are looking at animals not behind glass.

Sophia thought the otters were funny because they had toys on their tummies!

Thank you zoo!

Pee-pee In Da Potty!

Okay there was no pee-pee, but Sophia did want to show off her NEW little potty or as she calls it "my toilet!" I know many of you are reading this and saying...What? Potty training? We are just taking it slow and following Sophia's lead because the past couple weeks she has been wanting a turn sitting on the big potty. She has also been telling us that she is poopy and that she wants her diaper changed. I figured that is a good sign that she does not like it in her diaper. So yesterday we went to TARGET and got the simple and cheapest potty chair. It will connect to the big toilet and the bottom is steps to walk up to the toilet.

Here is Sophia right after I got it out of the box. She couldn't wait to sit on it...

I explained to her that her potty stays in the bathroom because I can just see her walking around carrying it...uh..gross! So off went the diaper to give it a try. We were in the bathroom for a good 20 minutes. She would stand up, put the seat lid down, lift it back up and say "more," then sit back down. We really killed some time in there and she cried when I told her we were all done for now.
To take the process even further I gave her some toilet paper and she wiped and put it in her potty.

Once again there was no pee. I tried teasing her with running water, etc but it didn't work. Like I said we are just introducing it now because she is excited about it. We'll see how long that lasts. Any potty training tips???

Lions and Tigers and Bears Oh My!

WATCH OUT...THIS IS ONE SCARY GIRL! (Sophia has been into scaring people by growling like a tiger or lion. Her growl makes us laugh!)

Seattle Duck Tour

TJ's parents invited us to go on the "Ride the Duck" tour in Seattle with them and a group of friends. I thought I've done all the touristy things in Seattle, but the Duck ride was a first! Our captains name was "Bask-in-da-sun" and was cheesy the whole way through which fit perfectly with the tour. He asked us where we were from and we all started laughing and said "Bremerton!" He then said, "Wow that is quite foreign." The ride was an 1 1/2 hours and Captain Baskindasun said they do about 70 tours a day in the summer. You could also purchase "quacker" whistles to join in the fun. We toured the city first and passed at least 15 Starbucks. Every time we passed one we had to respond with a "cha-ching!" Then we went into the water. That was my favorite part:) Here is a list of things we learned about Seattle:

DID YOU KNOW???

1. United airlines was established on Lake Union.

2. The Space Needle was originally orange.

3. The Space Needle was built for the world fair.

4. The Monorail was suppose to be temporary.

5. Mr. "Nordstrum" came to America with only $5 in his pocket (that quickly changed).

(Okay there was more, but I can't remember right now)

Check out that ride!!! I called window seat. Many people wave to you from the streets and dance to the music of the "Duck"

Love this place:)

Here is another Duck in the water...They just slowly go down the boat ramp and "wa-la" we're floating!

Space Needle

Gas Works Park

The "Sleepless in Seattle" house

TJ and Sophia posing next to the Captains chair

It's always fun to do something new. We're glad we went and had a fun time with TJ's family...quack, quack!

Love Saturdays

I have always enjoyed Saturdays, but now I understand how excited stay at home moms get about Saturdays...We got to spend an entire day with TJ (daddy)! Earlier this week TJ pulled my parent's boat out of the garage and got it nice and sparkly, ready to use. So after a couple errands, my dad took us all out on the boat. You can tell that Sophia enjoyed it:)! That's my girl!

She even wanted to go in the tube (with me of course). We were set ready to go...
UNTIL the slack was let out and UNDER the front of the tube went. I was leaning back but it was too late. In the water we went...

With my life guarding skills I kept Sophia as high out of the water as I could and put her back into the tube. She got a little nervous but recovered super quick. I was very impressed. We tried it again and once again we ended up in the water, but she still wanted to go.

Then TJ came in with us for more weight (he will love that comment) and we were off. During our ride I kept asking Sophia if she was having fun and she would say "yes" with her little face squished from the life jacket. WEEEEEE! Isn't she a natural?

It must have been a relaxing ride because she fell asleep in her Aunt "Teens" arms when TJ and I took another turn on the tube!

What a fun day! Thanks Dad!