Miss Soren Michelle McLaughlin

Let me share this beautiful picture with you that our friends from www.twiceshydesign.com shot at our friends' wedding. Can you say sassy??? (Double click to enlarge.)

The house is officially broken in!!!n

Today, we had our playgroup over here for some good ol' fashioned hangin' out and lunch. There was a lot of hugging, story time, laughing, and one SERIOUS picnic with lots of grilled cheese sandwiches!!! So much fun!

Soren's new skills

Good morning... it's been so very amazing to watch and hear Soren's developing communication. At Christmas, Memie and Papa (Jeff's parents) gave Soren these wooden letter puzzles. At the time, she would sit for a good 30 minutes and put the pieces in a bag and take them back out - over and over and over again. It cracked us up to watch her intense concentration. We would say the letters as she did this and now she knows almost all of the letters, enjoys putting them in the puzzle, and then picking them up and putting them away. Needless to say, it's EVERYBODY's favorite toy in this household. What amazes us though is how it's helping her read. The other day we saw a stop sign in one of her books and she said "stop, s, t, o, p". It blew me away. She's continued doing this in her books - today she knew the word "lion" and spelled that out. She spells out people's lettered shirts. It's amazing to watch the wheels turn!

We've taken to our new groove since Jeff went back to work 3 weeks ago after a wonderful summer vacation. It's been awesome to live so close to Jeff's work now - not having the commute has been a great change of pace. Soren and I get up everyday and come downstairs where she says "cuddle" and "blanket" and "books". After I get her some milk (first things first, you know!), we snuggle up under the blanket and read a good 10-20 books. She knows a lot of the sentences and if we leave the last word of every line out she enjoys saying it herself.

Yesterday, she said "let me close it" in reference to the fridge. Her other favorite phrases are: "Mama read it", "Daddy eat it", "milk please" or "drink please", "I love you", "thank you Mama", "I miss you", "Daddy work", "Daddy home", "Grampy's (or someone's) car", and "Where are you?". It's also cool how she is using her apostrohpes. She likes to point out whose item something is - "Mama's shower", "Soren's cup", "Mamaw's car", etc. How cool to watch her figure this out! She also changes the word based on the context. For instance, she knows that we go SuperTarget to shop, but when we see it from the exit, she starts saying "Soren shopping". She'll say, about the man painting our house this week, "hi Pat" and "hi painter", and then watch him at work and say "Pat painting".

Her favorite phrase of all though is "hi cutie pie" which she likes to tell everyone. A couple of tricky phrases - "hi flag" and she can't pronounce the "l", "fork" where she can't pronounce the "r", and "shirt" without the "r". She's a regular foul-mouthed sailor with these.

Some of her favorite items/words/characters right now - "dolphin", "tractor" - which she especially loves watching on T.V. with Papa, "Linguini" - a character from her Ratatouille book, "Paul Judy" - Paul and Judy are characters in her Pat the Bunny book. It's especially funny when she occasionally licks her fingers before turning a page like adults do. She doesn't lick the finger she's going to use, but she clearly gets that this is the way you do it!

Thanks for reading while I celebrate these milestones!

Love,

Jeff, Sarah, Soren & new baby