I guess I'll just title this one "Sophie"

Our little Sophie Rae is growing and communicating so well. She doesn't have many words, but she lets us know what she's thinking. Every night we read scriptures with the kids, sing a song and say a prayer. Sophie has the routine down. The kids have a couple of favorite songs, including "I Love to See the Temple," "Follow the Prophet," and "I Am a Child of God." When we sing "Follow the Prophet" everyone marches around to the beat and then at the end after singing "Follow the Prophet, He knows the way!" everyone shouts out "Yes he does!" It's very fun to watch Sophie jump down and march, then reach both of her hands in the air and shout "aah aah aah" in the same rhythm as the kids do their shout. When we sing "I love to see the temple" her eyes always brighten, she starts singing and leading the music, then she takes one of us by the hand and leads us to the picture of the temple where we can finish singing the song while she looks at the temple and smiles. When we sing "I am a child of God" she takes us by the hand and leads us to a picture of Jesus, where she will say "Jesus" and then blow him kisses. What a sweetheart. She has always been a singer, and can usually hit the notes pretty well. Now if we could just get her to use the words.

Sophie also loves school. She sits on my lap while we all do our French lesson and copies the words we say. Many of her French words are clearer than her English words. She's got the routine to preschool down, also. She chants in her language as the children do their counting. She stands with her hand on her heart as we do the pledge. I usually write the letter of the day on the kids hands to help them remember. Sophie loves to have her letters, too. One day, the letter was I. I wrote a big I and a little i on their hands. Several hours later, I was spelling a word for Anna that contained the letter I. Sophie heard us and ran over, pointing to her hand. I said, "Good job, Sophie. That's an I." Then she pointed to her other hand, and I had to acknowledge her success with that one as well. Then she pointed to her own eye, knowing that it also fit in with the subject. Once I had praised her for that, she was on her way again. I was very impressed that she would remember what letter was on her hand so many hours after preschool.

Sophie is also getting kind of fiesty. Ryan likes to tease girls. The girls in preschool egg him on by crying and running away from him. (We're working on getting along.) The other day I noticed that as Ryan was teasing, the preschool kids were hiding, Sophie came over and punched him. I guess she's not about to put up with any of that from him. We love our little Sophie.