Sophie Gene is FIVE!!!!

By -



Stand up STRAIGHT, fatty!

A brief photo anthology of how it all went down, starting with day #1.  I'm pictured (above) the morning I went to LDS Hospital for an induction.  My water broke the day before and I didn't go into labor within the requisite 24 hours. Soooooo...the midwives ordered me in.  I'd taken a "Hypno-Birthing" class (not as crazy as it sounds, really) with Casey and was absolutely SET on a natural birth.  THAT is the explanation for the next picture.  I seriously look like someone dragged me into a dark alley and beat the trash out of me.  That's pretty much what I felt like, so the photo does the moment justice I suppose.  Several hours of labor sans epidural, jacked up on Pitosin to near the legal limit, followed by over two hours of "pushing" as they call it in the industry. 

I DO take comfort in the fact that Casey looks ALMOST as bad as I do though.

Sweet Sophie Gene Sullivan.  7 pounds and 6 ounces.

Sophie soon met the biliubin suitcase, conveniently delivered right to my door.  Luckily she was out of that thing after one day under the lights.

Sophie with her Grandma Sullivan shortly after she was born.


This is Sophie at ONE YEAR OLD.  (I can't find a birthday picture.  I WAS pregnant with Hallee and due to deliver in a couple of months, so that may explain it.)


TWO years old!

THREE years old!


FOUR years old!

So THIS year, Sophie informed me that she wanted to have a "friend birthday party."  Now this is a realm that the Sullivans have not yet entered.  She was so adamant about it, that I agreed.  Sophie hand-wrote invitations to eight kids.

When I came upstairs this morning, Sophie was already dressed.  She'd put on a Cinderella dress and placed a sparkly bow in her hair (one she'd made with Heidi at Shannon and Bill's house just last night).  I must note here, that while she does dress up OCCASIONALLY, it is not very often, and NEVER at the start of the day).  This girl knew that today was her day and she was going to live it big, ALL DAY!

The scene this morning.  Sophie was so sweet to let Hallee help her open ALL of her presents and cards.


Casey still wasn't home from work when the kids started arriving.  Thank goodness for my good friend, Kim, who helped me do EVERYTHING!!!!  (Thanks Kim!) We had thirteen kids running around and I needed some serious back-up.  We made home-made pizza for dinner, then moved on to an old-fashioned taffy pull.  I'd been practicing ALL last week to figure out how to make it come out just the right texture--not too sticky and not too hard.  My neighbor, Debi came to my rescue with a better recipe and a secret ingredient that finally did the trick.  (Thanks Debi!)





The "Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Unicorn" was Sophie's idea.  Apparently a MUST HAVE at friend parties.  We made this one today for the festivities and the kids loved it.




Soph was one bedazzled, excited little girl!



Comments

  1. ANGJanuary 18, 2012 at 8:18 AM

    Yay for Sophie! Welcome to the rhelm of "friend bithdays" - sounds like you did a fantastic job. You'll have to share the taffy recipe.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wayne's Bar: Update

By -
Image
Six long months ago the kids and I evacuated to South Jordan for two months while Casey demolished Wayne's Bar (aka our basement). That crazy looking mask allegedly offered protection from the asbestos fallout that was our sparkly, cottage cheese textured ceiling.   June 2016--Casey Bert ripping into the bar. Many moons have passed. The basement was literally gutted. Completely. All of the electrical, HVAC, and plumbing were redone. Walls reconfigured and framed, insulation installed (there was none before), windows replaced, and walls sheet rocked and painted. Below is the same view of our basement as the one above. Still a mess, but looking like a place you might want to inhabit. Basement--December 2016 My favorite part of the basement (pictured below) is what will become the kids reading and creating room. Casey and I painted the walls and ceiling to look like the stratosphere. The kids also have a playhouse under the stairs accessed from that same room. I'v...
Read more

Love "Affinity"

By -
Image
Yesterday, as you may have observed, was Valentine's Day, one day removed from a lesser known if slightly warmer holiday--the Ides of February--which I am celebrating today by contributing to our family blog--a rarity I know. Yesterday turned out to be a very special Valentine's for the Sullivans, as we all really wanted to make a mark on the day.  In preparation, everyone came up with their own treasure hunt for the other members of the family, complete with written clues that lead you incrementally closer to the treasure.  In Sophie and Hallee's cases these were hand wrapped toys from their own collection.  How many of you have ever been given a draft horse for Valentines?  Hallee gave me this one.  Hope I can keep it in the back yard (smile). Earless draft horse?--everyone should have one I got Helen a new olive oil decanter.  No, serious it's really cool!  Okay, it's just a plain old bottle with rubber stopper and metal spout, bu...
Read more

Our $16,000 Dollar Baby.

By -
Image
For the past few years, we've had private health insurance. Back in the day when I was teaching school, we had amazing insurance and it cost me nothing . After I had Sophie and quit my day job (in favor of my current 24-7 job), we signed up for a policy through Select Health at a fairly decent price. Every year, however, they'd raise the rate and we'd have to downgrade to a slightly more generic plan to be able to keep it affordable. Somehow in the years of downgrading, we ended up with a policy that had a separate maternity deductible, so although our yearly family deductible is $1,500, we have a $7,500 maternity deductible. Honestly, who came up with that idea? I didn't even realize that we had a separate maternity deductible until this year. Bummer. After paying nearly $7,000 in premiums this year, we paid another $9,000 to have a baby with no complications, no medications, totally natural birth and the shortest possible hospital stay that we could get away with. ...
Read more