Herbst Family Blog: June 2012

Unfortunately we had a little forced hiatus from the blog when the memory card in my camera decided to go bad and eat all of our pictures from Christmas, never to be seen again, and then our hard drive with all of our other pictures got corrupted :( Winter and Spring were not good seasons for the Herbst family when it comes to technology (did I mention my iPhone decided to take a bath with Sophia?)! It's been a pretty eventful six months for our family with mostly happy and some sad moments. Here's what we've been up to over the last 6 months...

Dec - We started our Christmas celebrating by visiting Grandma and Grandpa Herbst in AZ just before the holiday. We visited lots of christmas lights at the zoo and then did a hot chocolate and hayride through one of the nieghborhoods in Tucson known for their amazing light displays...Sophia loved it and so did we! Grandma and Grandpa took Sophia to Build a Bear for her first time...she had such a great time. This was the first year that Sophia really started to understand and get into all of the Christmas activities. We put out cookies and egg nog for Santa and food for his reindeer. She was so excited Christmas morning that she jumped out of bed at 6am and immediately went running down the hall before saying a word to us....luckily we were able to catch her before she got into the living room. Unfortunately I no longer have the pictures to show her reaction to seeing her new bike and the other presents Santa left her. She also discovered that the reindeer left her one of their big jingle bells as a thank you for the reinder food and Santa wrote her a nice note as well. She LOVED all of it. Best of all she started to understand that we have Christmas to celebrate Jesus' birth and not just for presents...which understandibly can be hard for a little 3 year old girl to understand.

Jan - This was our recovery month...just laying low and relaxing after the holidays.

Feb - We celebrated Sophia's 3rd birthday! Of course we had to do a Tiana theme party. It was a lot of fun with family and friends...complete with Tiana treats and mardi gras masks. Sophia still talks about her Tiana party to this day...how all her friends came and she got to wear her Tiana dress! I got a temporary card for my camera and ws able to capture some moments. Andy and I both took off for her birthday and while we started the day at the doctor (she was a trooper though) we folloed it up with a visit to Monkey Joe's and some ice cream. Sophia also welcomed a new cousin in February, Gianna Herbst...congrats Steve and Andrea!

Having fun while waiting for the Dr. to come in...she said she was getting cold and needed mommy's sweater :)

Now those of you that know Sophia well know that she is a little dare devil and definitely doesn't need daddy to go down the slides with her anymore...but those of you that also know Andy well know that if he can use his 3 year old daughter as an excuse to slide down a big inflatable slide he sure is going to do it!

Mar - March was both an incredibly happy and sad month for our family. In March we learned that we are going to have a new addition to our family. This was such exciting news for us after many months of trying and wanting. Such exciting and happy news was followed by the heartbreak of losing one of our family members. Sadly we had to put our little Riley to sleep after several months battling a very aggressive cancer (vaccine associated sarcoma). She was such a trooper through all of the treatments, but it eventually became too much and we decided we couldn't put her through anymore. The sadest part is that the cancer was caused by a rabies vaccine she received....something supposed to keep her healthy. We still miss our first baby. Sophia still talks about how Riley is with her Jidoo (great-grandpa) at Jesus' house. She's been asking a lot about going to Jesus' house to see Riley and Jidoo and when is Riley coming back becuase she misses Riley...trying to teach her about life and death has definitely been one of the hardest parts of parenting that we've experienced so far.

I took Sophia to see Disney on Ice early in March with some of the dinner club ladies. She loved seeing all the characters.

Sophia and Braeden sitting on the cow statue at the zoo...so cute.

Apr - In April we celebrated Easter. We colored easter eggs and the Easter Bunny hid some eggs for her to find Easter morning...she loved it. It was a little harder to explain the real meaning behind this holiday...I have a little more work to do on this one! I don't know if it was the fact that this is her last holiday before more children arrive or what but Easter was definitely a little out of control this year...she got 6 (yes 6!) Easter baskets. She was in heaven of course.

With Christina at Aunt Emmy's baby shower.

Sophia's cousin Jackson..."Hey lady whatcha lookin at?"

"Hey lady, I said what are you looking at?"

"Hey lady...oh wait, hey is that cake I see?!" (Sorry Jamie, I just couldn't resist :) )

Visiting baby Abigail for the first time (Congrats Ry and Nate!)

May - I celebrated Mother's Day with breakfast in bed, then off to the zoo where we met up with Mindy, Chad, Lauren, Kate, and Madison. Andy and Sophia then took me to pick out flowers for all my planters outside. It was such a nice and relaxing day! The end of May brought another new cousin for Sophia, Noelle Grace Shields, congrats to Kiki and Emmy! We finished May by taking a family vacation up north for a few days with Grandma and Grandpa Herbst. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate for most of the trip, so we didn't get to do all of the activities we hoped for, but we still had a fun time and most important to Andy we got to eat at Paul Bunyon's!

Sophia and Lauren at the Zoo.

Best Friends

At the Great Strides Cystic Fibrosis Walk

Up North with Grandma and Grandpa Herbst

I just love anytime I can snap a Daddy and Sophie picture...

What a hottie!

Probably my favorite vacation shot...this totally sums up a vacation at the lake.

Daddy and Sophie goofing off....yet again :)

Andy caught the first and biggest fish!

Hiking at one of the lakes nearby...

There's nothing like relaxing with your morning coffee and watching the Today show, right Soph?

More fishing...one of 5 fish Sophia caught

She was so excited to hold the fish and put them back in the water. She did not get that from me!

Outside Paul Bunyons...

Apparently rubbing a baby's head is good luck...

Sophia's cousin Taylor was staying with Mamaw for the weekend, so Mamaw decided we'd all have a girl's morning out getting our nails done. Sophia's first "official" pedicure...