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Last month Lauren and I went down to Virginia for a short weekend visit. We flew in a little puddle jumper and it was her first flight. I am happy to report that she was great! Luckily it was also only a 50 minute flight, which helped a lot. On the way back from Virginia we were delayed for 5 hours in the airport because of weather. Luckily the Charlottesville airport is small and not crowded, so she could just wander around (and tire herself out). By the time we were ready to take off, she feel fast asleep on my lap and slept the entire flight. It was perfect. Here’s to hoping future flights are so smooth! 

Here she is in a kid-sized rocking chair watching the planes arrive (unfortunately none were ours..)
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Last month I had the pleasure of taking both girls to the doctor for regular visits and shots. It was not the most fun I’ve ever had. But, both are doing great!

For her 4-year visit, Sophie is 40 inches tall (which puts her in the 70th percentile) and weighs 42 lbs (which puts her in the 89th percentile). She also had a hearing test and the doctor said she’s never had a 4-year-old hear all of the sounds before. That means there’s no excuse when she says she didn’t hear me…

Here’s the crazy girl after a bath
Lauren had her 15 month visit. She is 31 inches tall (putting her in the 73rd percentile) and 22 lbs (which puts her also in the 73rd percentile). Neither kid was happy about the shots, but we got through it.
She’s really a little toddler on the go now. She’s a total monkey, climbing all over the place, and trying to do everything Sophie is doing. She likes to sit and eat at a little table, and has been getting good with the fork. 
Here’s one of her first pieces of art. Brilliant! 

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While we were spending the week in Argentina, the girls went with each set of grandparents for a week of fun. Lauren headed to New Jersey to spend time with Mom Mom and Pop Pop. Here’s the happy girl…

And Sophie went to Disney World with Nana Nana and Pappap, where she was in princess heaven. Here she is with Princess Jasmine (I like the attitude)…

And Snow White.
 And she celebrated her birthday (again) with a Cinderella cake during her lunch with all of the princesses. I’m not sure we’ll be able to top this birthday! 

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Although it still feels like winter, we all took a week off for our “spring break” trips. Dave and I headed WAY south to Argentina – and it was amazing! We started the trip in el Calafate, Patagonia. It took us 25 hours door to door, but it was totally worth it. We arrived Saturday night, checked into our hotel, which was more of a bed and breakfast, and headed right to dinner, where we enjoyed some amazing wine (Malbec of course) and local beef. We spend Sunday exploring the town, which is small and tourist-based, with lots of little shops and plenty of places to eat. And then on Monday we took our first big excursion, where we hiked the Perito Moreno Glacier.

Here’s what it looks like from the water…
 And here’s the group (8 of us and 2 guides) about an hour into the hike (it took us about 2.5 hours to get to the middle of the glacier)
At the center was a pool, where we sat and ate our lunch (which was a quick lunch, b/c it’s pretty cold sitting on a glacier)
The next day we took another excursion to Estancia Cristina, a ranch in the middle of nowhere. Seriously, it was a three hour boat ride to get there, and we passed nothing but icebergs on the way. Here’s one of them…
Once we made it to the Estancia we did a 9 mile hike down through a canyon, which at one time was covered by an ocean, so there were lot of fossils. Here’s a shot of the group (there were 12 of us and a guide) hiking down into the canyon. 
 Dave and I with some mountains in the background. There’s a hanging glacier on the one right above my head. Unfortunately no pictures really do either of these hikes justice. The scenery was really breathtaking. 
On Wednesday we left Patagonia (sadly) and headed north to Buenos Aires, where we spent the rest of the week. The weather was warm (unlike Patagonia or Philly) and the city is incredibly vibrant – although not many people spoke English, so we had to bumble along with our very poor Spanish (mine much worse than Dave’s). 
We did the tourist thing – mostly wandering around to different neighborhoods, checking out the the sites and eating… lots and lots of eating (lucky we were doing so much walking). Here are a few random shots…

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This weekend we celebrated Sophie’s 4th birthday. On Friday she had a celebration at school. Dave and I got to come in for a special Circle Time, where she presented to the class a poster she made.

