Sofia & Joshua Gordon Jeff and Angie's tribute to their children

As the idea of it actually being 2007 sinks in, we realize how grateful we are for everything we have been blessed with, especially Sofia.  She has brought so much warmth into our lives and we know 2007 will be a year of change for her.  Just thinking of how much she will grow and change is amazing.  We try to hold on to every moment we have.  Time seems to slip by faster and faster as our lives (and brains) grow fuller.
To all the fans of Sofia’s blog, below is one of our favorite pictures taken Dec 31st at Kiddie Kandids.  They do good work.  If you’d like a copy of this print just let us know.  This is Sofia’s 3 month portrait.

Christmas was rather quiet.  Christmas Eve was just Sofia, Mom, Dad, and the dogs.  It was nice though.  Christmas day we went to Great Uncle Bill’s house so Sofia could meet her second cousins.

Lately Sofia has become upset easily if anyone holds her besides Mom or Dad.  This is obviously a concern seeing as how she is about to start day care in a couple weeks.  Dad will be taking her by the daycare a couple times this week so she can become more accustomed to the care providers there.  We don’t want her freaking out her first day when she realizes Mom and Dad aren’t within eye shot.  The following week she will start half days at daycare, then Angie’s mom will pick her up and take care of her in the afternoons.  We are hoping this will help ease this transition.  Of course the day care people tell us she’ll be fine and it is always the parents that freak out.  I hope that is the case, because we are certainly freaking out!

Enjoy more Christmas photos below.

Christmas Eve at home by the fireplace

Opening presents is fun!!

Maybe I’ll just eat the bow

Flash opening his present

Lola trying to figure out what we want her to do with the pretty box

Sofia and 2nd cousin Melissa

With my Great Uncle Bill

With Great Aunt Qurisha

Christmas was celebrated early this year with the Grandparents.  Angie, Jeff, and Sofia will wait until Christmas eve to open our gifts.  Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure!  More to come soon.

The tree

Mommy and me!

Hey dad!, What’s that over there.

Grandma Gordon (aka GG) with Sofia

Sofia needed a little help opening her presents this year

I’ve had enough folks!  Its past my bedtime!!!

Sofia requested some close up shots so we felt obligated to oblige her.  See below.

Mom returns to work next Monday.  Dad will be taking two weeks off to be with Sofia until the end of the year.  Grandma Dettmann will then take care of Sofia for the first week of the new year.  After that she will be in day care which is just a couple blocks from both Angie and I at work.  We have mixed feeling about her being in daycare.  The good things are exposure to new things and a structured schedule.  It is also nice that Angie and I can drop in whenever we get a break from work to go spend time with her.  Bad things are the unknowns about daycare, not being able to attend to her every time she cries, and the parental guilt associated with not being near her for every minute of every day.  We both know it is going to be very hard to leave her the first day we have to drop her off.

Riding in the car and surprised by the camera!

Sleeping on Dad’s lap

Check out my profile!  I’m so cute.

We had an “artic blast” according to the freaked out Dallas news media last week.  Everyone panics around here when it gets below freezing.  I don’t see the big deal but I did get to stay home from work one day because it sleeted and people thought the streets were too slick.  Angie and I took Sofia outside bundled in her cute jacket to get some pictures in the brief couple hours it was actually snowing.  It was actually in the mid 20s one night.  We managed to survive.
For those of you who are into baby “stats”.  At her 9 week appointment, Sofia weighed 13 lbs and is 24.3 inches long.  This is in the 95th percentile for both height and weight.  I guess we’ll see what happens but our bet is that she’ll be taller than mommy.

This one was taken after surviving the cold

Sofia’s Grandfather and Grandmother in law came to visit for Thanksgiving.  Sofia put on a good show and for the most part and behaved while they were here.  This includes sleeping upstairs in her room through the night each night!  Mom and dad hope this streak continues.  It is quite a nice change of pace from the 3AM wake up call.  See the pictures below….

Me with Grandma Gordon

Me with Grandpa Gordon

With Grandma Dettmann

With Mommy and Daddy.  What happened to Daddy’s head?

Hangin in my swing.

Sofia has made the leap into size 2 diapers!   How exciting you say?   That’s right, our girl is growing up so fast.   For Sofia size 2 diapers means she has that much more space to fill with poop which makes changing her that much more fun.

