The Latest...

Time for another update on the Hopper household. First of all, I can hardly believe that it's December first already. It's a pretty exciting time, this time of year. Especially around our house. Our days are quickly being filled up with fun holiday activities and outings. Friday night we're taking Elijah shopping for a Christmas present for Sophia, he's so excited! Saturday we're putting up the tree. Sunday my mom is flying in for a week long visit. During that week we have plans to take the kids to get pictures taken, lots of shopping, celebrating Matthew's birthday, and possibly a trip to NYC to see the tree in Rockefeller center again! And that's just the first two weeks of December! Fun stuff.



Also, winter is in the air up here in Connecticut. The temperatures haven't been too bad, it's 57 today, but it has been rather dismal and rainy. It's supposed to be in the 40s all next week (sorry Mom!). I'm sure it's only a matter of time before we get a big snowfall. Hopefully before Christmas, I would love for Sophia's first Christmas to be a white Christmas. (Last year we got our first big snow the weekend right before Christmas, so we'll have to wait and see.)

Big girl sitting up!

Sophia is still growing like a weed, suddenly she doesn't seem so tiny to me anymore. I put her in a 3 month outfit yesterday without realizing it and she had three inches of legs and arms hanging out! She's now sitting up on her own and sort of scooting backwards in a crawling position. She's still just as happy as ever. She loves to laugh at anything and everything, especially big brother. She continues to test out her voice and has recently been heard saying something like "mum mum". I say she's trying to call me, but I don't think she's doing it on purpose. Just this week she has finally transitioned into taking longer naps. Previously she was taking four to five, thirty to forty-five minute naps, basically driving me crazy! I realized that if I could keep her up instead of putting her down again in the morning, she would take a longer nap. Case in point, she was up at eight this morning, I managed to keep her up until around 10:45 and she's still asleep (it's 1:00!). I'm sure she'll be up soon though, and she'll stay up for quite a while. But it is a welcome change. Now if only I could get her nighttime issues sorted! She's also mastering the fine art of feeding herself Cheerios. She's not so good at it yet, but she manages to get a few in there!

Playing with Mommy and smiling for Daddy.

Elijah is still doing good. He had last week off school so this week has been a little rocky getting back on track. He's super-excited to see his Mimi on Sunday and is insisting that he make the drive to the airport with me to pick her up. Also, he's old enough now to know that Grandparents visiting = presents. Smart kid! He is literally counting down the days until Christmas and was so happy to finally get to get into his advent calender this morning and get a piece of chocolate.

Chocolate!

Matthew is in the final week of classes this week, though he still has finals next week. I know we're both looking forward to seeing the end of this semester. It has been rough, but I know that it has been rewarding for him as well. He will continue to work at the library over the holidays, but we look forward to seeing more of him.

As for me, I'm basically on strike from cooking after last week. Just kidding. We've just gone for simple meals this week, nothing major. And for goodness sake, no turkey! We ate leftovers until Sunday, until I finally gave in and cooked something different. I'm sure I probably should be cleaning and preparing for my mom's visit, but I like I said, it's rainy and dreary out, so it's hard to get motivated. And I'm sure she'll forgive me if my shower is not completely spotless and my floors clean enough to eat off of.