Christmas 2011

2011 Christmas was pretty special. We had an early Christmas in Franklin with the Huskins because Adam was supposed to be out of town. However, he ended up being with us on Christmas and we were together in Knoxville as well! What a nice surprise.

Cookies for Santa, carrots for the reindeer

Santa left Sophie a letter explaining why he came to her house early

Santa's Letter to Sophie

My dearest Sophia-

Thank you so much for the milk and wonderful cookies, your mom is a great baker! Did you help her with those? They tasted soooo good after a long flight. The reindeer loved their carrot and the popcorn was great too! Thank you for remembering them. I know your daddy has to be away for Christmas this year, so I brought you your presents a little bit early so he can be with you on your “Christmas morning”. I know that you have been a very good girl this year, so I have some extra special gifts the elves made just for you. I hope you like them. Be a good girl this year! Merry Christmas Sophia!

Love,

Santa Claus

(Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donder, Blitzen, and of course Rudolph too)

Franklin Christmas Morning

Sure they got toys...but Nana's Ipad is much more fun

Sophie got her first set of golf clubs from Nana and Pap-pap Hart

The First Annual Huskins' Cookie Swap

This year I hosted the 1st Annual Huskins' Cookie Swap at our house, mostly for work friends, but I made my sister participate too! It was so much fun and I'm sure I will do this again!

Brunch...delicious

Aimee Longo, Heather Davis, Kim Bertels, Jessica Simpson (L to R)

My sister wife Kari. Really, she's marrying my work husband

The loot

Delicious

LeighAnn Murphy, Lita Baldwin loving on Zoe, Karen Gannon

Kari, Darin, and Me...sister wife and work husband

Darin and Vinnie Longo...hilarious

My crazy sister

Allison, Kim, Heather...I just love this kind of laughter

Kim, LeighAnn, Karen, Jessica

Aimee, Allison, Kim

Shay Karmo, LeighAnn, Lita, Karen

Merry Christmas!

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Funny Thoughts

Okay, I had a really funny experience tonight and it made me start to think...what are the weird things your parents said or did that you now look back on and realize were quite strange? What? Is is only me and my parents? Oh well...for your entertainment purposes then...

The other day we took Sophie to Five Guys for a hot dog and fries. Quite honestly, the best hamburgers in the Franklin area at least. As I was getting Sophie out of the car we had the following conversation...
Me: "Sophie, do you want to have ketchup with your fries?"
Sophie: "Nope"
Me: "What are you? A communist?"
Sophie: "No mommy, I'm a princess"

Well this cracked me up so of course I made it my facebook status. One of my cousins (who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent) sent me a message and asked me if my mom used to say "are you a communist?" all the time. Apparently it runs in the family...her mom said it too. That made me start to think about some things my parents said that are actually quite funny now that I'm an adult.

Here are some excerpts from my childhood...

Whenever a beer truck drove by us on the interstate my mom would yell "hijack that truck"

Whenever we passed a police officer she would say "Katie, what are pennies made of?" and I would yell "dirty copper" and it took YEARS for me to figure out what this even meant.

If we were driving in Northern Michigan and there was any sort of camoflage convoy my mom would say "oh man, I guess we are invading Canada again." I never understood why we were always at war with Canada.

If ever we don't like something or don't want to do something that is supposed to be good and/or fun she will ask if we are communists.

Now...before you blame my mother for all my issues...my sister was no slacker in this department either...she made me believe all sorts of things that were not true. I believed I was adopted for YEARS and was just waiting for my parents to confess to me. She also told me that if you left your bright lights on you LITERALLY blinded the other drivers. The "do not pass" signs on the road...she told me you were not supposed to pass the actual sign (as opposed to other cars)...but that it was just a rule you broke.

I could go on...but I won't. I'm probably already in trouble. But what made me think of this is the fact that I did something strange tonight with Sophie as a witness and it made me wonder when she gets older...what will she look back on and remember? Will she remember all the nights I read books to her before she went to bed? Will she remember me baking cookies and letting her have one while they are still warm? Will she remember riding on the boat and the golf cart? Or...will she remember episodes like this?

Tonight I had the sudden urge to cut down our tomato plants that were taking over the back garden and had been through one hard frost too many. That sounds fine right? Well, let me add that it was already dark out...and raining. So there I am hacking away at this gargantuan plant with a pair of scissors and I hear sweet Sophie say "mommy, what are you doing?" I told her and the next thing I know she is running around the back patio in her socks splashing in the puddles. In my defense I've been wanting to cut the plants down for quite awhile and really wanted to do it before a garbage day so they didn't stink up the trash can...but I kept putting it off. Then when the urge hit me, I went with it. I'm SURE she will remember this. Hopefully she will also remember that I was using scissors and that I wasn't angry at the time...we can only hope!

Halloween 2011 - Jessie and Rapunzel Style

Well, it's official. Sophie fully understands that on Halloween you get to knock on neighbors' doors and they will give you candy. Now we just need to convince her that this doesn't work every day, only on Halloween. Sophie was Rapunzel this year and she was the perfect Rapunzel. So beautiful! Only two people asked me if Sophie had extensions in her hair. Nope...she is just blessed with gorgeous hair!

The very first house she went to she said "trick or treat" and when they gave her some candy she looked in her bag and very seriously said "I want more." I quickly apologized and shooed her on her way. She finally figured out that she had to go to more than one house to fill up her bag and after each house she said "I wanna go different house." She had so much fun!

