Thanksgiving this year was so much fun! Jacob, Sophie, Jacob's sister Melissa, and I got to spend the holiday at my grandmother's house in Elba, Idaho. No bad weather, family, great food, football, and a busy Sophie all made the day special. We headed to Idaho about 8:15 Thursday morning. We got there just about 11. Food was already cooking away. We provided olives, rolls, rice kirspy treats, and pumpkin cookies. Other items were two turkeys, mashed taters and gravy, sweet taters, veggies, green stuff jello heaven, stuffing, apple pie, pumpkin pie and other treats. DELICIOUS! Post meal Sophie and football (Go Broncos!) entertained. A few of us also played the game Whoonu. We got to spend time with grandma, my parents and brother, my Aunt Marnae and much of her family (Doug, Sarah, Logan, Skyler), and Uncle Thane. We missed the rest of the family, especially my Grandpa who passed away last December. 
Sophie loves her Aunt Marnae. 
And Cousin Logan is always good for a laugh. 
Cousin Sarah spent a lot of time reading books to Sophie. Very nice of her. 
Jacob and his sister enjoyed some reading also. 
4 generations of Ottley women. 
Sophie kept trying to find her great grandma. I love this picture so much.
Although, it was no surprise that her favorite friend was grandma. They played on the slide. Sophie even figured out how to go up the 3 steps, sit down and slide all by herself. They also went on a 4-wheeler ride together.
Another popular play place was the fridge, which was covered with letter magnets. Good times! Sophie can identify at least half of the alphabet when she sees the letters. I think that is pretty good for being less than 2 years old. 
Most everyone but us left Thursday night. But on Friday Uncle Thane took Sophie on a horseback ride on Shadow! Sophie loves horses even more now. 
Melissa got in on the horse action with a ride on Cimmaron Cash. Sadly, Sophie broke Melissa's glasses Friday morning, so we ended up leaving a little earlier than expected just to make sure we could get them fixed. We did. And all is well as far as I know. All in all we had a great time and are excited to see family at Christmas time too!
We were really impressed with the detail, especially around her face. She seemed to be healthy and active, though not as active as Sophie was/is (as if that's possible!). The official due date is April 21, so everyone get your paper chains started now!
Here's baby flexing for the camera - check out those biceps!
This is the best face shot we could get - she was a little camera shy today (taking after her father?).
The back view. It's official, I love the bob.
She could not get enough of the leaves being all over her. 
Our apartment complex has a little playground. Sophie is finally brave enough to swing by herself. Doesn't she look so happy?
Her favorite thing to do at the toys is stand at the bottom of the slide. 
But she does like to go down the slide too.
We learned about farming. There is a building at the Farm where kids can see what happens to food from growing to harvesting to shipping to eating. Sophie liked this poster of apples. 
She rode the tractor. Clearly she is a natural based on her heredity. Grandpa Merlin would be proud. 
Then Priya rode the tractor and Auntie Bree held Soph for a photo op. Next we rode horses! There were 5 horses tethered to a big wheel-like thing that turns. I put Sophie on one, but had to walk around with her to hold her on. She LOVED it! When her turn was over, the fit started. Sadly, I did not get any pictures of Sophie riding the horse because I was holding her on the horse. I will try to track down a picture from Bree's dad. I think he took some of us along with his own grandkids. Thanks for letting us tag along Bree and fam!
Jacob wore a tan shirt and tan pants. This is our Fluckiger Pumpkin Pie. 
A family shot. This picture gave me flashbacks of last year's ward H party. Sophie looked grumpy in every photo then and now. In any case, the party was fun. We had chili and cornbread and then you could decorate your own sugar cookies. (Jacob does not heart the chili, so he ate before he went). Meanwhile, check out my huge hat! It was much too big for my head, so I enlisted bobby pins to help hold it on. Success!
On Halloween we went to the tri-ward trunk or treat. There are three wards that meet in our building. Everyone congregated in the church parking lot, opened their trunks and the kiddies walked around getting candy. I think it was a little weird that kids over the age of 12 came around, but whatever. We took 5 bags of candy and that lasted 30 minutes. So we pretty much were first to leave. Here are Jacob and Sophie walking around before the hoopla started. Please note the green outfit underneath. Jacob dressed her like this on purpose and said that she looked like a pumpkin on a vine! 
Sophie LOVED her trick or treating bucket. She did not really care about candy so much. But the fact that it went in the bucket made it more appealing. By the end she would say something like "trick or treat", but really we focused on practicing "thank you" even more. So cute!
It only took us about 15 minutes to go around. I guess if you only go around once you finish much faster (we had a lot of kids come through 2 and 3 times. Huh!?) So, for the last few minutes Soph hung out in the trunk. She got to have a package of Dots and she loved them. I think she just thought they were fruit snacks. All in all, it was a pretty fun time. Halloween 2009 was a success! Bring on the Holiday Season!