She picked these pictures and glued them on herself (luckily I wrote the words on first).
Here we are helping her present it.
Then they do a special ceremony where the birthday kid takes a globe and walks around a candle (to represent the sun) as many times as they are old – so Sophie walked around 4 times while her teacher, Ms. Dhar, talked about significant moments each year in her life. (Yes, she’s wearing a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon t-shirt. She like’s it because it has a rainbow…and it’s badass). 

And then she shared cookies with all of her classmates. 
On Sunday we had a birthday party for all of her classmates and a few friends from outside of school at a kids gym called Philly InMovement.
Uncle Dick was there with balloon entertainment. 

Sophie did her first handstand!
And I made strawberry cupcakes – a personal request 🙂 

And at the end of the party she thanked all of her friends for coming. It was a really fun day and she had a great time being the center of attention and FINALLY getting to turn 4 🙂 

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We had a very snowy Valentine’s Day and school was closed, so we had yet another day of finding indoor activities. Dave made the girls a GIANT valentine and hung it on the fridge. What artistic ability 🙂

The girls in their LOVE shirts, thanks to ‘auntie’ Aleen! Right before this picture was taken, Lauren bit Sophie pretty hard, so Sophie wasn’t too thrilled to get in close again. You can see the hesitation in her eyes – and the look of glee in Lauren’s! 
There was a Valentine’s Day party at Nest, and indoor play center. Sophie went to the face paining right away, and asked for, what else, but a Princess. 

The little princess
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We have found ourselves in a very cold, very snowy winter. In the last month school has been cancelled at least one day each week. On two occasions last week I took Sophie into the office with me. She was actually really great and an office hit – a good distraction for everyone 🙂 
Here’s a shot of a day where I had to pick her up early from school. All of this snow fell between 9am and 2pm! 

Last weekend we decided to take advantage of the weather and went to Camelback Mountain in the Poconos for a mini ski vacation with our friends Don, Ally and their son Oliver. We enrolled Sophie in ski school for the first time. Here she is before getting on to the skis. Unfortunately she lasted about 45 minutes in ski school before she was over it and Dave had to go pick her up. I think it was a combo of the cold, not knowing anyone in the group, and being uncomfortable on the skis. We’ll give it another try next year and see if it takes… 
Now that she’s in the Primary pre-school, Sophie has to make Valentine’s for her entire class of 22 kids. We got started on the project early so we could work on them all week – and we definitely needed to. Of course, tomorrow is Valentine’s day and school is already cancelled, but I’m assuming they’ll reschedule the exchange, as I’m sure we’re not the only family who has spent a good amount of time on these! 

And Lauren is becoming a real little kid. She’s eating with a spoon now, and definitely wants to do it for herself, rather than being helped. Ready for Montessori I guess. 
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Lauren has finally gotten the hang of walking! At 13 months, she’s finally getting around on her own two feet. I have some good video of it, but technology is failing me right now, so will post when I can. Below is a good old fashioned still shot of her and Julia, who are become best buddies.

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On January 6th Becky & James welcomed Ariana Rose into the world! She was born at 2:47 pm and weighed just 6 lbs 6 ozs and was 20 inches long. We all went down for a visit the following weekend to meet her. She’s such an adorable little peanut!

 Sophie LOVES her new cousin. She was so excited to hold her, and kiss her, and hug her… She even brushed her hair, which she has quite a bit of. 

I get to go back down in a few weeks to visit again, and I can’t wait! 

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This winter has been cold and snowy. We had our coldest day since we’ve lived in Philly, with a high of just 7! Sophie has done some good sledding, but Lauren definitely prefers being in the warm indoors (just like her mama…). Here they are all bundled up and ready to go outside. 

 Our best mode of transportation on a few days has been the sled… 
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