Prior to Halloween I told Adam that I was going to have Sophie carry a frying pan with her. He said "won't that be heavy?". Really? The plastic one...from her play kitchen? No, I think she's good. What the heck? In his defense not many people understood why she was carrying a frying pan. Apparently I have a bizarre sense of humor, who knew? I'm so misunderstood.

Jessie and Rapunzel at Pumpkin Fest

I just like this one because it looks like Jessie is stealing a pumpkin

I mean COME ON...she's ridiculously cute

Yes, she is carrying a frying pan...not many people got it...do I just have a really strange sense of humor?

"Daddy, I wanna different house"

Dollywood...AGAIN

YES...OKAY...FINE...I made everyone go to Dollywood with me AGAIN. What can I say? This girl LOVES an amusement park...it, well, amuses me. The first time I went Adam was not with us (he was still training in Seattle), the second time it was just Adam and I for my birthday (so we could ride the roller coasters), this time it was Adam, me, Sophie, and my mom. Sophie had so much fun. She wasn't quite as adventurous with the rides as she was the first time we went, but she still rode the egg beaters which is all that mattered to me (it's one of my favorites). The first time we went she was still on Topamax and not only did it impair her cognitively, I have a feeling it made her have no fear. She is off her Topamax now, so some of the fear is back...but so are the ABCs, storytelling, signing songs, etc...so it was a good trade off! 

She would have ridden these 50 times...she LOVED driving!

The egg beaters...a Hart favorite

Bumper cars

My cuties...I love this picture!

Family Funnel Cake

Falling Behind...

My excuse is this...I tried to get on here and update my blog two months ago and my phone started eating SD cards so I couldn't download my pictures. Once I got that fixed I was at Vanderbilt for the month and they tried to work me to death and I just didn't have time...but now I'm back, for a little while at least.

Sophie took quite possibly the most important field trip of her life with me last week. I took her to KRISPY KREME in downtown Nashville. She got a little hat and got to see how doughnuts are made. Okay, I confess, it wasn't actually an approved field trip...it was just my excuse to get a doughnut (or two). She LOVED it (and so did I).

My little sassy Sophie...where to begin...how about some funny stories. These are stories she will probably kill me for posting, but I know someday I will want to look back and will have trouble remembering them if I don't record them somewhere.

My first one we will call the "Cinderella Story". This is the one that she will really hate me for later, but it was really funny. Sophie has become very interested in her "girl parts". Since I am a nurse I feel strongly that she should know the correct word for all of her body parts so everytime she points to it and says "mommy, what's this" I tell her. She thinks the word is hilarious, or else she senses my discomfort with it, but every single time she repeats the word and then giggles. Five minutes later she will ask me again. One night while I was making dinner she kept asking me repeatedly "mommy, what's this". I answered her with the correct term every time, she repeated it and then giggled. After about 10 repetitions she asked again, I answered, and she said "no mommy, that's Cinderella" and pointed to the girl on her panties, laughing. Well done Sophie...you got me.

Sophie has also become very interested in books. So interested that she wants to "read" them to you. Everytime she opens a book she starts with "Once a time" (her version of once upon a time) and then tells you who the people are on the page and flips through the book. She also does the correct sounds effects, like when she sees the wicked stepmother she says "oooooo, witch". And every single time she sees a Prince she says "look, it's daddy". So sweet. Many times after I leave her room I will look at her on the monitor and she is sitting in bed with her legs crossed reading her books. Most of the time she is telling her stories out loud, it is seriously cute. One night after we were done with her stories, we were saying her prayers. I started and she stopped me and said "no, Sophie first". I said..."go for it Sophie". She bowed her head, put her hands together and started her prayers with "once a time". I am sure God got a chuckle out of that one.

The other day I caught her in front of the potty with her pants down around her ankles...trying to pee standing up. That's all I have to say about that.

Sophie will be starting a pre-school 4 afternoons a week. She is so excited about it she can barely stand it. She woke up from her nap on Saturday and said she wanted to go to school. When I told her school wasn't open on Saturday she had a complete melt-down...and I mean complete. I could not convince her that I wasn't being mean and that school really wasn't open on Saturdays. I finally had to walk away from  her and told her she needed to get herself back together. 30 minutes later she was still sobbing. Good Lord child. I hope she is this enthusiastic throughout her educational life.

The other day we took Zoe on a walk. Sophie rode her scooter. About half-way around the block Sophie barely bumped her knee on the scooter and wanted a Dora band-aid. I told her she could have one when we got home (though there was no injury). When I told her she had to wait, she asked for Josie. When I told her Josie was at school, she asked for daddy. When I told her daddy was flying, she asked for her Dora band-aid. When I told her we had to go home first she lost her mind. I ended up carrying her home on piggyback with her scooter and helmet in one hand and Zoe in the other. Oh the drama...

This is pretty much what she looked like...

I may be the only mother who actually finds these temper trantrums amusing (most of the time). I guess I'm just happy she has an opinion and is voicing it!

Every night at bedtime Sophie has been asking to see Nana, Poppy, Nana, Pap-Pap, Wendy, Josie, Ms. Debbie, and Daddy. I have been teaching her how to “send” kisses. When I was a kid and missed my parents when I was at a sleepover I used to kiss my stuffed animals and throw them up in the air so they would take my kisses home to them (yes, I know...I was a strange kid…I also played with receipt books). Since I can just see one of her doggies ending up shredded in the ceiling fan I'm teaching Sophie to blow kisses up instead. She sends up about 100 every night. It is so sweet.

That's all for now. I will go back and update previous months once I get my pictures off my old SD card. And be ready...Halloween is coming and Sophie is READY.