Below are the first “professional” pictures we’ve had taken of Sofia.   We had some birth announcements made so if you’d like one to put on display at your home then email me or leave a comment.

This was the 1 second I wasn’t being fussy about this.  Good thing the camera lady took the shot!

This is so comfortable.

Seriously, this isn’t fun mom and dad.

Nothing new to report other than Sofia seems bigger on a daily basis.   It amazes me how much she has grown to date.   I know Angie does everything she can to keep up with what seems like a constant need to nurse.

We took some of our first pictures with the dogs around.   They did very well and have adjusted nicely.   It will be interesting to see how Sofia reacts to them once she really notices they are around.   Right now her concentration is centered around looking at us and making faces or starring at the ceiling.   We like to think that our faces are more interesting but sometimes the ceiling wins.

Check out my sweet jeans!

Happy girl!

Yes, that is a Christmas tree put up at the beginning of November.  I can’t breastfeed so have to find other ways to be useful.

I love Mommy’s kisses

Although Sofia didn’t actually leave the house during Halloween mainly because she felt a need to nurse every 30 minutes, it was still fun to dress up.   Thanks to Grandma Nelcy for buying her this cute kangaroo outfit.   She was all smiles in it for the first 5 minutes.   Angie and I got about 15 trick or treaters at our new house.   We have 5 lbs of candy left over.   I foresee weight gain in our immediate future.

Here are some of Sofia’s first smiles caught on camera.   She was communicating with Grandma Gordon aka GG.

It is unbelievable that Sofia is already 4 weeks old.   Tomorrow will be her offical 1 month date.   Time has been a blur; Angie and I have really made an effort to enjoy all the moments we can.   We took Sofia out to the mall for the first time this past weekend.   She slept through most of it with the occasional loud fart which I was proud to take the credit for when people looked.  🙂

She has just started to smile at us which is a very special feeling.   We will try to get a picture of this but these moments are hard to capture and more important to experience.   Pics below…..

Ready for my car trip!!!

Dad being manly in the mall pushing baby stroller.

This weekend Sofia got to visit the room Angie and I spent endless hours working on for her before she arrived.   She is still in our room at night and will be until she sleeps thru the night (her room is upstairs).   We also took some fun pictures of tummy time.   This is basically time Sofia spends on her belly trying to fight gravity with her developing neck muscles.   It is funny at first until she gets tired of it.   See the pics…..

Doesn’t this look fun!

I’ve just about had enough

I like to spend the moments after tummy time to reflect

Hmmmm, what shall I fuss about next.  My parents have had enough of a break.

This is pretty comfy

Sofia’s crib and window

Dormer style room

Entry to Sofia’s room

Sofia’s furniture

Angie and I now find that napping is great down time for both Sofia and us.   It is funny how neither of us really were into naps before the baby.   We thank Sofia for allowing us to take naps, some parents aren’t as lucky.   She turns 3 weeks tomorrow and it has been a blur.   I’ve gone back to work and Angie has transitioned into the mother roll natually.   Here are some nap time pictures….

Sofia got her first real bath tonight in her baby tub.   She complained loudly all the way through it.   Needless to say it was not a stress free experience for baby or her parents.   We pray she learns to enjoy bathing.   Below are a couple more pictures.   Angie had Sofia in the outfit shown below when I came home from work today.   I think it is a cross between a onesie, puffy shouldered blouse, and ninja outfit.   Somehow all that = adorable in Daddy’s mind.

Look at my sweet pink ninja outfit.

YAWN!!!!, that was a good nap.

Today was Sofia’s 2 week check up.   She is well past her birth weight and now weighs 9 lbs 6 ounces.   She has grown to 22 inches long.   Currently tall and lean but very healthy.   She got some blood taken for some tests (standard stuff) and really didn’t enjoy that.   Angie and I did the best we could to comfort her, but the screaming commenced for about 10 minutes. 🙁

It was brought to my attention that the format of this blog looks really bad in Internet Explorer.   I use Firefox and it works great.   I highly suggest those of you who don’t use Firefox to start.   It is free and works much better than Internet Exploder (I spelled it that way on purpose).   Look here: FireFox

Here are a couple pics of me and Sofia with my high school friend Eric Dreyer and his 2 year old daughter Reese.   Angie was nice enough to chop my head off in the pictures where Sofia was looking, of well….

Sofia was in her Longhorn outfit for the Texas OU game.